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I sped toward the main gate, step after step, to escape the maw of fiery death behind me. The summer wind brushed past my face, causing my frayed gray hair and beard to billow wildly.

"Keep running!!!" Lilia snarled. "It makes it more fun when I catch you!"

\'Better not get caught, then,\' I inwardly chuckled. I couldn\'t speak through my heavy huffs.

Running was never a strong suit of mine. That\'s why, even though I was erecting wall upon wall behind me to obstruct her, Lilia still steadily gained on me.

However, I was almost there! Almost to my goal! Once I passed the compound\'s walls to the fields, I could let loose. I could release everything in my arsenal to win.

\'This girl might be a fullkin, but there\'s a reason they called me The Scourge of the Mountain during my years of glory,\' I raspily chuckled.

Only a few paces separated me from the gate. However, a cacophony of heavy footfalls echoed before me as one final tribulation to overcome. Its origin: a platoon of armored soldiers.

\'Damn, guess they noticed us,\' is what I would\'ve thought if we\'d been any semblance of the word "subtle." Between the shouting and burning homestead, it was inevitable for the search parties and patrols outside the walls to notice us.

They wielded polished steel swords, axes, spears, and various-sized wooden shields.

One was at the forefront, a woman with no helm. Out of the rest, she was the only one with full-plated armor. It glistened with the Sun\'s rays, almost as if the sky itself acknowledged her superiority over the rest.

\'She looks important...\'

The woman drew forth her saber, its blade and handle curved to perfection. She erected her weapon toward the Sun. Like a banner, it roused the rest of the troop\'s spirits in a storm of zeal and patriotism.

"Kill the invaders!" she shouted in a voice as bold as her chestnut-brown hair. Her deep blue eyes focused directly on me.

Each of the men and women following narrowed their sights on me. Their faces burned with the desire to make their leader proud.

\'That\'s not good,\' I sighed.

My situation was already poor. Yet it just became worse.

Even so, I didn\'t panic. In fact, the sights and smells of it all lost me to a disturbing nostalgia. Though I recoiled with the feeling, I also felt a degree of safety.

I never relished in war, but somehow, the battlefield seemed to be the only place I could be myself.

The familiar sound of metal striking metal...fires roaring...feet stomping...orders shouting... It all rushed into my mind like the rapids of a river, filling my head with thoughts of the past.

***

The next moment, I was in the outskirts of my hometown, atop the frigid peaks of Gelum, deep within the Ymirian Shelf. I was a younger man then, roughly sixty-one years old.

I was at the perfect age to be newly minted as a soldier of the Gebbrenian military. This was my first campaign.

An intense flurry of heavy, pure-white snow swirled around within the biting chill of the air. My grey-furred wolfskin coat flapped erratically over my insulated steel-forged armor with every gust\'s passing.

The opposition came in droves, torches and weapons in hand. It was an army dispatched by King Solomon, who had ruled the lost continent of Anonoma.

The land was never spoken of after the war. The mere mention of it invoked images of burning villages, crying families, and crows as they picked at the rotten strands of flesh from the fallen.

It was a land whose skin was forever scarred by the conflict it suffered.

"READY YOURSELVES! HERE THEY COME!" a brother-in-arms hoarsely shouted, pointing down the mountain\'s icy path.

Unlike the rest of us, he sported a literal mantle of responsibility as our leader: a flowing white cloak dangling from his carved titansteel cuirass.

"HOOOOOAHHH!" a line of fellow Gebbranians chanted in unison, stacking shield upon shield with pikes poking through the cracks. We became the wall that barred our loved ones from the marching chaos ahead.

"DON\'T LET THE BASTARDS THROUGH!" my commander continued, raising his greataxe high to the heavens. "KILL \'EM WHERE THEY STAND! WE MUST DEFEND OUR WIVES! DEFEND OUR CHILDREN. PROTECT EVERYTHING DOWN TO THE VERY LAST MAN! TO THE VERY LAST BREATH!"

"HOOOOOAHHH! the men shouted again. Their boisterous voices sang like a forlorn ballad across the mountainous bluffs.

This was our elegy, our final stand to protect those we loved.

While my brethren steeled themselves for a clash to protect our homeland, Solomon\'s armies marched forward in retaliation for our betrayal.

"BREAK THROUGH THEIR DEFENSE!" an enemy general shouted amidst the rhythmic stomping and clanging of armor. "SHOW YOUR STRENGTH AGAINST TREACHERY! SHOW YOUR LOYALTY TO YOUR LAND AND KING!"

"HUUUUGGHHH!" their troop responded, morale soaring higher than the mountains themselves.

The enemy general\'s voice challenged my commander\'s. Both were simultaneously attempting to instill a fiery vigor in the hearts of their allies while sowing a creeping terror within that of their enemies.

Several moments passed while our enemies approached, eventually passing the point of no return.

A firm hand was planted on my shoulder, staying my raised axe as I curiously but nervously averted my gaze backward.

"Are you ready, Barik? Ready to prove your worth as one of the Runebreather clan?" asked my commander in a smooth stoic voice.

"I am, Sir," I nodded with resolve. "I\'m ready."

The passing winds roared, drowning out every other sound to nothingness.

The cheering of my fellows as they chanted rousing war cries dulled.

The crunching of ice and snow as the enemy encroached upon the village faded.

The frantic cries of the families we left behind while they abandoned their livelihoods to save themselves quieted.

At that moment, it was just me and my leader...my father.

"Good," he gave an easing smile, a bead of moisture leaking from one eye before freezing to his burned-scarred cheek. "I\'m so proud of you; your mother would be too. Don\'t ever forget that. No matter what happens, don\'t you dare forget."

My father\'s steadied gaze wavered to tears as he locked me in what would be our final embrace. His voice, usually so calm and easing, trembled in uncontrolled fear.

My lips twitched as my own dread broke free. "I-I won\'t, Sir. I promise."

"Good… Good," he backed away, swiping at the frozen streaks across his cheeks and regaining his composure.

He looked at me one last time with focused eyes and uttered the words that would linger inside me for the rest of my days.

"Give \'em hell, son...and live. Live through this."

As our moment ended, so, too, did the momentary peace between the two armies.

The present blended with the past as the opposing commander bellowed their next command. It was the command that left many of those I regarded as friends to death. They\'d become frozen over husks of flesh, spilling out their crimson insides across the purity of the snow.

A mixed tone voice rang out, it was a composition of the commander of days passed and the female captain before me. "CHAAAAAARGE!"

The order was given, so began the approach of a storm of footsteps. The troops thundered toward me with a foreboding rhythm, ready slice my body to ribbons.

\'Five hundred years later and I can still hear your voice, old man...\' I smirked. Raising my flail with one hand, I gathered another shield of granite around my opposite.

With each step of my dash, a layer of granite crept an inch further up my legs. It grew and grew, the rock piling thicker and thicker as the armor concealed my chest beneath its jagged surface.

\'Oh, guess I\'m the old man, now…\' I chuckled, then clenched my teeth for a war cry against the stampede of soldiers ahead. My voice became distorted and muffled as the stone formed a heavy mask and helm around my head.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!"