Retribution Hill
by This is one of my lesser works I’d imagine. It’s again on the theme of wondering what it would be like to lose someone, and how I’d act. And the last part, I just couldn’t paragraph at all. It was such a solid flow of consciousness and constant action, that I couldn’t discern where to put the gaps, so I hope you’ll forgive the fact that I left it as is.
The battle was raging all around me. Swords flashed in response to my own slashs. I was trying to make my way to my companion. Every time I seemed to be hacking my way through the forest of bodies, he seemed to be dragged further from my reach. I swing my sword more and more desparately as I see him start to buckle. The blade that I had seen in my nightmares for years thrust forward, through his heart.
A call from a trumpet and the enemy retreated, leaving me empty. All I could do was stare at the vacant eyes of the one who knew me more than any other. A slight trickle of blood traced a path from the corner of his mouth. I fell to my knees, and fell onto his body. The emptyness I felt replaced with complete and utter despair and longing for someone who will never come back.
Soon the men come to take away the dead bodies and they forcedly remove me from his body. It would have lost it’s heat long ago, but I enthused it with my own heat, in some childish ideal that if I got him warm enough he would breathe once more. His head lolling back as they drag him away removes that childish fantasy and I cry anew. Emptyness is my heart’s new companion as it has lost it’s lust of life.
A peal of thunder and a face wake me at the night’s darkest hour. The face, not of the one lost, but of the taker of his life. My sword buckled to my side, I leave my room and melt into the undergrowth. Some unknown force directs me to his killer. That force controls me, compels me. That is the force that drives my legs towards my target. Nothing can stand in my way, if it does, it soon yields under my blade.
Parting the branches in front of me, I see a camp fire. The soft yellow glow outlines a row of tents. I know which one he’s in. I can feel my hate pulling me towards it.
‘Wait’ I tell myself. “The time isn”t right.’
‘Any time is the time for revenge,’ the voice in my head screams. I feel my legs lift me up and pull me along. I try to pull myself back under-cover before I’m spotted but it’s too late, I have no control over my actions. Now I am a mere spectator to the end of my life.
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