God of War

It took seven days for the crying voices to stop. Three more until the groans ceased. By that time, the ground had dried to a mottled brown. Strange things would grow from soil that drank so deeply. On the eleventh day, everything was silent save for the croaking of the carrion birds.

Only then did the scarred man rise and heave his rucksack across his shoulder. It looked heavy as sin, but he handled it as though it were a balloon.

“I told ‘em,” he said. “I told ‘em what’d happen.”

If he sought absolution, the battlefield made no answer.