A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
‘Hey!’ Someone repeated for… Nemo was unsure, third time. Maybe?
Nemo held his right arm in his left hand and felt the scar running along the skin. The muscle and flesh had healed but not without a reminder of foolish endeavours. He tore his focus away from the water and memories playing on its surface, ‘What?’ He looked up.
‘Move along,’ the woman said. A peasant woman or a farm hand by the poor quality of clothing and the head scarf.
Nemo turned towards the Blooming Gate. ‘Oh,’ he said to himself and pushed himself to his feet. Leading Atars twenty paces and stopping several people from the sergeant on duty.
The woman tutted and murmured to whoever she traveled with. It didn’t matter.
Not all places and peoples looked favourably on bounty hunters anyway. Dealing in the business of death was seen by some to be ill-omened. They were probably right. Death wasn’t the aim of the trade but it invariably was the result.
Before long the line shortened until Nemo was close to freedom.
The gate sergeant waved the man in front of Nemo through with a smile. Must be a regular, he thought. He waved Nemo forward and held one hand out while he picked his teeth with the other.
Nemo reached into the saddle bag on Atars and pulled his papers free. He handed the bundle to the gate sergeant who perused them with too quick an eye.
‘Sure. This is fine. Came yesterday, leaving today. Good,’ the sergeant said handing the last paper to another man with an ink laden stamp.
He returned Nemo’s papers to him and said, ‘Now be on your way. Don’t return anytime soon.’ The sergeant waved to the person behind Nemo.
Nemo made his way under the Blooming Gates with nary a question formed let alone uttered. Why should I not return? It didn’t matter. Even if there was promise of work he was done going so far from home for so long.
The noise of the city faded behind him. The shadow of the city wall above cooled his head and the open road stretched into the distance. He breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, he thought as he mounted Atars.
Atars snorted and Nemo patted his neck, ‘Just me.’ He rode out from the shade of the gate into the heat of the midmorning. An awful time to ride. The only time he had. Sitting in the shade for the next few hours seemed a worse fate than death to Nemo.
He gripped the reins in one hand and clicked his tongue. Atars responded with a lurch forward and trotted onwards. Nemo looped his sand scarf around his head and created a lip to shield his eyes from the blinding sun.
Atars pulled at the reins. He trotted faster, breaking into a canter. Nemo pulled him back to a trot. He huffed and Nemo agreed, best not be over eager.
‘Wait till we are further from Ramascus,’ he said.
Atars shook his mane.
Nemo patted his neck and straightened in the saddle. He glanced back at the city gate. Unable to see the eyes of the guards, or people waiting to enter or leave, he loosened his hold on Atars. The horse responded immediately, as eager as Nemo to stretch its legs, and exploded into a gallop on the paved road.
The breeze was warm and smelled of nothing but horse and man. Nemo inhaled deep and lowered himself into the saddle more. Left hand holding his thigh and the reins in his right he urged Atars on.
Sand littered the paved road and the great white walls of Ramascus shone behind them. The road was empty. Nemo squinted into the distance. Nothing. Why is the road empty? He thought for a moment before passing over it. He was free to ride home as fast as Atars could manage. And perhaps a little more. Four days at most. Nemo smiled.
‘Hey! Slow down!’ A woman’s voice cried.
Nemo looked left and right but could see no one.
‘Slow down,’ she shouted again with a twist of anger.
This was not ideal. Distraction after distraction. He pulled on Atars’ reins and peered behind him. Vispa, the pickpocket, galloped towards him on a shabby grey horse. Nemo had forgotten about the letter until hearing her voice.
‘Did you steal that horse?’ He taunted threatening to gallop off.
Vispa ignored him and whipped her horse with the ends of the reins. Spurred on her horse caught up to Nemo and Atars, nostrils flared, eyes wild. Vispa skidded to a stop next to Nemo. The bundle he had gifted her hung from the pommel of the saddle, some of its contents clearly missing.
She brushed her hair off her face all rosed from hard travel. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said.
Nemo muttered to himself, ‘Oh that is not happening,’ and rubbed at his temples. His legs tensed against Atars’ body and he returned to a canter.
‘Hey! I’m coming with you. I have no where else to go,’ she said urging her horse on.
‘Where do you think I’m going?’ Nemo asked.
‘To Tanussi. To deliver that letter,’ she pointed at his belt and its array of pouches.
Darn, ‘Unfortunately that is true,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Is that where you will stay?’
‘Maybe,’ she shrugged.
‘What if you take the letter then? You had some trust with the Ramascan resistance and it’s where you want to go anyway,’ he began unbinding the pouch he had the letter in.
‘They won’t accept it from me. I am not a Free Citier, I didn’t fight, I’m still a child to them,’ Vispa stared at her horses mane.
‘Do you know what it says?’ Nemo asked, knowing the answer.
‘No. Have you not opened it?’ Vispa said.
He dropped the tie strings, ‘Right… Of course that was too good to be true. And no, I don’t think they will take kindly to me reading their letters,’ he tapped the seal.
She nodded and they rode in silence for a moment.
Nemo watched her ride. She moved awkwardly in the saddle and her head was down turned in thought rather than watching for rocks. ‘What’s your horses name?’ He asked.
‘Huh?’
‘His name?’
‘Oh she doesn’t have a name.’
‘What? Every horse should have a name. Give her one.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now,’ he pressed. If he were to travel with a companion she would at least converse with him and he would teach her better ways to treat and ride a horse. A name was the first step.
‘Why?’ She argued.
