Listen well to this tale of mine, I'll tell it once, as you have commanded, but after that you will never hear it from my lips again. A truer story has never been uttered in this place and it will likely sound like madness to your ears, the ramblings of some old fool whose mind's gone soft and whose tongue has grown loose. But let me assure you it is the truth, for I witnessed these events with mine own eyes and ears, I smelt and tasted what was on the air that day, and felt the reality of it all with every fiber of my being. I was there, and what I did not know or see with my own eyes at the time, I was shown after it was all over. And believe me when I tell you, I Saw it all very well. It is for that reason that I am able to share with you, this night, every minute detail of what transpired there on the Battlefield.

Now let me bore you with this useless dribble no longer! You wanted a story, so listen close and listen well, paint this portrait with your mind. Feel the morning air; warm, dry, a slight breeze rising from the east. Hear it as it passes through the ranks of men and women standing still as statues encased in their metal shells, rippling their banners of dark red, their standards of deep orange, their pennants of green and white and gold, and carrying with it a thunderous music which speaks of war and glory. Smell the scents of a country autumn morning rising off the earth, from the short grasses, the low-growing foliage, the sparse withering trees. Taste the air as it drifts among the ranks of warriors, mercenaries, tacticians, officials and leaders of all nationalities. Is it anticipation that you taste upon that soft fall breeze? Is it exhilaration? Bloodlust? Fear? All of them? Or is it something else entirely?

Now that you have had some time to adjust to it, open your eyes. See what lies before you. Men and women, clad in shining plate and chain; swords, spears, shields of varying sizes, shapes, and colors, all burning bright beneath the newly-risen sun. How many are there? Dozens, hundreds, now a thousand, two thousand, three, four, ten; and still the ranks stretch on and on, reaching far off into the distance. There they stand upon fields of green and amber grass, on the minute rolling hills of stone and dirt, small shrubs and dwarfed trees sprouting up around them. They all stand facing the same site, but have approached it from different directions. Each massive column of bodies is tinted with a different hue. Red comes down from the mountains of the North, descending upon the site with banners, horns, and horses by the thousands. From the South, the orange march from their forest fortresses and ripening orchards. But from the East, the largest company, filing out from their vast castle-state with its walls, towers, living mounds, and fresh-tilled fields. They have brought the gifts of those fields with them on their march to the to this place; the men and women of the fertile East will not be going hungry any time soon. They are the green, the white, and the gold. They are the most numerous, and they're columns stretch on for miles as they make the long march to the Hill. Though now that you see it, you feel that Hill just isn't a proper name for it anymore.

The site where these three armies have met is what remains of an enormous granite mound, taller than any spire of the East or fortress of the South. When it was the Hill, it had been a dome of solid stone. Now, it is as if someone had cut it and taken half away from the Earth itself. The meeting place sits at the base of the perfectly smooth wall that was once the core of the Hill. The site itself is simply what now lies where the other half of the Hill once stood: an empty half-circle about a hundred yards in every direction from its center against the Wall. Its borders are simply where the grass stopped when the Hill still stood whole, nothing grew upon that ancient granite surface, and now nothing ever will.

Feel that breeze again, it's picking up speed as you near the Wall, and it is not hard to see why. From the very center of the Wall at ground level to about half way up, twenty men wide and at least forty tall, is a swirling pool of light. Black light. It swims with other colors: purple, green, red, gold, orange, blue, but the light itself is as black as night and seems to drink the light of the star that is rising in the sky overhead. It is a doorway, one that took what had been the Hill and seems to want to take the air itself, as the breeze has now grown to a weak gale as you step up to gaze into the dark reaches beyond the Wall. The Gate is what it is called, though it is a gate in name alone, as there is no closing this doorway.

Yet it is not the Gate that these men and women are looking at, no matter how spectacular and disturbing a sight it may be. No, look to the center of the half-circle of granite that is the site which drew our attention in the first place. There, surrounded by the three armies, stand their respective leaders and champions. See them all and look upon them as you would any who command the respect of nations. The leaders dress in the colors of their region, only adorned more royally and expensively. The Orange and the Red are old men, the first gaunt and regal looking with bow and scepter in hand, the other big and burly, heavily armed with sword, shield, and hammer; a great shaggy beard covering what parts of his face his helm does not. It is easy to see that both know each other well and that both are experienced warriors in their own right. The East, those with the most at stake here, send not one leader, but three.

