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Ash drifted lazily through the air, slowly drifting down on the men surrounding the campfire. Smoke hung thick over the campsite, slowly swirling together from all the campfires surrounding them. Chatter shared this space with the ash and smoke, filling the area. Low, tired murmurs, excited storytelling and friendly squabbling could be heard flowing from different groups. But despite the surface appearance of relaxation, a tense feeling of dread and desperation could be felt tainting the atmosphere. Excitement was bled through with hopelessness and a sense of impending doom, and the low murmurs were filled with a tired acceptance of what was to come.
Such was the reality of war.
War is brutal, it rips every part of your being away from you until it ends up either taking your last breath or leaves you hollow, scooped out to deal with the consequences.
The soldiers huddled around the fire knew it well.
But, as is human nature, once one finds something to fight for, one will give their everything, even if that everything means their demise.
Thus, here they were, settled down for the night, waiting for morning to come, for the sun to rise and take, take, take away the lives of so many of their comrades.
~
Tadgh shivered, shifting closer to the fire and rubbing his hands together. Autumn had long since arrived, and the coming of winter could already be felt in the air. He glanced back up at the men he was sharing his fire with. Once strangers, his little group had steadily become tight-knit friends over the course of their travels. Tadgh didn’t think he’d ever been so close with other human beings, but such is the effect of war he supposed. Blinking back out of his pondering, his eyes met those of Aodham, who was sitting across from him.
“You do not believe in the Gods, do you Tadgh?” he said. The question left Tadgh confused. While extremely unusual, his atheism was no secret within their group and Tadgh knew that Aodham was well aware of it. He hummed in confirmation, curious where Aodham was going with this. His friends have always been surprisingly accepting of his beliefs, or rather his lack thereof. Aodham’s face took on a contemplative expression, and he continued: “Maybe this battle will end up changing your mind of that. I have heard a few nasty rumours. Have you ever heard of Morrigan?” Tadgh wrecked his brain for several seconds but drew up a blank. He shook his head at Aodham, which prompted him to continue. “Honestly, I have no idea how you have never heard of her before, you are in the army for Gods’ sake, but I will tell you.” Tadgh quickly made himself comfortable; he might not believe in the Gods, but he had always loved Aodham’s storytelling.
“Morrigan is the Goddess of death, war, destiny and battle. She circles the battlefields in the form of a raven, preying on the weakest and strongest alike, shifting the fate of the battle in her hands. If you hear the cawing of only a single raven before the battle ends, you’d be right to fear! She’ll pick the brains right out of your skull if she deems it fit, all in the name of fulfilling fate and prophecy. I’d tell you to run if you saw her, if it wouldn’t already be too late, there is no such damning sign of certain death as seeing her circling above.”
Aodham continued like this for the rest of the night, talking about Morrigan's history and slipping on tangents about her other well-known family members: Nuada, Ernmas and the Dagda. He kept talking until all had fallen asleep, and he slipped into slumber as well, mere hours before the sun was bound to rise.
~
Morning arrived quicker than any of them wanted. It felt like they had barely closed their eyes before they were rising with the sun, quickly packing up their camp and returning through the forest back to the main road. All still groggy from sleep, the morning was a much quieter affair than the night before. This, however, steadily changed as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky bringing the men further to life, as well as the forest surrounding them.
Birdsong could be heard throughout the treetops, all different kinds of species happily chittering with each other. As the sunbeams slowly started shining through the leaves, the wildlife closer to the ground started coming to life as well, a fluffle of bunnies could be seen hopping through a small clearing to the right of the road. Nature looked so beautiful that morning that Tadgh had honestly forgotten just what they were all walking towards. At least, he had, until he heard a caw above him. His head snapped up and he saw a raven shooting out from the canopy. He was abruptly reminded of Aodham’s stories of the night before and shifted nervously, the weight of just what they were walking towards sinking right back in. He shook himself like he could get rid of the emotions by physical movement alone as the raven disappeared amongst the trees again, still cawing eerily. That might just be his own unease, however.
As the army kept trudging on Tadgh came to the unfortunate conclusion that no matter what he did, the feeling of unease refused to leave. Neither did the raven. He kept seeing it flit past; out of the corner of his eye, through the trees above, high up in the clouds, through the undergrowth along the path. No matter where he looked, eventually the raven was there again. Paranoia and dread started rising in him. He knew there was no such thing as the Gods, so what was he getting so worried over? It was a forest, of course there were going to be birds. It might not even be the same bird. There are bound to be many ravens in a forest of this size. There is no actual raven that can follow you around as a sign of your approaching death. It was ridiculous.
