The Bullmans Wrath

The following text was found inside of a shredded, leathery journal strewn beside a battered field from a war-torn era. Its contents catalog the detailed thoughts of a man known only as 'The Bullman,' and the general greivances that plagued what we can only assume to be his final days.

***

The weather was bleak, again. The troops are currently laying camp with the same rhythmic, morose humming that seems to constantly keep their plebian minds busy. It's the decorations that I've come to call home while living in this incessant battle for grass that is no longer green. Bullshit, that's what it all is to me. From top to bottom it's bullshit all the way through, and I see it to its very marrow. To think that anyone actually believed this war would be the end of me. They don't understand power when they see its flexing neck reaching for the heavens. I'll be dust on this earth before any man sees me bow.

*

The day was troublesome, my scouts found signs of troops just to the north, faint whispers of combat echo in from the future. Moments like these require the stout jaw of a bull and the unflinching heart of a lion, to blink in the moment of action would be to turn your ears from the prophets of truth. My men do not yet know these words but by the gods as my witness, I will whip it into them until they all stare at the horizon like it is the only thing left that can offer them salvation. My moment of glory shall not be broken by the shaking hands of lesser men, no mountain shall stand in the way of what force I will wreck upon the enemies that lie before me.

*

The last couple of weeks have been spent obsessively training my men. The act of breaking their backs to make room for the birthing of an immortal soldier soul shall be remembered as the purist art humanity ever put to the drawing board. The orchestral sounds of swords hammering into each other like monstrous drums lift into the sky like poetry for the birds. My camp is filled with the never-ending bending and hammering of men. Of course, at the moment their guts fill with bile at the thought of me, they've even taken to giving me a subtle nickname. The Bullman they call me. So be it, if that be what the heavens define my name as then I shall wear it to prayer, may the men of my camp know that The Bullman prepares them for history!

*

At present, the scouts tell me that we're ever closer to battle. Signs of the enemy now mark every cloud and shape in the night sky, the visages of an epic yet to come. In the preliminary battle meetings with my lower officers today I had to squash any ideas about tactics that might detract from the glory to be found on the field. I told them all that fighting a true and heroic battle was like sucking the ground for all its nutrients so that you can see the fruits of labor grow into a bountiful harvest. Without such absolute dedication you risk not only starvation but the denial of man's one true purpose on this earth, to dominate it. I would sooner fall on my sword and leave this world behind as a martyred prohet than mortally wound the character of man like that.

*

The time nigh, this morning I woke to the sound of war horns as enemy riders strode the horizon and galavanted on their burly steeds. Every inch and fiber of my body has prepared me for the destiny that awaits, the men have been forged and beaten into a troop, the plans have been inscribed like prophecies, and the metal swords burn for the taste of life. The beautiful, pivotal point has now been reached where no man nor god alike could stop what slaughter is about to insue. Destiny has fixed a course for two forces that now cannot be stopped -- it is written in the stars. Those stars will soon say Here lies the victory of The Bullman, may it be never forgotten.

*

The past couple of days have been filled with fire. It has now come to my attention that the riders from before were not the scouts of an army, but the tongue of a snake, hissing its vile breath at me. When I marched to meet another army in the field, I was meet with a trap that enclosed me on all sides. The enemy line was a farce, a false door that caved into a hollow room. I now sit at a tentative camp where I and my men lay surrounded by the enemy, cowards who don't seek a fair battle but would rather strangle us like a serpent. In my attempts to reach out and strike them I've been swatted away and forced to reconsider, lest I make a permanent blunder. Though through all this I shall not be shaken, they want to starve me? Try. They want to bleed me? Try. Most of all if they want to beat me, try.

*

It has been days in this wretched trap and the men have become riotous. They refuse to meet me in my attempts to shatter the cage and chase glory, they instead want to fester and wait like some rat found in a rotting bucket. Some grotesque insects have even gone as far as to ask for peace negotiations, to which all who do are promptly and swiftly executed under the forced witness of all. I shall not under any circumstances have this moment stolen from me, it will be a victory even if I have to fight every man myself. The nights get darker, but I'm unwavering in the belief that behind them lays the gates to the eternal light of history and legacy. It seems I must now make the men see this.

*

Because I said so has become my repeated mantra over the last couple of days. The enemy seems to have grown impatient and has been periodically tightening the apparent noose around our necks. I've been hastily readying the men for an incoming battle and chance of redemption but been met with mutineers and cowards at every step. They shout questions as to the reason for increased training and sleepless nights of digging defenses, and my reply is nothing if not consistent: Because I said so. I sense my moment for history could arrive at any night now and I have to be sure that when it does all will be ready. To the men, it may all seem like arbitrary suffering and fruitless labor, but they just can't see the light that beckons me every time I close my eyes. It has been my life's purpose to fight this glorious battle, to defy the odds and cement my name as the undefeated. To place my stone on the mantlepiece of history's finest, I can hardly sleep at the thought.

*

These last pages are smeared in blood and ink.

I sit in my tent and write these final notes in anguish. It appears the enemy had been sowing decent in my camp for weeks, which after extended periods of hunger have boiled over to the point of all-out mutiny. I cannot describe the feeling in my gut, the waste in my soul. Everything I worked so hard for was taken from me, I prepared all my life to fight the valiant fight and defeat the enemy at the door, but it seems that the enemy from within shall take me. As I write this now I hear them killing the guards to my tent. Their voices are shrill and thunderous, they're chanting Because I said so...