The Lone Warrior
The warrior sat alone. His sword was planted softly in the earth by his feet. The blade was well worn, signs of battles past showing clearly along its battered length. Elbows on his knees, he spun the pommel of the blade, an old habit he picked up long ago. The man wore tiredness on his face like a mask. Weathered, scarred hands continued their constant spinning. The rock the light-haired man sat upon was worn smooth. It seemed he was not the only one who’d found this rock so useful.
A sudden sound broke the warrior’s idle concentration. He looked up slowly as the sound once more rented the air. The man would have chuckled if he could remember how. He’d have some company at last. He couldn’t remember the last time he had even seen another living soul. As he stared about the field, the flapping and fluttering of dark wings heralded the arrivals of a few ravens. One of the more brazen beasts found a perch on the warrior’s shoulder and began picking at the bits of flesh that covered the leather and steel armor the warrior wore. He almost raised a hand intent on removing the bold bird from his spot but thought better of it. The warrior would be the last to interrupt another’s feast. The gods only know the last time he’d feasted, or eaten for that matter.
The bird flapped and happily gorged itself on the bloody remnants. The warrior sighed deeply. The metallic spinning of his sword offered a discordant melody to the bird’s noisy eating. Leather creaked softly as the warrior ran a hand through his red-tinged hair. His helm was long gone. His hair fell to just above his shoulder and would normally be blonde, had it not been for the ash and ancient blood that turned it to a dull and dirty brown. The raven largely ignored the move, too content with his meal to really care.
Sighing yet again, the warrior’s blue eyes took in the scene around him. His gaze was almost empty, his eyes showing nothing of the spark of life behind them. It seemed like a long time since his eyes had focused on anything but the pommel of his sword or the ground beneath his feet. Heavily hooded, they stared about the battlefield, though it seemed more a charnel house than any battlefield he could remember, had he been able to remember much of anything. The sky was tinged orange and red — it was sunrise or sunset — he couldn’t be sure. The landscape was a barren wasteland of black, grays, and muddy red. Fire and death had ravaged the countryside. Bodies were strewn randomly about the grounds.
He turned his head, sweeping his lifeless eyes across the battlefield. The leather straps of his steel breastplate protested slightly as he turned. The armor was well made and chased with gold. As he continued his contemplation of the field, he not so much as noticed a small rise in the ground, but one could say that his gaze fell upon it. It could be called a hill, but barely. In the death-filled flatlands that surrounded it, the bit of raised earth did indeed stand out. As empty blue eyes focused on something other than the spinning blade, or the ground beneath his feet, the spinning stopped, yet only for a moment.
Other than the random cawing of the gluttonous scavengers, the metallic whirring of the sword on the hard ground was the only sound for several miles in any particular direction, or so it seemed. An indeterminate amount of time passed. The ringing of steel on the ground and the contented quorking of the raven continued. The silence was jarring, the discordant sound of the spinning had been a constant companion for longer than the warrior could remember. A profound silence settled over the area as the warrior stared at the spot on the ground where the point of his sword had worn a hole in the hard-packed earth. The silence was unusually pervasive. Even the raven on his shoulder ceased in its gluttony and was still. The warrior’s hand moved instinctively from the pommel to the grip, wrapping strong fingers around the worn leather of the sword handle. White knuckles betrayed just how hard the warrior was gripping the blade. His face betrayed nothing.
For once unmindful of the guest perched upon his shoulder, the warrior stood up. Chainmail screeched and leather creaked as the warrior took to his feet. It was seemingly a simple act, but he couldn’t remember just how long he’d been sitting there. The raven screamed its outrage at being disturbed and flapped off huffily, searching for a better meal. Luckily there were enough bodies strewn about that the raven did not have to travel far.[Maybe omit this sentence since it interrupts what’s going on with the warrior?] The warrior’s vacant blue eyes locked on the hill in the distance. Slowly, almost agonizingly, the lone man raised one booted foot, drew it forward and then placed it on the ground ahead of the other. The warrior almost stumbled, as he’d forgotten the use of the muscles themselves. The other foot followed suit several moments later. His sword dragged along the ground behind him as the blood-encrusted man shambled and stumbled his way toward his goal.
Ravens flapped and cawed indignantly as the warrior’s progress disturbed their meals. He barely noticed; his capacity for concern was next to nothing. The hill was some distance away, and though his walking ability was getting better, the warrior had a long way to go. The environment seemed endless. Distance could only be marked by the dead, and his path, only by angry ravens. Even then, they would settle back to their picking, and his trail would be lost. He hadn’t bothered to look down as he stumbled over an eternity of bodies. The warrior’s blue eyes were locked on the hill that was drawing ever closer. His sword would stick in bodies or get caught in the muddy morass the field had become. Habit and a vague sense that the sword would soon be useful kept him from simply letting it drop.
At last, the ground started to rise ever so slightly, and his pace slowed even further. The warrior, for that’s what he was, stopped. Standing there for an indeterminate amount of time, he continued to stare at the hill. A nameless and burning need filled him and drew him ever closer. His feet moved yet again. Step after step finally brought him to the top.
He wasn’t sure what brought him, but his feet continued moving of their own accord. His eyes cast about, looking for something, anything. At the center of the rise, his feet stopped. For the first time in a long time, he consciously exerted his will. His feet refused to listen. It seemed as though they knew more than he did. Blue eyes found their way down to glare at his stubborn appendages. Just in front of them, a body lay. His eyes dismissed it as yet another in the endless field, but as they started to look away, a glint of metal flashed. The warrior’s eyes returned to the body. He wasn’t sure how anything could flash in the orange and red nightmare that colored the sky. Yet flash it did.
