It has been three hundred and seventy two days since this war began. Civil war. More than a years worth of battles and spilt blood. I can tell you that there is nothing civil about it. No politeness. When nations face against nations they take the care to state their intentions first, for honour and for chivalry. But when a nation fights against itself, there are no such discussions. No warnings, no timidity and no restraint. In civil war, there is no opportunity to surrender. There will be only one outcome, one possible finish under a cloud of black smoke.
     When enemies know each other the way friends do, there is no time set aside for planning and discussing. There are simply two opposing opinions, and two great hammers battering each other into the ground. In civil war there is never any mercy, for friends hate each other far more than enemies ever can. The great battles are meaningless compared to the countless individual fights. Gangs of armed thugs face each other more fiercely and more frequently than the armies. There are no pacifists, no one left out of the butchery. There are only the killing and the dead.
     I have seen this all, in the last three hundred and seventy two days I have seen families torn apart by loyalties to a shattered crown. I have seen my country burnt by my own countrymen; I have seen people literally destroying the crops that would feed them. No, this cannot be called civil. This cannot be called war, for wars are fought by enemies. This is suicide on a most gargantuan scale.
     But I, like all others, became entangled in the net that strangles this land. More so, for once I was a member of the King’s Guard. I fought with his most elite unit of knights in destroying the King’s enemies for the past thirty years, since I was a lad. Surely then my loyalties must lie to him, the king, whose crown it is now lies fragmented in the four corners of this country. No.
     I swore my oath to him of course. I followed his orders, I bowed in his presence and I defended his name. But I did not join his guard because I was a patriot, I joined for the glory of being one of the Kings Guard. I’ve had my regrets, like any veteran I have done things I wish I hadn’t. But all of it pales in comparison to what I have done, and what I have seen done, in the past three hundred and seventy two days. I have forgotten the glory that once balanced the scales in my heart.
     Branded by the King, and favoured by him, I had no choice in which side I joined. But the rest of the army was divided between the King’s stagnant beliefs and his son’s charismatic dreams. I had the same dreams, of course, the ones that led me to join the King’s Guard in the first place. Ironic then that those dreams of glory, of treasure and of conquering are what I now fight against. But I am old. Dreams are for the young, for men like me there are only nightmares.
     When the King’s son and heir wrested control of the army in order to go and defeat the heretics on their own ground he was followed by many thousands of the commoners with their pitchforks and their quarterstaffs and rusted bills. All of them filled with the courage of men who had lived a life of peace, protected by my hand and the hands of my brothers.
     Always we held our borders, crushing the heretics who dared to come close. In these victories were sown the seeds of confidence. A counterfeit plant grew in all the towns and cities that did not see how the heretic fought, and a haze of boredom covered the land. It was thought that we were strong enough to defeat them, once and for all. It was thought that they were rich with jewels for the taking.
     This, in part, was true. They were rich. But their jewels filled the coffers of mercenaries from the west, not our deep, arid pockets. When the Prince still blindly marched toward a great wall of professional soldiers with his shambling ranks of peasants, farmers and inexperienced troops who disobeyed their orders not to leave, the King realised something had to be done. This Stallion could run too fast, and needed to be reined in before he was lost on a horizon of graves.
     Of course, boys do not listen. Particularly Princes, and gifted Princes, bestowed with angry armies, sometimes get cocky. I respected the boy’s talents of course, and perhaps the King had been too slow to move in the past. Perhaps we could have prevented further wars if we had fought back sooner. Perhaps he should have stepped up and stopped the Prince before it got so far. But then, they both made mistakes.
     That first battle itself was a mistake. A mess of false orders and overzealous foolery. From then there was no hope. The Prince was insulted, felt exiled. The King was roused, felt betrayed. The people chose their sides in ignorance, as if by blind chance setting themselves on one side of the line. No emissaries sent, and no time wasted. War tore us apart.
     Now we reach the end. This exiled Prince has destroyed his father’s crown and scalp in one great swipe of his sword. He has taken the throne, though there are many who argue it should not be. Many who still fight back. Weak and disorganised armies roam the country on leashes that need tightening. Who knows whose side is whose anymore? Who knows what borders the Prince calls his kingdom? The Prince, who acts like a King.
