Dry Bones Read online

Smoke poured from the lamps and spread round the semi-circle, twisting into a grey column, billowed by but resisting the tug of the wind. The scene unfolding was a familiar one, he had witnessed it countless of times, they had done the same to countless captured prisoners.

  Two soldiers walked over to Unda and seized him by the arms. Unda put up no resistance. He showed no awareness of the impending death awaiting him, neither of the soldiers nor of the Magi. He was dragged to the pillar of smoke, limp toes trailing in the dust. The soldiers stopped before the column, holding him there, uneasy, opposite the head Magi.

  He stared at Unda whose face was now submerged into the column of smoke. He did not struggle. He lay unmoving in the grip of the soldiers. The chanting peaked into a crescendo. The head Magi reached into her robe, a red blade gleamed through the air, swift and bright and lithe; it rose then vanished into the smoke, fast, backed by the weight of her body. The area was drowned by the rough chanting. The head Magi withdrew. Unda's body was hoisted backwards; blood gushed from his neck and sloshed down his body, a still body, he was dead. A strange tinge of admiration swept over him, tears nearly crept up his eyes. Unda had accepted his death with peace, without struggle. Could it be? Had he been waiting for it all along?

  He stared at the blood that trailed the bone-white dust. Scarlet Pools. It was four years ago, he had lived in the capital, struggling to make ends meet, to put food in his belly and taste water down his parched throat. He had lived in the capital, in a squalid hut, where black rats with black eyes scurried along black streets. Dirty limpid waters oozed from wells, and offered no grateful surprises by carrying a myriad of diseases. Air prejudiced with scents of vulgar sweat, rotting vegetables, feces, decaying animals... to call it disgusting, repulsive, is to tarnish those words. All this poverty and suffering lay contrasted to riches and luxury.

  Although their voices were mute they held animosity for those who forcefully grabbed resources and lavishly splashed it on splendor. He had known of a resistance amidst the empire, traitorous demons they were called and engaged as such. Hasira. He did not support nor oppose them, it never mattered to him, back then he accepted everything as ordained fate, unchangeable. But, it happened, on a plain day a childhood friend, starved and delirious, stole from a wealthy person. He was killed before his eyes, emaciated ribcage plunged and shattered by an iron spear, no trial, no shred of mercy accorded; ordained justice scaled by an all pervading divinity of erudite wealth. He had tried to defend him… pitiful. In a fit of rage, he lashed out, frenzied, he wanted to avenge, to see blood spill from a lifeless body. But, he was weak, so he was stopped, but not so weak that he could not manage to escape.

  He ran frightened an excited party closing in on his trail. His foot soles tore, tongue swelled purple with violent thirst, still he fled, crossing wide rushing rivers, scaling steep hills fringed with jaded rocks. But, on the third day he collapsed, exhausted, lying on the shade of a jagged outcropped cliff, awaiting his fate. He saw the party passing at a distance, laughing, enjoying this, this hunt, like stock caricatures of evil.

  He vowed never to succumb to death in that way, slaughtered and crushed like an ant as if he held no meaning in the intertwined itinerary of all life, forgotten. He triumphed over the ordeal and a few weeks later enlisted as one of those traitorous demons; baptized in their ideals, their unyielding cause.

  He picked up his first iron bow there, heavy and cold, like the deed it did. Lethal. He learned how to fight, how to defend himself, and most of all how to restore justice to a depraved decaying society. He still remembered his first battle, vividly; a brutish memory. Heavy rainfall had tor-rented from ash black clouds, the sky dark, end to end. They moved through a groaning forest, silently, moving through the cover of giant trees that swayed and dripped down fat drops of water onto a muddy earth strewn with wet fallen leaves and broken twigs.

  He had been afraid then, the arrows loaded on his back rattling as he crept onwards. Lives were going to be lost, families broken, children orphaned. He feared the aftermath, the consequences, not the battle. Every flash of lightning and thunderclap, bright in a dark sky and loud among the moaning boughs, further heightened his fear. Cold sweat washed by cold rain from his body was swept away into the brown waters streaming underfoot. They clashed with the enemy. Vatu. In the clamor and riot of battle he moved shaking, confused, eyes wide and mind dazed.

