"Benaiah, you should not go on the first assault into the city. It's too dangerous. An arrow may strike you."
I smiled and turned to look at Jarken, "Where my men go, so do I."
Jarken sighed heavily, but remained silent. I turned forward once more. The ramps were getting close. A Knight stepped close to Phalon and handed my helmet up to me.
I felt an eagerness rise up in me as the action of the coming battle drew close. Win this battle and then I would see my family. My beautiful wife's face came into view, along with that of my daughter, and for a moment they were all I saw in place of the burning city.
"Sir, the ramps are almost there!"
I snapped out of my fantasy and became once again the warrior leader of a host of several thousand men devoted as I was to the cause of justice. I took in the position of the ramps and then I urged Phalon out to skirt along the side of the front ranks of double pressed cavalry behind me.
The burning fires of the city glinted dully off their armor even as a slight drizzle of rain began to fall to our favor. The army was ready.
"Men, you know what is before us. A city full of hybrids! Men and women who have forsaken the bloodlines of their ancestors and combined themselves with the seed of the fallen ones! They are an abomination before El Elyon and if they were allowed to remain they would continue to corrupt the bloodline of our kind! They make war with us out of eternal hatred, but now is the time to give them their eternal reward which they so richly deserve! Not one of them is to be left alive! Are my orders clear?"
"Yes sir!!!" bellowed back the host before me.
"Then to war!!!" I yelled, as I wheeled Phalon toward the city of giants. The Kingdom of Sapan had ever been at war with the Kingdom of Smirnaz. The giants of Sapan had often feasted on the flesh of the people of my birth and although there were many wars between the two kingdoms, never had the Kingdom of Smirnaz claimed a victory before this last war that had gone on for two years now.
This was the last city of giants left in Sapan. The reclusive giants that called these high peaks home would soon be no more.
I had lost good men in this war and I would lose more tonight, but our cause was righteous and the need for victory was great. The other Kingdomer Nations had never come to the aid of the poorest of the seven kingdoms, but now, after this fight, the Kingdom of Smirnaz would be at peace on all its borders, while the rest of the world toward the south and west fell apart as the tide of evil rose worldwide. It was that same evil we fought tonight, only we would win where other Kingdomer Nations were failing.