I keep forgetting I'm supposed to actually pay my Battle Brothers
Four dead. Four from a company of ten. Excellent Log, worm soup. Dietmar the Geldling, worm salad. Wolfgang Silkworm, some sort of delicious worm entrée, which he might appreciate. Reiner, worm dessert. They talk about survivor's guilt but no-one tells about you survivor's malice. At camp, watching that grinning blackguard Rick Nipples drink and breathe air meant for better men is as maddening as it is exhausting. Night falls, and I try to count the stars to keep my mind off wondering if I could feasibly jam an entire skillet handle into his earhole.
There may be a time, I think, when the land our descendants travel over runs small despite its vastness; when the night that now belongs to wolves and animate dead becomes as commonplace as draped tapestry. In stars, the wolves see loping gods; the dead, sepulchral torches in a gravecold pit. Us, bright horses for breaking, dreaming of spinning astrolabes like spurs and hung parchment charts for roughspun livery; owl and bat and comet song as muted muzzlesnorts.