The grass was greener that year then any I remember since, summer was almost at an end, but seemed to be clinging to life just long enough for us to enjoy ourselves once more. The sky was painted a brilliant blue lacking cloud so that the sun was so bright and hot I thought I might roast. The hills were long and low and made by God for children to run over. And run we did. Little Kaylin, grey, homespun shift floating up behind her, auburn hair catching the sunlight and glinting gold, bare feet impervious to any stick or stone beneath them, her brothers and playmates clamoring around her and trying to keep up with her tireless eight-year-old legs. She was coming to catch a glimpse of her father who rode in from some battle with an allied king and his enemies, distant, and non-existent in the minds of simple children. We had no grasp of the implications of the battles our fathers fought over the sea or over the land. Only that our mothers sometimes cried at night, and lit candles in the windows. I was with Kaylin, one of her entourage, just another eleven year old enjoying my youth and our summer. I too went to see my father; he had ridden out months ago with the rest of the cavalry, seven hundred men mounted on the fastest horses in Arda.
"Look, they come!" Bryant pointed out over the rolling hills to where we could see our cavalry coming home to their lord. "They are so few!" Bryant exclaimed and his young face creased in puzzlement. Pushing the unruly red hair out of his eyes, he looked to me and I shrugged. Not understanding yet. We continued our running, catching up to Kaylin and the others.
The picture of those men coming home through the hills would stick in my mind all my life. Where seven hundred had ridden out less than a third of that came home. When they rode out the sound of their horses had been like the rolling of thunder, the flash of armor in the sunlight like lightning, and the fervor in their voices a storm to be contended with. The ones left were the picture of misery and triumph all at the same time, what a price they had paid for victory! They rode now with their mail and armor hanging from their mounts, men came baring litters before them, carrying the wounded. There was no singing, no gold glinted in the afternoon sunlight, there was only the pounding of their horses hoofs, (somewhat slower than I remembered and less ear shattering). And truly all men may appear like gods when they go out, but it is the slinking shadows of sacrifice and too much knowledge that come home to their wives and lay down in the empty beds of cares and roses.
We lived in a villa owned by our lord Castius our magistrate and perhaps more like our king. He was aging now and had not ridden out with his men, sending instead his eldest son Tantris scarcely older than my own brother Emlyn who was but sixteen. Now, as the cavalry rode home to us I wondered if Tantris still lived, a good, fair man he was, and the whole of the Modichii would be loath to loose him as our future magistrate. Both my father and my two eldest brothers had also ridden out with him, and I wondered over them as well. We children gathered ourselves on a tall hill where we could see our soldiers and we stood for an age before we began to disperse in all different directions. Our parents would be angry if we were not inside the walls before the men came, so we must beat them back to the villa.
We ran again, and we were let inside through a door in the wall used by the servants. We would all be scolded for this if we were caught, and the excitement was almost stifling. I met Emlyn in the square awaiting the men and he gave me a good scolding as well. He was in that peculiar stage when a boy will try to seem perfect and much older than he is, trying to uphold all kinds of standards and rules that he himself has been breaking since he realized he could. But he promised not to tell mother of my gallivant and also that he would give that Kaylin a good tongue lashing as well. I laughed at that, Emlyn could not go near Kaylin and we both were well aware of it.
Our mother was a small, round woman who had lost her shape somewhere between her third and fourth child. She wore a grey shift and an apron almost always hung at her waist. She had the kind of eyes that draw you into their warmth and never let you go. She believed strongly in baking and getting ones hands dirty. I could never dispute her simple wisdom, why would I? Coming across the square now, dodging between the people anxious to see their loved ones, she finally huffed and puffed her way to our sides, and I clutched her skirts excitedly.
"Their coming Mum, their coming!" sure enough, within minutes the gates were thrown open and our men clamored into the square. We waited for about fifteen minutes, watching the fevered embraces of men and their wives, men and their mothers. I remember seeing all kinds of women I knew collapsing and weeping, clutching at their lovers limp bodies as they were brought in on the litters. My mother was getting agitated now, she rocked up and down on the balls of her feet and clutched my hand like she would crush it. Eventually she stopped one of my older brothers friends and asked him,
"Have you seen Owain? Adriyel? My husband?"
