By sundown, the other men of Karstly's forces had seen their jobs done as well. The fires burned with the bodies of the dead, and that thick, dreadful smoke streamed down from the mountain. The flames fought back the darkness, as they ate away at flesh, rendering what had been so strong and filled with life just the day before, into something that was now no more than ash.
It was war, and it was the nature of a soldier to slay his foes, but there were few that saw it through to the very end. Oftentimes, it wouldn't fall to the soldier to clean the field of his dead. That was a job for the enemy. Some soldiers – the Patrick men included – had managed to go their entire careers without carting bodies off the battlefield.