     Under his reign I have dismissed myself from my duties as a King’s Guard. For in my eyes there is no King, nor shall there ever be one again, and so I become yet another refugee. Another of those pitiful souls who destroyed his own country, and now must flee from the turmoil. There is no earth here that is not scorched, no road that is not lost, and no well that has not been poisoned. The country is dead, and now the land takes its final breaths.
     Yet men still live. I and three others huddle about a table, a huge oak affair stained with dry blood, the forebear of which can be seen rotting in the cellar, and smelt in every corner of the house. We hold handkerchiefs soaked with vinegar to our mouths and noses. The entire country smells the same, but we will never get used to it. It is different to before. When I smelt death before it was either in defeat or victory, and there was a finality to it. But here I know it will linger on, with no hope of victory and no admission of defeat. Only the smell of the dead, and the chill as cluttered souls seek for graves in which to rest.
     On the wall there are several empty pegs, beneath lay a muddle of pots. Jars rest smashed upon the floor, fallen from a shelf that hangs crooked. Otherwise the room is bare. There are three doors, one that hangs from a single hinge and leads to the street, another in the opposite corner that leads down to the cellar, a third at the top of a flight of creaky stairs, its banisters broken. All the houses in this little village are similarly pathetic and ruined. Who knows when, or by whose hand, this devastation befell the tiny unnamed village. It exists on no maps, and now never shall.
     We’re relaxing here now after a long day’s walking, lacking a place more fit for the purpose. There are no windows and the room is lit by a small lantern on the table. It is cold, and at the top of the high room amidst the dark rafters smoke swirls gently from the draught of the broken door. The rain outside filters in through the cracks, and drops fall through the ancient ceiling.
     Beside our pitiful lantern a baby lies in monotonous sleep, unimpressed by the stench or the overhanging solemnity in the room. Her breathing is gentle, and occasionally she twitches in her dreams, her lips turning to a smile. She smells almost clean, pure.
     “Two more days, maybe three, and we should see fertile land again. The madness cannot have spread that far.” One of my companions announces. We have been counting down the distance for as long as we have fled. It is the only thing we seem able to discuss. The only thing we can lay our hopes in.
     Not one of us answers him. We haven’t the energy to speak of it anymore. We haven’t the belief in them to share our desperate dreams, nor the care to hide our depression. Instead we just listen to the gentleness of pattering rain.
     “You think she’ll make it?” the speaker asks slowly, nodding to the baby on the table. She lies there swaddled in mangy furs, her tiny pink features gently moving with innocent slumber. We have all wondered why we still carry her. We all realise the futility of the cause. Yet I at least also realise she is the only reason any of us still travel at all, and haven’t already stuck our swords in our bellies. She is life, and we hold onto her hope for survival, not our own.
     We are four soldiers, all of us remnants of the Kings Guard. This young child is the Kings daughter, and we now her fathers. We carry her, descendant of royal blood, to a land safer and more welcoming than the one she now inhabits; the one to which she should be Princess.
     We carry her, not with any noble aim of one day returning to restore a peaceful nation or to avenge her father. We do not care about the royalty anymore. We do not care about her rank or the privileges she deserves for the simple manner of her birth. We merely do not see that a child should die for the inadequacies of her family. Nor should she ever have to feel the guilt that wracks us now. She should simply be another young girl, a victim of a devastating war.
     She is a true victim, not like us who made so many orphans and widows already, yet still manage to flee from it all in the end. We hold in our care a child who does not even know what a country or a war is, though she has seen more of either than perhaps any other child her age, and several older.
     The king died unexpectedly in a catastrophic ambush two months ago, his skull crushed in by a mace. He had left no instruction for his daughter. The Queen had been assassinated already, poisoned by her serving maid in the opening days of the war. The girl became all that was left of the royal family, save her war-crazed brother. We are not patriots completing their King’s dying commands. We are not those trying to restore a just throne. There is no throne; we are simply men, protecting a young girl for she is only that – a young girl. She is the innocence we wish to save from the torment of this country. Her name is Louise.