"I'm sorry," he answered distractedly, "I haven't." My mother let go of me and wrung her hands together, she tried to stop another man but he was distracted as well by his own loved ones and when she asked the same question he didn't answer. She tried repeatedly but many would not look her in the eye, or were to preoccupied from the warm embraces they were seeking.
"Have you seen my sons?" she asked again and again but nothing, until she stopped asking individuals and started speaking to the crowds.
"HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SONS? My boys, where are my boys, Aeron, HAS ANYONE SEEN Aeron?" finally a friend of my fathers stopped and took my mothers hand in his and whispered.
"Follow me." My mother, brother and I all followed him; an old soldier like my father, his name was Hyfedd. He led us to the gates, where the badly wounded had been laid out on stretchers. He took us to the last litter and my mother turned away for a moment.
"He's the only one left." Hyfedd whispered. "I'm sorry."
Gathering herself, my mother swallowed hard and then stepped stiffly over to my brother's side.
"Adriyel, can you hear me child."
Adriyel was younger than Owain had been, barley nineteen. He was pale against the linen of his bandages, that swaddled his chest and were colored in places red by his seeping blood, he looked so strange lying there that I thought for a moment he must be pretending. His face was so white, his hair was so dark, and his boots were gone, his bare feet hanging off the stretcher. I wanted to shake him awake, force him to get up; mother looked so afraid and almost as white as he did. 'Your causing her pain you great oaf.' I thought to myself, but there was logic in the back of my mind that told me my brother was not pretending. That my Father and Owain were dead, that soon Adriyel would also fallow. He stirred slightly at my mother's voice and I sighed inwardly. 'Finally brother, your game has gone on long enough." Nevertheless, my mother grasped his hand and knelt next to him, and she bent over him and kissed his forehead. Beside me, Emlyn was shaking terribly and I wanted to steady him with my hand, wanted to reassure him that our brother was again up to mischief. However, all mischief seemed to have fled him and as he grasped my mothers hand tears began to flow down his face mingling with the dirt and his blood that looked so stark against his skin.
He was trying to say something but I could not hear. My mother trembled and Hyfedd steadied her with one of his great calloused hands, Adriyel's lips showed the blood on them plainly as he spoke and when he saw me he motioned my brother and I over. Hyfedd lifted my stricken mother to her feet and led her a few feet away from us to give us some time with our older sibling.
I had always loved Adriyel the best of my brothers, he had soft grey eyes and dark lustrous hair that curled around his face and made him the center of attention when it came to woman. He was a poet at heart, not a warrior like Owain had been, soft where my oldest brother had been hard, gentle where others were rough. Nevertheless, he had dutifully learned the sword and the arrow like all the other boys, and this is where it had brought him, lying at my feet. Adriyel too, had always had a soft spot for me, or so I liked to think, I was more like him than my other brothers or father, I loved literature and lore, though I had barley began my studies with weapons I had proved to be fairly skilled with those as well. Adriyel alone had encouraged my dream of becoming a bard. My father said it was but a fancy, but Adriyel said it was a wonderful idea, and all I needed was the courage to go against the will of my father in this one thing, he said it would make me happy and in so doing, would make him happy.
"To many young men die on the sword," he had said one foggy night, when the stars had been bright and clear and he had been teaching me constellations. "Too many who have no love for it will kill by it, and die by it. What a cruel mistress for a man to keep!" I had not understood it when he said it, but now, with realization dawning swiftly on me, I did.
I knelt beside my brother and took his hand as mother had. I was so young at eleven, but it seemed to me then that as time slowed I grew older. Emlyn still stood where he had before, shaking. He had loved my brother also, but he had always looked up most to Owain, who had been as hard as the blade he cherished, but still soft enough to love, and have others love him dearly. He had a woman waiting, I wondered where she was, probably looking for him even now, not realizing what had happened. Adriyel smiled up at me, and with some effort, I bent so that I could hear the words rasping from his throat.
"My brother," he said, "You can be anything you want to, you can achieve anything you decide, remember the green book with the gold on the binding?" He asked desperately and I nodded, he had shown it to me often, it was his favorite, the most expensive and rare volume he possessed. He had saved his money fighting gladiatorial battles for a year, he never killed anyone, but he often sighed at the irony of buying a book with blood money. After its purchase, he had sworn never to fight like that again.
"I remember it well."
