Lord of Slaughter

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Under a dead moon, on a field of the dead, a wolf moved unseen beneath the rain’s great shadow.

The downpour had started with nightfall as the battle ended. There was too much blood for Christ to bear, said the victorious Greeks, and he had decided to wash it away.

The wolf slipped through the ranks of dead and dying, past the little cocoons of light where men nurtured lamps or candles in their sagging tents. Even there it was just a smudge in the darkness, a spectre made by the rain.

The boy Snake in the Eye looked out of the imperial tent for signs of a break in the weather. Any moon would have made looting possible but its slim crescent had faded the previous evening and the clouds had rolled in. He saw nothing in the sodden night beyond the weak glow of the lamps.

He was sure men would try to claim what plunder they could, even in that black deluge. The ground was a mire, though, and not all the wounded were beyond defending themselves. Why die ingloriously in the dark to the knife of one of the rebel’s half-dead Normans or Arabs? If you were going to die, better to do it where your fellows would see you and credit you for your warrior’s heart.

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