  But, he pressed the trigger over and over again, not aiming, firing blindly. A shadow loomed across his path and his arrows sunk deep into its chest. He stood, petrified, staring at eyes bright and surprised, at lips that murmured their last words. Shocked, he couldn't move, couldn't make out a single spoken sound. Another shadow knocked him down. He pressed the trigger, pressed again and again, till the second shadow lay at his feet. The more the battle raged on, the less his tremor grew, his mind cleared and focused, fear receded and morphed into sharp reflexes of combat.

  It was over. He looked across the battlefield, countless bodies lay, blood was being swept away by the storm. And, no matter how hard he looked and tried to sketch out the details of the fallen, a ridge in a nose, receding brow split by axe, frozen eyes in forced peace; all he saw were dark shadows, a haze, spreading endlessly around him, a sea of grey.

  During the victory party he realized that he had done what the hunting party had sought out to do, but on a broader scale, on legitimatized grounds. He could feel it, almost see it, the seeds of chaos lodged in those grounds, seeping into the memory of time, nourished by the hatred spawned from dark stains of blood shed.

  But this was different; he had only done it for the crimes, for the poor, so that justice could be meted out. Death is death. No, it’s not the same. He fought for something, a cause, not slaughter, not mindless slaughter. After wards he was assigned under a renowned tactician, General Genja. Battles raged on, the haze darkened and swept around him further and further.

  He made friends, comrades; they lived together in the barracks, gambled and laughed, saved each other’s lives, fell together on the fields of war. He had tried to make a part of his life ordinary, to reclaim the little of what he had lost. Their camaraderie did nothing for the shadows around him.

  Despite his ideals, he married a year into the war. A timid girl kind and compassionate. Her family had been victims of the empire. She worked in the camps, nursing the wounded to health, a brilliant doctor. She was always trembling, round shoulders shivering, lips quivering, fidgeting, afraid of the carnage that was their lives. Yet, shaking, she never backed from the front lines, never did less than all she could, treating ghastly wounds without flinching, fearful but brave.

  They were similar. She saw the shadows too. Their desperation drew them together. The bottomless void of despair manifested. With her, he felt a faint hope stirring within him, reassuring, a faint trembling light quivering in the heavy darkness.

  After two years, it began. Hasira had grown in strength; strategic cities had been captured, abundant supplies secured, food, water, manpower, and most importantly the hearts of the majority had been won. To counter this, the empire unleashed terror onto the populace, hideous atrocities that were fabricated as the acts of the resistance. He stills remembered the sights, crystal clear like a calm lake mirroring a pale moon, surreal as a dream, a dream during the silent hours of night, when the winds have stilled and all sounds are hollow.

  Twilight of the dead: ash and cinders adrift over a nightmare dawned, corpses upon corpses, a sea of scarlet fire, shadows and light, the dance of night and day, of life and death; ash and cinders, dark and aglow, blood spilled over innocent earth, a touch of flame on death’s craftsmanship, corpses upon corpses, of man, of hope, of cruelty’s restraint; ash and cinders adrift, no shadows present now, the tears of life in sorrow, scarlet drops of blood weeping, the embrace of despair eccentric; ash and cinders, dark and aglow, drifting through the night like stars ablaze, scarlet, like the twilight of the dead.

  The shadows in his mind cleared, leaving him naked and is
olated. Right then he saw the truth and in realization yearned for the darkness to return. They had shielded him from a demented sight, from a creeping bitter chill drifting.

  Darru's cries of struggle broke his reverie. He looked up. Darru was being dragged towards the Magi; he struggled violently, lashing out against the soldiers. It was difficult to restrain him, and more soldiers had to come in to subdue him. Still he fought back, biting, spitting, cursing, veins standing out like tendons over his neck, death would take the body but it would not break the will. Darru had been under his command for a year, a trouble maker, fierce in combat, one of their strongest assets, a true fighter to the bitter end, a model dissident.

  He was always uneasy when dealing with him but he admired his resilience. Darru resisted being submerged into the coils of the smoke, lurching back whenever he was thrust forward. One soldier struck to the back of his head, he slumped. A whirr of clothes, a gleam of red, the blade cut through the air, a roar, “Long live the rebellion”,