The Siege

Chapter 4

As I near the battle I start to sweat. My hands grip the sword and my knuckles have gone white. I'm trembling all over. I can't do this anymore. I've already seen my friends die, and I've killed tonight as well. To go back and fight is ignoring my instinct, my thoughts and my body. But however it may be killing me inside, there is something that's tugging me forwards. No matter how much I try to think, I can't see what it is.
Wanting to be remembered as a hero? I don't want people to think I'm a ruthless killer.
To join my friends? Most of them are dead, the rest probably know I abandoned them.
To obey my country? No, I never found any loyalty with my king.
So I push these useless thoughts out if my head. They won't help in a battle. Tripping over a body, I look down to see several more strewn about. I'm getting close. I step through a door and find myself blinking in the evening light, the setting sun burning an afterimage in my eyes. And now I realise why the battle is taking forever. There's nobody here. No one left. All dead? Possibly. But what I'm seeing now will haunt me for the rest of my life. Men who tried to climb the castle were covered in burning oil. I can smell it now, and there is a mutilated corpse, smoking. Several soldiers are standing upright - survivors? But though my heart holds hope, my head knows that the deathly pallor and the glazed eyes means only one thing. They're dead. I lean over and shove one, and he falls sideways. There are small sharp spikes that had been driven into the ground which are sticking up his feet, and that's what was keeping him upright when he was skewered with a spear from behind. I cry, shocked, and back away. But the scene is all around me and I'm in a vivid nightmare. Everywhere I turn is another horrific scene of agonising death and there's no escape. I hear a high-pitched scream and realise it's emitting from my lips. I scramble over the bloody battlefield and run inside. It's not so bad in here. But out there - men from both sides dead. I stumble blindly through a maze of twisting turning corridors and heave myself up stone steps that seem to go on forever. I'm not sure where I'm going - a safe place, somewhere to hide and sort things out. I put one shaking foot after another and concentrate on getting my body to act against what I really want to do - fall down and never get up again. The castle is tipping from side to side. Or is it just me? I stagger and fall down a set of spiralling stone staircases before entering the bed chambers. At last! I collapse into the four poster bed. Tomorrow I will make plans and... I'm asleep.