     When the door crashes open we all bound to our feet without hesitation, though exhausted and close to collapse. Louise begins to bleat her worries, but so she should.
     Into the room steps a Prince who calls himself a King, garbed in oddly well-kept plate armour. For all its pomp it still looks dull and empty to my eyes. He moves awkwardly in its shell of steel, trying to look important but instead looking like a child playing in his fathers armour.
     The visor to his helmet is raised, and he is easily recognisable. He has dark eyes and a few wet clumps of dark hair dribble on his forehead. He has bright lips that curve easily into an emotionless smile, dimpling his chubby cheeks. The women of the court used to call him handsome, when there was a court, but I could not see it.
     As many ruffians flank him as fit through the doorway, and more are evident outside in the howling rain of the night. They wear rags that were once leather armour, cut by battle and time. The lot of them, Prince and thugs alike, stand identically for a moment and examine us with wary eyes, dripping on the muddied floor, as we too watch them, poised.
     “Ah, the Kings Guard.” The Prince announces as he recognises the quality of armour we still wear, knowing that we would need it. “How fitting that I should find you.” He looks at each of us in turn, and turns to the babe on the blood-drenched table. He sniffs deeply from a cold, and wipes his red nose. “And look, my dear sister. How good of you to care for her for me.” He steps forward with a smile on his lips, which reaches no other part of his expression.
     Drawing a hand-and-a-half sword I stand before him, barring his path to our table. My blade glitters red in the lantern light. I hear the homely sound of swords scraping out of three separate sheaths behind me. The Prince’s men heft sturdy cudgels as their not so royal looking leader steps back toward them.
     “This is not your sister.” I announce clearly, having dropped the handkerchief to the floor. “She is my daughter, and we are leaving your lands. We mean no harm, let us go.” I watch the indignation grow in those childish eyes.
     “Leaving? Then why do you still wear the armour of a Kings Guard? Why do you still carry a sword? Besides, do you not think I can’t recognise my own sister?” The Prince spat vehemently, his voice rising. “Look at her! She is beautiful! She is royal! She couldn’t possibly be yours despite the rags you dress her in.”
     It was true she was beautiful. She looked every bit a Princess, but that seemed even more reason to protect her, for all that we had abandoned our bonds to the Crown.
     “Then why not let her go to a country far safer than this one?” I demand. “How could you force this life on your own sister?”
     “I will give her the finest existence!” The Prince shouts, outraged. “She will be the jewel that shines over our new kingdom.”
    “I know you! I’ve seen you grow up; I’ve seen your mind and how it connives. You would murder her, as you murdered your father, and secure for yourself a kingdom with no other contesters.”
     “My father! My father betrayed me!” He cried, shaking a fist and sniffing hard, but saying nothing to the suggestion that he would kill Louise, the Princess of a broken nation.
     “Yes! And you betrayed him!” I cry back. “But you will not betray her.”
     “She is my sister!”
     “No!” My companions come to stand beside me in a line. “Not anymore.” We hold our swords the way a butcher holds a knife or a carpenter holds a saw. We have used them a thousand times before, and know we will use them a thousand times again. The Prince and his men seem to hesitate, their numbers are meaningless in this small room, and their cudgels have none of the reach of our swords.
     A man steps forward quietly to whisper in the ear of the Prince who thinks himself a King. He is wearing a dark cloak wrapped tightly about his body. He seems cold, his skin pale and damp, and his body shaking slightly. He has a large nose jutting from the shadows of his hood, which makes the rest of his small body seem ridiculous.
     “Don’t be ridiculous!” The Prince cries out to whatever the man told him. “I won’t leave her with these men.”
     “But, sire,” The man said quietly, with no respect for the meaning in that word “There are other ways.”
     “Quite right, there are.” The Prince announced resoundingly, looking above everyone else, and sucking more loose snot up his nostrils. “I will offer you a deal, Kings Guards, since I respect your courage.” He speaks calmly now, confidently, as if assured we will accept. “Give me my sister and I will make you guardians of my own throne. Help me rebuild this country to the glory it once was.”
