Photo by Idea go from FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Staring out at the burning world, the red blaze sinking into his dark skin, the warrior grinned as the ancient quote from Genghis Khan came to his mind, “It is not sufficient for me to succeed. All others must fail.” While Damdin had not yet succeed to his full sufficiency, those before him had surely failed.
Viking. Such a perfect term. To raid, to go on a quest to pillage, rape, and burn. While those cowering in their homes associate the term with white men in flowing blonde hair on the covers of the bodice rippers from yesteryear, the term applied to anyone who participated in those types of activities, if he remember rightly, and considering he taught history for over a decade, he did.
Now he and those who have joined him created a new Viking history, a new Mongol Horde as they leveled what is left of the false society. Burn everything to the ground and start over.
The aliens started the process, taking down the centers of commerce with strange weapons, destroying and changing everything they touched, before those who had believed their false claims of “coming in peace” turned the tide with even stranger weapons created by mad scientists reverse engineering stolen technology. None of the scientists started mad, but by the time they had worked on the creations enough to understanding them, all of the scientists were mouth-frothing insane.
He and his band will finish what the aliens had initiated, while watching the thousand falling chunks of starstuff from the aliens’ failure steak across the sky each night as they celebrate their victory in the arms of captured women.
“Damdin, Elba has sent a messenger to negotiate.”
“Is she pretty?” the war chef asked without turning around, knowing if the messenger had been male no report would have been made. His aide had been with him since the beginning.
“If you like pale-skinned, thin women used to sleeping in soft beds.”
“Brand her, feed her, and put her in my lean. Tomorrow we take Elba. Either they will offer us their soft bellies or we will slit them.”
The nineteen year old, a student from Damdin’s teaching times and disciple since the burning times had begun, ran to accomplish precisely that with no further acknowledgment, his booted footsteps fading quickly.
Once satisfied that the false dawn his raiders had made will shimmer on the horizon all night, reminding the town of Elba of their coming doom, Damdin retired to his lean-to to see what Elba deemed worthy to distract him from 30,000 souls they sheltered. Souls he would bend to his will on the morrow.
(words 440; first published 8/25/2019)