Three of the Councilmen of the East flank their champion, each wearing a different color and weapon, each representing a different caste of the Eastern society, each only a few years older than their young champion. Green is a man of about thirty, his skin a deep shade of brown that matches the knowledgable eyes gleaming out from beneath his visor. He carries with him a staff of mahogany plated with solid steel pyramids and tipped on one end with a cross-shaped blade and powerful head of spikes on the other. The champion addresses him as "General." He is the Councilman of War, leader of the Military Caste, and these are all his people now that they are on the battlefield. Next to him stands the White, a young woman in her late twenties, her skin milky-white with gold silk for hair. Her otherwise beautiful face is parted by a diagonal scar crossing from above one eye, through the point where her nose should have been, and down to the side of her cheek. Across the middle of her face is a black cloth wrapping, covering the worst of the scar where her nose once was. Upon her shoulders are strapped nine thin, light steel swords sheathed into metal casings on her cloak, each inscribed with one of the nine names of the God she serves. She is a clergy member and represents the Religious Caste. Finally, the Gold stands to her left, reassuring the champion that there is nothing to fear, that none could defeat them now. He has a look of inexperience about him in this setting, which makes sense, as he is the councilman of the Merchant Caste, which also encompasses the artisans and masters who made all of the armor and weapons that these men and women now carry, yet have never used any of it themselves. Is it any wonder that he should want to be present to protect his investment? In one hand he carries a long chain-cored whip, studded with razors and spikes sticking through the leather exterior, ensuring that it is almost as dangerous to the one wielding it as it is to everyone around him. His other hand is clenched tightly within a two-headed dagger built into a dome-shaped gauntlet, which would act as a defender in the best cases and a bludgeoning tool in the worst. These three stand around their chosen warrior and watch as the the Red champion rises once more to his feet.

Look closely at the rust-colored helm and dark crimson armor that the champion of the North wears. See how it shines, how it glows, how it commands the attention of all onlookers? But look closer, do you see how solid it is? Yet at the right arm and right leg, watch how it seems to slither and weep downward toward the ground. Does it seem strange to you, that the armor appears to be melting? Well just look at the Orange champion and you will see the reason for this yourself. As the Red champion begins his fourth attempt to rush his opponent, the champion of the South raises his sword once more. The core of the weapon is a bright orange jewel that is cut in a way that has allowed it reach more than a foot in length, and there it sits in the center of the showy steel longsword. But the blade of the weapon is what should be noted. There is blood running down the length of one side of the ceremonial sword. Now as the Red champion advances to a sprint the armor seems to weep more, the crimson armor is crying crimson tears, and the man inside will surely not be able to lose much more blood before he collapses to the ground, becoming the first champion to be defeated this morning. The first, but not the last.

Listen as Red connects with Orange, as steel meets steel with sweet, clanging greeting. The Red champion is a big man, grown strong over the years not by swinging a sword as he is now, but a hammer. His training was not the same regiment that these other warriors had undertaken. It was not a matted dummy that he had struck at, but stones. It was not heroes he had fought or armies he had conquered as they had, but boulders and quarries. And now, it was not for glory that he fought for, not for praise or the honor of being the first man to plunge into the Gate and spearhead their strike against what awaited beyond its swirling curtain. Unlike these other two Champions, he was not fighting by his own choice. He was no upstart young knight like the East had sent, and he was certainly no prince as his opponent was. No, this man in the crimson armor with the serrated broadsword in hand and the blood seeping from beneath his arm-guards, is merely a prisoner. A condemned murderer, temporarily-released from the deplorable work-prisons of the North. A kin-slayer, as the crowds had accused him. A man fighting for his last chance at freedom.

Orange and Red break away from each other, jumping backwards simultaneously, the prisoner falling to one knee as the wound on his leg opens wider. And there he remains, involuntarily genuflecting before the Southern prince who is now slowly walking toward him, ceremonial sword in hand, its orange core glowing with the light of the mid-morning sun. That sword, as decorative as it appeared, hungered more fiercely than the prisoner had been prepared to believe. His armor was thick, the dark red plates weighing twice that of a normal knight's metal, yet he had already felt the blade's bite twice now. He crouched there, sword buried into the ground before him with one hand on its hilt, the other mailed gauntlet clutched his lacerated arm. He did not deserve this, he knew, yet they all believed him to be something he was not. In the end, he decided, would it really be so bad to die this way? To die a warrior's death at the hands of a superior swordsman, to go out honorably? Yet, at the same time, he would be dying with his name and his line disgraced by a crime that he did not commit. He would be dying as an accused murderer, one who had killed his own brother over land or wealth or some other worldly pittance. His brother was dead, true enough, but it had not been his hand that slid the blade between the man's ribs. He had loved his brother, yet when the crowd found them, they declared he had been the one who had done the foul deed. That day he had lost his brother, his land, his family, and his freedom. His king promised him freedom for his victory on the field this day, but what about the rest? Would death be able return all those things to him instead? In death, might he be reunited with those loved ones whom he had lost in this injustice?

