A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter One

Chapter One

Sand. Sand was everywhere.

Sand swirled around him. An endless vortex limiting the world to a few metres. He felt it between his teeth and on his skin. Scratching. Grating. Eroding. His lips were white and cracking. Eyes stinging beneath sand goggles; narrow slits cut in leather and covered with a thin fabric. The googles didn’t help all too much but without them it was hell. 

Atars brayed beneath him shaking his reins every few steps. He clicked the horse on a short distance. Atars brayed again and stopped, his head down against the whirling sand. 

‘Come on. This is no place to stop,’ he chastised the horse and prodded his boot into its ribs.

The horse cantered a few steps further and stopped again.

The rider fiddled with the scarf around his face, pulling it higher against his cheeks. Tucking the end under his goggles to stop it falling down.

Howling all around the winds whipped a frenzy of sand and pebbles into the air. The sky was lost in a blanket of darkness. The winds hissed monotonously. Another sound pierced through for just a moment. 

‘What was that, Atars?’ The rider leaned down and patted his horse on the neck. He held his breath and closed his eyes to listen. 

Again the sound. Three sharp hums or thuds. Breathy and distant. A voice followed. Angry.

‘You should tell me when you hear something, Atars,’ he whispered as he patted the horse on the mane. 

He pulled the reins to the right and moved off the road. Not that there was much of a road. The sand storm obscuring everything around him. He allowed Atars to lead them off the road as he peered into the obscuring storm. Three, maybe two, darker patches moved deep in the sand only to disappear once he had focussed his eyes.

The wind brushed against the back of his neck with a lazy touch. The air twisted and stilled without warning.

Great timing, he thought as he dug his heel into Atars side. The horse tossed its mane, gave a slight buck, and cantered faster. Ahead rose the wall of the valley, he pulled on the reins and stood out of the saddle. To his left, towards the sounds and figures, was a rocky outcropping and beyond that something tall and square.

Hopping off Atars he gave a light tug on the reins. Atars neighed and followed his master. The man tensed as he listened. Hoping the neigh hadn’t travelled deep into the storm. The leather of the reins creaked in his hands.

Nothing.

He let out a breath and carried on towards the rocks to wait out the storm and the loud complication further down the pass.

Another day another obstacle, he pulled his desert cloak closer to his scarf, hiding the heavy interlocking plate armour underneath. Sand would destroy it and he would be killed for being seen wearing the armour of the defeated Free Cities and Union of Free Peoples.

Ahead, past the rocks that offered waist high cover lay a tall rectangular block in the deep of the sand storm. He peered through thin veiled slits of his sand goggles struggling to make out what it was or how far away. 

He sighed.

Pulling on the reins he carried on towards the unknown structure. Atars, his new horse, pulled back. The rock cliff to their right brushed the horses ear, the rocky outcropping blocking the route. 

‘You can make it through there,’ he whispered to his untrusting horse. ‘You’re a warhorse not some farm pony. Come on,’ he tugged the rein again. The horse furled its nostrils and brayed, its eyes wide obelisk orbs.

He clenched his jaw at Atars and loosened the reins in his hands holding them at their full length. He walked backwards through the gap between cliff face and rocks.

‘Ta-daa,’ he uttered to himself and tugged the reins lightly. Atars neighed, shook his mane, and tentatively took a step towards his new master, his ears low against his head.

‘See, that wasn’t hard was it,’ he said as the horse reached him. He stroked Atars nose and behind his ear. 

Atars ear bristled. He snapped a look behind him at the sound. The scraping of metal on rock came from further on in the pass. A sure sign of others. Armed others at that. He checked the saddle bags for his bow and arrow. Still there, not lost to the storm. He fingered his scimitar in its scabbard on his hip and ducked a little as he pulled Atars towards what was now obviously a building.

Sandstone walls rose before him as if brought along by the storm itself. Some twisted blessing and curse from the gods, but which side of the coin would fall. Kethus, god of fortunes, or Min, goddess of deception and surprise? He didn’t care. With furrowed brow he pushed against a lick of wind flooding the corridor between building and cliff. Atars followed with sheepish eyes. 

The building was rough to the touch, old and dishevelled, the corners chipped and the mortar cracking. The roofing timbers, from further north by the thickness, were too dry and rotten to support a termite colony let alone a lathe and plaster roof.

The wind became a light breeze within moments. Sand still whispered on the air. Thin trails of grains chased the impenetrable dark brown wall that raced through the valley pass. He watched the storm subside, for now, and reached for his hair. He ruffled the sand free, pools gathered at his feet upon a thick silt of fresh sand from miles away. 

