Nigh Nirvana

Airen tired to slow his breathing, calm his racing heart. The blood rushing in his ears was like crashing cymbals. He clutched so tightly to his bow that he could feel the grain press into his hands. Sweat poured down his face into his stinging clamped eyes, and down his tunic. But his breath would not slow; he could not contain his panic.

They would all die. Papa, his brother, their brave soldiers. He could see the face of one of his father’s men; gut torn open, his mouth oddly skewed after life passed out from his last desperate scream. He could see all the blood awash on the floor of the forest, trailing into sickening pools near the trees’ roots. Smears of gore covered trunks and limbs of the forest, and hunks of bodies were strewn about, mangled beyond recognition. By the time he had realized it, the attack was over. The din of battle was not to be heard, only the groans of the dying. They had been ambushed with the speed of light being snuffed from a room. There was no lingering, only death.