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hat a wonder to
see those tall banners and strong men march away, to watch a dying people stand
in glory, in the last days of their kingdom. I saw man and woman stand alike,
with so little fear for themselves, even as the tides of invaders drew ever
closer to their homes.
I saw a battle once, from a lofty perch on hillside. Eighty some men, holding a
roadblock on the way to Weavermoth. Some vast goblin army had been sent to
dispatch them, and it seemed they had expected a greater force, for the goblins
numbered in the hundreds. As the first wave of goblins met the men, it seemed
the Mynains would be crushed under the sheer wight of their brutish foes.
But they stood, like a wall of steel, clad in lordly raiment the shimmered as
they stood firm, hewing orc and goblin alike with mighty blades. A herald stood
among them, and held high the banner of Mynia, and as the wind lifted the Mynian
crest, a trumpet sounded out defiance and glory o'er the evil tide. Long did
they stand in might against their foes, and rank and file of ravenous fiend fell
before their lordly strokes.
But even as hope began to glimmer in their eyes, I saw one, then two of the
Mynians fall to those wicked goblin blades. My heart was heavy as the force
dwindled to a desperate twenty, circled round that herald whose horn sounded,
again and again, defiance and glory.
At last I came to see that banner fall to lie, defeated, in the dust. As the
goblins marched off, on their inevitable path to Weavermoth, I came to walk
among the carnage. I saw upon the faces of the fallen, not anguish, but pride,
for the precious time they had bought their families. And even as I passed that
horn, crushed beneath heavy orcish boots, I saw the corpse of the herald, face
down in the dirt, banner still clenched in his dying grip. I turned the body to
face the sky, and though I did not take the banner from his hand, I draped the
cloth across his chest, in one last show of honor for the valorous dead.
Legends, they tell of men who stood before endless odds and defied fate for the
sake of their homes. I saw no less than that today. These men of Mynia stood
like Kings before the endless wrath that descended unto them. And as they go
now, to a final rest, I can only hope they knew, as they faded from this realm,
that they would rank as legends, as Kings, in the ever growing annals of the
past.
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