There are many truths in war. But one of the most brutal truths is death. Not the die in your bed style death, no. The death that needs to be witnessed for this truth to be fully absorbed. The death of violence. The death that draws the attention of the Keres. Then one can fully grasp the notion that we, like animals, are just flesh and bones.
Cassandra lay watching, face down in the blood-soaked sand, as flickers of flames reflect in the soulless eyes that are upon her. Eyes that are wide open, but can no longer see. Yellow curd-like fat burst from a wide-open gash in the leathery grey cheek beneath those eyes. But it's the smell that hits her first. It always does. The smell of burning - wood, grain, flesh. It films her senses like oil coating meat. She tries in vain to spit the taste from her mouth. Every part of her body hurting. The only indication she still has a body. She can’t move.
Dancing flames light up the nights sky so bright, it's as if Apollo himself has come down to walk the streets. The clashing of bronze hammers in to her ears. Screams. So many screams they coil in to one guttural squeal - the sound of a pigs to the slaughter. Smoke assaults her eyes. She blinks out stinging tears, trailing down her dirt covered face, like the years first rain trickling down a dried riverbed.
‘How in Hades did she even get out?’ A hand painfully wraps calloused fingers around her arm, a torch in his free hand, its heat stinging her brow. Cassandra gasps, returning to the present. It's daytime. The suns are rays silhouetting off a giant wooden horse that casts her in shadow. ‘I’ll take her back’ That voice. It was the voice of the stable boy. But he was no longer the smiling, curly haired child that would brush down her horse. Not after ten years of war. Most of Troy’s men had died, so their sons had to step in to their place. Now they were hardened, stone faced warriors, as if Medusa gazed upon them, in a failed attempt to shield what was left of their innocence. Cassandra’s eyes growing distant, gaze into the eyes of the horse. The eyes of death.
Panic envelopes her. Twisting her shoulder, she throws her full body weight forward, sliding out of the boys sweat soaked grip. Snatching his torch, Cassandra runs. Her feet pounding the dirt are heavy, like the lost souls of war are reaching up from the ground, trying to pull her down into the underworld. ‘Stop her!’ Cries ring out. She runs harder. She knows that no one will listen. She knows that horse only brings violence. She knows she must burn that horse, before it burns her home.
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