He grunted. Had her parent’s not taught her this… he remembered. No parents. ‘You are trusting your life to your mare. And your mare is trusting you with hers. The least you could do is have a connection to the animal. The first step is a name.’
‘I…’ she trailed off in thought. ‘Simbar,’ she said patting the side of the mare.
Nemo heard the name and noted the grey, silver, tone of the mare’s coat.
‘Don’t like it?’ Vispa spat.
‘I do. Suits the horse,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ she bristled and sat straighter in the saddle, ‘What is his name then?’
‘Atars.’
‘Undaunted. I hope that comes to be true for you,’ she said with a less than genuine click of the tongue.
‘So far… its been hit and miss. But there is time,’ he smiled trying to soften the air between them. ‘Isn’t that right?’ he reached down and scratched behind Atars’ ear.
‘What, did a spider scare him?’ Vispa giggled.
‘No a couple of soldiers with swords and one trying to steal him,’ Nemo said in a matter of fact way.
‘Oh… when was that?’
Nemo regaled his tale to his new travelling companion. Waking up on the battlefield and travelling to Ramascus. He softened the horror of war and fighting without thinking. As if telling his children about one of his bounty hunts.
He bristled at the thought of the youth on the men’s faces as he killed them. Cheeks still carrying baby fat. Chins barely sprouting hairs. Had the Republic been on its last push or had they always hired such young boys? Nemo fretted at the thought of the punishment for such resistance or the hatred held by old citizens for the new, if Free Citiers were ever granted citizenship. An unlikely outcome regardless of what The Republic claimed.
‘So you fought? Like really fought? Not like those back in Ramascus who just opened the gates,’ Vispa said.
‘Wait? Really. They opened the gates and are now resisting. Ramascus could have withheld for months. Years, if necessary,’ Nemo leaned over and grabbed Vispa’s arm. ‘Are you certain they surrendered?’ He shook her. His brow high, his eyes wild.
‘Yeah… yes. I heard them talking about it not long afterwards. How it was the only decision or something.’
‘Those traitors,’ Nemo spat and let her arm go.
‘They did what they thought best.’
‘They betrayed the Union when the main force was near enough to relieve a siege. What were they promised by the Thesusans?’
‘Nothing. I don’t think. They are wanted for resisting Republic rule.’
‘Republic’s mercy indeed.’ Nemo wrestled with the thought but no matter the mercy was a dagger in each hand. Either they brought peace and imprisoned hundreds or they brought peace but punished them all by withheld citizenship, preventing rule of themselves. Occupation was occupation either way. Surrender and be imprisoned, resist and be imprisoned, go along with it and have no power. Some mercy.
‘So,’ Nemo began distracting himself from problems beyond his control, ‘are you here to avoid imprisonment?’
‘Partly, I guess,’ she paused. ‘But also you gave me food when you didn’t have to and you seem to know what you are doing. Which is more than can be said of the resistors.’
Nemo laughed up to the sky, ‘Glad I look like I know what I’m doing. Also the food. I have some already and you looked hungry.’
‘Oh I was. But wait, so you don’t know what you are doing?’ She pulled Simbar to a halt.
Nemo carried on and turned to speak, ‘I know where I’m going. How to get there is a whole other problem I can’t predict.’ He allowed Atars to trot onwards as the road rose up a hill. The paved surface cracked and disjointed. The limits of the cities care and resources.
Vispa stared at him her eyes hungry for more. She looked back to Ramascus, now a speck on the horizon, or maybe that was a tree or boulder. Her shoulders drooped with an inaudible sigh and she dug her heels into Simbar. The silver horse started into a trot at the signal and Vispa followed Nemo up the hill.
Nemo pulled Atars to a standstill. The smell of sweat and faeces rose from over the hill. Less than a hill, more a wall preventing a warning. He pulled his scarf over his mouth and nostrils and followed the path, more gravel than slabs now, down the other side. To the source of the smell. There was something else to it. Too sweet to be living. The smell of rot. His nostril quivered as the smell stung.
The road had been empty for a good reason. Thesusan soldiers patrolled back and forth haranguing travellers in a foreign tongue, laughing as they did so. Nemo watched as an old man pulled his cart to the side of the road at the insistence of a spear. A soldier, in red cloak with his hand on sword, pointed to the ground and shouted something at the man. The man jumped off, the instruction was clear, though the words not understood. Other soldiers tore the rough hewn canvas from his cart. The red cloaked commander pointed to the cart and shouted at the old man. The old man looked on, lost, confused, unable to communicate. The commander laughed and ordered his men to do something. Crowding around the cart they began to unpack boxes and crates, coiled bedrolls and barrels. The old man’s life. His food and home.
Nemo stood in his saddle and squinted to see one soldier taking a small wooden box from under the carts front seat. The old man lurched for it only to be met with the back of the commanders hand. The soldier opened the box and pulled from it a string of jewels. The old man pleaded with hands together. Nemo watched as the commander pointed off to the right. Following the commander’s hand Nemo saw what awaited. Prison carts of people, their belongings piled up on army wagons. So much for mercy. Nemo felt the hilt of his sword digging into his palm. His knuckles turning white with rage.
‘Why have you stopped?’ Vispa asked as she pulled to the side. She gasped, and then began to scream.
Nemo stretched to cover her mouth. To catch the sound as it barrelled down to the source of such stench. What’s the smell? Nemo thought. It wasn’t just soldiers and horses.
Vispa’s eyes lay locked onto something in the distance. Unblinking. Unbreathing. She sat wordless in the saddle staring off into the distance.
