The disk of the sun clears the horizon. A bow-shot distant behind me, I hear the sounds of my army girding themselves for battle. The smoke of the cookfires is pungent-sweet in my nostrils, the beat of sword against shield, the clarion call of the trumpets ring in my ears. My heart swells, ready to burst, with the joy of the impending fight. I wonder momentarily how it would feel to be other than I am, to feel fragile, to feel mortal. Subject to fears and to the vagaries of chance. I cannot conceive of it. And why should I even try?