The Lonely Prayer on the Battlefield

A Story by DaughterofHonor

The Lonely Prayer on the Battlefield

By: Alisha Shangraw

“Don’t leave me here alone”, I call out in distress.

But the response to my plea for help is the sound of fading footsteps. Soon, an unsettling stillness embraces me in its arms of abandonment, reassuring me with each cold caress that no one is coming back.

I swallow the fear that threatens to choke my good sense. I am a warrior; I do not have time to wallow in self pity. This is not the first time that I have been left behind and it certainly will not be the last.

Glancing around the battlefield, I see bodies of the fallen scattered everywhere. Innocent blood is flowing from their wounds that the ruthless enemy has inflicted. Though they are dead, I remove my helmet, and become one with the silence. I become one with the dead.

Time has elapsed as I limp around the open graveyard, taking in the enormous massacre. Young and old lay motionless in a pool of precious blood that the thirsty ground eagerly drinks because their tears are not enough.

As the sun sets, the shadows encroach, and an eerie darkness quickly consumes the battlefield. I settle down for the night under a moonless sky. I glance heavenward, in search of the twinkling stars, but there are none. They too have fallen from their place in the sky and hid their face.

As the night wears on I feel disoriented by the darkness that envelopes me in anxiety, so I count the hours till daybreak. While I am occupying my mind with the hope that arises with the sunrise, I feel a deadly, damp presence, like that of fog, creeping into the battlefield. A tangible evil defiles the still night air. The enemy has come once again.

Silently this soundless and mysterious evil slithers over the ground. They are unlike the bold enemy of the daylight whose weapons are the arrows of visible catastrophes and swords of physical disasters, which sweep thousands into an eternal resting place in the grave.

The scavengers have found me. With their faceless stares, I feel them undressing me of my bravery, and stripping me of my certainties. After they have cast aside my armour of valour, my body is exposed.

The darkness lightens as the enemy smiles with diabolic pleasure as they inject poison into my veins. Slowly it floods the chambers of my heart. A tormenting fear overtakes me and continues to worsen with every passing minute, until I am screaming in agony.

I am on the verge of surrendering when a bright light streaks across the sky. As quickly as it materialized it has disappeared into a faraway horizon. Though the physical evidence of Providence is gone, the atmosphere testifies to the intervention that I now question. The air is filled with tingling electricity, completely polar to the dampness of death that smothered me moments before.

The torment that my body withstood for an immeasurable amount of time has drained my willpower to remain conscious. However I fight against the sleep that my body yearns for as my soul inhales the freedom that laces the air. Eventually sleep finds me just after midnight.

The sky blushes after the dawn awakens me with a tender kiss of light. I smile slightly, allowing my eyes to linger in the eastern sky as I drink in the beauty of the gold and pink clouds that ribbon the horizon before I must face reality.

I close my eyes for a moment and allow memories of bloodied bodies and death to assault me. Hesitantly I open my eyes, expecting the same scene as yesterday, but this is not so. The bodies of the warriors that had been left behind are no longer there.

It has been told time and time again that the Captain of the army never leaves his fallen soldiers to be disgraced by the enemy. However few would truly know this, unless they are in a similar position as me. For most, it is a promise kept alive by faith.

After the initial novelty of the miracle wears away, an ember of another feeling starts to rekindle and then ultimately consumes me in a burning rage. A fiery anger courses through my veins as I realize that last night the Captain had ghosted through the graveyard to gather the bodies yet he left me behind. Why did he not take me away from those that wish to torture me to death? Does he not hear the anguished screams for help anymore? Has he lost his compassion for the forgotten?

My body quivers as I revisit the nightmare that nearly claimed my life last night. A sharp shiver shudders up my spine as I realize that death was only blowing kisses at me; teasing me that the final kiss will seal my fate forever. My weakness is hopelessly pathetic.

I glance down at my leg, which has finally stopped bleeding sometime during the night. The wound that initially left me slightly crippled, reopened some point in the confrontation with my midnight assailant.