Nemo followed her gaze, over the head of the unfortunate old man and his cart to something else. Something horrific. Something truly evil.
On the ground, to the side of the road, lay a woman, and beside her a man. Their arms outstretched and legs bound. Nemo squinted, wondering if he could hit a Republic soldier from such a distance, and noticed the two were not on the ground but laying on rods of wood. Ankles bound to one rod and their arms bound to a cross behind their shoulders.
His stomach dropped. Nausea twisted his gut. The two on the ground where dressed in ordinary clothes, not a knife or ring of armour on them, not even a belt.
‘They aren’t soldiers,’ Vispa breathed between Nemo’s fingers.
Nemo swallowed, ‘No. No they aren’t. Just people going about their lives,’ he gripped the handle of his scimitar and drew it halfway only to sheathe it in anger. An entire legion of men swilled about the road. Trained and tested men not some vagabonds with a price on their head. These were different beasts entirely.
‘Stay close,’ he said to Vispa as he descended the hill.
Atars whinnied. Evil deeds had evil smells.
‘We aren’t going through that are we?’ Vispa snatched for Nemo’s hand as he withdrew it from her mouth.
‘If we leave the road we will be chased or worse. If we turn back we will be chased and questioned, or worse,’ he stressed with a dark scowl. ‘We can only go through now we have been seen. And we have been seen, trust me.’
Vispa released his hand from her grip. Offering a tight nod she turned her knuckles white holding the reins. She led Simbar to within arms distance to Nemo.
‘Closer,’ he muttered from his chest.
The word reverberated through her. She turned Simbar to within touching distance of Atars.
‘Better,’ he whispered softly.
A soldier tied the woman’s last free limb, her left hand, to the crucifix. The man was in the air three men holding him and his cross. They edged towards a deep hole near the roadside. Tears coursed down his cheeks. Veins bulged from his neck as he strained to see the woman, his wife by any guess, suffering the same fate.
He wept and winced as the drop of the crucifix shuddered every bone of his body. He chewed on the dark cloth cutting across his mouth and tied at the back of his head. Straining back to see his wife a soldier yelled. A crack sounded and the man’s eyes bulged. A red welt lined his torso. The soldier twirled the brown bull leather whip in his hand ready for another lash.
Nemo strained the reins in his hand pulling the leather between in tight knots. His knuckles white, his sword aching to burst free. He carried on the road as it flattened out. Vispa close behind. He stole a look back and caught her eye, white visible all around, as she stared forward with the skill of a statue.
The screams of horror and pain pulled his attention back to the crucifixion. The newly dropped man only one of many who had hung for days. The road was lined either side with men and women, their wrists and ankles tied to a cross, a small step to try and balance on. Their heads hung against there chests. Faeces stained the wooden pillars in the ground and urine dried to the hairs on their legs.
The woman shrieked as she was lowered into a hole. Her husband tried in vein in see her but she was behind him and he received another kiss of the whip for his troubles. Blood welled from his lip as the whip struck.
His one remaining item was a short loincloth. A soldier, carrying a spear, circled the crucifix, tugging on the rope dangling from each wrist to tighten the knots holding him to the wooden death sentence. As he stepped in front of the man he placed the head of the spear on the crucified man’s thigh. The blade edged up his skin, offering thin cuts and a cooling lick as it travelled. The soldier pushed it up under the man’s loincloth and pulled outward, severing the cloth and relinquishing the man of his last possession.
Nemo rode on. Passing the man and his wife without a glance. Any sign of kinship, or camaraderie, or even a simple plea for help, would have meant punishment for the crucified man. Nemo did not want to end up involved with the Thesusan mercy on display. Nemo knew what came next for the man and it was best if it was quick.
The soldier laughed as he taunted the man. Nemo didn’t need to know what was being said he had heard the tales of captured soldiers losing their manhoods. Slaves and horses were gelded, and apparently enemy soldiers too. Though many were forced into the slave trades of one on one combat. Brother versus brother matches brought in the highest prices.
Nemo fought his better nature to focus on the road and turned to see a man hanging, half dead or worse, from a crucifix. His hair matted with sweat, days of growth on his chin. He was naked and blistering in the desert heat. Blood and sweat congealed against his thighs. A large uneven and messy gash between his legs. The flesh around pocked by the pecking of carrion. He swallowed. Anger in his knuckles and a lump of fear in his throat. He returned his attention to the road stifling shallow breathing.
How close had he came to such a fate? How close he still was. Would returning home save him from such a fate? He wished.
He prayed.
Silently he prayed to Kethus, god of fortune. He who had brought good harvests and passing trade to Beargarth for many years. Perhaps Kethus would help now as he had then.
The road widened as him and Vispa trotted along. Patrols of five and seven men marched along the road. Cloth bags covered the spear tips as they danced in the air. Cloaks swept the road, sand staining blue.
Nemo maintained his feigned lookout for stones and rocks in the road. Careful not to catch the eye of any soldier, lest he be found out. How? He did not know but fear pushed him onward. The crucifixions continued along the roadside. More women then men now. Before the end of the war. Before he lost. Most were dead. Some twitched, maybe still grasping at life. They had been stripped too. Scars and welts protruded from sunburnt skin. Gangrenous wounds festered where nipples should have been. Blood so thick and crusted it glued one woman’s legs together. Her womanhood lost in an explosion of gore. Enemies were enemies to the Republic regardless of who or what.
