“It's done now...” He gazed up at the sky. It was dark and blood red, overrun with smoke from fires – burning battlements, body pyres, carnage unseen in a century and to be unforgotten for a hundred more. That sky wept and bore the scars of the ground like a reflection, the clouds dark and black, a pale moon hiding as the sun was drowned by the hell below. Day and night. Relief and agony. The last battle...and with it, the rest that follows. This view was his alone. A dying warrior's victory.
He saw her descend, and his eyes alighted. His people's goddess-emissary. Adorned in steel, heralded by the crows. Her beauty was sharp and feral, alight on raven wings. She was not a gentle thing; she was his death as surely as the wound that burned in his belly. By the gods, though, she was beautiful to the bygone warrior. Her feet touched the ground and a tear caught in his eye. When she spoke, he sobbed freely.
“Young warrior, you have bled for your people. Seven times, these walls rose against us. Seven times, scores of your blood-cousins fell, and with each failure, more faltered. Your father died in the third charge, a man's death.” She leaned low, a whisper on her tongue, words not to be spoken with pride to that burning sky. “Your brother fled on the fifth advance. He was crumpled under the boots of better men.” His hands clenched, but he relented. The seeker of the worthy did not lie; she could not. She was pure. She was his reward.
“You, however, bore seven marches upon those walls. You alone saw them break. You alone saw the color of the blood of your foes. You walked the breach...killed the hungry and sickened foe, broke the weak and the cowardly. You stood, where others fell, and you showed no mercy. You, and you alone, shall walk with...” Her voice trailed off. Her expression, cold and sharp, seemed to soften. Her face reminded the dying warrior of his wife. She lived a simple sail away, one he would not make. He'd kissed her lips goodbye. The taste returned at the sight and made him hungry.
He felt her weight upon his chest and sighed. His arms wrapped around her. “This...is not our way. Not a warrior's end,” he whispered. The woman in his arms was silent...shaking. A warmth flowed over his chest, then down and through. His grip upon her tightened. Raven's feathers fell like rain around the both, a brilliant display.
“...Sleep now, my beauty. My angel. This will have to do. This...will have to do.” He pulled the arrow from her heart, gazed back at the sky. So much more smoke. The air filled with the sounds of drums and the songs of victory.
They were not his people's songs. They were not the prayers to his gods. Other angels flew the skies today. His own angels grew cold as he did...but it would have to do. He closed his eyes, and his angel followed him. Where they went, strange and foreign gods would soon decide.
("...or something epic-turned-tragic")
