[ TT ] Luke Howard - Oculus

A crow looked up at Baron Ashworth and angled its head, question obvious in those beady black eyes. *Are you food? * 
 
 He stared back at it. After a moment, it jumped off the branch it perched upon and glided down to the true buffet. A field full of corpses. Well over half of them being men that swore allegiance to Ashworth, the rest being men that were loyal to Henderson. 
 
 Ashworth forced himself to stare at the field. The corpses that would never again breathe, never again walk or smile, hug their daughters and sons, love their wives. 
 
 Empty bodies. Trash. 
 
 Two thousand men, he'd sent out there. It was so easy at the time. A single order. Barely three dozen came back. 
 
 Now he was looking at his work. 
 
 He recalled the drunken man who he hanged for stealing a horse just the other month. Ashworth stripped away two thousand lives. What would he get? A celebratory feast? A reputation for being a tactical genius? 
 
 He wanted to step off his horse, take off his golden crown and stomp it into oblivion. 
 
 But he did n't. 
 
 Because as a baron, Ashworth had an excuse. A reason to justify the atrocity he'd committed. If he left his crown, the weight of those actions would be on him. 
 
 And he was a coward, deep down. 
 
 So he turned his horse and began riding back. The soldiers accompanying him took a few seconds to catch up, apparently surprised by his sudden gallop. 
 
 Ashworth did n't look back as he rode. 
 