Simbar’s head nodded beside. Vispa remained silent. He was glad he had neither the energy nor inclination to soothe her and himself. He hoped his steadiness rubbed off without the necessity of words. In the depths of such horror where is the shore?
‘Nemo.’ A voice whispers. Threatened by the wind. ‘Nemo.’ Vispa said again.
‘What?’ Nemo asked without taking his eyes off the road.
‘What is that to the right? All those tents?’ Vispa pointed.
‘Don’t point,’ Nemo snapped. His shoulders tight, his jaw locked.
A sergeant marched by, his five men behind him. The sergeant peered at Nemo. His face clean shaven and unscarred. Newly promoted or untested. Nemo smiled at the man with a nod. The sergeant ignored him and Vispa.
Nemo released a stale breath and stole a glance to where Vispa had pointed. Dozens, at least dozens, maybe hundreds, of rows of tents littered the horizon. They stretched beyond sight and wider than his glance could comprehend. The enemy camp, it was the only thing it could be, their main camp.
Did he make it? Nemo thought. The one who got away on the way to Ramascus. Did he escape? Nemo pressed his heel into Atars flank and the horse picked up speed. He had to be as far away from here as possible. At any moment the soldier could walk by and spot him or a drawn likeness passed around and linked to him. I can’t die. Not yet. Atars cantered and Vispa urged her horse onward too.
The crucifixes planted in the ground were buzzing with flies and crawling with maggots. The old and infirm, the defenceless and the helpless, hung from the blood soaked wood. Charred by the sun and whipped bloody by the soldiers, there was little chance of burying a full body the carrion had pecked to the bone what they dared. The corpses would crumble from the cross and be burned, if the enemy had any sense.
In the distance along a flat plain of desert and a slim discerning road, stood a lone crucifixion. It’s victim hanging by one arm, the other a bone in the sand. A woman walked towards it from the other direction, a child rode a donkey beside her, and there she looked up at the dead person. Too decayed to be identified as man or woman except by those proclaiming skill in bone identification. She stared up at the corpse, shook her head and turned back, a rope in her hand tied to the donkey’s neck. The child began to cry.
The camp loomed menacingly on the horizon. Troops were no longer patrolling the road of these weeks old crucifixions but still the camp watched. Nemo wanted nothing more than to be out of its piercing stare. He and Vispa rode in the reflected light from the tents. Small specks on the horizon to any onlooker. But for those invaders that was enough. It was enough for Nemo to be cautious.
‘Were they… were they just regular folk?’ Vispa asked under breath.
Nemo waved her closer.
She rode up next to him.
He turned to look her in the eye, ‘Yes,’ he said with a definitiveness that shocked even him.
‘But… why?’
‘Fear.’
‘Huh?’
‘Make people scared and they are more malleable. Less likely to fight back. More worried about dying than being free,’ Nemo said. ’Surprised they haven’t confiscated the crops…’ Nemo muttered.
‘But they offered mercy. The Diviners of Ramascus told us so. They—.’
‘And I watched soldiers terrorising the merchants and traders in your city. I watched as good people ignored their eyes,’ he leaned over to her with a snarl. ‘I ignored my eyes,’ he whispered pulling back.
‘But…’
‘There’s no use in listening to them. The Thesusian’s only spout lies. It used to be from a hundred miles away but we lost and now it’s in our markets, our streets, and our homes. They will not stop lying not until you mistake it for truth and then you will think you hear truth. But they will never stop spouting it.’
‘Then we have to fight back?’
‘And end up like those poor souls on the road? No! You have to retreat, get away from cities and authorities and soldiers. Into the desert, find an oasis or a spring, and hope no one finds you,’ Nemo said.
‘So we just roll over and let these northern animals do as they will?’ Vispa spat.
‘They will get bored if the cities aren’t rebelling. No reason to oppress a populace if there is no resistance to suppress.’
‘And what if it comes to your town? Huh? What then?’
‘Then I move towns, find a smaller town. Take people with me and make a new one. Away from all this,’ Nemo waved his hand about him.
‘You give up?’
‘It’s not giving up it’s choosing the sensible path.’
‘You’re giving up,’ Vispa chided.
Nemo grumbled while he checked in on the sun’s progress through the sky. There were still a few hours of travel remaining. But where would they sleep for the night. He scanned the land to his left, to the side of the road away from the Thesusian camp. In the far distance was an outcropping. Rocks? Better than the open ground, he thought teasing Atars off the road.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ Vispa called.
Nemo pointed to the rocks in the distance.
‘That’s not a city,’ she said.
He pointed to the sun.
‘Oh,’ she guided Simbar off the road.
The ground was hard. Whatever once grew in the crags and craters of the earth was nothing more than dried sticks defiant against the wind. Were the cities of this region so valuable to the Republic? Were Twun, Tanussi, and Mapeth so vital to the Republic that thousands had to die to control them? Nemo kicked a stone across the soon to be desert. It scuttled and hopped before falling into a crevice in the waterless earth.
The rocky outcropping shielded him and Vispa from the prying eyes of the road and the encampment. The wind whistled through gaps between the boulders and carried on to the sea hundreds of miles west. The sun set as Nemo hitched his horse, but there was nothing to hitch Atars too. He jammed the reins between two rocks.
‘Don’t run off on me,’ he pointed to Atars.
The horse stared back with glassy black eyes and huffed.
Nemo fetched his bedroll from the saddle and unrolled it close to the rocks. To the side of a pile of dead sticks and dried bushes.
‘No fire,’ he said as Vispa came with the remains of a dead berry bush.
