The Stripes of a Tiger

Men have gathered to kill each-other, in a land between lands, far away from any form of civility. They soil the ground in blood, and above them flies a murder. Clouds of dark crows hovering hungrily and eyeing the corpses below. Each deathly scream that echoes through the mountain means an added meal to their feast, angels of death. On the field, in the heart of battle, a man revels in the chaos. He sees not opponents, nor enemies, only sacks of flesh to be torn apart. He swings his sword as if it is part of himself. A sharp cold extension of steel, existing only to spill bloody offerings to the ground. The earth responds back, spitting her entrails of mud and dirt as he fights and walks upon her. Though he is still young, his skin wears the tapestry of a thousand battles. His heart knows nothing but war. Everything about him is thick and swollen: his cauliflower ears, his cheek folds riddled with broken capillaries, or even his beard, darker than his armour. His eyes are black beads dug deep into his skull and shadowed by bushy eyebrows. To his foes he would seem like death himself had come up from the hells to drag them down with him. His appearance at the moment did not falter this: the only parts about him not covered in blood and dirt being the trails of his own sweat. A deathly thing, and death he brought.

Behind the man, on a hill overlooking the battlefield, stood three figures on horseback. They were indistinguishable from this distance, but as the man looked over his shoulder, he saw them and knew exactly who and - most importantly - what they where. In the middle was the commander of the division, on his left, a unit captain, on his right, a knight… Fucking knights, he thought as he watched the figure standing upright and proud on his decorated warhorse. The knight himself wearing an overly gilded silver armour that the man had seen earlier that morning. Not a notch or even a slight scratch on it. A useless armour for a useless man, he said to himself. It was overly elegant and fanciful, which was often true of any noble thing.

Down here with the footmen, the armours were rough. Plucked and notched, scratched, ripped and patchily sewn. None were shiny. All were scratched and matt with dry blood, dirt, and some with the ashes of the corpse that wore it before. That was often the case of soldiers in a levy, too poor to buy new, they had to live off the scrapes of old wars fought by their fathers before them. His armour was a mix of all. Like him, it had been through countless battles, and over the years it had been reconstructed and repaired so much one would wonder if it could still be considered the original. It had pauldrons made of different metals, rusted chain mail hung from the chest piece down to the knees, boiled leather so weathered it cracked when folded. The good thing was he’d worn it so much it had adopted his form. To him, this armour was like a second skin, whereas with the other levy footmen, who, for most only recently wore armours for the first time in their lives, theirs were cumbersome and fitted awkwardly on their bodies. However, they all wore one thing in common, tabards harbouring the colours of the kingdom they fought for. The man, and the men beside him, along with the three figures behind, all wore indigo blue, while in front of them, the men wore crimson red, a colour that seems to overflow the battlefield. Not just in blood, but each time the man peaked over the chaos, the blue colours of his brothers in arms seemed to dwindle further and further.

Back in the fray, the man holds his position. Another man swings at him, he parries the strike. The two swords clash and the vibration from it is so strong it could break a bone. The man quickly responds with a precise jab underneath the enemy’s jaw, opening his throat. The blood spilling through the groove of the sword, like water through a gutter. The man lowers his sword and the now corpse follows, it slides off like meat off a skewer. The blood, slowly pooling with the rest. He kills off a few more before looking over the chaos again. The men on his side are even fewer than before. Behind him, on the hill overlooking the field, he sees that the three figures who stood there moments ago, are now gone. There is no one, the commander, the captain, and the knight have abandoned the battlefield. They left the still fighting soldiers to an inevitable slaughter. Unwilling to accept the shame of surrender or retreat.

This is where he would die. Or this is where his kingdom deemed it so. This prideful kingdom, gleaming in false honour. He would die a useless death and be forgotten by the next war. All the honour and glory reserved for self-righteous nobles who had never spilled blood in their lives. All so they could keep drowning themselves in their own vanity, and overpriced wine. Those same nobles who months prior had refused him the honour of knighthood, all because he was common born, and didn’t share the same blood as them. This is the fate they had reserved for him, but it would not be the fate he would follow. He would make his own providence, and so before the battle ended, he let himself fall on the ground and stayed quiet and still.

As he waited, listening to the end of the slaughter, a man was struck, and fell over him, his warm guts spilling on him like a blanket. The smell of iron was sickening. Sharp, cold, and strong. From the clashing of steel to the muddy red floor, like sheets from a miscarriage. A gnarly sight, even more so from his prone position. As time passed, the sounds of men screaming and fighting was replaced by the sounds of cheers and celebration. He can do nothing but wait. Lying in pools of entrails belonging to the men he once knew. Soldiers, not by choice, but by duty. They weren’t as trained or as skilled as he was, but he respected them, nonetheless. Although now, they were all dead, fighting someone else’s war.

Night would be his only chance of escape; soon they’d start looting the bodies for spoils and gear. So, when the sun fell and the moon rose, and the men he fought gathered around a camp not so far from the battlefield, he escaped.

He ran as fast and as far as he could. There was no way out of this if he was caught; the enemy would kill him, or his kingdom would string him up as a deserter. Through a forest he removed his armour and scattered it on the ground. He buried his dirty blue tabard, hoping perhaps the smell of blood would bring animals to tear it apart. He then walked through a river, knee deep in freezing cold water to throw off anyone who would follow his tracks. He ran, his sweat cleaning off all the blood and dirt from the battle. His feet were blood raw, but he kept running. It took all night before he fell from exhaustion.

In the morning, he was found by farmers in a field of ripe yellow wheat.