The hungry sword

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They call me the hungry sword, amongst other, less salubrious, terms.
They point to my arrogance, my vanity and my complete lack of compassion or empathy for 'common folk'.
They disregard the countless wars I've fought and won. The desperate times that made desperate men beg me to lead them. Outnumbered, out equipped and out maneuvered and I have still won all the conflicts lain at my feet.
So easily forgotten. The common people hate me for the sons and fathers my wars take. The nobles hate me for doing what they and their fathers fail to do. And they all hate the fact that I am simply better at them, at the fine art of war.
The perfect double edged sword. The curse and the gift. Balanced on a very sharp edge.
And such a gift I have. War demands sacrifice. Of men and money. And my price is high indeed.
The greatest strategic mind to ever walk among them and all they can seem to remember is that I've always lost 8 in 10 men that go to war at my side. They say that serving under me is a death sentence. And rightly so. But what is hidden from their short sight is the gambits I've had to play, the battles I've had to fight and the losses compared to the gains.
Sure. At the battle of the Hattomei hills, I had thrown away 2000 spearmen in a doomed charge. But that had netted me the enemy's entire cavalry. As soon as the enemy had committed his entire cavalry legion to the fight, I had filled the sky with my arrows. Brothers had killed brothers, and they never forgave me for that. But who saw the danger of not severing the head of their horse before they reached the V'rogi plains where horses can charge into men at full speed.
Okay, maybe I could have arranged a better ambush at the Holspond chokepoint. But who can see that I HAD to make a decision to not tarry and use all my men in a doomed attack that saw them wiped to a man. It had stopped the enemy for an entire week and saw my reinforcements taking charge of the crucial checkpoint.
Oh no. They don't see. They are blind to the winds of war. And as soon as that wind blows over and their cowering heads can rise, so do the fingers. "Hungry sword! Faithless monster. You have swept all our children into the fires of war and return all alone." They cry. From voices that would forever be still if not for the sacrifices of those I leave behind. Those battered bodies that will never move again.
But what is dead, does never rise again. To explain to the living the importance of their death and what they had gained through the giving of their lives.
And I remain misunderstood. Alone. A hungry sword.
And the winds. Heh. The winds are shifting again. I can already smell the tang of blood on the breeze, the screams of the dying and the heat of cities put to the sword.
Let those below decry my life. They will come begging soon enough.

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