Green grass, worn down from being trodden on so much. Nobody cared. They appreciated being together and happiness, so trivial matters as such never bothered them. Poor place. Many houses, scattered almost randomly, with thatch roofs and made of wood rather than brick. No one could find the materials for bricks, or find anything useful to cement it together so they had improvised, entwining sticks together to make wonderful, cosy places to live.

Sometimes children playing, always there being laughter, with their families watching and smiling. More often than not, though, they were helping their families and each other by gathering wood, foraging, or collecting water. Some of the elder children were even taught to hunt animals to supply food.

The scorching hot sun often beat down, but nobody seemed to notice. They got along with their jobs, always smiling. Smiles. You could never forget the smiles. Whatever hardships were thrown at anyone, there were always still smiles.

The adults got along with their jobs. They were perfectly content to live their lives as butchers, bakers, carpenters, lumberjacks, hunters, foragers, farmers, blacksmiths… Needless to say it wasn’t as if business was plentiful, as few people from the vast ‘outside world’ knew of the place. The stock was there for the people of the village. And with the place being so poor and having so little gold, people traded their own goods to others to get what they needed. It was a wonderful arrangement for the people, everyone being happy and getting what was necessary. Everybody made some contribution to the village’s welfare. It was a lovely village.

I can still see it now. For a long time I haven’t been home, but I can still see it as if it’s right in front of me. Today is the day. After my long departure, I have finally returned, although, sadly, I’m not the bearer of brilliant news. Still, that aside, I’m going home! I’m so happy.

Most jobs in the village are used to contribute towards the village’s welfare in definite ways. And then there are the indefinite ways. My job, for example. See, thinking of a place like this, I guess you could always expect an army with gleaming spears, other weaponry and armour. The village has an army – but only an army of sorts. It’s smaller than most forces. We mostly don’t have armour – the village doesn’t really have enough for such production, so it’s all leather. We do have some rather impressive weaponry, too. People are often specialized in long or short ranged combat, but they’ll always have a weapon for both types of combat as is often necessary.

All armies have to have leaders, right? Well, I lead this one. To be fair, I haven’t really been leader for long. I wouldn’t say I’m cut out to be a brilliant leader, either. I can think up plans, but I’m certainly not the best man for supervising them, as is necessary for our leaders. To be perfectly honest, the reason I’m leader is because I have a knack for getting out of tricky situations. We went into battle once (I forget why) and when we returned, I was injured (fairly badly, but nothing compared to some of the injuries I witnessed that day) and so were about five others, including our commander. The rest of the troops were all dead. Because I had emerged from our ‘losing battle’ in a manner the commander called ‘practically unscathed’, he labelled me the next leader. Some time afterwards, he died of blood loss. He apparently knew he was dying, and my leading this army was his dying wish, and who was I to disrespect a dead man’s wishes? So the leader I became. I’d sort of gotten used to it actually, but when you get to an up point, something nearly always crops up and everything goes wrong, doesn’t it?

Our medical supplies really aren’t the best. I know it’s not exactly wise to get a serious injury anyway, but there is little hope of recovering at the village as we have little medicine that would be of any aid. Unfortunate, but the truth often is.

There they all are! Men trudging across the dirt, grinning and bloody, but triumphant in battle. They’re all cheering, knowing that they have won, that they can now relax, that they have managed to protect the village folk! They don’t look in brilliant form, and their armour is ripped, but they don’t care. The leather seems to be almost shining in the moonlight…

Hold on. That’s not leather.

Maybe I’m delirious. I knew it couldn’t be them, anyway. I’m not a believer in ghosts. My strange state of mind wasn’t what really worried me though. It was these men. Who were they? Now, I may not be the smartest person, but I sure know when to hide and this was one of those times. I scooted off into the bushes and peered out at them as if I was being chased by the devil herself.

I’d have to enquire about this, later. It just didn’t seem right. It didn’t fit in with the picture, and it certainly didn’t slot in with what I remembered about this area. I’ve only been gone, what? Four years? How much can change in four years?

I imagine that I’m lucky to have my wife. I know that many women, when their husbands or sons have chosen to go away and fight, have kicked up a massive fuss. My wife understands that I’m doing what I must, to help our village. Not myself, but our village. The village people can all stand up for themselves, but we are those chosen to protect them – as a job and as our duty.

That’s why this year was so odd. All the other years, we’ve had an army standing here. An army is of at least twenty men, is the definition of our village. More than twenty is obviously often used and needed, but as I mentioned before, our army is very small in comparison to most others, mainly as we have fewer people to draft – the village needs a lot of people there to survive. For the past few years, they’ve just been those other three men who survived that battle – as the commander died, and I had to take the new recruits on an expedition of training.

Ah, the men have all gone by now. There didn’t seem to be too many – at least not too many left alive, but they still seemed to be tasting their victory. So now I’m starting once again, on my journey back home. I’m getting excited as I’m really close now, it can’t be more than about ten or fifteen minutes walk away. I’m almost at a run, the imaginary force of the army at my heels.

Yes, I have been a sore disappointment as commander of the army. I admit that, but I never said I would be good in the first place. That was an assumption of the previous commander. I’m not a skilled leader – I thought that everybody had known that. Apparently not. I didn’t like so much respect, or the power leaned on me. I led the troops through many successful battles in training. Then, the incident happened. Somebody – to this day I don’t know who, or what – had done something to anger some people I know. I say I know them, but only at arm’s length. You don’t mess with these guys, though; it just isn’t done. That was something I’d been told when I joined the army at just fourteen. I respected our commander and didn’t mess with them. Respect I must earn, though, and someone apparently didn’t respect me enough to listen, and to cut a long story short, it got turned into a free-for-all slaughter. They all died. Every single one of them. We may have outnumbered them, but they were far more skilled and my men were still in training. They knew me though, and freed me, but since there has been many-a-day when I wish I’d just died with the boys. Fate, however, has apparently freed me.

See what I mean? I’m the boy with the uncanny knack for getting out of trouble. I’d sooner be in the trouble though, than living having seen all the slaughter that I have. And I’m only twenty-four. Ten years in the army. So, basically, I’ve been traumatized since I wad fourteen. But, still. I have to protect my people. If I can’t protect the army members, then at least I can protect the villagers. Right?

Wrong.

As I got to the edge of rock I climb down as a short cut, I peered at the village, a smile on my face, expecting to see the green, grassy, happy land I was so used to – the land I’d dream about, the land that kept me going.

But as I stared at the place I was so used to seeing, I could see that the place I was used to – my home I loved – seemed to be long-since gone.