So why was he beginning to believe it?
No. No no no no no. He was not falling for some stupid campfire story. It was just nerves, that’s all. He is walking towards a war! That isn’t just nothing. This is just his brain’s weird attempt at coping. It has latched on to the first best thing to use to deal with all these emotions running rampant and decided to attribute it to some made-up deity. That’s how religions work right? It’s all just a coincidence and his brain’s attempt at coping. That is all. He can stop worrying now. Yes, he’ll start doing that now.
He didn’t.
No matter how much he tried rationalising it, his heart, his very soul seemed to yell at him, absolutely convinced that this was it. The raven was there, and this was it. He would be gone from this world before the next sun would get its chance to rise.
He ignored it.
~
As the sun reached its zenith the trees started to thin out, eventually parting to reveal a large plain stretching out into the horizon. At least, it would’ve, under normal circumstances. Now, against the horizon, towards the other side of the plain, the opposing army stood. They had finally arrived at the battlefield. Immediately the atmosphere shifted, and the upper command could be seen frantically talking to each other. Despite them trying to keep quiet as to not lower morale, everyone knew what was going on. The enemy had arrived earlier than they had. They should’ve been the ones to arrive first. They had lost one advantage already. Luckily the opposing army turned out to be merciful and didn’t move to advance as they started moving into position.
It had been a lie.
Halfway into setting everything up, having been lulled into a false sense of security, the opposing army saw its chance and moved, quickly charging towards their opponents who were left scrambling. War is neither fair, nor kind and neither were these soldiers. War was Death and Death descended upon the battlefield like a tidal wave. In no time the army had been swarmed and all sense of structure, all sense and normalcy had been lost. There are no such things as noble battles or skillful duels in war. War is a fight for survival. You either fight, slaughter the enemy and get to see another day, or meet your end at that of a blade. Death is indiscriminatory, comes for us all in the End, and Death smiled as She circled the battlefield.
~
Tadgh quickly dodged out of the way of a sword arching towards his neck. He should probably worry about that sword a bit more than he did, but he was still too caught up in the fact that the opposing army had sunk so low as to attack an army in the middle of their preparations. Sure, tactically it’s a good decision, but there was decorum in the art of war. You either attacked immediately when an army approached to catch your enemy off guard, or you waited until they had finished setting up opposite of you and started your battle on equal grounds. It’s obvious which one is the noble and thus expected course of action to take. But to attack an army in the middle of preparations? It was unheard of! Ok, maybe he really should start worrying about that sword.
Tadgh redirected the sword of his opposer with his own and quickly took the opportunity to ram his shoulder into their chest, and then his elbow into the back of their neck as they doubled over to catch their breath. Slamming his sword straight through their spine and yanking it back out again he turned to his next opponent and slit their throat before they could even react, blood spraying into his eyes. Wiping his face he moved on and went to the next opponent before he saw a black spot from the corner of his eye. He turned to look but there was nothing there. Turning back to the fight he was barely able to shift to the side enough to avoid meeting the same end as his last opponent, this soldier’s sword slicing open his left arm as opposed to his neck. Countering, he tried focusing back on the fight. Just as he had turned his full attention to his opponent again, he saw it once more. Higher this time. He had to keep himself from turning his head up and away. He swept his foot against his opponent’s ankles and stabbed them through the abdomen as they went down, trying not to slip on the blood and viscera as he stepped over the body. The black spot was in the corner of his vision again, but he ignored it, he could not afford to get distracted right now.
He moved on, stabbing, slicing and just straight up slamming his way through. Swords make surprisingly good blunt-force weapons. He was coated in remains now. Blood-covered hand slipping on the handle of his sword. He kept moving, kept fighting and kept ignoring everything else around him. The dead, the screaming of the wounded, friend and foe alike, begging for his help. It all didn’t matter, nothing did except for his own survival. And he did. He kept surviving and surviving and dealt death after death. It became increasingly difficult to keep going. Exhaustion began to weigh him down, but so did it for the others. Just like everything he ignored it. He gutted his next opponent and moved to defend himself from the next, trying to catch himself from tripping over the entrails now lining the grass around him. He managed to push his opponent back, using this opportunity to quickly collect himself and moved to rush back into the fray, still ignoring the black flitting around the corners of his vision.
