Pain is all he feels as he wakes.
A constant, dull, and rhythmic throb pulses behind his eyes like drums echoing from afar. His breaths come in short, shallow gasps. Each breath tastes and smells like the rancid stench of blood, corpses, and metal. His face is pressed into the dirt, cold, thick with blood. He opens his eyes. Tries to push himself up. It feels like the flesh is falling from his bones as he lifts himself from the ground.
The sky is tinted grey, as if choked by ash. Thin beams of light stream through cracks in the clouds, catching the ash in the air.
Looking between the war-torn dirt and the overcast sky, his gaze meets countless bodies as far as the eye can see. Not scattered. Not layered. But piled to the heavens. Soldiers adorned in armour from head to toe litter the battlefield like blades of grass, tangled in mud and steel. Some bodies have swords still inside them. Some are burnt beyond recognition. Some are torn limb from limb. Others are disfigured and contorted in ways so unnatural they almost don't look human.
The silence is deafening.
The kind only possible after absolute devastation.
He collapses from exhaustion, head pounding as he falls, the pain only worsening as he hits the dirt. He manages to land on his back instead of his stomach. A groan of pain forces its way out of his charred throat. His body is engulfed in raw, jagged pain. He pushes aside a long, dark grey cloak to look down at his armour—every inch cracked or broken, even scorched in places. He lifts his arms, looking down upon his blood-soaked hands, though much of the blood isn't his.
He plants his reddened hands into the dirt and forces himself to stand. His muscles burn as he pushes upright. Every inch of his body screams and protests the movement, but he perseveres. He stands despite it.
Ash settles like snow around him as he stumbles forward. He doesn't know why he is walking, where he is going, or even if he knows where to go. Each step sends waves of intense, blunt pain radiating through his body. The sounds of bones crunching and armour clanking beneath his feet are the only things audible besides his breathing, which has become heavy and laboured.
The frigid wind stings his exposed skin.
He pulls the loose cloak tighter around himself to shield his body from the wind and pushes on. With each step, the crunching and clanking grow louder. His hearing slowly returned, step by step.
The wind shifts. Carrying more than just the cold.
A metallic rattle, repetitive, deliberate, unnatural.
He turns, facing the sound. A few steps in front of him lies a sword. Intricate in design, almost regal. The handle wrapped in faded violet cloth, its golden trim dulled by ash. A thin chain hangs from the end, long and swaying in the wind. Rattling as it sways.
The handguard is circular. Golden. A spiral etched into its surface, curling outward from the centre.
The blade itself is long. Slightly curved. A golden hue, dulled by ash. The edge still gleams beneath smears of blood.
He doesn't know this weapon.
But something in his chest twists as he looks at it. Like seeing something he had known his whole life.
He stares for a while, minutes, maybe more, until the cold gnaws too deeply into his bones and his legs nearly give way beneath him.
So he moves.
Each step closer, the chain clinks louder. Steadier. Rhythmic like breath. His breath.
He stands, looking down upon the sword. He thinks desperately for any reason behind the twist in his chest upon seeing it.
He reaches down, hand stinging from the cold.
His fingers slowly coil around the hilt, each more natural than the last. It is as if this sword belongs to him.
No, as if he belongs to this sword.
With a firm grip, he hoists it from the blood-soaked mud. The weight of the blade settles in his palm. It's not heavy, not light. But familiar. He knows he's held this blade before.
Flipping the sword so the blade points up to the ashen-grey sky, he looks at his reflection in the metal.
His eyes are a pale violet, slightly closed from the dust in the air.
He doesn't recognise his face.
He doesn't recognise the world.
He doesn't recognise anything.
Except this sword.
He shifts the weapon in his hands, getting a better look at the blade itself.
Something beneath the blood and grime catches the reflection of his gaze.
He brings his other hand up to the blade, slowly dragging it from the base to the tip along the blunt edge. Wiping away the filth reveals what caught his eye. Not a line, not a crack, but an inscription.
Turning the blade to let it shine beneath a veil of light, he sees what the inscription reads.
The carving is shallow, yet deliberate. Not decorative. A name.
His chest twists, clenching tighter than before.
The world goes still. His breath slows.
The name is his. It must be. What else could shake him so deeply.
A man woken in a field of corpses. He knows nothing but pain, this sword, and now his name.
Left in ash. Left behind in a cruel fight, for reasons he doesn't know, for people he doesn't know, against people he doesn't know.
His knuckles turn white as he grips the hilt impossibly tight.
He reads the name aloud. His name.
Barely louder than a whisper, yet it echoes in his chest.
"Kareth Skathe."