I had always wondered what it felt like to die.
There was this exercise we did back in Rohan. We made two groups, 50 men each. We would line up ten deep with body-length wicker shields braced upon the earth and they would hit us, the other team, coming across the flat in line of battle, eight deep, at a walk, then a pace, then a trot and finally a dead run. The shock of their interleaved shields was meant to knock the breath out of you, and it did. It was like being hit by a mountain. Your knees, no matter how braced you held them, buckled like saplings before an earthslide; in an instant all courage fled our hearts; we were rooted up like dried stalks before the ploughman's blade.
That was how it felt to die. The weapon which slew me was a spear, driven in beneath the plexus of the ribcage. But the sensation was not what one would have anticipated, not being pierced but rather slammed, just like in that exercise.
I had imagined that the dead would be detached. That they would look upon life with the eyes of objective wisdom. But the experience proved the opposite. Emotion ruled. It seemed nothing remained but emotion. My heart ached and broke as never it could on earth. Loss encompassed me with a searing, all-mastering pain. I saw my family, my parents, my sisters, all the people I loved. I saw all my friends, all my childhood friends. People I loved even when I was dying.
Away they flew. Away I flew from them.
I could see more Rohirrim falling down, wounded. I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them.
That state which we call life was over.
I was dead.
A cry which was not a cry but only the multiplied pain of the warriors' hearts, all feeling what I, too, felt, rent the baleful scene with unspeakable pathos.
I couldn't hear anything, or see anything anymore. And then I saw a light, that was becoming brighter and brighter, until it was so bright I couldn't see anymore. I realized it was the sun. I was back.
I heard voices.
I was still alive.
