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Wilting flower:the death of a samurai

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Alright,
she whispers under ragged breath
to the few dozen men milling around
in the valley below,
Run.
She hoists an RPG onto her thin
but strong shoulder, and fires.
It sails into the very middle of the base
and Death lets the men know
that his messenger,
the Fifth Horsewoman and her band
of bloodthirsty ghouls,
have arrived.
They rip down the mountainside
armed to the teeth on bridleless
black horses
that a survivor would later say
all had white eyes.
The men do not communicate and
ride farapart.
They seem to be operating independently -
until the killing begins.
A single man runs foolishly into
their path and is promptly shot in the head with a cold, black arrow
from a modern crossbow.
SSSS-chkktuh.
The shooter's horse, who has long since memorized
this part of the battle dance,
whirls around swift and low over the
body so that its rider can collect the arrow for reuse.
The band's leaderbusies herself with
taking the top rank down first.
She charges him even as he hunkers down
near a wall, his spotless M16 aimed
at what little he could see of her face.
He figures that he's fired accurately
at histarget, because coming towards him now
is the woman's horse -
with no woman.
He cautiously puts a hand out to
catch the loose rope around its neck
as it gets nearer, planning to keep it
if he survives this ordeal.
But before he is even able to let out a
gasp of shock,
the woman suddenly swings over the side
of the horse boots-first and
kicks him in the face.
He falls, writhing in pain and shock,
and she shakes off some of the blood
dripping down her fingers
from the new gunshot wound in her arm.
Not bad,
she remarks casually
before she ends his life.
She patches herself up and rides through
the rest of the base to kill some more;
breaking necks, slitting throats,
point-blank shooting,
and even medievally goring the last few.
She hears them scream,
she feels their blood rush over her hands,
and she tastes coppery slivers
of her own in her mouth.
Yes, she is dying, too.
Maybe it was the gunshot
or maybe it was the fall she suffered from a wire hung by some who didn't want to
go down without a fight
or maybe it was a self-inflicted thing.
Who knows.
A lone survivor crouches in the mercy
of some shadows andwatches her
stagger out from a tent and throw up.
She stumbles, then decides it best
to sit and wait for her men.
They soon come galloping in and
one of them plops his quarry -
three neatly severed heads -
proudly at her feet.
He looks at her in the earnest way
an outdoor cat does when it presents
its human with a dead bird on their
doorstep.
She smiles sweetly and speaks some
words of gratitude to the hunter,
then directs the group's attention
to the high pass leading over the
next mountain.
They nod understanding and are all gone
as swiftly as they came.
All except one.
When the dust clears, a horse and rider
stand motionless looking down at the
dying woman sitting as straight and beautiful
as a samurai's wife before her suicide.
The man dismounts despite the woman's protests,
and goes to sit beside her.
She's never admitted it, not even to
herself, but she was always afraid of
doing this alone.
Gingerly, she rests her head on his shoulder and tries to concentrate
on breathing;
her lungs feel strange and heavy,
and she just wants to go to sleep.

Sensing this, the man wraps her in
his coat and his arms,
and waits.

In the shadows only a short distance
away, the hidden survivor
clutches a loaded pistol.
He aims.
But for some reason, he can't bring himself
to fire.
The woman and the man sit for
about an hour or so
talking quietly,
looking at the sky,
and the man points out constellations
to her, and for the first time,
the survivor sees her smile.
I'm really tired now,
she says to the man, who
nods, fighting heroically the urge
to kill himself.
He kisses her forehead as she
closes her eyes and leans into him
so she can fall asleep listening
to his heartbeat.
Later, a full moon casts its lonely glow
on the man lifting the woman's delicate body onto the back of his horse.
He prays
alone
for the first time and
tears fall slowly from his eyes,
collecting on the ends of his beard
like glass ornaments just for his sorrow.
After he finishes, he climbs into the saddle
and heads for the high pass to
meet the others before sunrise.
It will be hisjob to tell them.
Nearing the top of the mountain,
he braces his shoulders to the cold,
glances angrily up at the stars in the sky,
then quickly back to the earth beneath him.
He never wishes to see Monoceros again.

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Poet 11586

Wilting flower:the death of a samurai