They’re coming down the ridge.  A thousand strong and we so few.  

It’s the end.

Defiance boils up within me, the turmoil of countless woes.  Crimes against our people, so vast and endless as to drown the world in sin and blood. I can no longer wash my hands of it.  

I feel the call of my brothers and raise my voice in song.  

How many slain? Not by the glorious hand of war, but the fevered touch thereafter.  Streets aflame, hearts pounding, screams of children ringing in my ears.  I remember first how it happened to me.  Rushing home to blank stares and bloodless hands.  A ragged cry then, I knew no song, but the lamentations of my heart.

How many cries have I heard since?  How many voices protested my righteous compensation?  Countless lives ruined to feed my hate.

All about me, men unleash their rage against each other; ours against theirs.  The impact is staggering. My arm rises and falls, each stroke another life, another victim in the never ending cycle of vengeance.  My voice carries on while my brothers fall.

I sang for them once; those taken from me.  My voice sure and strong. We all sang for them and our enemies trembled, but not for long.  In the wake of our justified anger, something changed. Caught up in our hate, we became the despoilers.

I kill another, but more take his place.  The bitter cold drives through me as one of many blades slides past my guard.  I stagger and lash out. Another falls.

Only a few voices carry the tune.  They’re fading with their life’s blood.  We hold close, but there’s no escape. No hope.

What do I sing for now?

My love is taken from me.  My home, nothing but ash and broken dreams of a future that will never be.  Passion filled my voice as I sought to right wrongs that never cease. Yet now, as I see the hateful gaze of those that would kill us, I see only a reflection of my own demise. The hatred festers and spreads, causing only more pain.

Where are my brother’s voices?

Joseph, once my neighbor, lay dead in a pool of his making.  The baker’s son tries to put his stomach back together. A good boy at first, eventually absorbed by his cruelties.  How many had he slain in such a way? How long had he laughed at their suffering?

A circle of bodies is all that remains; a pile of dead.  I am the last.

My voice wavers as I fall to a knee.  The song falters. I gather my last breath.  I will die, and my song will die with me. A dark stain of the man I once was, the man I should have been.  Let them put me down like the dog I’ve become.

And yet… I rise up.

My song carries over the wails of the dying, sharp and clear.  My enemy takes a step back as I remember what I was. I surge ahead, words cutting alongside my blade.  They will hear my song, my story, my dirge. They will remember it and the sins that gave it life.

They will hear my song and...