I happen to notice a small pool of my blood that the ground rejects. I smile, because it is not worthy to drink the blood of the living, only the dead and defeated. Glancing around the battlefield, I remember all the fallen who have already quenched its thirst. I cringe when I realize that the grave has had its fill. Looking back one last time, I bid this place and its haunting malevolence farewell. Setting my eyes straight ahead, I continue onward.

For hours on end I amble forward, limping and crawling at times. Finally I collapse. I cannot go on any further, as my body screams for me to stop. And truthfully my will to continue on is spent. I honestly do not want to carry on and do not care if I die here. I usually will scold myself for such melodramatic thoughts, but even this I cannot do.

Just then a gentle hand touches my back. I lift my head and blink. A familiar face smiles sympathetically down at me. Tears sting the back of my eyes as gratitude floods my heart. I am no longer alone. A friend is by my side.

Expertly he bandages my wounds, and offers soft words of encouragement to my weary heart. I beg of him not to leave my side. He solemnly swears he will not. My determination to carry on is revived by a promise of hope. No longer am I alone.

After he is done tending to my leg he walks steadily by my side as I lean on him for support. He is patient as we slowly trek on. He mutters not a word of protest nor disgruntle.

When the miles have gradually accumulated and the afternoon wears on, we finally rest. I hardly notice the bleak landscape that surrounds us because my heart is too busy rejoicing for the blessings of good friends who will come alongside you when your determination is almost completely depleted.

We decide shortly into our rest that we will spend the night here and move out when first light peeks over the horizon.

The evening sweeps in quickly, engulfing this desert scene in a blackout, temporarily erasing our existence. I can hear my friend restlessly shuffling beside me. The dark is making him uncomfortable, so I reach out a comforting hand. Clearly he and the night are not former acquaintances. As for my relationship with the darkness, acquaintances we are, friends, we are not.

Sometime in the dead of night, I am being awakened by an urgent whisper. Groggily I get up, straining to see light, signalling that it is time to move on, but there is not a hint in the sky.

“Someone is coming”, my friend mutters anxiously.

A bone chilling cold whips around us. Though this is different from my last encounter with the creatures from the night, I know who they are. I know what they are capable of. The thought frightens me.

An evil snicker tickles the air. I freeze. Then a hiss from the opposite direction slithers forward, followed by a gurgled laugh. A sulphurous stench stings my nose. They are within a seething proximity to us. I close my eyes and hold my breath praying that I am only walking the fine line between a dream and a nightmare.

Thoughts of vicious betrayal plague my mind. Though my eyes are open, the blackness transforms into a scene of gruesome death. An afterimage is burned into my memory of the figures from Hell. The whispering wind threatens us of their promise to return. The cold dissipates as they recoil from us. They are only messengers.

The night wastes away as seconds tick into minutes, minutes into hours. The dawn arrives as a widow to a funeral. Ashen grey clouds are her lifeless eyes against pale cheeks. Her arrival is unavoidable. She is the ultimate emblem of despair.

We’re coming for you, the wind murmurs tauntingly.

“I feel them”, my friend reports. I do, too.

Soon shapes start emerging like mirages in the Sahara. Nightmares rising from the ashes. The enemy rides on the wings of hell bound souls, bringing with them impending doom. Fear immobilizes me, I cannot move.

My friend is screaming something, but the words blur together. They sound like a fading, faraway echo.

Before long the enemy arrives. Hideous but dressed for battle, dressed to destroy.

Do you both have a death wish, a malicious voice mocks, though no mouth moves. They speak to the spirit and terrorize the soul.

I finally arise, determining that I will fight. To the end. To my end. But I will not go down without taking someone with me.

There is time to surrender, the same voice entices.

I shake my head firmly. I am a warrior. Death before dishonour.

I am not talking to you.