But no! He was a proud man, a man of honor, and there was no honor in dying here like this. No honor in dying a marked man, dying a kin-slayer, and a weakling on top of that. The prince was upon him now, just a foot away from where he was kneeling. The prisoner had no hatred toward this man, he had never even met him until the night before, when both their armies had arrived at almost the same moment. If anything, he had a great respect for the Southerner, or at least for the stories he had heard of his deeds and the deeds of his father, the King of the South, who stood on the edge of the grass now, solemnly watching their duel. Yet that respect was not so great that it would blind him to what had to be done. He was not willing to die without having first cleared his name. God knew he was innocent, but to the men around him, he still had that much left to prove.

As the prince took one final step forward, the prisoner burst forth from the ground with a bestial cry, jumping up into a lunge, leading with his left elbow, his sword following in his left hand behind it. The Orange champion was able to step out of the way of the pointed elbow of the blood-red armor, but the sword, held straight out to form an open triangle with the Red champion's body, cut a long scratch across his breastplate. The prince staggered and, with another roar of rage and sorrow, the former-prisoner spun around in a quick circle on his good leg, bringing the sword upward as he came about, the blade skirting vertically across the brilliant orange armor. The two scratches intersected each other over the Southerner's heart. Finally the prisoner had it, a target to aim for. A mark to strike with sword as he had with hammer. A weak point in the rock that was the Southern prince. The end of his swing brought the blade to a point above his own head, standing with it pointed at the heavens for a fraction of a second. With the last of he strength he reached up, grasped the hilt with both hands, and aimed his blow at the center of the two scratches as the Orange champion reeled backward from the previous strike. The prisoner's right arm gave off a blinding pain as he raised it above his head, the wound upon it screaming for attention. He ignored it, was deaf to its cries. In this moment, what he knew would likely be his last moment, all that he heard were the wails of his children as the officers dragged him from his home, all he felt was the pain of loss that came with knowing he would not see his family again until the End. And all he saw was one last stone that had to be crushed to win him his freedom.

And what would you say if I told you that he was freed by this action? That this final strike was enough to save him from the fate of a murderer, to clear him of his charges, to free him from his grief? Do you think it was enough to bring his mind some peace, to set his soul at ease? Enough to reunite him with his brother, or the family whom he had lost at the "hands" of the horrors that had come through the Gate shortly after his imprisonment? Do you think it was enough? Yes? No? Well... You can decide that much for yourself...

As the prince tried to regain his balance, he realized that he would not survive what was coming his way. This man from the North was a bear with iron for fur and a great serrated sword for claws. The helmet upon his head had no noticeable weak point; the eyes were covered by a metallic mesh, the mouth closed off by a steel snarl, the nosepiece built to deflect a direct blow off to either side. His only hope lay in the fact that the helmet was an heirloom of this man's family, not a cover built to fit the armor that he now wore. When he raised both arms and let out his final howl of pain and triumph, he exposed his neck between the opening in the gorget and the base of the helm. His beard covered the flesh well enough, but it was open to the elements beyond that. This champion had staked everything on one massive overhead strike, and the prince knew that even if his next attack hit its mark, he would likely be separated from his arm as the Red warrior brought the sword down, whether this Northerner remained alive or not.

Watch carefully now, as Orange stumbles backward and Red begins to bring his sword down as if it were a razor-sharp hammer upon him. Watch how the prince, rather than trying to avoid falling, focuses himself on what is coming toward him, not the sword, but the man behind it. See his grip change on his own sword, one hand tightening under the hand-guard, the other moving to the very base of the handle. Hear it in the morning air, the rasp of a sword unsheathing, steel on steel, and toward the end, something else. A sound like a nail scraping a piece of glass. A horrible screech, but audible only to the prince and his opponent in the midst of the uproar from the armies gathered around them. And now, stopping his stumbling fall with one leg, watch as he strikes out, faster than any man in armor such as his should be able to. One arm going up, the other twisting and extending straight out toward his opponent. Listen to the hiss as flesh is broken and blood is spilt, the clash as steel meets steel in mid air. Do you see what has happened here on this bright fall morning? The world has lost a great warrior.