"Take it, keep it and treasure what it says." He gasped and I feared that it would be my doing, my ceaseless talking that would be his end so I hushed him. However, he would hear none of it and he pressed on, stubborn to the last. "I know Emlyn will not come to me, but there is a book for him as well, the cover is red and the writing is gold." He gasped again for air that was hard pressed to come and with every word, I saw the blood on his lips, he was paying dearly for each thing he said. "Tell him wont you? That it is his, Owain wanted him to have his sword," he closed his eyes in a spasm of pain and I could feel the hot tears stinging my eyes at my dear brothers struggle. "But they wouldn't let me bring it; I tried, tell him that?" I looked behind me and could hardly believe Emlyn standing there shaking with some emotion, he looked like he wanted to bolt, but only fear and disbelief held his feet.
"Everything you said he will hear brother." Adriyel seemed to calm down a bit, he slumped limply back into the stretcher and closed his eyes a moment, for one eternal second I thought he had already gone, but no, his chest rose and fell and again he had mustered enough strength to speak one last word to me.
"In the end Taryn, tell them that in the end, I was at peace. I'm not frightened anymore, I suppose I've stayed only to tell someone that, I'm not frightened, I'm at peace with her Taryn, the mistress I so hated, and I forgive her." I knew he spoke of the war, of the sword and I nearly wept then, he had hated her! It's true, he had wanted to be someone else, a bard perhaps, but someone else. The strongest wish I have to this day is that I could have helped him; I could have done something to help him be free of her that had him cornered between my father and my brothers. That had him cornered between killing and singing, if I could have been the elder, to die futilely like him, and he could have gone on to do what I have. However, time, like war, is too unforgiving for such wishes. My brother understood that.
"I love you Taryn, look after our mother." I could barley make out these words but they were seared onto my soul nonetheless. I knew he would speak those four words and I looked behind me again, to where my mother hovered, she had composed herself and I motioned her over. She came and knelt beside me and I took her hand in my free one, smiling sadly to reassure her, I felt like the whole world had come down upon my shoulders with those four words. Take care of our mother. I swore that I would. I looked back again at my brother, but his face was so peaceful and his eyes were so vacant that I knew he had gone, and still smiling sadly I let the tears fall as I let go of my mother and closed his eyes. Is this my future? I couldn't help but think, is this the life I will be condemned to? I remembered all the pretty girls that trailed after my brother and the young boys who admired him and his friends who had grown up with him and fought beside him. All who knew him would sorely miss him. Owain and my father too, but I knew in my heart that I could not dwell on these deaths, that I could not allow the fact the my father had wanted me to be a soldier to turn me into the same empty shell that had become my brother. I knew in that moment just how old I had become.

There was no proper funeral for any of my family. They buried Adriyel the day after his death, un-ceremonial and untraditional. My father and Owain had been buried on the field of battle and so there would be no marker for either of them, no mound to weep over, nor cross to adorn. Adriyel though, at least had that. I could not bring myself to sell his books, but while I was helping my mother clean his room, I did find two unfinished manuscripts written in his scrawling calligraphy. I could not throw those out either. "A labor of love", one said on the first page, "for my brothers who are much in the same." It was a jest and it made me laugh, so I kept it and the other, perhaps to read them in the future. I took the green bound book that he had meant for me and hid it under my mattress; I did not feel ready to open it yet. I also gave Emlyn the red bound book that had been meant for him, I wrote on a peace of parchment and placed it inside. It said, "From Adriyel, Owain wanted you to have his sword but it was lost in the shuffle home from the battle. Forgive him for it." I did not know what else to write though I had a sinking feeling that there should have been something else to add, my mind could not remember what it was. I had not seen my only brother very often since the day they buried Adriyel, when they lay the cold hard shell they kept on calling by my brothers name, into the equally cold and hard ground. The only words he had spoken to me were more to himself, as they lowered the body down and began to shovel dirt on top of it.
"He did not deserve this." Emlyn had said, "To be buried with the ground going cold over him, it should have been summer still, there should have been flowers." His words meant little, but I wondered at them too, for it had hardly been an hour after Adriyel died that it seemed the summer had ended and the fall began, though perhaps that was just in our hearts.
My mother too was overtly silent, she took to wearing black, and I missed her batter stained apron, as I had not thought I could. When she did speak, it was oft about my older brothers, and my father. She cried his name in her sleep and sometimes I could do nothing but cover my ears in the darkness and pretend that she was not screaming, that I could not hear her, but I heard every word.