Mars pulsed in the night sky.
Vultures lingered around the battlefield, and with the coming of full dark, their human counterparts appeared.
“Water,” croaked a fallen warrior, but a flint-eyed man slit the warrior’s throat before carrying out the grisly search for valuables.
An elderly woman, more careful of blood, smothered the pikeman who called to her for aid.
Red light poured over the bloody meadow. Scavengers stumbled back in alarm as dead warriors again grasped axes and swords. The battle was short, lasting only the space of several screams.
And the dead sank back to rest in Mars’ gaze.
***
And that’s all. 🙂 This is my first attempt at a drabble, a story told in exactly one hundred words.
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Avid writer and reader of Faerie tales and noblebright fantasy.
Cathleen Townsend 
Fantastic, Cathleen. 🙂 I can picture every little detail of this battlefield, and it perfectly references the historical influence of Mars on mankind and war. 🙂 Loved it!
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wow it’s intense there’s vultures, blood and screams.
heartbeats later dead sink back to Mars’ gaze
❤
~B
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Great detail. And I love the challenge of writing with the constraint of a specific word count. Nice job!
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This is good, tight writing. Intense. The battle scenes are palpable. I can almost smell blood. 🙂
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Thanks so much, everyone. I’m glad it worked. 🙂
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You really didn’t need more words to tell the story, very well done!
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Excellent — a very good piece of writing. I actually found it quite poetic.
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Very nice – it’s amazing what you can do with 100 words. Such a vivid scene. 🙂
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This is an excellent piece, amazing that it’s only 100 words! A vivid piece, I could see every detail of the battlefield.
Was Mars the god of war, or something like that in mythology?
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Wow this is sooooo good! You need to write more!
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Thanks so much. And yes, Mars was the god of war in the Roman pantheon. 🙂
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