What is a battlefield? Is it the roar of armies… or the silence left behind when pride has finished devouring the powerless?
The smell was the first thing that lingered.
Not the sharp scent of steel, nor the smoke of burnt siege towers, but the suffocating heaviness of blood left too long beneath an open sky. It clung to the air, to the soil, to the broken fragments of armor half buried in mud that had once been grassland. The battlefield no longer resembled a place where life had ever flourished. It was a plain of ruin, stretching beyond sight, littered with shattered weapons, torn standards, snapped spears, collapsed cavalry, and bodies layered so densely that the earth itself seemed unwilling to swallow them.
For eighteen days, the two strongest nations in the world, Zelia and Artani, had waged war without restraint.
Eighteen days of charging formations.
Eighteen days of roaring cannons and raining arrows.
Eighteen days of men screaming as steel parted flesh.
The clash had not been born of desperation. It had not been forced by invasion or famine. It had been pride. A dispute over influence. A matter of dominance between rulers who had long ceased to see the world as anything other than a board upon which pieces were moved.
Zelia, vast and radiant, famed for its disciplined legions and unbreakable shields.
Artani, relentless and feared, whose cavalry moved like a living tide across open plains.
When the two collided, the world watched and when they collided, the world trembled.
From distant kingdoms and neutral territories, merchants whispered of the spectacle. Nobles speculated on outcomes. Scholars debated military strategy. The war became a subject of fascination for those untouched by it. In high towers built of polished stone, leaders traced troop movements across maps while servants poured aged wine into silver cups.
Meanwhile, beneath the open sky, the poor answered conscription.
Farmers who had never traveled beyond their villages.
Blacksmith apprentices whose hands had known only tools, not blades.
Young men who had never seen a battlefield, yet were told they would earn glory upon it.
They marched beneath banners that promised honor. They died before understanding what that word meant.
The first days of war were loud. Thunderous. Organized. Formations advanced and retreated with precision. Drums echoed commands across the plain. Warhorns pierced the air like beasts announcing dominance.
But by the tenth day, order began to fray.
Supply lines faltered. Reinforcements dwindled. Corpses were no longer collected. They were stepped over. Used as cover. Forgotten. The ground grew slick, then thick, until movement itself became a struggle. Blood mixed with soil and rain, forming a dark mire that swallowed boots and stained armor beyond recognition.
By the fifteenth day, exhaustion replaced rage. Soldiers swung blades with numb hands. Archers loosed arrows without counting how many remained. Faces hollowed. Eyes dulled.
Still, the rulers did not yield.
Not while victory remained uncertain.
Not while pride remained unbroken.
On the eighteenth day, something shifted.
Not on the battlefield, but far from it.
Messengers rode between command tents. Advisors whispered calculations. Casualty reports were tallied not in grief, but in numbers. The cost had grown excessive. The spectacle had lost its edge. Neither side held decisive advantage, and the continuation promised only diminishing returns.
So they called it.
A DRAW.
Trumpets sounded across the devastated plain.
The command to withdraw echoed through ranks that no longer resembled ranks. Survivors turned their backs on enemies they had fought for weeks. Not because hatred had faded. Not because justice had been served. But because those who began the war had decided it was sufficient.
Zelia's banners retreated toward the east.
Artani's toward the west.
No victory procession followed. No triumphant anthem played. Only the slow, dragging march of those who had lived, leaving behind those who had not.
Silence descended gradually, as though the land itself was unsure whether the violence had truly ended.
The wind moved first.
It passed through broken standards planted into the ground beside lifeless bodies. It brushed across armor dented beyond repair. It carried with it the faint clinking of loose metal, the hollow sound of something once powerful now reduced to debris.
Then even that sound faded.
The battlefield became still.
No drums. No commands. No clash of steel.
Only death.
The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across a field that had become a graveyard without ceremony. There were no markers to distinguish one fallen from another. Zelia and Artani lay intertwined, stripped of identity. In death, rank dissolved. Pride dissolved. Allegiance dissolved.
What had been their fault?
To be born within borders drawn by others.
To be born into poverty.
To be told that obedience was virtue.
In a world governed by power, the wealthy fortified themselves behind walls of stone and influence. They spoke of strategy, of necessary sacrifice, of long term gain. Meanwhile, those with nothing but their bodies offered those bodies in service. They rose at dawn knowing the day might be their last, yet were given no choice but to rise regardless.
War was entertainment when viewed from afar.
On the ground, it was mud and blood and the sound of men calling for mothers who would never hear them.
The sky dimmed further and then, A sound broke the stillness.
Faint at first. So small it seemed impossible against the vast emptiness surrounding it.
A cry.
Not the cry of a soldier.
Not the final gasp of the dying.
It was thin. Unsteady. Trembling.
Near a cluster of fallen bodies, partially shielded by what had once been a supply cart, something moved.
A child.
Barely one year old.
Its legs wobbled as it tried to stand upright, tiny hands pressing against the unmoving armor of someone who no longer breathed. Its clothes, once light in color, were stained dark and stiff. Dust clung to tear streaked cheeks. Its eyes were swollen from crying, yet it continued, voice hoarse but persistent.
It did not understand banners.
It did not understand nations.
It did not understand pride.
It understood only absence.
It reached forward again, fingers curling into fabric that would never respond. It tugged weakly, as though insistence alone could restore warmth to a body already cold.
No answer came.
The wind brushed past, indifferent.
The child lost balance and fell onto its knees, small palms striking soil that had absorbed the lives of millions. It tried to rise again, legs trembling under its own weight. It managed only a few uneven steps before stumbling once more.
Its cry grew louder.
It echoed across the desolate plain, swallowed by distance.
What was its crime?
To be born among the powerless.
To exist where strength determined worth.
The rulers who declared a draw would never know this cry. They would return to halls of polished marble, to advisors and servants and discussions of future alliances. The war would be recorded in history as a stalemate between giants. Casualties would be listed in clean columns of ink.
Millions dead.
Strategic outcome inconclusive.
The child cried again.
The sun dipped lower, painting the sky in fading hues of red that mirrored the earth below. Shadows stretched, consuming broken weapons and lifeless forms alike. Night approached without judgment.
The battlefield no longer roared.
It listened.
And in the center of that vast silence, beneath a sky that offered neither explanation nor mercy, a one year old baby stood alone, crying for parents who would never rise, in a world that had already decided its life was collateral.