The Elflord

The Elflord raised his tired visage to survey, once again, the smoking ruins of the battlefield. The carnage had not changed. Before him lay what would become known as The Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Burning war wagons lay atop the smoldering bodies of brave soldiers for both sides of this senseless conflict. Moaning and pleas for swift mercy drifted across the hillside and mingled with the stench of rapidly decaying flesh. The smoke and heat of the waning day and recent battle oppressed the senses, stinging the eyes and burning the throat.

Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and down his sides under the heavy battle raiment. Occasionally he was nearly blinded until he could wipe at his eyes with the back of his arm. Or were these tears for the brave and dear friends he saw fall in battle this day?

A low rumbling groan of anger and anguish rose from the caverns of his heavily muscled chest and grew to a thunderous roar that echoed across the valley. "Nooooooooo!", repeating again and again and again until it faded into the untroubled and still green distance.

Barth, the stable boy, lay his hand on the Elflord's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. But it was impatiently shrugged off. No slight was intended the ragged lad, who was now one of the few from either side still standing, and none was taken. For how can one so humble as a stable boy ever take offence from one so noble as the Elflord?

"M'lord." he mumbled as he bowed slightly and backed away a pace or two.

But M'lord's mind was elsewhere. At the Castle of Zorn. With the Lady Rehgon, his betrothed. How would he tell her of her brother's death? How could he reign without his best friend at his side? Once again he used his shirt-sleeve to wipe the stinging moisture from his eyes.

"Why?" he questioned no one in particular. "How could this horrible thing come to pass?"

Where was the sense or purpose of all the pain and death before him? What victory had been won today? What lesson had been learned?

The unicorns were all gone - and with them the magic.

He turned angrily from his reverie and shouted to Davees, an able bodied man and former herdsman, "Form a unit, man! Bandage those who will survive and kill the rest."