Skirmishes. This was all it was. A few hundred men engaged in battle, drawing blood from flesh. Sethlzaar frowned. Soartin was right about one thing; the war was yet to come. Sethlzaar sat on the grassy hill with his brothers. The morning was young; a few hours past midnight. The crescent moon could still be seen in the sky. It proved their only source of light. There had been no fire the whole night as they'd made camp. A hundred men in all, Lord Bilvion had assigned them to move with Captain Noem. The man towered over all of them easily and was prone to speaking with a voice like a blow hor

Corpses riddled the ground as far as the eye could see. They had lost as much as the Merdendi, maybe more. But that was a worry for another man. For the first time since he set eyes on her in the battle Sethlzaar ventured towards Saelin, closing the distance that had once served as a forbidden zone of sorts. How could he not when she stood in place rooted to Ayla for all she was worth. Her swords dangled from her grip on both sides. Her face was turned to the sun. He would have thought her entranced by its beauty had her eyes not been closed. No. She simply bathed in its glow, although he did

Sethlzaar rested uncomfortably beneath the tenth fashioned for him by the soldiers. His wounds beneath their bandages ached in severe discomfort. He had been patched up by a healer whose name he neither remembered nor was bothered to attempt reminiscence of. The man having done a great job of stitching him up and bandaging him properly had moved on to other men. He turned to observe his veils embedded in the grass. The lost twin had been found by Soartin.

The next day proved uneventful, and so did the days that followed. Two days became three, and three became four. In time, seven days grew by with boring, unprecedented monotony. The days lumbered by in agonizing sluggishness. Sethlzaar found solace only in the nights he spent with Saelin when she told him tales of ancient times and ancient people. 

Sethlzaar frowned at the sight before him. This was the tenth time, and yet, there was no difference. Not a stranger to violence? Sethlzaar scoffed, he knows nothing but violence. Foln swung his sword. The action bore all of his power and nothing of precision. Against better opponents it would have cost him, however, Sethlzaar had chosen the youngest and least skilled of the soldiers he could find. He always warned them before they'd followed him. The person they would spar with was not known to hold back.