I must have lain unconscious for several hours. When I woke, night was slanting across the battlefield, and the thumping pain in my head was as nothing to the stench of death in my nostrils. Happily, Photius was not half the swordsman he thought he was. His blow had sheared the side-flap from my helmet, and scored a nasty gash on my head, but failed to split the bone. It was enough to knock me out cold, and fool him into leaving me for dead, but I suffered no other damage save a headache and loss of blood. I peeled off the crumpled shell of my helmet and struggled into a kneeling position, groaning and carefully exploring the wound on my head. The bleeding had stopped, and the right side of my skull was covered in a layer of half-dried, congealed gore. There was no sign of our army. The freak storm had died down, and I was able to see the hundreds of bodies, men and horses, that carpeted the plain.
