Our lives are but dreams and at some appointed hour each one of us will see those gossamer illusions dissolve?

Red hot metal flies through the air so fast no human eye can see its path. It spews death furiously from the mouth of musket and cannon as rapidly as sweating men can load and fire. It tears into the line of soldiers ripping flesh from bone. Ripping wounds so deep even those who survive unscathed will never be whole again.

At the first volley some soldiers turn and flee from the carnage. They shed their packs and drop their weapons in the mud. Others run with their muskets held above their heads hoping to deflect the shrapnel falling around them. Black smoke drifts across the field shrouding the death scene.

Not far away, noses twitch and sniff the dark air. Ears swivel about slowly listening. One by one they shake out their leathery wings and release their claws from the cracks in the ceiling that hold them suspended. They congregate at the mouth of the cave and swirl out into the warm night air following the scent along the sharp edge of the escarpment.

Clouds drift across the moon but most of the men laying out in that field are beyond the need for light. The smell of blood and cries of the wounded are all the vector the winged ones need. They follow the shrieks of those in torment and despair and the low groans and aching sighs of those expelling their final breath.

The bats fold their wings and settle like a black mist on the field where men from both sides lay torn and shredded among the wrecked cannons and bloated horses. They drink from open wounds, their feet sticky with coagulated blood. A female with large wet breasts takes a severed leg and flies off to the nest to wean her pups.

These are the leavings. The men without hope. They lay on their backs holding their guts in with their hands, sucking breath through their ribs, listening as their brains boils out through their ears. They are already corpses-waiting for their last breath.

A figure draped in dark wool and carrying a lamp, moves among the dying. He kneels beside a boy with both legs severed.

"Hush," he whispers in the boy's ear. "Hush, your Grandfather is calling you, listen."

The boy looks into the figure's face. He sees an old man who smiles sadly. "It's grandfather," he tells the boy. "I have come to guide you home."

Gently he places his fingertips on the boy's neck feeling for the vein that pumps red blood from the heart to the brain. He gently presses feeling the rapid fearful pulse. He looks into the boy's eyes and watches. His fingers tighten slowly bit by bit until the pulse has faded to emptiness and the boy's eyes have turned still and dry and lost their light.

He picks up his lamp and moves among the bodies until he finds another one still living. It is a very old man this time. He kneels and takes the man in his arms.

"Hush," he whispers in the man's ear. "Hush, your son is calling you, listen." The man looks into the figure's face. He sees a child who smiles sadly. "Come with me father," he tells the old man. "I have come to guide you home."

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