Pytor shivered in the winds. The first winds of winter always brought frost and sickness down from the mountains. He wasn't sure if they'd come this far east, but he could feel their chill all the same, even as he smelled the salt of the sea. He comforted himself with the knowledge that the Orks felt it too.
He looked to his left, over his countrymen, a ragtag group of various towns' militias, rallied under Lord Longpine's banner, each ragged, unshaved, and half-starving from the brutal onslaught they'd been put through at the hands of the Ork warlord, Urlakh the Unstoppable. The men all seemed to stare into the distance.
To Pytor's right, the Lord's new allies. Shining dark armor, an eager gleam in their eyes, and a precision to their movements Pytor had never witnessed. The strange red hair, the dragon emblems. Everything about them told Pytor he had more to fear from them than the Orks.
"But today you're guarding their flanks." Pytor told himself. "Today, they drive out Unstoppable and we live to see spring."
A horn blew in the distance. Pytor knew this could mean one thing. "Shield Wall!" he heard his sergeant shout. "Flaming pigshit, ya think?" his arms-brother Valkin muttered, falling into formation next to him.
The Orks poured over the hill like leaves in an autumn windstorm, hitting the allied mens' line with a force and fury that comes only from bloodlust or demonic possession. Pytor felt the impact push him back, his bracing foot slipped, he looked up at his attacker's deathblow coming to send him to the afterlife....
...and a white-fletched arrow pierced his attacker's chest, penetrating deep through the patchwork armor the Orks wore. Pytor glanced backward quickly, to see the elven entourage of the Crimson Knight, somewhat of a legend, and champion of the Aempyrian people. Robed individuals raised their hands and threw fire into the Orkish line, the Elves shot volleys and conjured vines to slow the Orkish advance, and the Crimson Knight himself waded through the ranks of Men, patting Pytor on the shoulder.
"Try to keep up, I'll clear a path to their leader." Pytor could scarcely believe his ears. As the Crimson Knight's retinue thinned the Orkish horde, and sewed confusion among their ranks, the Knight himself lifted his flaming sword and brought it down hard into the Orkish line, scattering or slaying the first row of attackers.
Pytor yelled "For the Crimson-" but his rallying cry was cut short. A black fletched arrow protruded from his chest. Pytor sunk to the ground, and was helped there by the blade of a countercharging Ork. As Pytor lie on the ground, trod upon by comerade and foe alike, he managed a brief prayer.
"Aempyrios, grant my brothers victory, and my family safety." His life was then ended by a foreign pikeman, treading on his torso for footing as the line shifted forward. Ever forward.