Eternity rang out. That was the last glimpse of the mortal realm that Kursak was allowed. Infinity condensed into a single moment. He felt the bite of steel as it dug into his neck. He felt the flickerings of fear that came with it. More than anything though, what he felt was an overwhelming disappointment.
If he had time to curse, there was only one word that he would have said. 'Damn.' It would have fallen from his lips in a dark lamentation, as his life passed into significance. As his dreams that had once seemed so solid and certain became sand, and then water, and then air, before disappearing entirely into the void.
Acceptance was the emotion his body searched for, as it felt its death, but it was only fear that returned. Kursak believed in his Gods. But more than anything, he believed in himself. Now, as he lost complete control, the stability of his mind shattered.
The blade passed into his throat. He could no longer speak. He could feel the pain, but he welcomed it. He feared what lay beyond the pain now. The darkness that had begun to seep in at the corners of his vision.
The eyes that looked at him, he feared them too. They demanded something of him, even as his life left him. He wondered what that demand was. He puzzled over it, with the last shred of consciousness that he had.
It was only as his knees buckled, and he felt the blade finally meet his spine that Kursak thought he understood. Those eyes, that boy, with a sudden speed of gravity as he understood their intent, his knees slammed into the ground, for that was what the boy had asked of him – it had demanded that he kneel.
Kursak's head separated from his shoulders, and spun through the air. With all the strength of the last few embers of a dying fire, Kursak's consciousness raged on, whilst it still could. His lips twisted in a maddened smile. He would have laughed if he could have.
A moment ago, he thought he'd made a mistake, that he should have noted that boys coming.
And now, as his eternity ended, he realized his mistake had begun long before that. It began the very moment that he crossed the mountains. He'd unknowingly wandered into another man's destiny.
He dared to turn his head. The boy had finished his work already. Nearly twenty corpses were piled up in the area. The soldiers shouted his name with glee, as they raised their spears, as they were covered as much in blood as he.
"MOUNTAIN SLAYER!"
"MOUNTAIN SLAYER!"
They roared.
Tolsey found himself roaring with them, maniacally. Finally, after all the time spent on a battlefield, he felt what it was to be a soldier, well and truly. To be able to die at a single moment. To know one's vulnerabilities so well, to acknowledge just how sudden death would come, and to men even mightier than he... To know all that, and yet to fight anyway. It felt like a fire in his belly.
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Something that sought to melt the ice of mortality, and to claim glory in that single moment for all eternity.
Beam listened to their shouts. His fingers on his sword didn't feel like his. Since the battle had started a tension pervaded the air, one that distorted his senses. He hadn't felt this much bloodlust before. This great swell of emotions. Nor had he felt the aura of so many mighty men – it was only monsters he was used to.
Those, and the aura of his master.
The deep fatigue that he had built up through the day augmented his limbs and gave them a numbness. A thick darkness had begun to creep across his vision. With every new dead body that fell, it came on more thickly.