Sophia
Funny how man changes things to suit their own purposes.
The General
September 16, 2017
It was not the sounds from the battle. It was not the sights of the devastation after it was all over. It was the smell. Death has a smell all its own. Add violence to that death and the smell is rancid and something that never leaves you. It goes into your nose and becomes a memory. Memory, hell, it becomes a part of your soul. After three years of that smell seeping into you, you are no longer worried about surviving the war. All thoughts of finding a good woman and settling down, looking forward to building a better new world, creating a place where you can be at peace and smell the beauty of the earth and feel the sun and breeze cleanly blowing on your face are gone. After three years happily ever after is gone. In it's place is the fear that the war will end and you'll still be standing. That you'll live to see that day where the thirios are gone and humans are once again safe. You're afraid because the smell has taken over so much of your soul that you no longer have just a soul but something that has become dark and twisted. Something that has taken over and will never let you go. Before the war it was possible to be both a man and a warrior. Now that duality is gone in the surviving fighters. These soldiers are no longer capable of putting the warriors to the back of their minds to be pulled out only in an emergency. The human part of them had to be destroyed to get them this far. And God help them, I'm their leader. I'm the most non-human man left. I no longer look at them and see Tom with his wife and young son, or Jeffery and his elderly parents. Now I see my best archer and my scout. I see tools to be used to my advantage. I see the warriors that will protect our healers so they can go on to create a new world. I do have hope that the warriors will be able to help those healers in the creation. If they have any sense they'll put the healers in charge. Then maybe the healers will leave those warriors who survive the hell alone. We are beyond help now. We will always be there to stand against those who desire to hurt our healers but we can't live with them anymore. Those days are done.
"Sir, she needs you."
I am pulled from my thoughts. If she needs me I must go. Regardless of my being her general in this war, if she summons me, I go. I have always gone to her and always will. She is my Lady, my protector. She has been with me since the day of my birth, keeping me alive and safe from harm. The least I owe her is my allegiance. I leave my tent and head toward her. She is standing alone atop the . The setting sun hides her beauty but can do nothing mask her power. I begin the walk up the hill. She does not turn. She knows it is me approaching her. "My Lady you have need of me."
She turns her head in a smooth motion to look at me. "Why so maudlin this eve my general?" Her voice cuts through me like the fire she was created from. I don't bother to deny her words. What would be the point? She knows me through and through.
"My Lady..."
That is all I get out when the attack begins. The arrows slicing through the air singing their sweet deadly song. I hear the screams of my warriors that have been hit, the orders of the others trying to create a purpose in the chaos. The Lady has disappeared. She can not be captured.
