[ WP ] Tell a story in which the narrator tells the reader a single lie . Readers are to deduce what the lie is using hints from the story .

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 *The gates have fallen* 
 *And we fall like autumn leaves* 
 *But I still stand tall* 
 
 -- - 
 
 The cries of the wounded and dying melded with the screams and shouts of the hale into one endless chorus of pain and rage. Priests and their assistants had crowded the castle's small chapel, their sonorous prayers trying to reach the lofty ears of their many gods. The gods were deaf to the pleas of their children. 
 
 Healers and those too weak or young to fight tended to the injured, staunching bleeding wounds and carrying skins of water from patient to patient. The air reeked of piss and shit and the hot copper stench of blood, the stone floor becoming smeared with the filth of hundreds. For those who did not make it there was little ceremony, each bed needed for the next wounded person. The dead were stacked liked cordwood in a small storage room, their lifeless eyes staring up in shock or dull acceptance. 
 
 Ringing the hall were narrow arrowslits, archers placed at each one so as to fire on the surging tide of foes. The snap-hiss of bowstrings was a constant noise, the lethal whir of arrows as they streaked towards their targets. Youths just on the verge of adulthood bustled to and fro carrying bundles of swan fletched arrows, the average archer able to fire twenty in a single minute. 
 
 A pair of guards, their minor wounds bandaged and splinted stood sentinel at the foot of a curling staircase, any pair of injured guards standing at the top of them. If one were to climb those stairs and make their way past the guards they'd find a thick and reinforced door, its iron fittings and oak planks strengthened with layers of wards and spells. Behind that door was a long and wide hallway with dozens of doors leading off to various rooms. 
 
 In one room, larger than the rest but far more austere stood a collection of elders and veterans, their ornate armors and robes of office at odds with the noise and chaos below them. One of them, a Captain of the Sky was white with grief, five out of six of the House's vaunted dragons slain in the weeks and days preceding the siege. Their force, which had numbered over a hundred before their Arrival to this New World was no more, a few lingering survivors and one mortally wounded beast being all that was left of one of the fiercest aerial corps in Fae history. Besides him was Master of Archers rather young for the rank; the former Master and his three highest ranking subordinates having perished in the fighting earlier. 
 
 `` So what shall we do? asked a mage from the Circle of Earth. 
 
 `` Fight them of course!'' shouted a Master of spears with helm tucked under arm. His armor bore the scars and dents of heavy fighting, having been called away from the battle for this meeting. `` Let them throw themselves on our defense and bleed themselves dry! A dozen will fall for every one of ours.'' 
 
 There were murmurs of agreement from the martially inclined. Those courtiers and mages who'd hoped for peace talks were grim and subdued. One voice laughed. 
 
 All eyes turned towards the window with its armored shutters and arrow slits and towards the figure leaning against it, his tired amber eyes squinting in the light. 
 
 `` Tell me,'' a Circle of Water mage asked. `` What does the Black Wolf suggest we do? What does a Human know about war?'' 
 
 The tired Man did indeed look like one of that breed of hunter, his unshaven face and hair tied back giving me a wild appearance compared to the worn but well-kept Fae. His armor bore more scars than the rest of them, its splinted mail covered with numerous scratches and dents. A small targe had been slung over his shoulder, its plain leather face shredded completely in the wild melee at the gatehouse just hours earlier. 
 
 `` Nothing. Everything. We're all dead no matter what we do. The only question is, how do you want to die?'' 
 
 A courtier, her elegant robes at odds with the fresh cut on her brow slash a fan in the Man's direction. 
 
 `` I fail to see how this a laughing matter, Wolf. Surely a mortal man would understand the terror of death?'' 
 
 Hilary Flint shook his head and smiled with yellow teeth. 
 
 `` Death is a tragedy for the Fae, but a certainty for Man. I am not afraid to die... I am prepared to die. Are you?''