‘But…’
‘Yes, it’s cold at night,’ he pulled the blankets of his bedroll straight. ‘No fire,’ he repeated.
‘We are behind the rocks,’ she said jamming the bush into the pile.
‘The light will be too obvious.’
‘Fine. But if I freeze to death—‘
‘You won’t freeze. Though you might see your breath,’ Nemo pulled the saddlebags off Atars and pulled out flatbread and dried meat. He held out a tear of bread to Vispa.
‘I have this,’ she held up the bundle from The Desert Rose.
Nemo fell onto his bedroll. The compacted earth course and rutted beneath him. His coin purse rang as he lay down chewing flavourless bread. ‘How did you pickpocket me? How did you learn to do such a thing?’ He asked ripping off another chunk of bread with his teeth.
‘That was easy. You were distracted and obviously confused by the noise of the city. I followed you, walked past, knocked into you, and pulled the bag from your belt,’ Vispa shrugged as she unwrapped a handful of olives. Black and wrinkled. A drop of salt lingered on one ripple in the skin of an olive.
Nemo swallowed. ‘It’s that easy? Where did you learn that?’ He asked again.
‘Oh just… on the streets of Ramascus,’ Vispa said staring at her olives. ‘I can teach you, if you want,’ she added looking up with a smile.
‘I don’t think that will be useful for me.’
‘Better to know and never use it than to need it and not know,’ Vispa said. A black dried olive pressed between thumb and forefinger.
‘Fine. For an olive,’ Nemo said.
Vispa flashed a look of confusion, ‘Sure,’ she said handing him the handful of olives.
Nemo found the largest and savoured the taste, bitter and salty, he sucked on the stone for a last ounce of flavour.
‘Thank you,’ he said spitting the stone into the dirt.
Vispa stashed the olives into the bundle and jumped up to her feet. ‘Right, first following someone in a city is easy if you remember to pick out a defining factor, like a scarf, or a colour, or hairstyle, or in your case a horse and looking lost, then follow them. When they are distracted you push passed them with the horde of people around. You should already know what you are going to steal when you do that. Then it’s the easy bit of pushing into them taking what you want hiding it and apologising,’ she posed triumphant. Her hands against her hips.
‘You didn’t do that,’ Nemo said leaning on his left elbow.
‘No,’ she deflated, ‘I wanted you to know I pickpocketed you so you would meet the resistance leaders “by chance”.’
‘Oh I see. But what if I’m not in the city and instead in somewhere much quieter? A town or… a gaol cell?’
‘Why would you be in gaol?’ Vispa raised an eyebrow.
‘Past misunderstandings have led to unforeseen consequences,’ Nemo spoke with words he never used.
‘Okay, well that sort of pickpocketing is entirely different. I call it “lifting” because you are taking something without them knowing usually by lifting it off them. Either a tie on their belt or a necklace or a ring.’
‘When did you have to steal jewellery?’ Nemo asked tearing off a fold of bread.
‘When I stayed with a different group. Doesn’t matter,’ she waved it away, ‘It’s all to do with distraction and patience. They need to be busy elsewhere and you need to move with control and readiness to withdraw at any moment. Try it,’ she said.
‘Huh?’
‘Well you’ll never learn if you don’t try and we aren’t in a big city so that leaves sneaking up on me and taking something.’
‘You don’t have anything on your person. No belt, no rings, not even a scarf,’ Nemo said perusing his target.
‘True. Give me that,’ she pointed to his coin purse hanging from his belt.
‘Very funny.’
She dropped her arms and huffed, ‘I’m not going to steal from you. I can’t go back to Ramascus even if I wanted to.’
He sighed, ‘Fine,’ he untied the pouch from his belt. He opened the coinpurse and counted its contents.
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh. Right,’ he said pulling the strings tight and throwing the purse up to Vispa. ‘Why can’t you return to Ramascus?’
‘Oh those two you met had other plans for me and made it quite clear I was not welcome,’ she tied the coinpurse to her own belt.
‘Right then. Good to know all sides can agree on what mercy is,’ Nemo laughed.
‘Get up,’ Vispa said.
Nemo rolled his eyes. His calves aching and his eyelids heavy. ‘Fine.’ He pushed himself to his feet, careful not to soil his bedroll with any dirt or sand.
‘You want to walk toes first and lower your heel if you sneaking towards me. That way you minimise any sound your steps make. Like so,’ she demonstrated. Her foot angled, toes curled up, lowered and her balance was on the ball of her foot. From there she lowered her heel. Her other foot was flat against the ground and only when both were firmly planted did she move the other.
‘Seems awfully slow,’ Nemo crossed his arms.
‘It is. Until you are good at it,’ and she ran without any sound to where Simbar grazed. She tapped her horse on the flank and turned back to Nemo, ‘See?’
‘Sure, but I don’t get when I am going to use this,’ Nemo said as he tried to imitate Vispa’s movements. He felt foolish. The action of walking from toe to heel required a slightness of frame Nemo didn’t have. His scimitar bashed against his leg as he walked and his jacket creaked.
‘That’s why I don’t wear any weapons. That you can see, or hear, anyway,’ Vispa called.
Nemo ignored her.
He wobbled as he balanced half his weight on the ball of one foot and the flat of another. His feet almost inline with each other. That won’t work. He tried again, lowering himself to the ground and opting for a wider step. His sword scraped the floor. He removed it, leaving the short knife in his belt.
Each time he failed either by his own assessment or Vispa turning with a scowl, he would retreat to the unburned fire wood to begin again.
