The Veteran

Flash Fiction piece

I take a breath of the cool sea air and close my eyes. My skin is bronzed and wrinkled from a thousand days fighting under hot suns. My bones are weary from a thousand nights sleeping under cold stars. A spray of mist caresses my greybeard and lingers there like morning dew on a cobweb. The surf pounds against the rocks and pulls back to reveal a glistening shingle and seaweed. I bend down, one knee forward, the other one stiff from an old arrow wound.

Rafe, the surgeon, was unable to get the whole arrowhead out, ‘I think I’ve left some iron in there.’

 'Tis no matter,' I gulped the dark red wine from the flagon, the finest in the camp. I had come to enjoy Rafe's company, and his wine, over our four campaigns together. Until he succumbed to the pox during our last siege. The Kraxians had catapulted diseased heads into our camp and our dogs had feasted before we could stop them. The plague took a quarter of the soldiers and weakened the rest of us. The Kraxian cavalry overran our position when our sentries were bent over coughing, too distressed to raise the alarm.

I run my hand under my jerkin and pull it out. A yellow stream of pus crosses my fingers.

The lancer's blow caught me while I was parrying the Krazian leader's curved blade. I grabbed the spear shaft and severed the head of the leader before stabbing the lancer.

My fumbling attempts at stitching the wound with antelope gut had lasted only as far as the first hilltop. We turned to defend against another cavalry charge. Arrows pinned us down behind the rocks. I found a branch and dug a scrape under the largest boulder.

 ‘Come on, lads,’ I put my back against the boulder and two of our men pushed down on the branch. An arrow caught one of the men in the shoulder. He yelped and fell onto the branch. The boulder rocked a fragment.

‘More,’ I said.

Another man joined us and shoved the branch further under the boulder while I squatted down and strained my legs to push back. I felt the stitches rip before the boulder rolled forward and down the slope, gathering more rocks. The landslide smothered the Kraxian cavalry before they gained momentum.

I scoop some sea water onto my palm and lay it against my wound. The salt stings. I do it again before heading up the path from the beach. Smoke rises behind the copse of beech trees, their silvery leaves glinting. Two magpies fly from the branches as I heft the notched sword from my back.

I lay the sword at the foot of the stone stile and climb over the grey slate wall. Two shutters hang loose from the cottage windows: there's work to be done here. The path is clear of weeds though and bees buzz around the herb garden. I smile at the sight of my wife cutting lavender. She's as slim as when we married, a streak of grey running down her auburn hair the only sign of age.

I sit on the stone bench outside the cottage and lean my head against the wall. I’ll rest here for a while and watch my wife garden. I smell something cooking inside. A stew, I think. I close my eyes and inhale the meaty aroma.

I hear a woman’s distant voice that sounds like my wife.

The End.