The Revenant:Book 2

Memories Of War

Sleep surrounded him in a cold embrace.

It was a familiar one.

One he was used to.

He lay atop the cold stone bed of the cavern, tossing and turning, sweat glinting off the moonlight from the hole in the ceiling above as it slid down his brow.

His breathing grew heavier, quicker, each breath felt as though it'd be his last.

NOVA

I've been through several battlefields. At an age I should never have been. Too many. Though I'd waded through countless fights, there was one that never seemed to leave my mind.

I don't know when I fell asleep after Titannia left me to myself. I know I'd seen that hag. But it wasn't long after I found myself someplace else.

The sky was grey, rain pelted the earth. Mud melted and mixed with the blood and mutilated corpses of the fallen, and the air carried with it the stench of death. The cries of what sounded like a thousand souls, some in anguish, some triumphant, some terrified, roared through the skies like the thunder above our heads.

I felt my heartbeat. A strange feeling, considering my undeath.

Yet there it was.

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump.

My breath was heavy, and grew quicker with each passing second.

For a moment that seemed to stretch out into eternity, it seemed the world around me had no sound.

The orchestra of war had almost deafened itself.

Where once it was loud and present, the clatter of steel and slap of flesh and tearing of sinew had been reduced to a faint whisper.

I was panicking. A feeling I hadn't felt in a very long time.

Fear gripped me in a vice.

"-Ova!"

Someone called to me. Yelling my name at the top of their lungs. A sense of urgency and desperation seeped itself within their voice.

"NOVA SNAP OUT OF IT DAMN IT!" The voice yelled.

And just like that, the Orchestra returned, like a crescendo of violence. Gone was the silent peace of denial, wishing I was someplace else, replaced with the brass of war cries and the plucking melody of bow strings as they drew their arrows and fired them across the scorched skies above.

Delion stood above me, his chocolate eyes staring down at me. His blonde hair was discoloured, almost as black as my own with dirt.

"COME ON BOY! ON YOUR FEET!"

He helped me upright and I hastily made my way back to the walls of the trench, barely avoiding a volley of cannonballs which came barreling through the earth.

"GET YOUR FUCKIN HEAD RIGHT!" He ordered. "OR WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

I took a breath, trying to calm myself and regain my composure.

"WE'RE BEING SLAUGHTERED OUT THERE SIR!" Delion yelled.

"WE NEED TO PUSH BACK!" I responded.

"ARE YE FOCKIN DAFT SON?! THOSE...THINGS'LL TEAR US TEH SHREDS!" Karden appeared, Battleaxe in hand, his dwarven beard covered in filth.

"HOW FAR ARE THE MAGES WITH THE TRENCHES?!"

"THEY'RE WORKIN' ON IT AROIGHT?! BUT MANA'S SCARCE IN THE NORTH SIR! WE AREN'T THE KNIFE EARS!"