The last of the army was surrounded. The thick air of dust, sweat, and grime, was settling down, preparing for the eerily still aftermath, lulling the survivors into a half-awake trance.
They did not glance at each other from under the torn, blackened wreckage of wood, stone and bone. One man had lost both his legs, another an arm. No man was wholly untouched. But they were oblivious to all other senses, clutching their weapons in already dead hands, their keen ears listening for the last sounds they would hear.
When it came, it would be the end, and they would fight and die alone.
Their bodies rolled down the rocky slope, littered with other corpses, almost noiselessly, and one off the edge of the cliff, where stood the last great watch tower that fell, overlooking the glowing embers of their burnt city.
The sun rose up, almost shamefully, behind the gashed, blood soaked battle field, the mountain casting harsh, unforgiving shadows on the enemy army and the city it had won.
The war was lost, but the victors did not cheer or even seem aware of their triumph as they knelt in tired morning prayer amidst the grey stone remains and toppled pillars, their voices echoing mournfully over the silent towers below, and its silenced inhabitants.
A lone man stood by the only wall that remained of the tower, gazing distantly over the edge. The Master of the enemies.
There was a long, comfortable silence, unbroken by the army that awaited him.
"Rebuild," said this man, not turning around. "It was a great city once, this city of our enemies. A worthy opponent, a worthy nation."
He glanced back at them for a moment.
"Rebuild."
As if understood as an order of definite meaning, the army began its winding way down the steep sides, to the city and to the new empire.
One man remained, watching them go, with fire in his eyes, still and irresolute, his grime filled hands clenched to his sides, the expression on his face wrought in unreadable stone.
"What," he said bluntly, his voice shaking, "was so evil about them that you killed them all?"
"Nothing." said the Master, musingly, after a long pause. "When blood-lust, and the fear of blood-lust, conquers a man, his hand spares no one. It was them, or us. The time of their world ended, like all things must. Our time has come." He gazed thoughtfully at the hopeful, brightening blue sky, "Good and Evil does not exist in this world of men. Only things that have happened and things that will... There will come a time when ours will end."
There was a flash of steel and the Master had a weapon pressed against his neck.
"Not ours... You killed them all. No, not all. Not all... Everything is gone. I will avenge them with your death!" said the man incoherently, his wet face white and his hands shaking with rage.
For a tense moment of silence his gaze was fixed on the ruins below them; all that remained of his city - ghosts and memories that would fade away with him.
His weapon dropped, the sound echoing loudly and falsely off the orange face of another cliff. He was suddenly calm, his eyes were dry, and his anger had left him.
"What am I doing?" he whispered, his unseeing eyes roving over his thoughts, as if suddenly unaware of the other's presence. "I have no where to go... No place in this mortal world. A corpse left behind. An aimless phantom."
He knelt down on one knee, his head bowed low over it, "You must kill me now. The gods have made a mistake in letting me live."
The Master of the enemies turned his face, furrowed with pity and sorrow, away towards the sun. He passed a weary hand over his eyes and then held it out to the last of his vanquished.
"I humbly thank you for letting me live... What use would your death be now? Some more human blood spilt by human? Another body to burn?
Rise, brother. The war has ended. There are no enemies now."
The kneeling man slumped forward silently, peacefully. He had quietly bled to death from his many injuries and unseen wounds. He did not hear his enemy speak.
The Master laid him out on the earth, to send him more easily to his resting place. He bent down and removed the man's ill-fitting helmet, out of respect for the dead, and found that the last of the conquered was a woman.
Feb 1 2008
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