SOREN
The blood was already on my hands before I truly understood what I was cutting through.
It was warm, a stark, steaming contrast to the biting gale of the Northern Reaches, and it coated my palms in a slick, familiar glove. I didn't remember the strike.
I only remembered the resistance of the mail, the give of the leather, and the sudden, heavy silence of the man who had been my own outrider three hours ago.
The sound of the field was wrong. It wasn't the rhythmic, thunderous pulse of an organized clash. There were no lines, no banners held high to mark the boundary between us and them. Instead, it was the sound of a war that had turned inward and begun to eat its own heart.
Men were screaming at men who wore the exact same colors. They were shouting the same words, back and forth, a mirror image of frantic desperation.
"Traitor!"
"Stand down, he's turned!"
"Kill him before he kills you!"
