They'd tasted something that neared victory, and then they'd been forced to retreat again. Every man instinctively hated taking steps back. It was deeply rooted in their hearts. It was hard to see their fighting as a victory when they ended up in the exact same spot that they had been in before, even after all the emotion that they'd summoned up, all that battle spirit – they were still here, back within the walls of their village, as the enemy marched closer.
"They're probably going to torture us now," one man said. Nila recognized him. He was a shepherd, and tended the southern fields with his sheep in the summer. A nervous and small man, always fearing wolves, and goblins. Nila noticed that his hands were stained with blood, just like the rest of them.
