Blood Queen & Other Stories by Rob Bliss

Author:Rob Bliss [Bliss, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

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Snow covered the ground and I was clad head to foot in animal skins, a sword of iron in hand, its blade chipped, stained red, slashing at whichever body stood before me.

Straw roofs of wooden huts burned as snow fell, horses reared screaming, nostrils flared as they raced through the narrow streets of the town, kicking up mud and snow, dragging riders behind them, a foot caught in the reins, trampling the wounded in their stampede.

I didn't know who I was or why I was attacking the village, but I recognized some of the words screamed by those around me as medieval German. Yet there was less of the scholar, more of the savage, in this version of me. I hacked at anyone. Women and youth as they ran from me or cowered in their huts as I slashed my way inside – I grabbed a beautiful woman by the hair, mashed my mouth against hers, then sliced off her head. Dropped the head into the lap of her teenage son and bellowed a laugh at the horror and pain on his face. He would be begging for death by tonight, if he lived that long.

I killed. I was a killer. I relished the destruction I caused, felt the power of my arm as it wielded the sword. I could take life with a single slash or thrust. It was so easy to kill. Most people didn't fight back, they ran. I finally understood now how an invading army could be successful. How Genghis Khan and the Mongols could ride their horses across half the world, killing and burning town after town, conquering with fear. How fear became legend.

I understood what a human being was, what one could do, how we had defeated so much of the animal kingdom, thrown it into cages or in pots, found it in every cave, under the oceans, on mountain tops, and that it was all ours. As was the Earth. Every island and jungle and desert had been explored and inhabited by human beings. We were gods who stormed across the land.

And this was all revealed to me – and could only have been revealed to me while murdering others of my kind. To kill was the greatest act of freedom a person can engage in. It was liberation. It was the death of God by becoming God; only God and human beings murdered as a form of sport.

Wailing and cries and pleas for mercy were music, and my sword sang as night fell. The town burned as I and my fellow killers galloped away, back to our tents in the mountains, to count our gold, to drink our wine, to rape our captive women throughout the night.

This has always been, and remains, the right of every soldier, every killer, every hero.

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