Basil could feel the rhythmic thrum of the drums deep in his marrow, the same pulsing heartbeat that seemed to keep the entire army alive. All around him, the air was a chaotic web of sound: the thunder of hooves as messengers tore through the mud, their faces masks of sweat and grit, each carrying a frantic report or a cold command that would see soldiers die.
And at the center of this hurricane of iron stood his father.
He appeared a statue of dark steel, a man commanding a world he could not truly see from the low ground of the riverbank. Basil looked at the sea of armored backs surrounding them and felt a suffocating sense of blindness. The sounds of the slaughter echoed from the front, a distant, metallic grinding of men killing one another, but from his vantage, it was only a roar of disconnected noise.
