This is what people call the Last War. Grethron's voice echoed within Dumar's mind. What you are about to see is the final stand of the few remaining soldiers who defended Lorneria.
Dumar felt a wave of pride and sadness accompanying the thought and a lump rose in his own throat.
Dumar could see groups of men and women in marginally different uniforms to the royal guard, bravely attempting to stop an assortment of ragged, bloody people from hacking them to pieces.
The once organised battle had devolved into a series of individual skirmishes.
The scene shifted, making Dumar feel nauseous. Pale faced men and women gripped the top of the wall, screaming and yelling to the brave people below.
Grethron had run down a flight of stone steps, past the screaming citizens, and dashed madly through the milling crowds of wounded and dying soldiers.
Men bled from horrific wounds as women cradled their blood soaked heads, their limp hair falling to drag in the filth that covered the ground.
Limbs and organs dotted the ground everywhere he looked and he felt his gorge rising as he headed for the main gate of the city.
Dumar watched through Grethron's eyes as he followed closely behind a group of soldiers out into the battleground beyond.
"Grethron!" A deep voice bellowed.
Dumar's perspective swung to face a man atop a large palta.
The melding of Grethron's memories with Dumar's perception of events told him this was the king, Jarhine, Grethron's brother.
The king slid from the back of the animal which followed him closely.
"What are you about?" Jarhine demanded.
"I am the only one able to stop him, Jar," Dumar heard Grethron say, his voice stronger and more youthful.
"And if he kills you?" Jarhine asked, resting a heavy hand on Grethron/Dumar's shoulder.
"Then Lorneria is finished. Evacuate whoever remains up into the hills and hide them away. Malthrom will give no quarter. There is nothing of him left."
"As your brother and king, I forbid this. Escape with the rest of us and live."
"I cannot abandon you all," Grethron replied. "This is something only I can do," he added, hugging his brother.
Dumar felt something leave him as he turned and strode out onto the scabbed, rutted ground before the palace walls.
Before him hundreds of soldiers engaged in fights with civilian men and women.
The invaders were hurling themselves at the defenders without any kind of defence, dying in their thousands in an attempt to kill a few.
Grethron scanned the area before him, searching for something.
Horrible recognition flooded Grethron's memories as he laid eyes on his brother.
Dumar felt a shock of recognition as they approached Malthrom, Grethron seeing the same face he saw in the mirror each day
You're twins!? Dumar asked in his mind.
Fear and misery welled up inside Grethron as he saw the smile smeared across the face of his brother.
"Cease this!" Grethron thundered.
"What, no welcome home?" Malthrom asked sarcastically in a voice so similar to Grethron's it could have been he who spoke. "The wandering brother has returned," Malthrom added over the yells and screams of the dying. "Come home to claim my throne and my wife. How is the lovely Celouise by the way?"
"Go from here or I will be forced to stop you," Grethron said, unwilling to be engaged.
Malthrom laughed, the sound both mocking and nasty.
"You?" He asked, his dark beard blowing in the wind. "You have not the balls nor the guts to defeat me. It takes a certain type of mind to kill, especially your own brother."
"We will see," Grethron said. "Retreat or die," he added.
Dumar watched as Malthrom grew a little smaller in his vision, Grethron backing away from his brother.
Dumar watched as his hands rose before his eyes, pure white light flowing and swirling around his forearms.
Feet away Malthrom was doing the same, blackness forming around his own hands as he glared at his brother.
Dumar could feel the power in his hands vibrating and building, getting stronger as Grethron fed more power into the ball surrounding his hands.
It became so bright his hands disappeared just above the wrists but he was still able to see Malthrom a few feet away.
At some signal Dumar could not detect, both brothers released their power, the balls narrowly missing each other as they passed.
As Dumar watched, the bright ball of power Grethron had sent towards Malthrom morphed, changing into a jagged lance aimed at Malthrom's head.
Just before Grethron was cast backwards by the dark power that slammed into his chest, Dumar saw the white lance pierce Malthrom's eye, the white power jutting from the back of his head.
Malthrom dropped, flopping like a fish out of water before falling still.
***
Dumar opened his eyes on the room he had been in before, the tablet still in his shaking hand. He dropped the thing on the table beside him and dragged in a deep breath.
"That was…" Dumar began.
"My brother Malthrom," Grethron confirmed.
"You never said you were twins," Dumar added in an accusatory tone.
"No. I no longer consider us twins so have put the thought from my mind. I apologise, I did not mean to deceive you in this," Grethron said as he lowered himself into the chair he had been in before.
"When I woke up I was in agony, Malthrom had gone and I slunk off into the darkness to hide," he added. "I assumed he was alive because I was alive but as the years passed I began to hope he had died and someone had taken his body, possibly even the Dal as many assumed."
Dumar shook his head at the memories Grethron had showed him, the horror and carnage Malthrom had wrought.
"How was it possible?" Dumar asked. "For Malthrom to get so many people to join his army?"
"They were forced," Grethron explained. "He utilised some manner of dire creatures from somewhere to control them. Syclardii, they are called."
"Like those fucking things inside that dead body I shot?" Dumar asked, revulsion at the thought making his skin crawl.
"Not exactly, these creatures seemed capable of controlling thousands at a time rather than just one."
"So what are you going to do?" Dumar asked then.
"Me?" Grethron wondered. "I cannot do anything without you," he added. "So the question becomes what are you going to do?"