He wasn’t sure what hurt more.

The sight of his sons lying on the ground next to him, or the dagger
in his side. This was the end. He was sure of that. Lymeria was shattered into a million pieces on the
rocks next to him. The ancestral sword of his house, forged thousands of years ago. Destroyed by the
man now standing in front of him.
That man was more kingly than any other ruler Delemer had ever encountered. His flowing cloak
was unstained by the blood and dirt that seemed to find itself in every chink of armor or broken
gauntlet. His skin was a calming darkness, uncut and tranquil. Something didn’t fit, however. His eyes
were a milky blue. Ones you would see on the shores of the Shimmering Sea, laughing as salt sprayed
in his hair, not on a the face of a man who had killed thousands.
Suddenly, he was somewhere a thousand miles away. Delemer knew it wasn’t real, but that didn’t
stop him from yelling out. He saw his family. His home. His brothers. His sons. Would he ever get back
to them? No. That was a summer dream, for he was at the edge of the world. His sons were dead. His
wife was alone, awaiting a raven that would never arrive. And as suddenly as he had entered this
hallucination, he was out of it.
As Delemer began coughing up blood, the man began to speak, with a voice as smooth as a pebble
turned by a stream. “All of this. All of this violence. And you still have lost.” A sudden force shook his
body. Delemer was raised up and his head was turned around. He saw the burning wastes of Ozorodir,
the screaming wretch of Bravil, the dwarf, as he stood over his only son. The one he had just killed
with his own hands. Delemer’s hands began to shake. His mouth opened for a scream, but it never
escaped his lips. A jerk wrenched him to the ground.
A quick glance revealed Ithrandal, king of the elves, advancing across the plain. His hands
drenched in blood. His eyes aflame. Odd. Delemer almost laughed. Ithrandal was always the pacifist.
Nothing really made sense anymore. But there was no time to think. With a wave of the man’s hands,
the ground shook and began to fissure. Ithrandal’s voice called out, a distortion of what it once was. A
voice from hell. “Irendil.” The earth became cold to the touch. “It’s over.”
Irendil laughed. A chilling, heartless, deadly laugh. He steadied himself against the earth before
reaching out his hand. Lymeria’s thousand shards ignited and flew into his hand, born again. The mages
charged each other, casting a deafening silence upon the battlefield. They clashed, then broke apart,
their swords flicking like the wings of a hummingbird. As Ithrandal began to press the attack, Irendil
dead eyes lit up. Before Delemer could shout out, the sword was through Ithrandal’s armor.
With a single stroke of his blade, Irendil whipped Lymeria out of Ithrandal’s seizing body and
shoved into a waiting scabbard. As Irendil kneeled down to watch his former king’s last breath, the
earth split in two. Ithrandal’s eyes were now a glowing white, his mail a shining beacon. He began to
call out in long-forgotten tongues and the sky began to swirl. A deafening noise swept the plain and
Irendil was forced to the ground by an unseen power. As he watched, Delemer felt strength in his arms
once more, and he wrenched himself up.
Grabbing a blade from his son’s cold hand, he began to trudge across the sodden ground towards
the wizards. It was a slow walk. Each step sent flashes of pain up his legs, but Delemer knew what he
had to do. He stood with a strange resentment in his eyes as he reached Irendil’s paralyzed body.
Without a word, Delemer flashed the blade up across the defeated mage’s throat. As he began to choke
on his own blood, Irendil looked around one last time. They didn’t know it yet, but this wasn’t the end.