It was Eleanor.

Even through the blood and mud splattered across her face I can see the same eyes that belonged to her mother.

She was much older, but she still had that look of fierce determinism that she would give me when I wouldn’t let her do whatever it was she had her five-year old mind set on.

She grabs me by the arm and jerks me to my feet. “Get up!”

“Eleanor, what are you doing here? What is going on?”

Bending over, she pulls a sword from a corpse’s hand and shoves it into mine. “Here. Take this.”

I laugh, trying to hand it back to her. “I don’t know what to do with this thing.”

“The point goes into the soft parts.” She points to my shirt. “Take that off.”

“What? Why?”

“You don’t want to be seen looking like that,” she tells me. The battle is further away, but her eyes keep darting. She’s tense, ready if the fight comes back our way. “Take it off,” she repeats impatiently as I start to pull my shirt over my head.

When it’s off she snatches it from my hands, throws it to the ground, and then kicks it behind some nearby foliage. Kneeling, she rolls over the corpse she stole the sword from. His stomach bears a gaping wound and it yawns open showing what I’m assuming are his intestines. Even though my stomach is empty of food, I can feel the recently consumed water rising. I gag and Eleanor growls at me. Sticking both hands into the wound, she pulls them back out covered in a rich, thick blood. She rubs it over my face, chest, and back unapologetically. Standing back she takes quick stock of her work and nods in approval.

“Let's go.” She starts to run back towards where a majority of the fighting is, lifting her spear and gesturing for me to follow, which I do reluctantly.

“This is fucked up,” I mutter as I dance around fallen bodies.

As soon as we’re out of the trees we are met by an enormous warrior wearing a chest plate made from what I hope are animal bones and a helmet made from a rack of antlers. He carries a massive sword that he wields with two hands. Its blade isn’t as smooth as mine, but bears the jagged teeth of a bow saw. He pulls the blade back, over his shoulder, ready to strike. Eleanor, without missing a stride, dances forward, ducks underneath his swing, pirouettes on her knees till she’s behind him, and cuts him with the tip of her spear across his achilles. He falls to his knees and she skewers him at the base of the skull, the spearhead jutting out of his mouth—blood, bone, and a tiny piece of flesh balancing delicately on the tip.

There’s movement behind her as another warrior appears. “Eleanor!” I shout and she whips the spear out, letting the corpse fall to the ground, before whirling to meet her foe. She throws the butt of the spear between the man’s legs, ramming it as hard as she could. The warrior falls backward, chopping down with his sword, cutting Eleanor’s spear in two.

“Run!” I yell, but Eleanor doesn’t want to run. She lets the end of her spear fall to the grass, swinging the remaining end—the sharp end—against the warrior’s shield. Even with the cacophony of battle around me, I could still hear the sharp ringing of wood against metal. But it worked. The impact of Eleanor’s blow caused the man’s shield to drop and Eleanor reversed her movement, turning the blade flat and driving it deep into the man’s sternum. A crimson torrent of blood ran from the wound and within seconds, the warrior was dead.

Eleanor wrenched her spear out of the man and turned to go before pausing. Bending down, she brushed the hair from the man’s eyes and smiled, barking out a laugh. Grabbing his discarded sword, she swung it single-handedly, and severed the man’s head from his neck. Picking up the severed head, she handed it to me. “This could be useful,” she says.

Gingerly I grabbed a handful of hair and she let go, the weight of the head swinging into my leg with a meaty thump. The hair was wet with sweat and I could feel the heat of the head roiling up towards me. I felt lightheaded, my balance off, unsure of my footing. Bile slowly creeping up the back of my throat.

“Come on,” Eleanor said, grabbing me by the shoulder. She ran ahead of me, looking for signs of additional skirmishes she could join, but the battle was over.

The defeated—the ones dressed in animal skins and bones—were fleeing back through the trees. The victors—the side Eleanor thankfully was on—were yelling what I could only assume were insults while hoisting their spears and swords into the air. All around us, on every side of the field were the remains of the dead; men and women who once were so proud and confident in their victory. Their bodies littered the ground in a mass of broken, twisted, and bloodied limbs. The grass that only moments earlier had been the most wonderful grass I had ever seen was now trampled and bloodied. This pristine Eden was Eden no more.

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From the sky fell carrion birds, landing on the bodies of the dead. Jabbing and tearing with their beaks at the open wounds or other soft spots they could reach: tongues pulled from gaping mouths, eyes pecked to jelly or pulled from their sockets and gobbled down.

Even with the rabble of victory, I could see at the edges of the forest scavenger animals slinking out cautiously to pull their spoils into the dense underbrush to devour in peace.

