Sunset

"There is a place where I can help you find your way home
But we will never see it...

I see you steal your last breath

I see someone who comes home alive

But it isn't you…"

...
...
...

Blood. Steel. The tortured metal sounds of a harsh collision.

...

He was so tired. His shoulder ached. He was so tired.

...

Zeld snarled, and Ryheric understood in that moment they were the same. They had both worked alongside orcs. They had both fought for everything they had. This was no different to Thebold, to Gazakh... Ryheric was just a rabid dog, he was no better than these men. One day he would need putting down.

He was nothing.

...

The fight before his clan had found Rockworth, the fight that kept Ryheric from attending, was fierce. He needed to get Winnie to look at his leg after postponing the inevitable. It was red and angry. She would worry about him again... He'd go soon.

...

But he didn't go.

... 

Why didn't he go? She was right there... She did try to warn him. 

... 

The screams of steel arced through his ears. His shoulder tore - strength versus strength - but he had needed so much rest, and had received so little. Always fight after fight after fight. His clan needed him.

They needed him.

...

One knee was on the ground. That was his own blade.. his own sword, touching his shoulder, pushed there by Zeld. His shoulder was like fire. His leg was like fire. His body was wrecked, pained and exhausted.

...

The axe cut him, exactly where Gazakh's axe had cut him. But his arm had survived the last time, through great permanent pain and scar, and a wound that would never be right again. But survival meant pain didn't matter.

... This time the axe went right through. He felt the sudden drop of weight. Luckily he had changed hands, a thing unheard of - his arm had pained him so. So much injury, so much wear and tear. The man as ruthless with his own body as he was with his foes.

He still had his sword .. in his left hand.. all was not lost.

But that right hand, no longer his, had already used the kukri Silver had given him to end Zeld.

He watched the man die, as more and more weight dropped from his body in a fraction of a second.

...

The ringing in his ears told him it was his own blood. So much of it, too much. He wasn't going to make it.

...

"Get out...! Go!"

Did he whisper it, or shout it? Maybe it didn't matter.

Winnie and Eirik knew what to do.

They would all die if they stayed. He couldn't survive this fight. But he could buy them time to get out.

... 

His ears rang. He saw iron gates behind his eyes, and a noose.. it had been so long since he'd seen that. 

He saw dancing by the fire, so many times. He saw his first lute burn. He saw eyes, and smiles, and tears of everyone he cared about.

...

Suddenly a horse came. And a wild Rohirrim girl, so wild.. wielding an axe far too big for her. He'd seen that axe somewhere before.

Stars she was wild. Screaming like a banshee. That grey mare galloping under the Eorling's thighs like nothing would stop her. Maybe her hooves would be his end.

... Zeld's blood was already on Ryheric's hands though and with the last of his strength, he twisted Silver's kukri through him to ensure he would never trouble Sicarra again.

He realised who that wild girl was. In that last moment, he realised everything. And he murmured in unfinished bemusement just as he fell to one side, knowing only that she shouldn't be here.

She needed to get out. 

Yet there she was, the last thing he saw. Fierce, and frightened, and ridiculous and beautiful. The one who had started it all.

"Winnie."

She had come back to make sure he didn't die alone.