The ground ran slick with blood.
Not in streams. Not in rivers. But in sudden, uneven pools—sticky and steaming, sinking into the grass like the earth itself had grown a thirst for men.
It was Herculean blood mostly, bright and wild and spattered like the careless splash of a farmer's pail across a field. Blood that once pulsed in veins with dreams of glory, home, or simply another day lived.
Now it lay wasted. Soaked into roots. Slurped by worms, to be taken back by what they came from.
They had been crushed—smashed by hammers, split open by halberds, minced with axes, stabbed with blades, and impaled with spears until there was no telling where one man ended and the next began. They died on their feet, on their knees, flat on their backs choking on their own teeth. And the manner of death didn't matter. The shape of it changed nothing. Once fallen, they were equal in value: kindling for war's infernal fire.
And Jarza?He watched.Eyes dry. Face unreadable.
