I would scream if I could. My body would run. I would at least rise to my feet were my muscles not locked in place. Dense, toned, and capable of pulling a tree from the ground, my arms will not leave my face. The legs I use to lift and carry cattle will not raise my body from the ground. So intense is the fear of men, death, the deafening grating of steel on steel, that I cannot process the world around me. I want to close my eyes. It would be simpler to shut it all out and hide, but I made a promise. To myself and to my Ma. I will not die in this cave.

I don’t know how I came to be prone in the dirt. I think I was struck. I don’t feel pain, but sometimes shock can dull a man to even the worst of injuries. According to Sheppard’s Violent Injuries Monograph, a highly traumatic strike can numb the brain to nerve input for five to ten minutes. Chapter seven details injuries inflicted by bladed weapons, index 3 specifically for weapons of northern steel. I can picture the yellowed, moth ridden paper. I feel the rough, leathery texture under my not yet calloused fingers. Smell cooking fish on the northwestern sea breeze. I can almost feel my Ma’s presence on the other side of a homely, splintering wall.

I recede into reminiscence. The already blurred sounds of chaos fade away, and my knotted muscles begin to relax. My eyes flutter open. I see stars. Real stars. Pinpoints of light all about, enfolding me in the vastness of space. I blink.

Cacophony once again assails me from all sides. I calm my breathing, smell the sea breeze, feel Sheppard’s weathered pages in my fingers once more...and rise to my feet. What I feel now is nowhere close to calm, but at least my eyes are open. Open enough to see my only friend quivering in a halo of his own blood.

Unlike the glazed vigil of the dead, Brandon’s stare is still acutely focused. His heart is slowing, his lungs struggling to contract, but his eyes still watch me. I will be the last thing he sees in this world, and I hate myself for it. We talked only once, but I already feel he is my mentor.

Even through the filter of shock, I feel the prickling tendrils of shame begin to take root. They rip Sheppard’s records from my hands. Close my ears and nose to the sensations of home, and force me to confront my failure. I cowered in fear while someone took the life of the only man who would be my friend. I hadn’t even the spine to watch.

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I watch now, though. I watch the loose array of prone bodies shaking and groaning through pre and post mortem progression. I watch the remaining four Kitford men Corner the last raider. Five bodies dance in the firelight, bowing, bending and falling. There are four now, and still they writhe and shout. All but one. The raider is silent. She wends through the endless volley of clumsy swings like a reaper in grain. There is something strange about her. Do women fight? I cannot remember.

I shamble through the carnal wreckage, able to coax only the largest muscles in my legs into what resembles a walking motion. I fall to my knees beside what I think might be the only good man I know. He breathes laboriously, fingers twitching and eyes darting over my face and the rocky ceiling beyond. His hand finds mine where it drags uselessly in the soil. He uses what little strength he has left to bring my enormous, useless fingers to his chest.

I feel as though I should say something, but it seems my vocal chords have divorced themselves from my brain. I realize now that Brandon’s lips are moving. So focused was I on the sounds of danger all about that I did not realize. I make an effort to listen. A desperate effort fueled by the understanding that if I do not fulfill this man’s dying wish, the plight of my own cowardice may never seep from my heart.

“My mo...my mother…. The Pass.” Brandon’s right hand ruffles around now beneath his collar. He smears upon his face mud moistened of his own blood with every twitch of his hand until he finds what he is looking for. His body stops shuddering, but his eyes do not relax as he jerks a golden pendant from its place on his necklace. He presses the trinket into my second, useless, upturned palm.

It seems as though he is about to fade for an instant before a memory, perhaps and thought sends his body into seizure. It is not an aimless seizure though, not like those suffered by the luxophobic or mentally scarred. This seizure draws him up almost into a sedentary position, his face only inches from mine. It is not fear, but shame and confusion that keeps me from recoiling. His last words hiss from his lips little louder than a whisper but with more foreboding and force than the hero Aduren’s loudest war cry.

“Don’t...you ever.” Brandon’s eyes blink forcefully and blood seeps from his closed mouth. “Play the game.”