The days bled into one another like the wounds of the soldiers around him. The battlefield had become a nightmare too vast to comprehend, each corner of the warzone held new horrors, new screams, new deaths. Valen had stopped counting how many men he had killed. How many had fallen at his feet. He was numb, though his hands trembled when he held his sword, slick with blood. The world had become a blur of faces and death.
Each day felt like an eternity. The camp was now a place of constant motion, soldiers going out to fight, others returning with wounds that could only be described as grotesque. There was no rest. There was no respite.
Valen had been fighting for hours, the sun now a fading memory behind a thick cloud of smoke that hung over the battlefield. He barely registered the dull roar of his surroundings anymore, only the rhythm of his own breath, the blood pumping in his ears, the feel of his sword as it cut through the enemy's flesh.
But then, a scream broke through the fog of war.
"Valen! Look out!" Dorin's voice sliced through the haze, and Valen spun just in time to see a soldier lunging toward him. He parried the blow with a grunt, their swords clashing with a sickening metallic sound.
But the soldier was relentless. He slashed again, the blade grazing Valen's cheek. Pain shot through him, but it wasn't enough to break his focus. He pushed back, swinging his sword with everything he had left. The enemy soldier's body crumpled to the ground with a sickening thud.
Dorin appeared beside him, breathing heavily. "You good?"
Valen nodded, though he could feel the blood dripping from his face. His heart was pounding in his chest, his body pushed to its limits. He opened his mouth to respond, but the words stuck in his throat as he glanced around the battlefield.
The sight before him made his stomach lurch.
A few paces away, a soldier he had once trained with, Harrick, was lying on the ground, his eyes wide open in horror as blood poured from a wound in his throat. His hands grasped uselessly at the air, his lips moving in a silent scream. Valen felt his breath catch in his throat as he watched the life drain from his former comrade's eyes.
"Damn it," Valen whispered, his voice a hoarse rasp. His legs felt weak, and for a moment, he was frozen. He wanted to run to Harrick, to do something, anything. But all he could do was watch as the man's body went still.
Dorin grabbed his arm, snapping him back to reality. "We don't have time for this, Valen! Focus! There's more coming!"
Valen's head spun as they were pulled back into the chaos. But the image of Harrick's lifeless eyes stayed with him, burned into his mind. The weight of it was suffocating.
The battle raged on, waves of enemies crashing against them like a tidal wave. Valen swung his sword mechanically, his movements automatic as he fought through the haze of exhaustion and pain. His muscles burned with every strike, but he couldn't stop. He couldn't afford to stop.
The ground was slick with blood, the air thick with the acrid stench of death. Everywhere he looked, men were dying, his comrades, his friends, some of them no more than boys just like him, now reduced to little more than broken bodies on the ground. The sound of metal cutting through flesh, of men screaming as they fell, was the soundtrack of Valen's life now.
It was then that he saw another familiar face, a young soldier named Rorik, barely more than a boy. Valen had trained with him briefly when he first arrived at the camp. Rorik was fighting with the desperation of someone who had never known what it meant to be truly afraid.
But that fear was now all over his face. Rorik was pinned down, struggling to lift his sword, his body trembling as he faced an enemy soldier who loomed over him, a twisted grin on his face. Rorik's breath was shallow, his eyes wide with panic.
Valen's legs moved before he could think. He ran toward Rorik, pushing through the chaos, his sword raised high. He saw the enemy soldier swing his blade down toward the boy, and in that split second, Valen acted.
His sword sliced through the soldier's arm, sending the blade flying from his hand. The man recoiled in surprise, and before he could recover, Valen shoved him back, sending him sprawling into the dirt. The enemy soldier's blood spilled across the ground like a river, and he didn't get up.
But the moment of victory was short-lived.
Rorik was still on the ground, gasping for air, his body trembling uncontrollably. His armor was pierced, and blood seeped through the cracks, staining the dirt beneath him. His hand grasped at Valen's arm, his eyes wide with terror.
"I don't... I don't want to die," Rorik whispered, his voice a cracked, panicked plea.
Valen dropped to his knees beside him, but it was already too late. Rorik's chest shuddered as he took one final, shuddering breath. His hand went limp, and the life in his eyes dimmed. Valen's heart felt like it shattered.
"Stay with me, Rorik!" Valen shouted, but there was nothing he could do.
He looked down at the young soldier's body, a pit of despair opening in his chest. He had failed to protect him. In this war, there was no heroism. No honor. Just death. And in the end, everyone was a casualty of it.
Valen barely registered the next few hours. Everything became a blur of death, blood, and screams. He swung his sword automatically, the steel becoming heavier with each kill. He lost track of the bodies around him, some were enemy soldiers, others his own comrades, but it didn't matter. They were all the same now. Broken, dead, forgotten.
He saw more familiar faces fall, Derek, the man who had taught him how to wield a spear, was crushed under a boulder, his body twisted in a grotesque position. Garret, the young recruit who had smiled when he first arrived at the camp, was impaled by an enemy blade, his face frozen in shock as his blood poured onto the earth.
Valen's world had become a nightmare, and there was no escape. He felt himself slipping, his mind overwhelmed by the chaos, the bloodshed. His hands trembled, and his breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to fight, tried to push through the horror, but it was all too much. The screams, the death, the faces of the men he had known and trained with, all reduced to nothing more than stains on the earth.
It wasn't until the sun began to set, casting the battlefield in a bloody red hue, that Valen collapsed. His legs gave out beneath him, and he sank to the ground, his breath ragged and uneven. His sword slipped from his grip, and for the first time in hours, he allowed himself to close his eyes.
The war had taken everything from him. His innocence. His hope. His friends. And it was only just beginning.