Archers raised their bows and fired.  I shrugged them off.  Marines hurled their javelins and swung their axes.  I brushed them aside.  From within me arose such a fire as I had never felt, such a mounting tide of power as I could never hope to achieve again.  My friend had been slain.  I was alone.  Despair had descended upon me like the dousing of the last light of day, but it had not crushed me.  No, it had not crushed me.  I waded into the mass of the enemy.  My sword was a blur of motion.  I cut down all before me.  Their blood was an ocean at my feet. 

 

And yet, of course, it could not last.  My helmet was torn from my skull, my shield hacked to bits before my eyes, my sword nicked and shattered in my hands.  A roaring filled my head even as I found myself, at last, forced to the gunwale, pressed to the edge, my last grasping efforts all for naught.  Then, all at once, I felt a great blow to my chest.  I lost my balance.  I felt my body fall.  I was falling over the side, through the remnants of our splintered oars and into the rising sea.

 

The water was unexpectedly warm, and I fell into its welcoming embrace with little resistance.  My chest was compressed, my mouth open to the stinging salt water.  I tasted its briny bitterness and knew it was going to end here, in the sea, after everything.  I had lost my heavy armor.  Only my linen breastplate, slashed and shredded as it was, acted as my  anchor.  It was enough, of course, enough to do the job, and I began to sink like a stone.  It was better this way, I thought.  It was better that I not have to tell Hippocrotes' parents of his death.  Better, indeed than admitting I couldn't live up to him, or to my father.

 

My chest began to fill with the heavy salt water, and with no breath, I began to thrash.  I thought of Andronica, alone and at home.  What would she think when she heard?  Would she grieve and find another?  Did it really matter now?  I struggled some more, my body's reflexes kicking in.  I was young, they said to me.  I was not ready to die.  Wouldn't I fight, just for a while, for my life?  I kicked a little more and felt my arms begin to move, reaching up toward the light and pulling feebly.  Why bother?  I thought.  It would be so easy to die. 

 

I relaxed then.  Yes.  Easier this way, not struggling.  No more.  It feels so much better now.  I closed my eyes.

 

Then came a disturbance beside me.  Something else there.  Someone else there.  I felt an iron grip on my arm.  Then another.  I opened my eyes.  What was it?  What was this?  Couldn't they just let me die?  I had done all I could.  Who was this?  Slowly, as the light grew stronger above me, consciousness left me  and blackness closed in all around.