𝐄𝐜𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐬 · 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

Upon the Battlements of City Illium

The sun is setting on white snow, making everything unnaturally bright. 

A mute child carries a sword and walks on the battlements behind the frowning General who looks upon the ranks within the city, ready for war. 

It’s the new year...

Illium is doomed to fall if there was no help coming. 

It would fall on the First Day of the New Year.

The Scralls - ugly, pig-like monsters they were - are coming for the city. Scouts had come back days ago from the Misty Forests who spoke of a Dark Mage and an army of Scralls. 

No snow has ever fallen over the Misty Forests

And… Here they were. 

The monsters had encamped themselves just outside the moat and spiked fence. More than a thousand of those disgusting pigs. 

How many men did the General have? He looks again at the loose formation of two hundred untrained and lop-sided men. He looks out to the Scralls’ encampment again. 

They will die on the morrow. On the day of the new year.

He sighs. 

Everyone’s going to die, he thinks. This is going to be a massacre and everyone’s going to die. Everything’s going to fall and they’re all doomed. 

They should be celebrating now, not preparing for war.

He’d sent messengers to the Capital almost three weeks ago but no word had come. Had the people known? Had they not? It doesn’t matter that much now that the Scralls are already here. If only…If only some mages in the Capital would come. Then they’d have a much better chance. 

Those teenagers, children - so young compared to all them old soldiers and yet much more powerful. How unfair. 

But the army below would have to manage - or all will perish.