• Prologue
    The winds whistled pass my ears, voices screaming at me to stop. I could hear them, familiar and foreign calling for the same thing. I felt their futile attempts to stop me, the swords that were plunged into my sides, the spears aimed at my heart and buried deep in my chest. I could see their rage and fear, tears swimming in their eyes. They were powerless to stop my wrath, but they tried anyway. In vain hopes they threw themselves into my path, sacrificing comrades, brothers, fathers, uncles. All of them fell before me and were crushed until there was no one left.
    When the winds died down, along with the screams and cries for help, I sank to the cool ground beneath me, breathing deeply of the stale smoke filled air. Drawing it deep into my body, until I became a part of it, and it a part of me. Then I released it on a heavy sigh watching as the limbs of the trees swayed in its wake. With every deep breath I cleansed the air, around me. Taking away the scent of blood and ashes that tainted it. Beneath me I could feel the pulse of the earth, the pure thump thump of nature running its course. It too was cleansed as my blood poured forth from the wound in my chest.
    I could feel none of my own pain, but the pain of the earth, the suffering of the warriors, all of it enveloped me. Encompassed in it, I buried deep inside myself, silent tears that never fell from my unblinking eyes splashed across my being, but nothing could wash away this taint. Nothing could clean the smear on my soul.
    Curled up in a ball, hiding deep within my inner self I knew that this moment, this very second, was when I would die. I would be born again, yes but I would never be the same. A part of me was dying, and even though my body would be reborn, that part of me would never return with it.
    So I lay there, wondering, even as my body began to sink into the earth. Even as my eyes slowly closed on the outside world, I lay there and wondered if I would be able to stop once my part was over.