From the Pit (pt 1)

He no longer lived in the pit. It lived in him.

Consuming from within. A worm against which he had no power. Meals of blood harvested by the unknown.

A vicious talent was disrobed. Revealed by his own choice toward hewn survival, even if forced by circumstance.

He relieved foes of limb, and sent whirling wet crowns to clap on the landing. Ended cries with the severing of throat. Halved limbs to make weapons against the offender.

Removed wielding hands only to claim the motion as his own, gripping it in a final bladed serif.

He received crushing blows as would send most praying to the earth. Rose back to shatter against inflicting forms. Repurposed weapons drawn from what may have been considered fatal wounds.

Death became a dance. Known by fluid movements.

Guttural howling resounded through the downs. And an ever upward glare. Daring taunts upon the sky. A fading glim toward his watcher. All while heavying his world with thick lines which came to stench.

Never met he another, with word or glance. Not before the demanding of death. Neither by the piercing shaft of instruction, nor by opponent decree.

For his knowledge, he knew himself unlikely to be felled. A grim realization becoming singular.

Months, if not years, were so claimed. Worn and tested.

Moved more than once to a fresh pit, always to the head of the serpentine trail being mined across the landscape. Roughed onward by haulers, a cadre seeming more to him like given slaves than active perpetrators.

All of this trained by the keen watch of the archer. Ever the same spectre visage. His loom, weaving toward a withering tapestry. Grinning over his peril. Shadowed underhood.

Time counted not in the passing of days but in pourings of blood. Washes upon the muck. Watered by time.

Wails upon memory.

Feeding a trembling earth.