Have you ever seen the aftermath of a battle? Not an exceptionally bloody one...not one that turns the tide of war. Just a battle, as ugly and nondescript as they come. It is nothing to call glorious.
Victors and losers alike both have dead...both must search for the bodies. The earth will drink many liquids, but human blood is too thick for her to swallow. It soils the surface, taints the water, drives the animals away, or draws them in as the case may be.
If it's hour or days later, there might be some difficulty in identifying comrades...especially those already looted and missing defining traits...like a head.
Bodies left out have a tendency to bloat, expanding under the sun until the size of the corpse matches the size of the stench associated with it. You can taste the smell on the air, if you try hard enough. Associate each wound with a weapon - the mostly severed head from a badly wielded sword; the gutted man a byproduct of any host of of pole arms; lost legs, chariot spikes; squashed skull, over-enthusiastic horse hooves.
War is not a pretty business.
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