His eyes stung as he pulled his goggles from his face. The sun bright and daunting in the sudden clarity of the world. He worked at his scarf, pulling it loose around his neck. He rubbed at his chin and neck, brushing free a fine layer of sand. He blew once through pursed lips, disturbing more resting sediment. He felt sand bristle against his arms, shoulders, back, ears, everywhere. He felt like a hinge needing an oil. He moved and it worked its way against his skin. 

Atars perked at the new clear world, neighed and shook his mane, taking a step back and forth. His shoes clacked against the ground. 

‘Shh,’ he ordered his horse.

Too late.

Voices came from the other side of the building. Inquisitive in tone, urgent in nature, and speaking a different language.

Just what I needed, he thought leaning against the side of the building. He closed his eyes as he stared up at the clear blue sky above. Now visible as the sandstorm raged over someone else on its slow march to the Black Wall of Dohanlu beyond The Wastes.

Republic soldiers on patrol. Occupation is a difficult business after all. He crouched against the wall and made towards the far end of the building. Atars resisted. The veteran looked back and saw him nibbling on a tuft of yellow grass. You haven’t eaten in a long while, enjoy it, he thought. His stomach ached for food as well. He placed the reins on the ground without disturbing Atars.

‘Stay there,’ he mouthed to the horse.

He tracked the wall with his left hand and remained low to the ground as he moved. Passing beneath a window where tattered muslin waved in the opening in the wall. An alleyway stretched to the traveller’s road. Another building stood further on, and another after that. A guard post? The beginnings of a town forgotten? He didn’t know. He didn’t need to know. He pushed the thoughts from his mind as he peered round the chipped corner of the building.

Tufts of yellow-green grass pushed through the ground. Sand gathered against the walls of the two buildings. Voices carried through the alleyway carried on the wind. Laughter reached his ears, loud and piercing. At least three people.

Beads of sweat gathered on the back of his neck. He hissed out a breath and pulled away from the alley. His armour was heavy. The scarf distracting. The heat unbearable. 

Atars ate the final strands of grass sprouting from beneath a rock. The horse brushed at the ground with his muzzle, disappointed at the end of a tasteless treat. Atars approached his master a few steps and nibbled at the ground again. His prize? Sand dotted across his muzzle.

From around the alley came the sound of something being dropped. Metal on rock, a deep thud followed by ringing. Atars startled, hopping from hoof to hoof and neighed once. Eyes wide for a moment. 

The soldiers shouted to each other, the words lost in a tongue he struggled to interpret. Was it the cooking pot or a weapon? Damn foreign tongue. Doesn’t matter, he thought turning to Atars.

‘Shh, it’s alright,’ he told the horse in as soft a tone as possible. 

The horse calmed itself but more with the ceasing of sound than his words.

‘Shh, shh,’ a gruff voice said.

‘Was that a horse?’ another said. The hushed words filtered on the breeze.

‘Aios, see what that was. Take Dolon with you,’ a gruff voice ordered in a different language.

The veteran picked out the names and understood the tone more than the words. He stilled himself. Listening. Footsteps scuffed the ground. The rasp of steel on leather echoed down the alleyway. He looked to Atars and sighed before reaching up to the window ledge and clambering inside. He swung one leg over the low window onto a straw mat floor. He pulled the other leg through and straightened the curtain, leaving it flowing in the breeze. 

He looked to his right for another window. Nothing but a bed pushed up against the wall, no bigger than a child’s, the covers rising and falling like hills. Shelves stood against the wall to his left, shards of light speared through the rotting roof. A thin layer of dirt sapped the colour from the hovel. 

He turned back to the bed, knowing he missed something. Hand on his scimitar he approached the bed. It’s cover threadbare. Small beady eyes stare up at him. He pulled the cover back in one motion. Dust and pebbles spray across the room.

Bones and clothing twist over the straw filled bed. Two skulls, one above the other, cower. Arms intertwined around a stuffed toy. Its yellow painted stone eyes stare out.

The straw matted in a congealed mess of iron red and browns. The cover in his hand stained with blood hiding beneath dust and shadow. He dropped the sheet and releases the hilt of his sword. 

He followed the eyes of the stuffed toy. Behind him, in the corner of the room is another pile of bones. Tucked together as small as could be, knees up to chin. A knife held in bone fingers. 

Let this not be the end my family found, his eyes hot with fear. May the grasses be green, the animals fat, and the children laughing, he repeated the prayer thrice. He thought of Delara, his daughter, running with the other children of the village. Of Avaya still strapped to her mothers back, though now she would be walking, he smiled sadly, a wisp of regret passed his lips, at the thought of missing such a change. And of Mani. His beloved. His smile turned sweeter before he caught a shadow through the muslin curtain across the window.