Along a smoky, winding path wrapped around the mountains; their commander, who rode a brown Danish warmblood, with his sword dangling on his right hand side, gazed beyond the foggy distance in-front of his army—a legion of cadavers consisting of people’s late ancestors and even offsprings, clothed in soggy pants and rat-torn shoes—before pulling his reins and urging his horse forward.
The commander had a calm expression on his face, despite the predictably forlorn future ahead. Winter was fast enclosing the mountains, leaving everything in its wake, a hazy look—a much-needed sheep clothing for the army of the dead marching up against the army of the living in the open fields—and already a foreshadowing to what the rest of the army saw as a bleak future, though contrary to their commander’s sentiments, because he saw it as a true test of their strength ahead of the innumerable wars lying in wait for them.
To him, the commander, war has always been a necessity for a just course and nothing else but war; not even a round table discussion with the enemies and some bottles of liquor. Just war. Someone had to die on a battlefield; brothers, fathers, cousins, nephews, and even sisters in some cases, for the realization of a much-overlooked phenomenon to set in, which in his case was the fight for humans to realize that though “one returneth to dust is no excuse for castaways of late loved ones”.
Nsikan Hilary
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