Despair

DESPAIR:
He fell to one knee, with a shake of his head to clear midnight curls from sapphire eyes. Liquid trickled from a stray lock into one of them and he blinked furiously, unsure whether it was sweat, blood – his own or another’s – or the light, soaking rain that had fallen like a pall over the field. He dragged up a leathery, olive skinned fist, still curled around the hilt of a worn and dulled short sword, to swipe his eyes clear but did nothing more than smear the blood from a dozen cuts on his forearm across his face. There were scars marring cheeks, chin and forehead as well but these were all well healed; the heavy bronze helm with its thick cheek-plates and nose bar had been worth the extra gold he’d paid for it. Serving him well until a northern axe had swept it from his head. Among his people he had been considered handsome; high cheek-bones, angular chin and a small, narrow, pointed nose gave him a look of strength and confidence while the dark curls that framed his face softened it and gave him an almost boyish look. But it was the sparkling green of his eyes; a green that bespoke of some Celtic blood in his heritage that had won him many a conquest in the bed-chamber. But there was no conquest this day, there would be no raucous celebratory feast this night. A Deep frown creased his forehead and shadowed his eyes as they swept the charnel scene around him. The might of five legions, smashed and rendered like the carcass of an aurochs on the sacrificial alter.
The acrid tang of the wood of burning engines mingled with the metallic bite of blood and the foulness of death, filling his nostrils and he forced back a retch. He had stood on countless battlefields and yet the stench still sickened him. From among the sea of corpses, many of whom he had called friend only hours before, cries and groans reached his ears, the sounds muted by the rain. There was movement too, twitches and the jerking motion of men trying to hold their insides in their rent bodies. Death hadn’t claimed all – yet.
With a groan he levered himself to his feet with the sturdy iron of the gladius, ‘A legionnaire dies with sword in hand…’ the words of one of his instructors sounded from the vaults of his memory. He snorted a humourless laugh, he didn’t even have the strength left to grip the weapon, the dried blood of his foes kept his hand glued around the leather bound hilt. He turned away from horror seeking solace beyond the hills but the view that met his eyes gave him no succour now. Billowing black columns rose above the great city, mingling with the rain clouds, their undersides flickering with the flames of the sacked and burning settlement. The shinning jewel of the south had fallen like her indomitable legions.