There was still life amongst all this death and while our battle had ended, a battle in the sky and forest was beginning. The birds in flight—vultures, ravens, hawks—were attacking each other, fighting over what was clutched in claws or beak. Feathers fell down. The smaller birds fell as their wings were wrenched loose, dipping, spiraling, and spinning as their tails were ripped off by the relentless hunters. In the woods there were snarls and yips, the tearing and ripping of flesh, the sound of crashing through the underbrush; hidden from the eye, but not the mind. Soon that battle ended and there was nothing left save some black and brown feathers. It looked as if a giant shadow had laid to rest over the field of corpses.

But even the shadows were still alive.

The cries of the wounded were joined by the mournful screams of the dead husbands’ sons, the dead mothers’ daughters, the mothers’ broken sobs, the wives’ gasps of realized loneliness. They came next from the trees, mothers, daughters and sons, both from the victor’s tribe and the vanquished (obvious from the way they too wore a collection of animal furs and bones). They knelt next to the dead and offered remembrance and ended the suffering of the wounded as they guided blades into their chests or slid them swiftly across their throats.

The keening for the lost were soon joined by the victorious warriors. Eleanor bent her head low, burying her head in her hands, mourning in communion with her people. As mothers keened and wailed, so did their people. They moved and cried as one until it reached a fevered pitch and stopped. It was a ceremony, a religious experience, and as all became quiet, the mourners picked themselves up from the ground. The ones dressed in furs and bones followed where their warriors had retreated to, while the ones Eleanor knew came from the field to stand next to the other warriors.

It was only in the silence that I was finally acknowledged. A skinny, shirtless man, sauntered over and looked me up and down. He grabbed at the fabric of my pants, trying, I’m assuming, to see what they were made of or to possibly steal them from me to replace the leather flap that covered his nether regions. Squatting he looked at the head still clutched in my hand. He pushed the hair away to assess its features and laughed. Jumping up he claps me on the shoulder causing me to drop the head on the ground. Picking the head back up, he slams it to my chest and—oh, the smell—I catch it and cradle it like a newborn baby, trying to avoid the dead warrior’s glazed over eyes. He says something unintelligible and more of the warriors turn their attention to me while I stand there, grinning like an idiot. I can’t understand what they are saying, but they keep pointing at the head then back at me.

Eleanor appears at my side and places her hand on my shoulder. She points to me and then at the head, talking all the while in their foreign tongue. There’s pieces of words that I can understand. Its part English, part barbarian, and part gobblety-gook. The skinny, shirtless man responds to Eleanor and she replies back, patting my shoulder stiffly.

“What is going on?” I whisper out of the side of my mouth.

“Shut up,” Eleanor whispers back, squeezing my shoulder to quiet me.

Eleanor and the man continue their back and forth until the man nods and waves for Eleanor to stand aside. Her hand leaves my shoulder as she steps away. He comes towards me till we’re face to face. He is grinning devilishly at me and I’m unsure whether he has decided to kiss me or take me as a lover. Reaching out he grabs a fistful of hair and lifts the head from my arms and holds it up for the rest of the warriors to see.

Rubbing the dried blood at the base of the neck, the head begins bleeding again. He places his free hand beneath the steady drip, drip, drip and lets the blood pool in his palm. When he had collected enough, he stood before me again and poured the gore onto my head. It ran down my face, into my eyes, and into my opened mouth. It was awful, but I was trapped in the awe of the moment.

Others came up, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. Each cupped their hand to catch the drippings and each took a turn at baptizing me. Some let it fall onto my head. Others smeared it down my neck and chest while still others lay their hands flat upon my skin, leaving their mark upon me.

Finally, the head dripped no more, and the warrior lifted it in the sky and howled. The others joined in too and after a look from Eleanor, I did the same.

Leading the way, the man, still carrying the head, walked through the throng and back into the woods, the others following in his wake.

Eleanor stepped besides me, smiling. “Well done,” she said.

“Well done? That was awful. I thought I was going to vomit. Can you please explain what just happened?”

“That head,” she said, gesturing towards the departing warrior, “was why we went to battle. The warrior that head belonged to, came into our village and killed one of our holy women. I told them that you had killed him and they were impressed.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “But you killed him.”

“Tomato, potato,” she shrugged in reply. “Come on. We need to go.”

“Where?” I ask.

“To the Pago Dorf.”

“I’m sorry. The what?” I ask.

“The village,” she replies. “It’s where I grew up.” I stare at her in silence. My feet rooted to the ground. “I’ll explain as we walk,” she says.