„Oh gods. I can't believe it", the man whispered hoarsely and only then Payton dared to look up again.

The soldier had leapt back several steps, his dirt-covered face contorted in astonishment.

And the sword lay on the ground between them, abandoned as it refused to obey the hand of its wielder.

The man looked at the weapon that had betrayed them and shifted their gaze to the boy lying at their feet in the mud, suddenly wary of the tied-up youth.

„Gonna take him with us, right?", said the other, as he unceremoniously hauled the boy up and swung him over his shoulder like a sack of grain. Payton's world was flipped upside down and the dizziness gripping him made the world flicker and blur before his eyes. He had been carried like this just now, but it had been Lowell's familiar hands holding him and he had been running. In contrast, the stranger walked slowly and Payton blinked away the tears welling up in his eyes as he thought of how there was no reason to run now. The battle was lost, the boy was lost, and the winners, why should they hurry?

There was only one thought Payton clung to, that kept him sane - With each step that brought him closer to his end, Lowell escaped his own.

The men walked for what felt like an eternity and the rhythmic swaying of their steps and the blood rushing to his upside down hanging head had the boys consciousness slipping in and out. In the rare moments he was awake, he saw glimpses of the battlefield, mud stained red from blood, dust being washed away from the rain were it clung to armor and corpses, so many corpses. Horses and men lay tangled like an absurd sculpture of twisted limbs and bent metal plates, the rain enveloping this grotesque sculpture in a moving veil of gray and blue.

Individual fragments and images from the moments he was conscious added up to a patchwork of confused impressions in which the coldness of the rain intermingled with that of marble halls.
At one point, he felt his mind being tugged far away. Was there a man looking at him? Shouting? His face looked familiar, the square, stubborn chin, blonde hair and those golden garments were something he had seen before. The man's name was on the tip of Payton's tongue but as he tried to mouth it, his strength left him. The familiar face blurred with that of a corpse staring up at him with cloudy eyes and finally yielded to darkness just as they passed the hill on which the boy had commanded his men to fight in what felt like a different lifetime, but happened just this morning.

His eyes snapped open as he was dropped to the ground, his ribs aching from the impact. It wasn't raining anymore and the air was filled with dozens of voices and the pugent smell of fire, sweat and blood. There were people, men cladded in armor and furs, living people, dirty and stenching, but alive, nothing like those pale corpses that haunted the youths mind. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew they were demons that had slaughtered his own kind, but for a moment he was nothing but relieved to see people. Lots of them. Breathing. Alive.

„Sir! Sir, the boy, he's a Burdened!" He knew that voice, had heard it before, when he was tackled to the ground and carried through the field. It was the man smelling like death himself, who had raised his sword against the boy and been betrayed by it in the same breath.
Now, he was standing beside Payton, bowing to another man in clean and shining armor, a commander, for he had not putted his life at risk on the battle field.

In his mid fifties at least, he was seasoned, with an angular and hardened face, half of it obscured with an overgrown beard. The deep brown, tanned skin was wrinkled around his eyes and mouth, showing a lifetime of working under the relentless sun.

„Do you know which role?", the man, Payton thought to be a commander, asked, his voice a low and hoarse rumble.

„Pawn, probably?", the stenching one said, oggling the slender and small youth lying at his feet.

„Hm. There's no way for us to know. Unless-" , the elder said and a small nod in Payton's direction was enough for one of the knights to understand.

The eager knight squatted beside him and grabed a fistfull of the boy's hair. Payton's head was yanked up brutally and he clenched his teeth to suppress a sob. The commander loomed above him, meeting the boy's fearful eyes with his own, dark and relentless ones.

„Boy. Which role?", he asked and Payton nearly cried hearing his native language, although broken and mispronounced, coming from the stranger.

„The general asked you something! Answer, damn it!", the knight holding him roared, he was so close single drops of his spit landed on the youths cheek. Still gripping his hair, the soldier slapped him hard with the back of his hand. A small hiss escaped Payton's lips.

„Which. Role." He could see the generals patience waning, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown, lips pressed to a thin line in anger. And with the commanders patience his own chances of beeing treated humane as a prisoner waned, Payton knew that much of warfare.

„Tell your rabid dog here to take his filthy hands off me and I'll speak", he finally said in their language and although he spoke fluently, there was a certain melodious singsang left in his voice.

„Oh, so he can speak!", the older man exclaimed amazed, an amused grin stretching on his face. „Leave him be", he told the knight incidentally and the latter sprung to his feet in an instant. With his head released it was easier to look up to the general and hold his gaze. Never cower before the enemy, it won't change your fate, you'll just loose the last thing left- your dignity. So he gulped down his panic and straightened his spine, although his tied up arms ached awfully at the movement.

„Interesting. How come they teach Light Burdened our tongue?"

„Fastest way to learning how an enemy thinks is learning the languge he thinks in", the doctrinal sentence blurted out and he allowed himself to fall back into ingrained patterns of obedience. The General asked, he answered. It was almost too easy to surrender to the hierarchies he had been taught from childhood, whether it was friend or foe demanding responses.
"What a smart little boy we have here. What role?"

Payton pressed his lips together in defiance, looking up to the general as indifferent and stoic as he could. Yet the man only laughed at him, shaking his head in amusement.
"No. This brat is no mere pawn. Just look at this pretty head held high. And that silver tongue, speaking our language like one of us. One hell of an education", the elder said, more talking to himself and the boy than his soldiers.

Of course, he was right, but Payton didn't care to answer or react in any way that showed he had acknowledged the praise.

„You don't care to share your role then? Alright. We'll take him to the castle-"

A shiver ran down the boy's spine.

„The castle, sir? The castle of shards?", the stenching knight asked dreadfully.

„Yes. The castle of shards."

Payton was doomed.