![]() ![]() It is a terrible bravery and at its strongest and worst, it goes on for months when one battles a final illness. According to their tales, only then can one find and use that sort of courage. ![]() "Finblead", they call it, the last blood, and they believe that a special fortitude resides in the final blood that remains in a man or a woman before they fall. The OutIslanders have a word for that courage. During one encounter with Forged Ones, I saw a mother stumbling over her own entrails as she shrieked and clutched at a Forged man, trying to hold him away from her daughter. ![]() During the Red-Ship Wars, I saw a man with blood gouting in spurts from where his left arm had once been yet swinging a sword with his right as he stood protecting a fallen comrade. It drives one to go on, past hope or despair, past blood loss and gut wounds, past death itself in a final surge to save something that is cherished. I've seen this strength in old women with the coughing sickness and heard of it in families that are starving together. That battle is not limited to war, nor the strength to warriors. “There is a peculiar strength that comes to one who is facing the final battle. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |