The Warrior's Guilt

I close my eyes, and pulsing through my lids are rivers of blood. Pounding in my ears are the screams of men as my sword bites through leather and cloth to fell them, the macabre source of my blood River. In my dreams, I swim upstream, the metallic tang of blood in my mouth and nose as I pump my scarlet arms in a steady breaststroke through the tragedy I have woven. The salt of my tears mixes with the iron of the blood river and I sputter, red droplets spraying from my lips.

It wasn’t always like this. In the days of yore I cut down my enemies, smote their ruin and reveled in the death I wrought. I’d use a skull as a chalice here and there, if the owner was a worthy enough opponent and I wanted to desecrate them in death as well as life. Children beat each other with sticks, laughing gleefully as they told their friends they best not tangle with the Warrior, as I was known in my youth.

With a bitter, gravelly noise that sufficed for a laugh these days, I cursed the person I was who inspired these children to replace part of their innocence with my violence. I cursed the mail and the plate, the halberd and the longsword. I rested my craggy head in my murderous hands and sobbed with the reckless abandon of a child, who doesn’t know how to rein in his emotions. I beat my gnarled fists on the ground and gritted my teeth.

I am old now, and Death will come for me, the same way it came for the thousands I have murdered in the name of a king who considered me but a tool, murdered so oft that Death shows no Mark on me. I do not fear Death.

I welcome it. I beg Death to come to me so I may atone for my sins. I cannot swim the rivers of blood anymore. I am finished.