Through Lion's Eyes

The rough, splintered shafts of wood clacked down despairingly, sealing the proud warrior in the small prison wagon. The only visitor free to come and go was the sweltering breeze that floated lazily through the crudely fashioned bars of his new cell. His wrists ached from within the rusty shackles that bound him hand and foot, and a cruel pole was jammed under his arms, weaving behind his back, forcing him to remain bent over uncomfortably. The posture displayed a broken humility that was betrayed only by the fierce glare of his golden eyes.

With a moody jolt, the wagon lurched forward and began trundling down a rocky path, flanked by the huge bodies of his enemies, each clad in a mismatched panoply of angry steel plates, vicious spikes, and jagged skulls. Underneath their assemblage of armor, bulging coils of muscles rippled and twisted underneath a heavy blanket of course, gray skin. Their eyes glowed mysteriously and they constantly swiveled their heads with a methodical rhythm, always searching, and always alert.

The heat seemed to boil his skin. His eyes burned with exhaustion, anger, and fear. From within his head, underneath his proud features and golden hair, his mind baked in a delirium. The events leading to his capture by this gruesome and mysterious enemy swirled around him like nightmarish ghosts, taunting his disbelief in their reality.

The host of brutal, inhuman warriors had come roaring out of the deep caves of his mountain home on a crisp spring day, only one month before. There had been no warning, no reason, and no provocation. Two farmers, tending some crops down in the shaded gullies near the mountain caves, had suddenly heard a rumbling chorus of movement that grew louder with each passing moment. It quickly grew to into an earth quaking clamor as they scrambled up the paths and away from the ruckus. Just as they reached the top of the trail, they turned and watched in horror as hundreds, then thousands, of massive, heavily armored creatures poured into the gully and up the trail. The creatures were snarling with violent hatred masked behind glowing white eyes and a wide array of crude weaponry.

The little wagon turned a rocky corner, clinging to a small pass that wound towards his home. The gulch in which his city was built seemed to swell bravely out of the stone, though it was really nestled deep within. Tears stole into his eyes at the sight of the charred wreckage that poked up haphazardly from within the walls. It had been a brave fight, to be sure. The Ken Dar mountain warriors had beaten back the first wave of enemy attackers, despite having no warning of their onslaught. However, the fight left them weak and broken, and the returning tide of gruesome fury quickly overwhelmed them.

The warrior’s eyes wandered to and from different locations in the scenery, remembering places where his friends had fallen, where women had been killed, and where he himself had been clubbed senseless by a stray blow. The landscape was charred and mutilated, as the enemy host destroyed with a lustful zeal that perverted the very air around them with a sour stench.

He strained against his bonds and fought back tears at the memory of what had happened, his whole world incinerated in a few brief hours, without warning and without purpose.