Carvings
Vignette #2
Instead of shouting at me like I thought he would, he continued to stare at the map in front of him. His face was sometimes a scowl other times covered by the incense next to him.
“Our empire is falling,” he finally said. “The blizzard killed more men than our enemy has. We can’t even find the bodies to bury properly.”
“I know,” I replied. We’ve been losing since this war has started.
“And yet you still took your men to the north capital? After all that has happened?”
“We needed to try something different. Your strategy is leading us nowhere—”
“My strategy hasn’t killed 10,000 people and gave way for Northern troops to find our base!” I kept quiet. Tears were threatening to spill.
“A move like that could have only been done…If you cared more for the other side. You’ve betrayed me, and what is fair is punishment henceforth for you still came crawling back here. Hold him down!”
The four guards surrounding him pinned my limbs to the ground. The general slashed open the back of my clothes and straddled my torso.
“The tattoo on your back engraved your loyalty to this army the second it was painted. Since you have lost sense of that virtue, it will be carved into your flesh so you are forever indebted.
His sword pierced my skin deep and outlined the tattoo covering my back. I screamed uncontrollably until my throat dried thin. When he was done, doused in my blood, his guards threw me out of the tent. I could barely move as I felt my blood reddening the snow around me.
No song this time! This was something I wrote in response to a prompt from my highschool writing club.