As he took a closer look, things started to look familiar. The body’s boots were similar to his own, and the armor the body wore was the same style, chainmail under steel plate with pauldrons protecting the shoulders. The similarities continued as the warrior’s eyes at last lit upon the face belonging to the body. Eyes widened, and if time could stand anymore still than it already was, it would have. Blond hair covered the body’s head, the line of the jaw, the nose, everything. It was his face that jolted him. The warrior was staring at his own body. His sword dropped, clanging harshly to the ground. The sound echoed about the expanse. As if by some unseen command, the body’s eyes opened wide. The warrior’s full faculties finally came to bear and he took a quick step back, kneeling and scrabbling blindly for his sword as his doppelgänger got slowly to its feet. Blue eyes locked on blue eyes, and the warrior backed up yet again, edging slowly down the rise, the body begins to follow him.
A blinding flash took his vision. The warrior knuckled his eyes open and stumbled at the bright light that assaulted his gaze. Regaining his balance, he realized he was no longer in the hellish field of dead. He was somewhere familiar. He stood upon a dais outside a palace — more specifically, his palace. Beneath the dais was a mass of people, soldiers mostly. Standing beside him was… him. It took the warrior another few moments to collect himself, again. This version of him looked just like he remembered, a king at the height of his power, golden crown resting upon his brow. Armor was polished to a mirror finish and set with jewels and precious metals. A great silk cape fluttered silently. He stared out and around the palace courtyard where he and his men were assembled. The trees were shedding their leaves, and his other self began to speak. The words were indistinct, and the crowd roared, but the warrior could not hear it. It was as if the world had gone silent. He still felt everything — the warmth of the sun, the gentle breeze that tugged almost playfully at his hair.
Then he stopped for what had seemed like the hundredth time as he realized what this was. What this speech his other self was giving began. He heard not a word of it, though he remembered it well. He spoke of the unbridled aggression of his neighbors, and the darkness flowing across their borders and infecting this fair land. He called upon his men to fight hard against the darkness. It was all fiction of course. The neighboring lands harbored little, if any, enmity with the warrior’s kingdom. The aggression was his. Soldiers bearing foreign banners slaughtered villages and towns all across the border.
This day was the day that started the war. His war. His army marched out from the castle and began wreaking havoc across the border. They killed any and all that they saw, goaded by their great king’s blood-fueled rage. Villages burned. Bodies left unburied were quickly attended by the host of ravens following the warrior’s army. All this and more passed the lone warrior’s eyes.
His vision blurred one final time and he was once more standing upon the blood-soaked ground in a world of black and red and orange.
“N-n-no.” The word rang out loud, despite being barely above a whisper. The warrior couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken. The body moved slowly but inexorably toward the warrior. A loud burst of raven cries rented the air, as the entire band of birds took wing at once. The world filled with the sound of flapping wings and feathers. Motion from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Another body stirred, the outstretched hand beginning to close and open. Soon it too stood up and shuffled its way toward the warrior. The crows [did you mean ravens? This is the first mention of crows] circled high above the field in a screaming, cawing fury, wings beating the air almost hysterically.
The warrior’s head cleared and he raised his sword, taking on a defensive posture. He wasn’t sure what these things were, but there was no doubt in his mind that he would kill as many of them as he could. All around him, more and more of the dead stirred, every one of them getting to their feet and moving toward the warrior.
Hesitation was no longer an option. Steel flashed as his sword flicked out and neatly parted a head from a pair of shoulders. Blood sprayed and the body fell, moving no more. A brief wave of relief passed through the warrior; they can be killed. Without further contemplation, the warrior began his work. His sword was a blur of death, slicing and hacking and stabbing through the mass of the dead men. Body parts and bodies dropped to the sodden earth with sickening regularity. On and on he fought, bringing death to the dead. He had no idea how long he fought, or how many he killed; he never tired and his sword showed no sign of breaking.
The timeless orange and red sky bore witness to endless slaughter. The crows kept up their raucous screaming. The world of the warrior shrunk to nothing more than the next kill, and the next one and the next one. He left a trail of dead thousands long as he killed his way through the field. Finally, he found himself back on the rise. Upon that rise stood the one that looked like him. Blue eyes stared, and for the briefest of moments, the sword point dipped, shaking slightly. All the others were dead. No more dead stirred upon the ground. The doppelgänger was the last of them, yet the warrior hesitated. After all the blood and gore and death, it was here that his sword was stopped. Everything was silent — even the crazed ravens stopped their screaming.
He knew then, what he must do. His heart hardened and the warrior ran the dead man through. Steel parted flesh easily and blood-drenched the ground once more. The crows who, only moments before had been crying raucously, vanished as the warrior struck. The doppelgänger fell without a sound and rested once more in the center of the rise, though no wound showed. His sword tip dropped low as the body fell away, and at last, he felt weary. Waves of fatigue washed over him. The task complete, his mind grew clouded with exhaustion, and his legs shook with weakness. A distance away he spotted a rock that looked like a good place to rest. Step by wearying step, he struggled to make it to his rest. Booted feet stumbled their way forward, his sword dragging behind him, catching on the dead but not sticking in any of the bodies. If it had, doubtless he would have dropped it then and there. He barely had the strength to hold the weapon as it was. Only a dim sense of need kept his hand wrapped around the blade.
The warrior collapsed upon the rock, resting his elbows on his knees. His sword was in his hand between his feet, the point resting in the sodden earth. The rock was worn smooth from the countless times it was used in such a way. The warrior sighed as he sat alone, spinning the pommel of the sword, an old habit he’d picked up long ago.
