Carrick Draibais sheared through the enemy line. The Rusticos were tall, limber foes with clubs and a proliferation of archers. They fought well, in tight units. Their coordination was unparalleled. Usually they bunched up where Carrick approached— had there not been enough time for them to? Not enough men? The fighting that week had been brutal...

The land on both sides were the same: rocky bones, sloping upwards, covered by dirt, then blood, then other bones.

Glancing behind him, Carrick swore. He was cut off from his men. Sudden reinforcements had bulged into the gap. An arrow clipped past him, narrowly missing his ear. They were on all sides: the east, the north, the west. To the south was the ocean, gleaming and magnificent. Carrick looked at it for a long moment. He looked at the rich green hills lining the calm water, looked at the way the currents swirled, making little ripples and rivets which glimmered in the sun, and looked at the pale beach-- close enough that he could reach the carefree waves, if he ran.

Instead, he turned toward the battle.

The men of Comhar Ladir told each other later, as they tied white bands to their forearms, that it took one hundred arrows to take down the great Draibais. The women who tended the men proclaimed it was two hundred. Draibais’ personal woman said it took three hundred, and every one of them while his back was turned. It was this story that reached Bronah, Carrick’s wife, when a young man came to break the news. Those around her insisted that it was not three hundred arrows, but five hundred, and that Draibais had killed every archer in the army before dying.

As Bronah began to give birth to their only child, she held her sister’s hand tight and pictured all the white banners and dresses being made throughout the kingdom. She saw all the headbands and armbands being worn by soldiers, commanders, and even generals. She understood, suddenly, that white would become grey with blood and dirt, or age and poor treatment. Then she turned her attention to the coming baby.