The sun sank in the sky as he tried, and failed, numerous times. Vispa’s silhouette blocked part of the orange glow. Simbar had wandered to find something to eat that wasn’t dead and grey.
Nemo stood halfway between the camp and Vispa. Only a ten metre distance. His jacket constricted him as he crouched mid step. Should I remove it? What if it makes a noise? What if I make a noise removing it? The questions plagued him. He sighed without sighing and reached for the buttons on his jacket. His arm slow and measured to make sure the leather did not creak, squeak, or cry.
Only two buttons were fastened and each was made of a soft wood that made no sound when pushed through the leather. The jacket fell open and cool dusk air rushed to his shirt and skin. A mistake for warmth, he thought but did not care.
He held the end of his left sleeve in his right hand and pulled his left arm free of its warm grip. There was a soft scuff as the cotton of his shirt sleeve rubbed the leather of the jacket. He paused and shot a look at Vispa.
She did not turn around.
He stifled a breath and pulled his left arm free. With a light tug the jacket slipped from his right arm and into a pile on the dirt.
Vispa remained facing the setting sun.
He lifted his foot from the ground and, toes curled upwards, planted it a step ahead with utmost care. Each stone and grain of dirt dared to make a sound beneath his heavy boots. He focussed on lowering the front of his foot to the ground and, once firm, unbent his foot and allowed his heel to touch the ground.
Now, with a wide unbalanced stance he had to bring his rear foot forward. His calf quivered. Breath a thin wisp between his teeth. He had overstepped. He was unbalanced for no good reason. He leaned forward and slid his rear foot nearer on a thin pocket of air above the ground.
It worked.
Balanced he continued, with smaller steps, eyes trained on his coin purse dangling menacingly from Vispa’s belt. She hadn’t taken any coins from it. Nemo was sure.
He made the next few steps easily. The cool air revitalising him.
Success approached a little over an arms length away. A few more steps. Maybe less.
The drylands were still. The wind died. The sun a sliver of deep red on the horizon. Nemo held his breath afraid Vispa would hear. Vispa’s shadow grew long, coating him in a cold shadow of potential failure.
He tensed his right leg and made his penultimate step. He reached as he did so. Eager to beat her challenge. Eager to sleep and never do this again. His body coated in a thin sheen of cold sweat. His beard clotted with dust. His palms clammy and itching for the feel of his gold. His families gold.
His finger trembled and his toes crushed a pebble of dirt. The calf leather bag was soft against his index finger. He stretched, off-balance, and pulled the coin purse off her belt.
Her hand snapped down to her hip.
Missed.
He jumped back. Gold in hand. Triumphant.
‘Ha! I win,’ he cheered. Standing two arms lengths away.
‘I noticed. You don’t win.’
‘I have the gold,’ he threw and caught the bag in one motion.
‘So? Now I will kill you or call the guard,’ Vispa crossed her arms and leaned back on one leg.
‘Not if I kill you first,’ Nemo threatened, knife in hand.
‘With that? That would barely cut fruit,’ she snapped. One dark eyebrow high above the other. A flare in her eye.
‘It would pare you just fine.’
‘Charming,’ she smirked.
‘Just because you lost. No need to act the child.’
‘I am not acting the child,’ she said stamping her foot.
Nemo laughed, returned his knife to his belt and began tying his coin purse to his belt.
‘We aren’t done. I noticed.’
‘It’s night time,’ he said as the last purple light of day rippled across cloudless sky.
Vispa walked towards him and hit his arm.
‘That was good fun, actually,’ Nemo admitted. ‘We can do it again.’
‘Yes. And next time you won’t even get close,’ Vispa said over her shoulder.
‘Oh, are you going to employ a bat?’ Nemo teased.
Vispa grumbled a wordless reply.
Nemo laughed and placed a hand on her shoulder, ‘You’re a good teacher,’ he said and walked on ahead of her.
She stopped for a moment, ‘Thank…Thanks,’ she mumbled.
Nemo picked up his jacket and dusted it off as the light faded into darkness. He wore his jacket thankful for the minor heat it still retained.
He retrieved his sword and held on to it as he knelt down onto his bedroll. He kept his boots on too. His sword across his stomach, right hand on the hilt, left on the scabbard, ready to draw at a moments notice.
‘Expecting trouble?’ Vispa asked as she nestled into her bedroll. Likely not hers but attached to the horse by chance.
‘Always,’ Nemo responded laying flat, eyes closed. ‘You have a weapon don’t you?’ He opened his left eye.
‘I do. A short knife.’
‘Good, keep ahold of it while you sleep,’ Nemo closed his left eye and rolled his shoulders into the bedroll to mould it to his shape.
He listened to the breeze whip over the rocks that circled their camp. The rustle of dried bushes and leaves and his own breathing.
‘Good night, Nemo,’ Vispa whispered over to him.
‘Good night, Vispa.’
The faint rustle of leaves.
The scuff of a stone.
The faint rumble of the sound of the living.
Nemo remained still. Uncertain if a knife was at his throat or a night bird perched on the rocks behind. He listened. He measured his breathing. Rationed each breath to mimic a sleeping pattern.
Vispa breathed softly. Still asleep.
He was cold. It was dark. His eyelids black. No. Not black. A faint hint of red in the corner of his right eye. Sunrise?Wrong direction. A lantern, he thought. His hands tightened around his scimitar.
The scratching of footsteps. Someone shushed another.
Nemo opened his left eye the faintest amount. His eyelashes blurring the image.
The deepest night welcomed him with velvet darkness. He felt sluggish, his muscles relaxed. A few hours sleep, nothing more, a few more till dawn.
