Looking up, Payton takes in the greyish-blue sky clear of heavy rain clouds and the motionless bare branches of trees they are passing. An eerie silence hangs in the air, there is not even a breeze of wind making the long halms of grass sway, it is as if nature itself held its breath in anticipation.

These are good conditions for a fair battle but bad ones for an ambush, Payton thinks with misery. They had waited as long, delayed this fight until their supplies were exhausted and the water in the wells had grown too stale.
Every morning Payton had stared hopefully at the sky, expecting rain, thunderstorms, anything that would give them an advantage over the enemy battalion, to whom this terrain was foreign.
But nothing came, the sky remained cloudless, the ground firm and the trees without winter foliage, so they offered no protection from the scouts.
There was no way around a confrontation in the open field, unfavorable as their chances of survival there were.

Payton could hear Lowell catching up to him, his horse's hooves were noisy when they stomped down on the ground at a light trot.

Wordlessly, Payton waited for him on the hill, his eyes fixed on the valley ahead. The sight before him made him freeze in fear and hopelessness.

So this was their opponent.

A seemingly endless force, three times as numerous as their own ranks. From the hill they looked almost small, like hundreds of ants in chain mail and armed with toothpicks as spears.

Payton laughs as the comparison occurrs to him, but his laugh is mirthless and the grin on his face more of a pained grimace.

Those ants were going to run them over.

Behind him, Lowell gasps for air as he takes in the army facing them.
"This is-", he stutters „we are not going to-"
The boy turns to him, his expression pained, remorseful.
"I know."

Suddenly, even tall and broad-shouldered Lowell seems like a child playing dress up as a knight with his fathers sword. The old armour every pawn has worn the last centuries shines in the dull morning sun just like it is depicted on old paintings of glorified victories. Only these late pawns were grim men with a dutiful and proud stance while Lowell sits hunched on his horse, gripping his reins so firmly that his knuckles turn white from pressure.
What did it make Payton, when even Lowell was a frightened child? He was barely a man, an actual child, leading hundreds of soldiers into their certain death. And for sure, Payton would perish from this guilt.

"Do you think there is a Burdened among them?", Lowell let his gaze wander over the rows of hundreds of ant-sized soldiers, as if spotting one of them would be easier than finding a needle in a haystack.
"No", the boy finally says, his voice echoes metallically through the now closed visor and Payton is glad he closed it on time as it would be even more demoralizing for his soldiers to see their General paralized with terror.
He knows that he should say something now, had to, words of confidence, of courage that would breathe fighting spirit into his army in the face of the enemy. However Payton's lips are as if sealed and his tongue as lethargic as that of a dead man.

How could he dare now look them in the frightened faces that have never set eyes on a battlefield, never faced a sword stroke from certain death, and promise them they would see the sun rise one more time?

So Payton looks up at the cloudy sky to memorize its color for when even the sky would be drenched scarlet with blood.

„For kingdom and crown", he hears his own hollow voice shouting and the windless silence carries his words across the field until their meaning ignites a wildfire that would only leave the ashes of their bones.

In delirium, Payton finds himself racing down the hill, his sword drawn and dozens of knights follow him, the stomping of hoofs a roaring thunderstorm. Far too quickly, their opponents go from ants to towering figures in flashing armor atop ferocious warhorses.

Suddenly, he is seized by vertigo again, the edges of his vision blurring until tired, grey like steel eyes look at him astonished.
"Payton?", the man, Reimund asks, before Payton gets a grip on reality again.

His head hurts like it is being splitted in half as he keeps Reimund out of his mind and focuses on the dustcloud rolling towards him.
The prolonged drought had turned the otherwise fertile soil into arid wasteland, and what the sun had not scorched, the besiegers had set ablaze weeks ago. The green meadows and fields had given way to dusty, arid plains within two months.

The galloping horses now kicked up the dust until the attackers were only dimly visible in the clouds of dry ash and earth.

"Remember your promise!", Payton shouts as Lowell overtakes him, his sword drawn and ready to be soaked in blood.
"I won't let them catch me", the man answers through the visor of his helmet, his otherwise mischievously glinting eyes concealed, making it impossible for Payton to assess what's going on in the pawn's thickhead.

He remembers the man's reluctance when the boy took him aside in the stables and made him vow to flee if it was necessary. „What about you?", Lowell had asked him frowning, his hand stroking his newly grown beard with dissatisfaction. „If I command you to leave me behind, you will", Payton had said, his green eyes staring Lowell down, demanding absolute obedience. Eventhough the big and burly pawn had agreed, Payton had sensed the objection in his hesitant words.

Now, feeling another wave of disequilibrium crashing over him, he prays to the gods that Lowell keeps his promise.