     “The glory you destroyed.” I tell him blandly, mockingly. “I have an offer for you, Prince. Fight me.” I point my sword directly at him. “Just you. I have no wish to kill any more of my countrymen. But you I have no problem with.”
     The soft-cheeked lieutenant that had spoken with the Prince backed away quietly, almost unseen back into the ragtag ranks of grimy, underfed men. He had a disgusted look on his face, but a gleam of opportunity in his eyes.
     “Fine.” A spoilt Prince who wanted to be King rejoined, and sniffed again like a schoolboy. “But if I win your friends here shall submit to my rule and not resist me reclaiming my sister.”
     “Fine.” I don’t expect that will happen.
     “Outside, where there is some room to move.” He orders with no authority whatsoever.
     “No. Here is fine.” I don’t trust the men that I know are here waiting to see blood.
     He chuckles, but concedes. He is overconfident as always. Still Louise screams. She at least does not want to see this, but none of us are fit to comfort her. None of us still have any comfort to offer.
     I step forward to gain a little more space as the Prince draws his sword. It is made of fine gleaming steel. I know that he has used it before; I can see the notches in the blade. Mine however has been better cared for. Holding it in both hands I can feel the thick weight of my almost club-like weapon waiting to strike, its fine point gleaming with lethality.
     The prince is wearing good armour, full plate with chain mail beneath and thick padding. It is much the same as mine, except that I have configured my own to personal requirements and a long-developed fighting style.
     After so much talk, the Prince wastes no time. With typical aggression he lays into me with a flurry of blows that I block and parry in quick succession. His thugs have backed off but still crowd close to watch, though his lieutenant has disappeared. We have no room to manoeuvre in the small room, and, standing still, exchange strike for strike. With a crash I soon land a blow against his helmet, stunning him slightly and throwing off his vision though doing no damage to the flesh behind the lightly dented steel.
     I take the moment’s respite to draw a sword-breaker from my belt, and go on to face the Prince with my sword in one hand, the smaller blade held tight against my body. I have less control now, less speed and less strength to whirl my sword, but the fight is drawing to a close. The Prince grows tired already; he is not as comfortable as I am in such heavy armour.
     Within the clang of sword against sword I see his pattern and slip my sword-breaker up with suddenness. His blade clicks into place heavily in one of the deep notches. I twist and force his sword down against my left thigh, where I have an extra thick plate of armour. Even as I twist his arm to point down I bring my sword arm high and low again with lightning ferocity, crashing the blade into his gauntlet. With a cry he drops his weapon and it clatters against the floor.
     Under the scrutiny of his thugs I squander not a second and drive my sword through the gap between his armour at the shoulder. The blade crunches through metal rings and into his armpit, straight up through his shoulder. He screams, and I pull myself toward him, sticking my sword-breaker through the other armpit, straight into his chest, pincering him. I know my weapon; hilt deep in the Prince’s body it has penetrated his lung. I know that I have killed the only leader this land has. I know that I have started another war where men will contend for power fiercer than a woman seeks new gossip.
     Shouts are raised and men flood through the door. Clubs batter against my armour, knocking me to the ground. I don’t get a chance to fight back. The building falls down about us as men smash the rotten walls to get in and kill we four who were once the King’s Guard. The stench of damp ripens the dead night air as men shout for blood and a baby screams for peace it will never know.
     Through it all, lying on my back and feeling my body battered into capitulation I witness the Prince’s young lieutenant return to sneak by all the thugs that hammer away at four armoured bodies, even as his Prince lies dying and ignored.  
     Someone opens the visor to my helmet and begins to smash my nose with his club. The lieutenant draws a dagger as he slides forth out of my bloodied vision.
     For a moment Louise’s screaming grows louder, and then stops. The agony that is my face resigns to failure as I await my death without any further feeling. The innocence of this nation is lost; it has become a land of blood and broken families, of traitors and the betrayed.
     There is only the rising and falling of clubs now, and through it all the cackling of a Lieutenant who thinks himself a King.