He scanned the darkness, searching for the glint of light that caught his right eye, nothing appeared but the ever reforming shapes of the dark. He closed his eyes and focussed on listening.
That shush again. Definitely people, he thought. Atars? Simbar? The horses were silent. That was odd but not if they had wandered a little. Atars might have pulled free from the rock or was freed, he thought. Just listen, he chided himself.
His ears rang with silence. Louder and louder. Until the silence shattered with the faint scrape and a flash of red in his eye that disappeared as soon as it appeared.
‘You damn idiot,’ someone said too loud.
You are both idiots, Nemo thought. Behind the rocks.
‘They don’t have anything worth stealing,’ one of the intruders said.
‘Have you checked properly?’ The first snapped back.
‘No, the light isn’t strong enough to see.’
‘Then let’s get to it.’
The faint orange glow pierced his eyelid once more. Subtle, faint, but there. He listened to scurried footsteps. The scratch of drawn steel. He heard the squeak of a metal ring. A lantern then, he figured. A long pole with an oil burner hanging from the end. Awkward in a fight.
He felt the brush of earth against his bedroll. Dead sticks tumbled over one another. The other had kicked the unlit fire.
Now it is then, he thought. He began to draw his scimitar across his chest.
Opening both eyes he saw a man standing over him, knife in hand. Face turned away from Nemo and towards his co-conspirator.
Nemo drew his blade up towards the man’s thigh, cutting the skin deep. Blood gushed from the wound over Nemo. He winced as the warm blood splattered his mouth and nose. He felt a trickle push up into a nostril.
The man’s knee buckled. He screamed. His co-conspirator yelled something inaudible. Vispa roused from her sleep. Nemo ignored it all and brought his sword vertical. The man fell to his knees and impaled himself on the scimitars curved tip. Nemo thrust upwards. Slicing the vein, artery, and muscle of his enemies neck clean through. Before the man had even the chance to die Nemo barged him onto the sand and leapt up from his bedroll to confront the second.
The lantern clattered to the ground before the Thesusian had a chance to draw his sword. Nemo skewered him through the stomach. A rank smell of half digested food leaked out of him with blood and faeces along Nemo’s scimitar. The man would die instantly, or, more likely scream for twenty minutes as his own body digested itself.
‘Look out!’ Vispa screamed, her hand out stretched.
The wet gurgle of streaming blood came from behind Nemo. He turned, his scimitar at an angle in front of his torso. A third man stood on his knees, a long knife protruding from his neck. He rocked back and forth mouthing nothing but foaming blood. His eyes locked onto Nemo’s with hate and confusion. A twisted fire burned in those brown eyes before glazing over and the man fell back. Dead.
Nemo watched the blood slow to a trickle out of his neck around the knife’s blade. ‘Did you throw that knife?’ He asked. A quizzical lilt to his voice.
The man who dropped the lantern wheezed and huffed. Both hands pressed to his gut. Nemo wished he would just scream, it would be a more peaceful end for him.
‘Err… I think so,’ Vispa said retracting her outstretched hand.
Nemo swallowed, He wasn’t very far from me, an arm at most, she could have hit me, he thought. He coughed, ‘Good shot,’ he said offering a forced smile to Vispa.
She smiled in return and retrieved her knife from the man’s neck. Nemo saw how she closed her eyes and turned away as she did so, retching at the squelch of blood, vein, and muscle. First blood… Nemo thought. She will not sleep. No one ever sleeps after their first. He placed the tip of his scimitar against the dying man’s neck. Pupils lost amongst blood shot whites stared up at him. There was no fire, no anger, just a hope it would end. Nemo pulled upward ending the man’s suffering.
Nemo caught a glint of light as he watched the man’s soul leave his eyes.
‘Vispa, find the horses and get your things,’ he said as he watched the oil from the lantern run across the cracked earth. Burning as it wormed towards the dry sticks and dead leaves. The fires warmth was welcome the attention it would bring was not. Even the Republic’s army camp far behind the rocks and the other side of the road would spot the glow. Better to leave than await inspection.
Feeling blood run down his cheek Nemo reached down to the man Vispa killed and tore his shirt. Wiping his face he caught the colour of the cloth as he did so. Blue and white. Odd. Expensive taste for brigands. He wiped his hands and his scimitar blade before tossing the cloth.
His bedroll was ruined. The blood had soaked into the feathers and cotton that had made it warm at night and soft by day. Expensive to replace. Maybe it will dry in the sun? He thought trying not to imagine the judgements of others airing a blood stained bedroll as he travelled.
Nemo winced. His eyes stung. The burning oil reached the dried leaves and flames licked at the fresh fuel. The blood stain was worse than he thought. The ground was brown with wetness and his bed eager to soak up as much as it could. Strands of vision flashed over the earth and the dead body. Another blue and white tunic. A semi-circle glint flashed on the dead intruders hand. Nemo reached down and pulled the hand towards the light. An owl, engraved into a ring, stared back.
Thesusian troops? He thought. His stomach turned and fury raged. Mercy… to attack travellers while they sleep. Seizing innocents on the road and robbing them or crucifying them. Tormenting merchants by daylight. Twisting the faiths of people to their own ends. Nemo slid the ring off the man’s finger and flung the dead man’s arm to the ground. He stashed the ring with his Free Citier’s patch.
‘Here they are. They had both wandered far,’ Vispa returned with the horses. ‘Why are we leaving if the fire is lit?’