The realization strikes me, like a blow to the chest. They are talking to my friend, tempting him to abandon me. With sullen eyes he glances at me. They tell me the truth. The promise had been made with sincere intentions but fear overrides it. In essence it is a fair weather promise. Empty, hollow and meaningless.

I watch him walk away from my side. He has handed me over to the enemy without a fight, signing my death certificate. My blood will be the ink they use.

My heart shatters. The ground from beneath my feet is stolen away in an instant. There is nothing left for me to stand on, so I drop my sword and fall to my knees. Just as I think I can sink no lower, the enemies’ heavy stares push me down completely, with my cheek to the cool sand, laying on my side in utter defeat. Curled up, ready to die.

Looking past the enemy as if they are not there, at the distant horizon, I see inky, black clouds swallowing the sombre dawn. Rain starts to fall. The tears of God are staining my cheeks as He grieves at my weaken soul.

It starts to rain harder as I close my eyes, laying in exhaustion, only wanting for this to end, eagerly looking for a way out. I am giving up. Abandoning everything I have ever believed in enough to fight for. Apparently I am not as strong as I always give myself credit for.

Rough hands grab me as I feel a sword cutting my skin, but it is so much more than that. It is destroying all that is within me. It is severing my ties to continue to fight. As the blade digs deeper into my flesh, surely drawing more blood, it easily slices my reasons to try to save my life.

Overcome with numbness, as another hard incision is splitting my muscle, I feel my last lifeline to God, the reason to believe in Him any longer, easily give way to the sharp edge of the enemy. I offer up my soul.

In this moment my breath leaves my body. I feel as if I am suffocating, yet not dying. I am gasping for air, wanting to live again. I am disconnected, knowing I am more dead than alive.

I glance upward in time to see a large sword sweeping down at me with tremendous force to break my bones. To destroy me entirely. It will be the strike that ends my life. But in a twinkle of an eye, another sword clashes with the enemy’s sword, stopping its trajectory course to my heart.

A kind face nods in the direction beyond. I follow his gaze.

Through the rain, I see a man sitting aboard a white horse. As the large, white stallion moves forward, I see the muscle rippling underneath the soaking hide. He has a broad chest and thick legs, certainly a war horse.

The rider is fully dressed for battle. Though his face is fierce there is an overriding compassion. This man is the Captain.

In despair I cry out, “Why did you not help me when I almost died?”

A gentle smile pulls at the corners of his mouth as he rides closer to speak. “Why did you not ask me to help you?”

Quickly my mind flashes back to the times when the enemy attacked. Not once does a prayer stutter from my lips. I have searched for hope in things that are trivial, and have looked for strength in things that are weak.

Before I can think, my sharp tongue lashes out, “Would you have helped me or left me anyways?”

Though my remark has the sting of a scorpion, the gentleness never leaves his face as he replies softly in love, “I may not always spare you from the attacks of the enemy, but I will never let them overtake you. I am just a prayer away, ready to defend you at a moments notice. You never have to question my willingness to fight by your side.”

“Will you fight for me now?”

“I will do more than just that.”

The enemy’s grip on me becomes like iron shackles, as the Captain gracefully dismount his horse and advances toward us. It is obvious that the enemy will not let me go.

“This soldier is mine”, the Captain simply says.

In this moment the black clouds peel away, revealing a vivid blue sky, so bright, so beautiful that words cannot describe. The sun brilliantly illuminates the dull desert scene, which proclaims solitude, and desolation, transforming it into a treasure chest. The sand glows like pure gold. The stones in the sand shine like fiery gems in an array of colours. The raindrops adorning the desert plants glisten like diamonds.

However this is the least of the beauty. The Captain kneels down beside me. The very breath from his body stirs up the desert winds. I inhale the sweet smell deeply as if I have never breathed before. Immediately my soul is revived. I can feel love again, but like never before.

He smiles as tears stream down my face. Gently he scoops me up in strong arms. Stupidly I begin to protest, “It’s okay I can walk.”

Still smiling he replies with the voice of an angel, “Let me carry you while you rest in my arms.”