Despair

Enrique felt as though he were in Hell—gun smoke, ashes, earthquakes, explosions.

It felt like a century had passed before the artillery fire finally ceased. He did not dare get up, because his trousers were already soaked through. He reached out and nudged the comrade from the same village beside him. "It's stopped. Don't lie there anymore."

There was no response.

When he realized something was wrong and called for the "doctor," he found black blood flowing from all seven of the man's orifices. He was already dead.

Enrique crouched there in a daze. It was only after the doctor stuffed a wad of chewing tobacco mixed with honey and licorice into his mouth that he felt alive again.

Once he came to his senses, he discovered that the passage leading up to the battery had been completely destroyed. If the walls and protective doors beneath the battery had not been deliberately reinforced, preventing the shell magazine from detonating in sympathy, they would already have reported to the underworld.

"This isn't the war I imagined."

Enrique muttered softly. In his vision of this battle, he would display the marksmanship he took such pride in, firing down from above and picking off invaders one by one, then becoming the sheriff of the village—or even Small Town—after the war.

"Not the war I imagined either."

Drem stuffed a cigarette into his mouth and let out a long breath.

He felt a profound sense of helplessness. He had once believed that after being elevated to knighthood and mastering the powerful combat techniques bestowed by the gods, he was no longer as weak as he had been in the struggles of the mortal world.

But the enemies he had faced before—fierce Cuman mercenaries, Turkic cavalrymen, Saracen Mamluks, Copt cavalry—even when they drew their bows