I've been fighting for a long time, since I was fifteen, so it's been twenty-three years. It used to be I could remember every confrontation almost perfectly. I don't know when it started happening exactly, but for the last few years I can't remember anything about the battles I've been in. As soon as I draw my sword I black out, and when I come to, I'm standing at the body of the last enemy to be slain. I've never truly been concerned about it, until now.
We were hired to drive away a group of orcs that had set up a village near but still not too near the roads and townships of the Kingdom of Dhowny. They had been raiding caravans, attacking small towns, and stealing livestock and food stores. The captain of our company of mercenaries had detailed our strategy before leading the assault. I had drawn my sword, and now? This is where I find myself.
I am standing over the dead body of an unarmored orc. His face will follow me, not the face of a seasoned fighter, angry or resolute in the face of a threat, but the face of a peasant or craftsman taking up a spear to defend his home from an unstoppable demon. That demon was me. This wasn't a heartless raider, or even a trained militiaman, this orc was just another person fighting to protect what was his.
He might have run away. I would have let him, I think, my head is still kind of fuzzy on the matter. There he must have stood though, spear in hand, facing down death, dying in the end. Why did I kill him, could have just wounded him, shown him that his little hope was no hope, and let him run off with the other non combatants. Instead, he's been methodically killed. Like many other spearmen before him, he couldn't stand before my blade.
What if I hadn't blacked out? I don't know if he would've backed down, but I would have given him the chance at least. What must have gone through his head, what did I do?
“Leo?”
I turn and see Archibald, one of our more seasoned fighters, “Are you okay, Leo? You've been acting pretty strange during combat lately. Was this guy a threat? Some of the warriors might have been out of armor when we attacked.”
“I must have been caught up in the heat of battle. Saw someone with a weapon and killed him,” I don't really know, but I really don't need the guys at camp thinking I'm crazy. Am I crazy?
We wrap up the operation as we always have. The captain gives out payment to survivors. No casualties this time, that's good. Not surprising since it was a low risk operation. We throw a small celebration in honor of our success. We eat and drink at a nearby tavern, some of us leave for further 'entertainment.'
I keep to myself except when one of the others comes to talk to me. I'm popular with everyone else in the company, they say I'm the best swordsman in the group. I've probably saved more than one of them from a grisly end. Some of them recall seeing me on the field, the only way I learn what I've done anymore. I hear one of them now across the room.
“I'm surprised Leo offed that one so readily. That dumb orc must have thought he was going to slow Leo down and save his wife and kids. Leo knows better than to go after the commonfolk but that guy had a fair enough spear and I guess Leo mistook him for a real fighter,”
Now I feel that much worse.
We wrap up, and I sleep for the night.
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