The Rock

I tended to my comrade as best I could. He lay on the edge of life, and the darkness had set its tiller at taking him now.

A faint wheeze drifted on the air, but that was all he could muster for breath. A dribble escaped the corner of his mouth every now and again, and bubbles of spit crept down his chin. His hair was dank and lifeless, plastered to his head with sweat, and a large, ever increasing course of blood, ran down his face, covering his tunic, emanating from a huge wound in his forehead.

At last he opened his eyes, vainly seeking me out as best he could, but although I was in his sight, he could not find me. A last grating, groaning breath, his eyes closed, and he was gone.

I turned to the West, and saw the swathe of cheering enemy flooding away over the plain, exulting in my closest friend’s complete and utter downfall.

The sling was a few yards from his sandalled feet, close by… the stone that had felled him. I bent, grasping for it, my hands sticky with Goliath’s blood, and then moved off into the light, and away from this sad, sad carnage.