Sunday, June 3, 2007

An excerpt.

The weight was crushing overhead and the ripped arrow hole in his shoulder trickled dark blood. It dripped deep down into the folds of oil treated leather armor like red wine into fine rugs, staining despite their hours of special treatment. The steady beating of war drums had died long ago and only the sound of his harsh breathing accompanied what seemed like an agonizing eternity in the still darkness of a moonless night. Thousands of cuts some large enough to still ooze thick blood and some too small to scratch more than the surface mingled with the steaming sweat of another day in hell and smartly stung with the reassuring pain of the living.
The tomb of bodies around him shuddered every once in a while feeding rotten air to his parched lungs or closing in around him with a terrible weight. They moved again now but this time from above. The weight atop his twisted form lessened substantially but not enough to afford him any movement. His hope died when the stillness came again.
Visions of the men who might incase him now and their dying screams that had tormented his first hours beneath this mess seemed more than just distant. He could no longer pick his own voice out of the cacophony or even remember screaming along with the rest of the dying and terror-stricken but when he tried to call out his voice was no longer his, just a weak-rasping imitation no louder than his breathing. Other memories dared to rise but he fought them back not wishing to tarnish their beauty with the foul circumstances, but they could not be kept back for long. His heart ached for a last moment with them and the comfort they promised as they fought to return. When his defenses fell and he succumbed to those cherished memories of home one such memory pulsed with a fiery intensity. Now welcoming the distraction he let it flood over his senses and pull him into a familiar darkness.