War

Old men make decisions. Young men carry them out.

Toro watched from his perch in a thickly leaved, precariously positioned tree growing out from rock on the rim of the Great Ravine at its southern-most tip. He’d once overheard an aged chieftain remark that it is contrary to natural order not to be at war. Below him war raged. Before sunrise, he’d heard a sound like soft thunder, very far away. He’d looked in its direction. As the sun rose, even before, they had begun to pour into the ravine. At first a trickle, then so many it was like water thundering down a massive waterfall, or, more apt, a devastating landslide. He’d clamored for cover. Warriors, hundreds of thousands, come to fight, come to die, come to bring about death, to slaughter should they be so destined as to be met with flimsy resistance: an alliance of nations more eager to take up weapons than words. Some rode beasts, some handled creatures trained to kill or sent ahead to sniff out the enemy. The perceived enemy. All wore armor; all wielded the tools of war.

At first Toro needed his scope to see them. They poured into the ravine from the very far north end. Rushing south like a river. They kicked up dust and even from so far away their noise: hooves, shod feet, clanking metal, throaty shouts of hulking fighters, roars of beasts.

Then from every crag, from behind every piece of scrub, emerged fighters nearly the same color as the dust. An army equally fierce, but stealth and sly, lured the first too deep into the ravine. Just before the Narrows, master archers attacked from the rim.

For hours, fighting raged.

Toro watched.

The Collective, ever balancing politics of enemy tribes and nations in order to remain neutral and lucrative, had known. They’d known of trade competition, ravages of drought in the southern territories, jealousy and contempt held for miners and their secret stashes and wealth. Talks were breaking down. Pride of has-been warriors and weakened leaders reared. Uprisings of commoners and peasants erupted. As hot embers exposed to drought-dried tinder, it only takes the smallest of breezes for flames to erupt.

The flames of war in all its ugliness raged below Toro. He clung to branches for cover, wide-eyed at the sight before him, full of the horror of bloodshed, dismembered bodies, dust, so much dust. He would not sketch what he saw, could not. Would that he could erase it from the parchment of his mind.

Could his muscles cling until the cover of dark? Would safety find him even then?

He’d overheard speaking in the night of those too young to have sense to know fear. The elders, in their pride, ignored danger. Their interest in political position required immediacy in time and action, not toiling in negotiations. The most wizened knew the value of diplomacy, but in their old age, and as a result of long lives of more strife than pleasure, had no energy to pursue it. They’d lost the influence to sway minds because they’d made the same mistakes their current figureheads were now making.

Warriors are not warriors without war. Warriors need to hone their skills. Tribes need to support their soldiers. Nations need to have armies and arsenals. There is peace only for those who possess the greatest force. The regime called for retaliation, for engagement, for strike, for show of force. They had called for war.

A fighter slashed his enemy then thrust a long blade of sharpened metal through his abdomen until it came out the other side. Flexing large muscles, he pulled it back out. Its barbs, as designed, pulled out bloodied pieces of organs that were deposited in the next victim with the next thrust. A grotesque expression overtook the fighter’s face, one of thrill and hatred. A dust-colored figure rose behind him and with a leap had his neck in a bowed piece of leather and metal covered in tar-adhered shards of glass. The attacker could not be shaken despite severe whipping and thrashing of the monstrous armor-clad fighter. Blood of each enemy and that of others and even of beasts and creatures mixed with the dust covering the attacker making muddy rivulets down his skin.

In horror, Toro watched the killing and heard its sound. His skin prickled in fear and revulsion. His muscles clung to a crooked limb, and he didn’t notice their ache. Dust joined leaves to shield him from view.

A gust of wind briefly cleared a cloud of dust. Toro got a fleeting glimpse toward the north end of the ravine. The evening before, he had paused in his travel to his nightly tending of Genest to take in the view of the vast cut in rock and earth. A stunning vision in countless hues of brown and tan, it had often caused him to forget a breath only to try to take a larger breath as if he could hold a piece of such an amazing sight inside him. What he now glimpsed brought bile to his throat. He tried to clamp his eyes against what he saw but fear compelled them open and wide.

Did they know for what or whom they fought? What did the victors on the field stand to gain? Would their leaders sitting in opulence only knowing the status of the battle via messengers, messengers oft bribed, realize any meaningful objective? Did anyone on the battlefield, successful or dead, have fathers among the leaders? Or grandfathers? Likely, it was only commoners and peasants who followed the commands of the powerful. Such explained uprisings.

Do these old men, who throw young men into battle, where skill alone has little to do with who lives or dies, consider that no amount of gold-backed propaganda will buy back their allegiance? A leader is only a leader if he has followers. The dead follow no one.