1 Prologue

Ducking into a low crouch to avoid the wide sweep of an enemy soldier's sword, I simply thrust my own blade straight ahead and into the lightly armored area inside their thigh to bring them down to my level. A second thrust aimed only a little higher than the first punctured their throat, filling their windpipe and lungs with blood to end the fight. Even after one fell, there were many more to take his place.

A man off to my right was run through on the end of a spear, a women right beside me chopped their hefty ax down into an unguarded enemy's back, and the next man I found myself facing was hiding behind a tall tower shield. Their short pike was thrusting rapidly and repeatedly at my chest, stomach, and face, but all I needed was to hold up my sword and flick my wrist left or right to swat their light weapon away.

Before I even had the chance to strike back, a man pushed forward from behind me and shouldered into the shield before swinging their square headed hammer up into the shocked soldier's chin to shatter their face.

A brief splash of teeth and blood told me it was time to find the next target. As far as the eye could see was a sea of bodies pushing forward against our front lines. The scenes laid out before me were a painting of gore and misery, a symphony of cheers and screams, a perfect depiction of everything ugly and glorious in humanity.

This was war.

Thunder echoed as explosions of fire and lightning shook the world on either side, the temperature of the battlefield dropped as tens of thousands of arrows filled the sky and blotted out the sun, and bile rose up in my throat as I watched bodies flying and falling by the hundreds in every direction. A single arrow found its home in the top of my shoulder, punching through the hardened leather under the spaced splints of steel making up my upper armor. The sudden shock of pain was so great that my vision blurred, leading me to be struck low in the side by an enemy spear.

All I could do was turn away from the broad spearhead, letting it pull itself out of my flesh and armor before backhand swinging my sword wildly. My attack missed but the enemy soldier still had to withdraw their spear for another attack, giving me plenty of time to turn back to the soldier and slash both in and upward. My sword struck the shaft of their spear and swept down, cleaving through the fingers and hands so that they dropped their weapon.

A second backhand sweep of my sword chopped into the side of the man's head, cleaving through their leather helm so that it was pushed into their skull. Another soldier fearlessly stepped forward to replace them, wielding a large ax raised overhead in both hands. Between the stab in my side and arrow in my shoulder, turning sideways and stepping back from the downward chop of their ax was almost all that I could manage.

I could not even retaliate as the man pulled his ax back with one hand, letting the handle slide through the other so that it supported the double-sided head in preparation for the next swing. Instead I lunged forward to close the distance and give him as little room to use his giant weapon as possible. Then I made more room for myself by ramming the elbow of my sword arm up into the side of the soldier's neck.

As they stumbled back from the jarring blow, I straighten out my arm and twisted my body into yet another backhand swing that slashed cleanly across the man's chest and through their soft woven leather armor. The wound was enough to stagger the man once again but too shallow to cripple them, leaving me no choice but to push forward once again and feint a kick. The enemy sidestepped away from the fake kick and raised their ax to strike, but they had already stepped into the path of my suddenly thrust sword.

Even though my sword sank halfway up the blade into the man's ribs, their ax still came down even though it lacked the strength of an actual swing.

Too surprised and too close to evade the attack, I simply leaned as best as I could and accepted the attack on my already wounded left arm. The splints of steel running down my arm to my elbow bent slightly under the weight of the ax but still saved me from taking the blade. Instead, my shoulder bearing the arrow was pulled out of socket by the force of the blow.

My vision once again blurred and I felt weak in the knees, causing me to stumble. Not for the first time, I found myself questioning how I ended up in this position. The answer came as quickly as an enemy's sword thrusting into my gut, I was Guild mercenary who needed money and ended up contracted by the empire to quell a rebelling kingdom.

I found my life flashing before my eyes as the sword was ripped out of me, taking with it the last of my strength so that I fell to my knees. I saw myself as a younger man fighting myriad beasts for money and trophies, then as an older teen joining the Guild after the spending years training my body since the loss of my family, and finally I saw myself as a child watching his hometown burn to the ground.

As these scenes played out before my mind's eye, another volley of arrows filled the sky and brought a cool shade to the battlefield.

There were many memories I was proud of, duels and battles I had fought and won, as well as memories that shamed me- the loss of friends and loved ones I could have saved. Among them were memories that brought a smile to my face and tears to my eyes even as I looked up at the arrows beginning to fall from the sky. Regrets and remorse over everything I could have done differently passed through my thoughts as my eyes picked out a single falling arrow.

This arrow weighed down on me like the thoughts and feelings in my heart. Just like my thoughts and feelings the arrow's flight was fleeting, lasting only a few moments before burying itself into my exposed throat. I did not even feel the pain, but I could feel the flow of blood rushing both out of me and down into my chest.

Then, as everything started to turn dark, I slumped forward to the ground and was gone.

Somehow, like falling asleep, as soon as the world became a dark nothingness my eyes opened as if waking up from a nap. I found myself lying in a simple bed of a straw mattress on a wooden frame inside a small loft bedroom. The room smelled of aged oaken wood and an open round window above my bed allowed a cool breeze to blow in, carrying with it the smells of various herbs and animals.

Something about the smell of the air was both terrifyingly foreign and reassuringly familiar at the same time, bringing a confused tightness to my chest that made it hard for me to breathe. I slowly sat up and looked around to get my bearings, wondering what became of the battle I had just fought and died in. All I found was vaguely familiar furnishings and the view of a small farm of several acres outside the window.

Looking out over pastures of small farm animals broken up by strips of land on which various colorful plants grew, I slowly realized what the strange feeling in my chest was. My body had realized long before I did where I had woken up, this was my childhood home. Raising my hands to rub my eyes as if I could clear this obvious illusion away, I suddenly stop and actually LOOK at my hands in front of my face.

My hands were tiny compared to the ones that had clutched a sword just minutes ago, only a third of their previous size.

Looking down at the rest of myself, I found that I had shrunk by at least two feet and lost over a hundred pounds in weight. My arms were shorter and skinnier than when I died, my bare feet and toes were tiny, and my once bald head now had thick black hair that just barely reached my eyes.

I pinched myself as hard as I could to see if I was dreaming and felt tears well up in the corners of my eyes from the sharp pain. I was not dreaming, I was wide awake despite how impossible it should have been for me to even be alive right now. Not only was I alive, I was also a small child of probably no more than six or seven years old.