Death’s Head

Retreating from Leningrad respect for the Soviets had grown amongst SS Totenkopf, elevated from Untermensch – ‘suhumans’ – to Bolsheviks.

After the bombardment from the eerily howling Katyushas – ‘Stalin’s organs’ – half of Franz’s platoon had been blown to bits, their blood staining the snow.

Silence.

Then line after line of T-34 tanks covered in infantrymen appeared over the frozen steppe.

The odds were impossible, yet none would surrender, warriors moulded by the code of blood, iron and unconquerable will.

Franz, 19, watching the approaching hordes, glanced at the Totenkopf – ‘Death’s Head’ – insignia on his lapel.

Yes, this was what he existed for.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Patience Is The Hardest Virtue In Life

Blessed be the Gods that bring forth the life I’ve longed for in this grove I thought I’d decay in. Even Warriors have weakness—an Achilles' heel. Mine: the matching Fates tread to be woven with my golden strand.

The battle, memorable, left me stripped of my armor and shield. Broken and defeated. Among bare trees. Their roots burrowing down constricting me, but I learned to live with the pain.

Over a decade, I’ve waited for destiny to come home. Embrace me with open arms and a genital kiss. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, you knew he’d come back for me.

From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey 

Eulogy for Lead

My grandfather liked to paint lead miniatures, redcoat British riflemen and coal-colored Zulu warriors with brilliant spears. He would wax poetic about square formations and Michael Caine, talk about each individual figure as though they led deeply introverted lives. On hot summer mornings I'd wake with my child's eyes and see: all those soldiers shifted from their positions, playing out an historical drama that only my grandfather knew. Grandfather survived the brutality of the Pacific Theater. Now he lays forever asleep, something inanimate, molded by ancestral pressures unknown, moved with care, another lead actor in some endless recursive performance.

From Guest Contributor John K. Webb

Reality Programming

The students were blindfolded as they entered the arena, and the roaring crowd left them nearly deaf as well. When the bell sounded indicating they were allowed to uncover their eyes, they found an array of weapons waiting for them.

The student combat drew the largest audience in recent memory. The republic was drawn to the spectacle of it all, the blood and the death and the lost innocence. And the drama. Only one lucky warrior would survive.

Not many people realize that Julius Caesar first sprang to fame as a winner on Rome's most popular reality show, Juvenile Gladiators.

The Conquering Heroes

Viking raiders would return from their numerous expeditions and invasions as conquering heroes and hope to receive a heroes' welcome. Instead, they were generally greeted with indifference bordering on disdain.

Their victims around the world thought of Vikings as the most fearsome warriors on Earth, but that wasn't true. The only reason they needed to sail to distant lands in search of plunder and wives was because they'd been alienated from their own communities. They were considered enfeebled outcasts.

The strongest Viking warriors in fact stayed home and forced their weaker counterparts to pay them tribute in food and gold.