Your ears ring as you feel the massive body of a horse collapse over you, it's stil heaving body squishing you beneath it's weight. You cannot see the rider who had sat poised on the Andalusian just heartbeats ago, but you can hear a distant groan of pain, and the gut-churning sound of a blade dragging through flesh.

Another soldier down. Your army is being slaughtered relentlessly, as though this was an extinction rather than a war. And you'd been so careful.

You feel your vision blur and your breaths run short, and the hammering of your heart stills in your ears as you find yourself passed out. ...

"They're alive?" You hear a voice speak through the dull throb of your head, a distant cry from the clearance you'd have wished. The pressure lifts from your chest, the horse's mighty body hoisted off of you. "What a surprise."

You blink, the sun blinding you temporarily. A man looms above you, hand resting coolly on the hilt of his sword. "I thought they'd all fallen. Take him with us." He instructs, the disembodied voices of distant soldiers hearking his call.