Brandor collapsed in a heap forty paces from the battlefront.  His helm was dented, blood trickling down from a glancing blow by a Balchoth club.  Sweat stung his eyes.  His shield was battered but whole.  Blood and gore dripped from his sword, running down the blade and drying to a sticky red mess on the guard.

They had pulled him from the line where he had sent over twenty to oblivion.  It was part of the rotation, putting somewhat rested men in, pulling spent ones out to rest so they could return and fight again. Brandor took a long draught from his water skin and wiped his eyes.  The haze of the killing madness slowly receded.  The shouts, screams, thunk of clubs on metal shields, the rip of rough Balchoth tunics as Gondoran steel rent them and raw flesh beneath.  These did not recede, nor did the almost continual spray and smell of blood where the lines clashed, where he had been moments ago.

He rose slowly to his feet, propping himself up with his sword, catching his breath, slowing his heartbeat.  The wind whipped by from the south, pulling at his hair hanging wet and slack from beneath his helm. 

He heard trumpets, knew the sound of a fighting retreat being ordered.  To the west he heard thunder, saw the flash of lightning against a dark roiling sky fast approaching from the west.  Now shouts and commands were coming from behind him.  Orders to reform the line.

All morning his center wing had faced the Balchoth, slaughtering them as their human waves broke upon the death jetties of Gondor’s shields, swords and spears.  Their north south line had held.  But now they were slowly giving way, by command, aligning from northeast to southwest, making contact with the southern regiment which was retreating north.  Only the left wing of the army still held fast to the north, the hinge of the door of soldiers now swinging to position itself on a mostly east to west line.

Brandor cursed at the thought of yielding ground on which he had bled to hold.  He glanced west over ground littered with Gondor’s dead and wounded, pulled from the fray.  There on the more distant upslope was the Steward, mounted, staring out at the battlefield, his helm and chain mail darkly silvered against the pending storm. 

Something had changed.  Brandor knew not what it was or what it portended.  Only that he would soon be fighting over a new patch of ground, trying to stay alive for a few more hours.