They came careening up the hill, the clinking and jingling of their chain armor filling the countryside with the dissonance of dozens of tuneless wind chimes in a steady breeze – the same steady breeze that caused the waist-tall field grass to undulate ahead of the marching men. The small band of soldiers left a trail of trampled grass in their wake; grass bent and broken by their heavy footfalls. Behind them stretched a path of desolated foliage, as if flattened by an orgy of rutting cattle.

The Captain raised his hand and the company halted at the crest of the hill. The men stood overlooking a long, steady slope, falling away beneath them and ending in a thicket of trees. To their left, an open plain that was a sea of grass; slowly rippling, pushed and pulled by the wind and moving as if a living organism. To their right, the thin stand of trees thickened into a proper forest, looming ominously along their right flank. The sun would soon be setting, dropping down as if swallowed up by the forest. Already, the angle of the sun made it difficult to see anything in the shadows beneath the trees.

“They are down there,” The Captain said, to no one in particular. “They are camping among those trees.”

The Sergeant studied the lay of the land as the other men shifted nervously. They were not comfortable with inaction. They were hot and heavy-burdened with their weapons and their armor, something each of them had trouble ignoring when they were forced to stand still. The Sergeant wiped his brow in an attempt to keep the sweat from stinging his eyes. It was of little use. His eyes were already watering, forcing him to squint and strain to attempt to see beyond the dark borders of the forest.

One of the duties of The Sergeant was to assess the battlefield and offer his advice regarding strategy: advice which was rarely heard, let alone headed. True enough, it appeared that the enemy was encamped at the bottom of the hill. There was a thin wisp of smoke rising up through the trees, and the glow of several campfires could be seen even from this distance. But there was no movement, no sound. Looking at the scene before him, The Sergeant knew that coming down from their hill-top perch would make the group vulnerable. There was no cover for the men between where they stood and the tree line below.

“On my command,” stated The Captain, calling his men to attention. The Sergeant glanced at his leader, who was focused – and singularly so – on the thin tree line ahead, drawn like a moth to the camp fires burning there. At his word, the other soldiers unsheathed their swords and checked their grip on their shields, readying themselves for a frontal assault.

As they made final preparations, the harsh sunlight was temporarily filtered by a high and lonely cloud. The Sargent's attention was drawn to movement in the forest to his right. He squinted through his watery eyes, and thought he saw shadowy figures moving among the trees, but as he attempted to focus on them, the lone cloud passed and the sun shone with its full intensity, plunging the woods back into deep darkness.

The Captain raised his sword, “Ready.”

“Captain,” The Sergeant offered meekly. “Perhaps we should wait and...”

His warning was cut short by the order to charge which The Captain bellowed. Down the hill the men plunged, The Sergeant just a half-step behind. The hill was steeper than it appeared and the ground was littered with rocks – rocks small enough to be hidden by the tall grass, yet big enough to pose a hazard for men running down hill in heavy chain armor. Several of the soldiers tripped and fell, tumbling in a frenzied manner down the hill.

Startled and stunned, the soldier to The Sergeant's right tried to stand after his fall, but was unable to fully regain his balance, and he fell sideways. The Sergeant stooped to help the man to his feet and glanced toward the right, just as a volley of arrows was launched in their direction. He covered himself with his shield - and attempted to cover the fellow he was aiding - but he did not have time to yell out a warning to the others before hundreds of arrows rained silently from the deep blue sky. For a moment there was near silence. Then the cries of the struck soldiers filled the hillside and echoed through the forest below.