• PROLOGUE
    Peering through the fog, the boy stared into the valley at a blotch of red. Stepping forward, his own steps took him by surprise; they were heavier, as if his limbs were not the same. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the uneasiness and stepped forward again. Without warning, a part of his brain that had been turned off switched itself on, illuminating all below him in great detail. The blotch of red morphed into an army all in red, humongous and with a complete battalion consisting of only catapults and their workers, yet something was off. They should have been confident, yet they all had a mask of fear stretched taut across their faces. Perhaps another army waited for them, one that put fear in the hearts of men…

    The sound of hoofbeats broke the boy out of his reverie, and his head snapped up to watch three score cavalry march onto the hill at the crest of the valley, accompanied by hundreds of hoplites and several scores of archers. Hurrying to the front, the hoplites in their polished gray formed a pincer formation, leaving a hollow in the middle. As soon as this was complete, the archers, clad in a vibrant green that gave the observer a headache, filled in the hollow left by the hoplites as the cavalry in their own hue of midnight blue formed the outer perimeter of the pincer defining the formation against the grassy knoll they were perched upon.

    One man stood at the vertex of the formation, staring through the fog down at the sea of red warriors in the valley. He looked across to his left and right, seeing the other two replicas of his formation flanking the army in the valley, prepared to attack at the signal. Wondering idly where the rear formation was, the man ensured that the formations in place were prepared with a cold assessing glance at each. As he did so, a man in the midnight blue of the cavalry appeared as he rode a weary horse up to the man. The man gave the rider a moment to catch his breath, and then asked, in a voice that belonged to a child, “Where is the back squad?”

    Still laboring for breath, the rider replied haltingly, “Sir, the back claw- was wiped out- by something. I’m not sure what. It took us down behind the back hill.”

    Staring out at the back of the valley as if he could see through the fog to whatever horror it was that remained there, the man finally commanded, “Tell the other pincers to move towards the back so we will have a three sided attack- but keep an eye on that hill.”

    On the back hill the boy was surprised to find that not only could he see everything, he could hear as well. He heard the man’s call to charge in that unnaturally childish voice, saw the three claws move down the hill with an unmatched precision, saw the red army adjust their phalanx to a three-sided triangle of order that almost equaled the pincers in precision. With a single split-second decision, the boy jumped into the air, to see a huge span of bat-like wings spread out in front of him. Swooping down onto one of the pincer formations, he brought a stream of fire down on the archers instantly killing them. Ignoring as best he could the screaming of horses and men, the boy took another swipe with his claws at the hoplites in their odd gray, instantly killing and wounding every one of them. Marveling at his precision, the boy took an even better aimed shot with his talons and took out every member of the cavalry in a swing, wounding only one horse. With a small glow of satisfaction, he flew back up into the sky above the fog. That fog- it could easily be dissipated, but there was a reason not to dissipate it, if he could just remember…

    Dismissing the errant thought, the boy followed a thermal down through the fog to hover above the red army. As opposed to the other two formations in all their precision that had been terrified by the sight of him, here he actually…gave them hope? Thinking more deeply, he vaguely remembered getting a command from another to help them. With a vague sense of satisfaction at having remembered, he shot out from above the red triangle and towards another pincer, this time using his precision to flame the men to crisps, and somehow managed to keep the horses alive yet again.

    Glowing with satisfaction, he wheeled towards the last pincer. Finally realizing their defeat, the last section of the attacking army turned around and hurried away. With a cheer, the phalanx in the valley whooped with admiration. Landing in the center of the formation, the boy felt himself shrink to his normal size. As soon as he was comfortable in his body once again, hordes of soldiers came to congratulate him for single-handedly taking down the three formations. As the army made their way out of the valley, the boy walked into a huge cavern and made the change to the bat-winged flying thing and took off in flight, flipping, diving, rejoicing in the fact that yes, he could fly! Upon seeing the carnage left on the battlefield, though, he sobered, and knelt at their feet. With a look to the heavens, he sent a giant stream of flame across the battlefield, incinerating the bodies to ash and gone. For hours he stayed, lost in thought of each lost soul, until a stream of arrows rained down on him without warning. Though they bounced off his sides harmlessly, his wings were pierced and, writhing in pain, the boy felt himself shrinking back into his natural form, his unprotected state. As he lay on the ground in shock, another boy came up to him. In the same childish voice as the man that had commanded the attacking army, he bent over him and said, “Now you just weren’t ready, were you?” Still standing over him, he unsheathed a double set of blades and impaled them in the boy on the ground. Pulling them out again, he walked away.

    Staring into the sky at the constellations, the boy thought, “The fog went away…”