Echoes of the Fallen

Chapter 2: Memories of the Past

Chapter 2

Memories of the Past

The Ardumeir fell to his knees as Sytre put a sword between the metal plating of his dark, patchy breastplate and straight through its heart. The undead elf choked up black blood as his life ebbed away and death found him for the second time. The once beautiful Ildumier, cursed with walking the earth again as an Ardumier warrior, had been put to rest once more and this time it would never rise again. Sytre thanked the All Being for that.

"My Lord!" a soldier shouted. "My Lord!" he cried again when he got no reply. "Sytre!"

"What is it, Forlen?" Sytre demanded as he slid his blade out of his foe's body.

"We have to keep moving, there is a second company moving to reinforce the Aldumier, if we don't..."

"Yeah, I know... We'll be surrounded." Sytre looked around the battlefield. Warriors, both friend and foe, were dying everywhere he looked. "We all knew this was probably going to be a one way trip..." He gritted his teeth. He didn't like this. He didn't like being forced into a situation where he couldn't win. He'd lost thirty men in this first skirmish already.

He looked up to the sky, checking the position of the sun. It had long past its zenith and had begun to dip below the horizon, casting purple and pinks across the darkened sky. "We will not fall like the sun does this day."

Sytre fumbled at his side, grasping his Enskar bone war horn and brought it to his lips. He let loose a powerful breath and a loud, resounding bellow rose above the sounds of battle, signalling the retreat. "Fall back! Get back over the ridge!" Sytre shouted. The men and women that he commanded scrambled up the side of the rocky hills behind their leader.

"Forlen, we've given Agron enough time by now. We need to get everyone back, now!" Sytre charged up the hill. He stopped short as he stared over the next plain of battle.

"Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!"

Aruks. Thousands of them. Sytre's jaw dropped as he looked over the enemy. They were surrounded. Sytre could see the bone ornaments swaying over the hulking bodies of muscle and power that were the aruks. They were as blood thirsty as the demonic bastards that conjured them. They were bred to be killers and were forged into weapons from birth. Sytre had never battled with an army of them before, as their homelands were far away across the Blighted Sea. They bared their razored teeth and battered their weapons of death against their iron shields; some could even summon up some kind of dark magic.

"They wield Chaos," a knight somewhere to his left muttered, disheartened.

"Wh-What are we going to do, my Lord?" Forlen asked. Sytre looked from the battlefield to him and back to the enemy. There was only one thing he could do. Get his men home alive.

His body began to shake. He lifted his sword and powers of the light surged around his silver infused, steel blade. The bright glow warmed around his plated steel armour and his pauldrons shaped as the wings of a gryphon. Even his white tabard, trimmed in gold and bearing the five headed hydra crest of his house, began to glimmer.

"For Silverseat!" his men shouted as they witnessed the Light, renewing their strength. One by one the other zealots ignited with radiant light, shining as beacons of hope, but none as brightly as the Prince.

"We will not die!" Sytre shouted, "We will make it home alive!" He charged, with four hundred and seventy brave souls at his back, straight into the troops of their foe.

Sytre knew that they were all likely to perish before reaching the other side of the field, and when they collided with the aruks it was carnage, pure and brutal. The aruks were larger and stronger. They felt nothing of pain, even when losing limbs they fought on as if nothing had touched them. Their bloodlust was insatiable and relentless.

He could hear his soldiers dying. The cries of pain while soldiers bled out, arms ripped from their bodies, was unbearable. It had never hit him until now, not in a single one of his battles. All he could see as he looked around was his friends falling, destined to join the Ardumier in undeath. He fought on but as doubt and fear crawled its way into his heart the light surrounding him faded to nothing more than a dull glow.

"Sytre!" Forlen shouted, his sound drowned out by the dying.

"Sytre!"

The voice was distant to the Prince. He could hear it, but it was as an echo calling to him from another time, another place.

"Sytre! Damnit, snap out of it!" A mug full of ale crashed down, almost flipping the table. Sytre shook himself back into reality. He took a few deep breaths and blinked away his visions. A rundown alehouse soon came into focus, as did a shadow that loomed over him. The orange beard of Thuldin Shieldback, his mentor, pressed in close to his face. "Hey, ar' ya hearin' me boy?" Sytre could smell the ale on his breath.

He sat back in his chair, "Yeah, yeah, I hear you. What the hell do you want?" Sytre crossed his arms. Thuldin got comfortable and slumped into the seat next to him. "I don't remember asking you to join me. Haven't you heard of personal space?"

"Close yer trap, windbag, and listen up." That made Sytre's eye twitch. "I don't know what happened out there, but ye're different. The Light isn't connecting with ye as it did when ye left. I know, because I taught ye, lad." Thuldin chugged down half a mug of ale, "So are ye goin' to tell me, or do I have to beat it out o' ye like the ol' days?"

Sytre stared into his tankard. He couldn't look his mentor in the eye. He couldn't stand seeing that worried, concerned gaze that Thuldin always seemed to give him whenever something was wrong. "You know I've always hated that you could tell when something was wrong." He'd bet that even if the senior zealot couldn't sense the weakened light field around him, he would still know something was wrong.

Thuldin chuckled, stroking his beard, "Like the time ye shot Garyn's parrot with an arrow." His smile faded with his laugh and Shieldback's brow furrowed, "It's as clear as day to anyone that something is wrong."

"I'm... I'm sorry, Thuldin. I need to go..." Sytre stood but Thuldin grabbed his arm and yanked him close.

"Be wary, lad, you've the curse upon your soul. I can see it in yer eyes. The Echoes of the Fallen are tormenting you. Just accept it, boy. Accept their loss, and move on."

Sytre howled in fury, he didn't even know where it had come from, or why. It was just there, overwhelming, consuming him. Before he knew what he was doing his hands lashed out and grabbed Thuldin by the collar. "What do you know about it, Old Man? You weren't there when your entire platoon were being butchered like cattle by a horde of brutes!" He shoved his mentor against the wall. "Stay out of my way, Thuldin, I'm not in the best of moods." Sytre looked up. Everyone in the tavern was staring at him. They were shocked.

Thuldin pulled his collar away from his throat, "What happened to the Golden Boy of Silverseat?" He watched Sytre's eyes grow dark. "The Echoes..." Thuldin whispered to himself.

"What are you looking at?" the Prince hissed at the patrons. He stormed out into the empty streets of his city.