"Brace!" Marc roared, his voice cracking with sheer volume. "The Roman cavalry broke the skirmish! They are heading straight for the center! PIKES!"
We barely had time to lower the heavy wooden poles. The concentrated weight of the Imperial cavalry slammed into the center of the Falling Stars like a falling mountain.
The sheer force of the impact shattered our shield wall instantly. The discipline evaporated into absolute, screaming chaos. It was every man for himself. Blood and gore sprayed across my face as the soldiers I had fought beside moments ago were trampled into unrecognizable paste beneath the iron-shod hooves of the Roman warhorses. Men broke and ran, only to be run down and slaughtered from behind.
I braced my boots in the mud, preparing to face the horsemen, but the Roman cavalry didn't stay to butcher us. They viciously wheeled their mounts, circling around our shattered remnants to punch another hole into the vulnerable eastern flank.
"Reform the lines!" Marc bellowed, frantically waving his broadsword. "Get back in formation!"
It was entirely useless. The Roman infantry, seeing our shattered center, began a relentless, synchronized march directly toward us.
Marc looked at the approaching wall of red shields, then looked at the broken, fleeing remnants of his company. His face twisted into a mask of pure, fatalistic fury. He raised his massive broadsword high.
"To hell with it!" the giant roared. I heard his distant voice "Gloria!..." as he charged headlong into the Roman line, his massive blade crashing against their shields like thunder. I barely had a second to process this before the sheer weight of the enemy blocked my sight.
There was no formation left. No shield wall to hide behind. The open field descended into a series of brutal, isolated brawls.
A Roman legionary lunged at me. I parried his short sword, stepping inside his guard to open his throat. Another took his place instantly. I abandoned all the elegant stances of King's Landing. This was a desperate, thrashing struggle for survival in the deep mud. I hacked, slashed, and grappled. I took a shallow cut to my thigh, a glancing blow off my shoulder plate, and a vicious punch to my jaw that rattled my skull. I dragged a Roman down into the muck and drove a dagger through his eye when my sword arm was pinned.
I killed seven men. Or perhaps ten. Time lost all meaning.
My lungs burned like a furnace. Every muscle in my body screamed in absolute agony. I stumbled backward, desperately trying to draw a ragged breath.
A sellsword in the battered armor of the Falling Stars stepped in front of me, expertly deflecting a Roman spear thrust aimed at my chest. "Rejoin the pocket!" he yelled over his shoulder, gesturing to a small cluster of surviving mercenaries.
"My thanks," I gasped, dragging myself upright to continue the fight.
We fought shoulder-to-shoulder for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, the immediate press of Roman soldiers thinned out, leaving a brief, eerie pocket of space surrounded by corpses.
I dropped to one knee, using Dark Sister to prop myself up. I was entirely spent.
I heard the squelch of boots in the mud. I looked up to see the very same sellsword who had saved my life looming over me. He glanced around, noting the lack of immediate enemies, before his eyes dropped to the priceless Valyrian steel in my trembling hand.
"I shall take it off your hands Prince." His face hardened into a mask of pure greed. He raised his bloodied sword, fully intending to cleave my skull in two.
Trust no one implicitly. Marc's warning echoed mockingly in my mind.
I tried to lift Dark Sister to parry the blow, but my arms flatly refused to obey. They were dead weight. I stared at the descending blade, a cold, bitter realization washing over me. The vultures circled the sky above me. Death was finally here, and I was going to die in the mud at the hands of a nameless, greedy peasant.
Thwack.
The sellsword's eyes rolled into the back of his head. A black-fletched arrow sprouted suddenly from the side of his neck. He collapsed face-first into the muck, dead before he hit the ground.
I blinked through the haze of exhaustion, looking past his corpse.
A soldier in a dented iron half-helm was sprinting wildly toward me through the carnage. I tensed, anticipating another attack, but as the man slid to his knees beside me, he ripped the helm from his head.
It was Oro.
"I have you, m'lord," the boy panted, his face bruised and smeared with gore. He grabbed me under the arm, hauling my dead weight against his shoulder. "I will carry you to safety."
A cracked, bloody smile spread slowly across my face.
I tried to speak, but the edges of the battlefield began to blur and darken. The roar of the fighting faded into a distant, muffled hum, and I allowed the darkness to pull me under. The last sound I heard was of the horns blaring. All I felt in that moment was relief.