Worthy sacrifice

She crumbled.

She could not bear the pressure of war, famine, and worse, of self-doubt. All day she drank wine inside her tent, refusing to make any decisions. Her generals informed her that the enemy was closing in and urged her to retreat further south, but she remained silent.

One morning, a hunter wounded by arrows limped out of the forest. She brushed aside men and women to place her ear close to his mouth and listen to his dying words.

Men… coming, a-army. Th-this way. Thous— maybe more—Now he pulled her harder to him—Save… save my wife and children, please, sav—

But he died trying to finish the sentence. She called everyone to arms and painted her face with the fallen hunter’s blood. When the whole tribe had gathered, she spoke to them,

A horde of men is coming to seize your land, the land of your ancestors. What will you do, let them have it?

No!

Will you stand idly by as they tear apart what we have built?

NO!

That’s right! We will show the gods what we are made of. We will crush their skulls and drink their blood.

The soldiers struck their own shields with their axes and swords. Then they all chanted in honor of the god of war. She ordered her soldiers to set up an ambush by hiding in the shadows. Meanwhile, she took the women and children up a hill to an ancient stone monument built in her honor: a circle of stones placed on top of a carved stone platform.

The invaders entered the village sword in hand. The houses were empty and everything was a mess, as though the inhabitants had fled in a hurry. The invaders laughed at the sight, saying,

What a bunch of pussies! They ran like little girls. Go on boys, take all you can!

Once a few enemy divisions had stepped inside, her soldiers stabbed the invaders’ feet through the wooden floors, jumped out of wardrobes and shot arrows from the nearby trees. The ambush was successful at slicing their army in two, those inside the village and those outside. The bulk of her army charged from the forest while the fight went on around the village.

At the stone monument, the women and children feared for their husbands and fathers. Some women begged the goddess,

We should be fighting with them. Please, let us go!

But she refused because she knew that women and children had to stay alive at any cost to repopulate the tribe. She saw them as resources, just like water and food. From the distance, they couldn’t tell what side was winning. They heard screams of agony and saw the bodies covering the ground. She kneeled down in the center of a semicircle built with stone pillars. It was the altar for her secret rituals. She rose suddenly, her face paler than ever. She had heard a clear voice that told her what she had to do:

I have communed with the gods. The battle will be lost unless we act.

The women looked at her with complete obedience and said,

Anything, whatever it takes.

They unsheathed their weapons. Then she turned to them,

The gods demand a sacrifice. They must claim the blood of an unborn baby to give strength to our men.

All the women turned to look at the skeptic man’s wife with the same look. To survive, the women knew anything was justified and even righteous. Ironically, that was precisely the feeling she had tried to erase from the human heart. The young mother, who had always been the joy of that small tribe, now cried for her unborn son, for her wretched husband and for herself.

But she obeyed her goddess without question. She wiped the tears off her face and walked to the center of the stone semicircle, where she lied down on the ground. The goddess took a knife and walked in circles around the girl, mumbling words in a forgotten tongue. Throughout the whole ceremony, the women and children stared, thrilled by the spectacle.

The mumbling soon turned to loud chanting in a crescendo that echoed through the valleys and mountains, reaching the warriors below. The light in the sky dimmed. Her eyes grew larger as she danced faster and faster around the girl. The frenzied women kneeled and chanted, begging her to go on, to do it, to destroy their enemies and spill their blood. When she reached the climax of the ceremony, she cut open the girl’s belly with in a single strike, then slid her throat in a second slice. The girl’s blood spilled over the carvings in the stone, slowly filling the carved image of a rising sun. The sacrificed girl wept a single tear and then was forever gone.

Battle raged on for another half an hour, but the screams eventually died down. The women and children came down from the hill sword in hand, only to find that their tribe had won. The village was now a bloody battlefield where corpses and broken furniture lay scattered. Many of her men had died or were gravely injured. But they had been outnumbered two to one and still won. The women and children rushed to give water to the wounded and cover their wounds with medicinal herbs.

The skeptic man had killed several men and survived almost unscathed. He sought the eyes of his wife in the crowd, but could not find them. It didn’t make sense because all the other women were there. They all ignored him as they ran to their husbands and fathers, except for the goddess. She was staring into his eyes, standing still as the women and children rushed by her side. He immediately realized something horrible had happened.

Oh no, no, no…

He ran up the hill. At the monument he found his wife’s corpse. He held her body in his arms, crying. After a while, he wiped his tears and marched into the village again, sword in hand. She was standing still, watching him draw closer and closer with eyes full of hatred and clothes full of blood. He began to charge as he screamed. But she cried,

Help, he’s coming for me!

Her soldiers stopped him before he had the chance to reach her. He shouted,

Whore! You fucking whore! Traitor!

Several men held him on the ground as she shook violently. She spoke to him in a soothing voice,

The gods demanded a sacrifice. Just as we make food offerings to the god of Plenty to provide us with good crops, so too we must sacrifice to the god of War to ensure victory. Loyal soldiers: didn’t you feel the god of War’s presence during battle?

Yes!

Didn’t you feel the POWER running through your veins!?

Her eyes were practically out of their sockets. The men cheered and praised the gods. If his heart wasn’t already filled with hatred to the brim, he would have hated her even more for her cynicism. She had told him that the gods were imaginary, so his bride had only been brutally murdered. Wrestling to free himself wore him down until he was gave up. He covered his face with his hands to cry in shame,

There’s nothing left here for me. My whole future, my wife and son are… are… Why? What have I done to you…

She watched him in silence.

Kill her.

There was a new voice in his head.

Kill the bitch. She killed mother. She killed your wife. Fuck, she killed your child. You are not staying here, wallowing in self-pity. No, fuck that.

Please just-just leave me alone…

No.

Please.

Pick yourself up you little shit!

He rose up from the ground.

Now apologize and act normal.

He obeyed and apologized to her, then returned to his home. But he didn’t sleep that day. First he said goodbye to his mother, thanking her for her love and affection, and then put her out of her misery. Then he broke into the goddess’s house through a window and snook up to her bedroom.

There he sat on top of her as she slept and plunged a knife into her belly with his right hand, cutting through her pale and smooth skin as she had done to his wife. He covered her mouth with his left hand so her screams would not be heard. He whispered in her ear,

I carve you now just as you carved my wife; except there’s only death and lies inside of you.

She did not try to fight or scream. She just cried in silence, regretting it all. He soon burst into tears, thinking of how things had gone so wrong. He looked at his hands: her white blood shone dimly in the darkness. He looked at her in horror, realizing what he had done. He wanted to apologize, to fix her, but it was too late.

He panicked, dropped the knife and hugged her as he had always wanted to. Both forgot for a moment what they had done to each other. She clinged to him with her arms and closed her eyes, ceasing to cry… and soon to hold him. They stayed together until her arms fell and no more blood poured out of her wound. He left her house covered in her blood, still crying, and took one of the horses to ride into the night.