The valley floor was strewn with corpses, some piled into mounds where the fighting had been heaviest and others more isolated, their bodies pincushioned by arrows. One mound suddenly shifted, a man clad in chain mail tumbling towards its base, and a slender woman pulled herself from among the corpses. Beneath the blood coating her the woman had the bronzed skin of someone habitually outdoors, her blonde hair bound into a crude ponytail. Much of her youthful flesh was exposed, her tunic in rags, and the only armour she still wore were wrist and shin guards.
Eryn cast her gaze over the battlefield, searching for any other living soul. The infantry company she belonged to had been ordered to hold the valley, the main way into the Crater of Marbelph, against savage tribes led by Aldhelm Stonefist. Nothing but her was moving though and eventually she knelt, taking the swordbelt from around the waist of a barbarian and buckling it round her own.
With a last glance around Eryn carefully picked her way through the battlefield, placing her feet on the few patches of open ground she could find. The barbarians had clearly pushed deep into the company's ranks and both sides had fought to the very last, the last corpses Eryn encountering being a barbarian and a soldier locked together.
The valley finally widened, the crater's interior stretching out before her. She could see Hystone, her home, at its center, the city peaceful despite the blood shed defending it.
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