…We fought the rearguard action for a week, moving slowly through the deep canyons, one company holding the enemy back while the other secured the next defile. Again and again for seven long days.

The orcs were well supplied and well rested, and they harried us day and night, but we could not give in, for those who could not fight continued to flee to the safety of the high places of this world, where the orcs could not hope to find them until the spring.

Our men of the Lothrock Keep were steady, even in the face of the orc shamens who fought with the strength of ten of their kind; like great bears, their roars bounced from the rocks.

No man won more praise than our generals own son, a boy who bested a great orc captain and marked him with the weeping peak.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Most days, one man was given the killing herb; some days it was two men, and other days it was none. There was no need to call for volunteers, because General Price knew as we did that every one of us would have proudly stepped forward. Officers were chosen: banner men, spearmen, and archers. We marched on, and they ate the herb, said their last prayer, and lay down to die, as if fallen from starvation.

Then the grim day came when the general chose himself, and though it pained us all, we knew it to be well done for who would think us weaker than if we lost our great leader?

General Price would take no killing herb. Instead, his death would spin lies of strife and betrayal.

His son stepped forward and drove the knife into his father's back, and though he only had sixteen winters, we counted him a great man and a great leader. We would have followed him into the abyss, and some felt as if they did…

Excerpt from the journal of Tornal Baylon. Bannerman of the Black Peaks.