The seventh Creator

((Sorry for missing the update yesterday, I just had nothing to say. I still don't, really, so here is a couple pages from something I was working on a while ago.))

            “Retreat!” The booming voice was swallowed up by the sounds of battle. “Retreat!” A horn blasted, ringing over the field below. A second horn took up the call, and by the third, the blue clad men were pulling back, withdrawing from a battle that would have claimed each life. Horsemen surged ahead, passing foot soldiers and fallen comrades, leaving the slow and wounded to be hacked down as their enemy followed. As horses and men alike crested the hill and raced past the very man who had sounded the retreat, the attackers slowed, stopped and pulled back too.

            “Another skirmish.” A younger man spoke solemnly as he dismounted from his lathered horse. “They are getting bolder. This is the farthest we have encountered them in our territory. And yet, they never press us when we retreat.”

            “They don’t need to.” Lord Eiod growled and pointed to a map. Black spots marked the paper, like splattering of ink. Each spot marked an enemy camp. Red spots surrounded them, where skirmishes had been fought and lost. Blue spots, a symbol of a skirmish won, did not appear. “With each battle, they push us closer inward. They know that they don’t have to exhaust their own troops to defeat us. All it will take is time.”

            “Then don’t retreat.” Tanlar, son of Eiod insisted as he slumped down in one of the fold up chairs brought along for the commanders. A servant approached to tend to a wound on his arm. “Bring in the reserves. We can push them back.”

            “At what cost? We will lose half our men, and they will still have each camp to call upon. That is a lost limb compared to a minor scratch.” Eiod absently rubbed at his stump of a hand, lost many years ago while fighting in a distant war.

            “And huddling behind a shrinking line will make a difference? We must- Careful!” He cut himself off to snap at the servant, who had pulled out a sharp of iron from the wound. “That is an arm, not a slab of meat!”

            “Tanlar, would you rather have it chopped off?” His father roared. The servant flinched, but at a gesture from her lord, pulled out a needle to begin stitching the wound up. Tanlar tried to hide his winces every time the needle pierced his skin.

            “Perhaps you were not made for war.” Eiod observed, watching his son who flinch before a needle but met a sword without as much as a blink. “You love the fight too much. One day you will not notice the blade as it is rammed into your chest. A blood lust is only useful when all hope is gone.”

            “I do not fall into a blood lust, father.” Tanlar replied bitterly. “I fight with all the strength I have. Men die because of lack of skill, not from the rush of battle.”

            “And yet, you only feel your wounds now. You feel nothing while you’re down there. A scratch may be a scratch, but receive a hundred without notice and you will bleed to death before a blade can deal a fatal blow.”

Tanlar stared stubbornly at his father until the servant snipped the thread, and without a word he was back on his feet, stalking away to tend to his horse.

            “My lord… We found something odd while tending to the wounded.” One of the doctors said as Eiod walked through the make shift hospital. Many men would die from their wounds; many others would be unable to fight again.

            “It was an arrow… There was a message attached.” Eiod froze and turned to face the doctor. In his hand was a bloodied piece of paper. “The ink is smeared by the blood, but it seems to be a message from Tasrin…”

            Eiod snatched the paper up and unrolled it. Black in ran with the red blood, making reading it near impossible. A wax seal near the bottom marked it as a message from Tasrin.

            “Send a group of healthy men down to the field, look for scrolls or pieces of paper.” He ordered to one of the commanders, who had been talking to a man not far away. He looked up in confusion, but did not question his lord’s order. Within minutes there were two dozen mounted men riding down into battle field. With both armies now evacuated the area, ravens and other carrion birds had begun to circle in the sky.

            “We found twelve in total.” The commander reported once the scrolls were placed upon the map table. Most were soaked in blood, and one was torn into several pieces. Two were legible still.

            Lord Eiod, it read, You have fought valiantly, but you must know by now that you have no hope. I wish for not only your land, but also your people. Therefore, I hope we can end this war, and therefore save the lives of many. I offer a truce. I will call off all attacks and keep part of my army in your land only for protection and policing, in exchange for the hand of your daughter in marriage.

            Eiod stopped reading there, and with a curse, tore the paper in half. It was not the offer that angered him, but the knowledge that he had no choice but to accept.

            “My Lord, orders?” The commander asked hesitantly.

            “Pull back, Commander Lap.” Eiod sighed. “Back to the keep.” Lap nodded before turning to shout orders. Soldiers well enough to work leaped to attention and began pulling tents down.

            “The army is getting small.” Eiod murmured, drawing Lap’s attention back to him. “We must start recruiting again.”

            “My lord, the only men left to recruit are too young, too old, or crippled. Even they are hard pressed to bring in the harvest without the support of their fathers or sons.”