The caw that followed stopped him dead in his tracks. Ice filled his veins, vines wrapped around his cortex and dug in, brain filled up with cotton. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t even breathe as he saw a raven descending upon the battlefield, down and down and down upon the soldier standing right in front of him. It didn’t stop, it didn’t even slow down as it shot straight into the eye and out of the back of the soldier's skull; blood, cerebral matter and bits of cranium splattering everywhere. Onto the grass, onto the soldier, onto Tadgh himself. Complete, unadulterated fear filled Tadgh’s entire being as the raven shot back into the sky.
He watched it circle the battlefield once, twice, thrice, before shooting down again. Dealing the same fate to another soldier, this time from Tadgh’s side. Taking a quick moment to glance around him, Tadgh saw to his horror just how many soldiers lay motionless on the ground, skulls violently cracked open. Some still had their brains slowly leaking out of their heads. It was everything Tadgh could do not to throw up right then and there.
A horrible, terrifying conclusion came to him then. Aodham had been right. Everything he had said the previous night had been absolutely, irrevocably true. This was Morrigan, Goddess of Death and War, a raven as black as the night sky, flying above the battlefield. Every time he had seen something out of the corner of his eye it had been Her picking another soldier off, smashing their brains right out of their skulls.
Desperation started filling his chest as She dove down once more to cut the strings of a soldier’s fate short once more. If all of Aodham’s tellings had been true. Then what would that mean for him? He knew of course. He knew exactly what it meant. He had seen Her the entire march leading to the battle. He could feel his breathing shift from the quickened breathing of exertion to the fast-paced shallowness of terror. He could feel his heart clench and his every muscle lock up as fear overtook his entire being. He was going to die. He was going to die and there was nothing he would be able to do to escape it. The realisation hit him with the same force as a landslide.
No. No, he refused. He was not going to die today. Nor tomorrow, or any time soon. He was surviving this war. Fuck what some God thinks. Regaining control over his body, he looked at the raven one more time and turned right back around. He took off sprinting back towards the forest as quickly as he could, ignoring all of the fighting still happening around him. He just kept on running, hopping over body after body in his desperation of fleeing the inevitable. Because it is inevitable of course. No one can escape Death. You can try of course. Try to flee, avoid or cheat death. But it is all futile, it is all pointless. Tadgh just kept running, however. Desperation does that to a man. He sidestepped every attempt at engagement, blocking swords coming for him left and right. Some managed to nick him, in his arms, chest, legs, but he just kept running, adrenaline fueling him.
He felt something pop beneath his boot and before he knew it he had slipped onto the ground, and an acrid scent assaulted his nose. He looked down at his feet. In his attempt to reach the forest as quickly as possible, he hadn’t noticed the stomach that had fallen out of somebody’s abdomen and stepped right on it. Its contents had burst out, bile now splattered against his boots and trousers. His own quickly joined it. After heaving his own contents onto the ground he scrambled up again as quick as possible, uncaring of the acid now clinging to him together with all the blood and viscera already there. He took off again, throat now burning along with his lungs. He was halfway now. He could make it, as long as he could get to the tree line he’d make it. He was almost there.
~
It was silly of course, to think oneself safe when reaching the treeline. It is like a scared child hiding under one’s blanket for protection. The blanket doesn’t actually stop or protect you from anything of course, just like how a few trees won’t stop a bird, and nothing can stop Death. Beady eyes followed the figure running across the battlefield, amused by its attempts at fleeing. It had no chance, its life was essentially already over. Morrigan flapped Her wings, preparing Herself to circle the battlefield once more, turning Herself until She was parallel to the forest, opposite of Her victim. She looked down on it with a detached amusement, it was just another being She was coming for, after all. But it had been a while since someone had noticed Her on a battlefield and attempted to escape Her. She lifted Herself slightly higher in the air, floated there for several seconds.
She dove down.
~
Cawing
He heard cawing.
He was doomed. He was absolutely, completely doomed. This was it. There was nothing he could do anymore now. He had tried. He had tried so, so hard, and it hadn’t been enough. He had tried to run, and Death came for him anyway. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a sceptical person, if he had believed. Would that have helped? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter anymore now anyway. It was over.
A strange sense of acceptance came over him, as he saw Her approaching. He sank to his knees on the grass, despite the battle still raging on around him. He must’ve looked insane. He didn’t care, though, not anymore. He tilted his head up, and looked Her in Her beady eyes as She dove down at him.
Before he could blink, She was already there. Pain shot through him as his head was quite literally torn apart. Cerebral matter and meninges burst out, painting the surrounding grass in reds and pinks. Death tore through him, shook off the viscera as She unfurled Her wings again and took to the skies once more.