The battle was all but spent, and the three walked slowly and laboriously, exhausted and leaning in their swords. They had not left each other's side for one minute of the last assault. This they were fearsome about.

Phil knelt beside a fallen elf; blonde-haired and pale-skinned but disfigured and maimed and choking on blood. His breath came out in death rattles and gurgles. His eyes looked up at the dawn, but saw little. Phil whispered some soft words in elvish, prayers, perhaps, and drew his dagger across the elf's throat. His eyes slipped shut with a final sigh. Phil bowed his head. He paused, then stood. They moved on.

"Do you see?" Josur broke the sombre silence. "Beside, or perhaps beneath those carcasses. Someone lives."

They ran over, pulling the black orcs aside and finally heaving out a man, tall and broad with the white horse of the Riddermark across his helm.

They laid him on the ground and his eyes found focus.

"Daniel?" The man croaked.

"Father." Dan said, and his voice was hollow. There was none of the anguish of his cry for Grimme. He had recognised too many faces in the piles of dead. He had cried all the tears his eyes could produce.

"You are alive. I am glad. Your mother would never have forgiven me." Dan's father grimaced.

"And you have lost your leg." Dan crouched beside his father, taking his hands between his own. "Lie still now. We are three, and we can carry you."

"I'm afraid I have lost more than that," the dark haired man sighed. "Some blood. Perhaps my left lung."

Dan smoothed back the hair plastered damp with sweat to his father's face.

"My friend is an elf. He will heal you." Dan said, as much to convince himself as his father.

"You will look after your mother." Dan's father continued, ignoring him. "I loved her always. She knows that, but it was not enough. I did not love her enough to do what I should have done, though I thought I loved her with my all. I should have stayed for you. My boy. My soldier. I see that now, and every day since she shut me out. You will tell her? A dying man's last wish."

"You're not dying." Dan said, his tone stubborn but his eyes wide.

"I'm afraid I am," his father said sadly. "And where I had accepted that fate while I lay bleeding and quite alone, now I am grievanced by it. My only son stands before me, with blood on his armour and a notched sword by his side." The old man (for he seemed very old now, gasping for breath and pausing occasionally to cough) pulled himself on to his side to look Dan up and down. "My boy is weary with war, and his eyes have seen death. This is not the boy I clothed in my old armour and sent out to war with worry thick in my heart. This is a man. This is a soldier. This is my son. And I will not live long enough to hear the tales of your battle and the victories hard won."

"I killed a troll," Dan said helplessly, his eyes burning but woefully dry. "Jos and me. It was as big as a draught horse." Dan had seen Phil, who had been working quietly away at the tall man's leg, sigh, sit back, and shake his head at Dan. His father had lost too much blood. He was deathly pale, and his words were hard to make out.

"There were no trolls here," his face stretched into a smile. "My brave boy. My son. My soldier. May you slay many more. May they write songs about your feats of war. May you ride beside King Theoden and decorate our halls with splendour."

"I will. I promise." Dan lied.

"You know, for the first time ever I saw truly a reflection of myself in you when you came to me and told me that you were going to fight. That you had practiced with the other stable boys, even though you were not in training. You were afraid, but resolute and burning with the passion of your country. That is how I too felt that day." Dan's father sighed heavily, his hand suddenly limp in Dan's grasp. "Would though I could see you ride off to war in your own armour with your own sword and horse. That day will come, though I will not ride beside you. I am glad that you chose this path. I was glad when I saw you off into the caves with your mother, for I knew there you would be safest, but in my heart I was sad because I knew that you would boil and burn down there with the noise of the battle above you and you unable to help."

It took the dark haired man a long time to speak each word and much was lost, but Dan made out enough. His gut was twisted and his cheeks flushed.

"The captain has offered me a place, Pa," he said quietly, not looking up to meet the eyes of his friends. "There is much work to do here, but when we are finished I will join Josur. It will not be long before we ride out together. A battle teaches you much."

His father's ruined face stretched into a blissful grin. "You will be better even than I. You will make your mother proud and fill her mantel with medals. My boy. My soldier. My son."

Dan's father slipped out of consciousness mumbling into the ground. A few moments later, he was dead.

Phil and Josur bowed their heads at either side of Dan.

"We can carry him back." Josur said quietly, but Dan shook his head.

"Many of my father's company live on. We passed them earlier, doing as we do. When the time comes to collect the bodies they will ensure it is done properly and that my mother is found. There are many injured out here. Our duty is with the living. Those we can still help."

Phil's brow furrowed, but he made no comment. They rose and once more headed out, and even the dawn chorus was subdued and the trees dark with death.

*

"I'm moving to the Westfold." Josur said decidedly. They were sat on the slope of the dike, looking out at the forest. The grief within the walls had been too much to bear. The air was stifling and the sound of weeping penetrated every corner. The morning was bright and new and, weary and hungry, the three companions had settled down to a poor picnic of stale bread.

"I'll see my mother and sister." Josur continued. "Make sure that they are well. And I'll pay my respects to our friends. But I can't bear to stay for the burials. There are too many dead. I could not bear to see him thrown into a pit or burnt on a mound. I will go, like we promised each other. I'll never touch a sword again. I vow it. I would only cause more death than I prevent." Josur lay back, looking up at the clouds scurrying across the sky. "What of you, Dan?" He asked. "Will you come with me? We will breed the finest and gentlest horses rohan has ever seen."

Dan was silent, staring out but seeing little. He had said but a few words all morning.

Phil watched him, his brow still creased. "You should find your mother," his voice was as soft as the breeze that ruffled the tops of the trees. It seemed to cut through to Dan's ears better than the wails that had so perturbed josur. "Give her your father's message. Let her know you're okay."

Dan nodded. This he surely would do. But what then?

People deal with grief differently. Josur wanted to honour Grimme and build his life around him and focus on him and remember. Dan wanted only to forget. He wanted to take off down the dike and run to the trees and keep running. He wanted to forget the horrors he had seen. He wanted to lose the part of him that had fought in this battle forever. But where could he possibly go? He was a boy who had not even ventured out of Edoras. He knew nothing of the world, save the canvas map in his father's bedroom that he had long poured bright eyed over, pointing out the inked names and asking his father endless questions.

Phil sensed his discomfort. "We each have family to attend to and duty to fulfil. We start there, and we take the next step only then. We have fought for the present and now we must seize it. A war only reminds you how little time you may have left."

A flock of birds rose suddenly, startled by some noise in the woods. They flew two circles then settled down again amongst the canopy, bar two. The lone companions broke away from the flock on the second circuit and flew straight and fast until they disappeared into the sun.