Darahiel stood before the enormous pyre where the naked corpses of the last fallen soldiers had been recklessly piled and set on fire right after their surviving peers had stripped them of their scarce belongings and drawn lots to claim their weapons.
With his long fingers clutching his old lute and his eyes fixed on the macabre scene, the young bard incessantly hummed a melancholic tune that had been annoyingly ringing inside his head ever since he had arrived at that hellish place, along with the then numerous armies of war-avid men, only to be trapped in that narrow strip of land that had become the early grave of plenty western warriors so far.
Berantha and Karellhya were both proud mining kingdoms, which, unlike their Watomber rivals, had dedicated the entirety of their resources an
