Chapter 1: Prologue

"Move your arse, old man" a voice from behind bellowed. "The sun sets fast this time a year, finish up quick, I wanted you rested for watch duty tonight". Daryn sighed as he planted his shovel into the ground and out again, slinging the heaps of cracked, dry sandstone over his shoulder. Daryn was weary. "What a damned fool i am, taking orders from some halfwit at the edge of the world" he though to himself. Daryn found life as a sell sword degrading. He was raised by men who fought and died for a leader they believed in, not for the man who paid them the most. But he was far away from that life, in a foreign land, and if he ever hoped to return home, he'd have to get through the siege.

As the sun set over the Lorey camp, Daryn dropped his shovel and walked back to his tent, setting a log down outside and reigniting his campfire. A dozen men had been lost to the cold the night before, so he made sure to keep close to the flames. Assetie was a vast and unforgiving land, with lush tropical forests covering the northern coast, and a vast, scorching desert stretching from east to west in the south. Ser Hugh, unfortunately, found himself in the latter. "The days are hot and the nights frosty. But that's where a man goes if he needs the coin" he remembered his old mentor, Ser Barrin telling him.

Footsteps crunched on the ground behind Daryn as he sat perched over the fire. "Still awake?" Asked Juree, a short, lean man and native of Assetie who Daryn had come to befriend. "I don't like this" Daryn told Juree, his chin against his neck from the cold. "They have just under eighty men in that castle, yet the scouts say they counted over two thousand just before we arrived". Juree took a seat opposite Daryn and warmed his hands by the fire. "Saboteurs sealed all the tunnels in and out of that castle weeks ago, they'd be bloody good diggers if they managed to get two thousand men out that castle with not one of ours spotting them!" Daryn scrunched his face. "Dead then?" He mumbled, "Eh, that's what I'd wager. Lorey armies been harassing their supply lines all year, must be eating each other by now". Daryn grinned. Jurees words however gave him no comfort. Daryn wasn't often prone to fear and worry like most others, but he spent many long hours of his childhood with old, scholarly men reading about the Gescaii, as all highborn children did. "They were formidable fighters, and had some of the best commanders in the known world, how is it two thousand men are commanded to hold a castle knowing they don't have enough provisions to last a week? Daryn pondered.

The Lorey camp was falling quiet as the men returned to their tents for the night, although drunken men shouting and brawling could be heard in the distance, however faint. "Why don't you get some sleep?" Juree asked. "I'll speak to the commander, I'm sure he'll let me cover your watch tonight?". Daryn wondered for a moment if perhaps his uneasiness was showing, but knew he'd be better off with a full nights sleep should the situation worsen. "Thank you, Juree" Daryn said, patting him on his shoulder as he stood and walked to his tent. Juree was the only friend Daryn had amongst his sellsword colleagues. The other men would never respect him. They earned their skills from years of blood and sweat, most of them in the slave pits as children. Daryn however was trained in a castle, by a knight. He was better than all of them, a renowned swordsman throughout the Kingdom, before he disgraced himself and fled his homeland. 

Daryn removed his armour, a black chain mail tunic and a leather belt, and placed it down beside his straw bed. He had taken it with him from Newstar, a great stone castle built atop the Eighteen Peaks, and the place where he was born and raised. "Two more contracts should be enough," he thought to himself. "Perhaps with enough coin, I could buy passage back to Newstar, tell my Lord father the truth of what happened" His eyes closed but his mind was open with a torrent of thoughts. He'd seen enough battles to know something wasn't right this time. Yet, despite who he was before, in Assetie he was just another sellsword, thus he had little choice but to grit his teeth and pray his commanders had their wits about them.

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It was mid of night, and the two moons Muu and Leaa lit up the landscape around the Lorey camp. Daryn awakened, he moved not a muscle but lay frozen like a deer spotting a bear. "Rumbling?" Daryn thought. He could feel the ground beneath him vibrating ever so slightly, then, seconds later a great horn bellowed out from somewhere in the camp, followed by two, then another. Before long it sounded as if every horn in camp was being blown. Daryn rushed to his feet and ran out of his tent, grabbing his steel longsword on the way out. "GET IN LINE!" screamed a voice to the right of Daryn.

Turning his head he saw it was the same man ordering him to dig trenches the day before, his commander. "THEY'RE ATTACKING, THOUSANDS OF THEM, ARCHERS, ON ME, SPEARMEN, GET IN LINE YA SHITS" he continued. The camp lit up with activity, Daryn rushed to find the line, and frenzied men ran in every direction past him, awkwardly carrying spears and shields and helmets. When Daryn reached the line, he saw what was coming.

Thousands of mounted pikemen shook the ground like an earthquake, rushing closer to camp. Daryn could see the battle standard amongst the galloping army, a red flag with two green, crossing spears. It was the Gescaii, the missing two thousand that had been invading his sleep all night. It sent a chill down his spine. He remembered learning how futile it was for foot-soldiers to face Gescaii horsemen in open combat, yet the reassurance of the trenches and palisades surrounding them put to rest his anxieties. The rumbling got louder, like thunder cracking the air with every second that passed. One man about a hundred yards beside him vomited from fear, another, right beside him, soiled his britches. "ARCHERS! KNOCK!" the commander screamed, "DRAW!" he paused for a moment, then he erupted "LOOSE!". Hundreds of arrows came flying over Daryns' head, and just as quickly came raining down on the Gescaii in front. The arrows devastated the right flank of the army, horses hit by arrows came flying to the ground and horses behind piled up behind them. But it was too late. "KNOCK!... DRA-" the commander's orders were cut short, and his great bellowing screams were replaced by shrieks of pain as the remaining Gescaii right flank crashed into the archers, slaughtering them like cattle. Many sellswords turned their gaze to Daryn, as much as they disliked him, they could not deny his experience in battle, and right now they had little choice. Daryn almost smiled, for just a moment, he felt important once again. He ripped an iron shield from the arms of the man beside him, and clanged his sword against it, getting the remaining sellswords' attention.

"RETREAT!" He screamed, as Daryn quickly realised that in the frenzy of battle half the men had advanced almost 20 yards beyond the trench lines they dug the day before. "RETREAT BEHIND THE TRENCHES! KILL THEIR MOMENTUM!" Luckily for Daryn, the remaining right flank of the Gescaii army was still occupied by the archers, buying him and his men enough time to get to a defensive position. The Gescaii horsemen struggled to stop their horses before they fell into the trenches below, and the remaining Lorey archers unloaded on them on Daryn orders. 

Daryn was in disbelief. The wooden palisades, trenches and archers seemed to have caught the Gescaii completely off guard. "Perhaps they expected us to be unprepared?" He thought. The Lorey sellswords seemed to be gaining the upper hand, when all of a sudden, a loud voice, chanting a terrible, unknowable language, echoed inside the skulls of Daryn and the other sellswords. All were brought to their knees, pressing their hands so hard over their ears to make it stop they nearly cracked their skulls, but it did not help. Daryn was crying out in agony, and could faintly see the Gescaii dismounting around him as if they could not hear what every other man was hearing. Daryns' blurred vision soon turned to no vision at all. Seconds later, he blacked out.

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