‘We are leaving because the fire is lit,’ Nemo tossed the bedroll and saddlebags over Atars and tied them both with fury. His hands tense, his jaw clenched.
‘You alright?’ Vispa asked rolling up her blankets.
‘Those three were Republic soldiers,’ Nemo said.
Vispa was quiet. ‘Oh,’ she offered.
Nemo watched as Vispa avoided acknowledging the three dead men around them. Her eyes darted around as if they were not there. Her face ashen and her eyes ready to break.
‘It will pass,’ Nemo said, unsure what to say. He had been told nothing on what to do. Had never asked others how they dealt with the burden of taking a life. He simply carried on. Actions had consequences and sometimes those consequences were death or killing.
‘You don’t seem bothered… like… like you’re used to it,’ she spat. Around her eyes swelled.
‘I am always bothered by it. It doesn’t get easier you just… learn to cope with it. You accept it as part of life,’ Nemo avoided looking at her and focussed on tightening the saddle straps on Atars and feeding him.
‘I don’t want to. I want to forget that,’ Vispa began to cry.
‘We all do,’ he snapped his gaze to her, ‘but we don’t get to choose that. You will figure out how to cope with it. Only you can,’ he realised why no one told him how as he spoke. He mounted Atars, ‘Talk if you must but we need to leave.’
‘But it’s dark. How will we know the way,’ she sniffed as she buried her head into Simbar’s mane.
‘By the stars,’ Nemo said softly.
Vispa sighed. Sniffed again and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Fine,’ she said pulling herself onto Simbar.
The horse huffed as she yanked on the saddle. Nemo reached for the reins to hold Simbar in place, ‘Easy.’
‘Thanks,’ Vispa ran her hands through her hair.
‘Ready?’ Nemo asked.
‘Yeah.’
The velvet dark lay ahead of them. The amber glow fading quick. The fire crackled behind them. The dry leaves falling to cinder as fast as they caught aflame. Sticks spat the last, precious, drop of water held within dead husks.
Nemo urged Atars onward to pad at the dark ground as he watched the sky. He rushed through memories of star patterns, of what was where and which to follow. He was no sailor and thus had little need to remember constellations for directions. He had only seen the sea once and it terrified him. Never calm, never steady, always trying to drag you under. Where was the fun, or peace, in that?
Torches from the Republic of Thesus’ main camp illuminated the horizon. Nemo peered over the miles between him and they only to discern nothing. It was too far and he only needed to listen for galloping.
He returned his attention to the night sky. The crescent moon hung as an ornament in the sky. Its lustre dull and greyish. The Cup stretched towards the horizon as if the moon was being dropped inside. The Boar barged through the night sky, back to Ramascus, back south. Nemo pinpointed the Boar’s rear and saw the Three Hunters chasing fruitlessly across the eons.
Instead of joining their Forever Hunt Nemo followed the path of the Page, who turned away from his masters to chase the Duck, northward. He turned Atars to follow the young boy in the stars. The rough, dry, ground, free from thicket, trees, or bushes would serve them well. Any patrols on the road would be visible by the lanterns they carried yet he and Vispa would remain shrouded by night.
Vispa saddled up next to Nemo as they traversed the night. She was shrouded in the darkness, a fuzzy grey moved as she moved. The sounds of her shoes clicking against the stirrups and the rub of her finger over thumb told him she was there.
‘So…’ she began.
‘No talking. Voices travel further than you might think out here at night,’ he said as barely a whisper.
‘Oh… okay,’ she managed. Her voice tight and forced.
Nemo rode on and thought of dawn. A few hours at most, he hoped he knew.
‘But…’ Vispa began again. ‘What if we get lost?’
Nemo opened his mouth but closed it without offering any consolation. Could we be lost by morning? I don’t know this land well but there must be villages around. ‘Can you see the road or even a bobbing light ahead or behind?’
He heard Vispa twist in the saddle. The leather creaked and her wrist bones cracked as she pulled the reins with her. ‘Mmm, no. Nothing—wait. Behind us there is something in the distance. Just a small orange light.’
Simbar huffed and Nemo reached over into the darkness and pulled on her arm.
‘Hey!’ Vispa shouted.
‘You were veering off,’ Nemo offered letting go of her leg. ‘And don’t shout.’
‘Fine. No need to be rough. The light behind us is moving but it just disappeared. I presume behind a hill or something.’
‘Well keep that light behind us and we should stay relatively on track. Now. No more talking,’ he said. Wanting the soft quietness of the night.
No birds squawked, no wind rustled the leaves of dead trees, no soldiers marched, and no one, should, be talking.
His fingers were seized. His beard felt damp and a chill burrowed to his bones. A night wind screamed across the dry land from deep west. Cutting through his scarf and chilling his leather jacket. His nose itched but his finger refused to release the reins. His cheek twitched.
Vispa and him had ridden for hours. He judged it to be three. Three silent hours. Thankfully. Three hours followed by a pin of light. Who and where? Nemo thought. Few travelled at night. Even fewer that weren’t military.
Laces of purple streaked the sky. The horizon in the distant east glowed umber. Dawn approached and with it warmth and sight. Stars flickered out one by one by the spread of blues and oranges across the sky.
‘Let us wait for dawn,’ Nemo croaked. He pulled Atars to a halt and cleared his throat with a cough.
‘The lantern’s gone,’ Vispa said.
‘Waiting for dawn. Just watch.’
‘I’ve seen a sunrise before.’
‘From outside of Ramascus? Outside a city?’
Vispa pulled on the reins and Simbar turned to face them both to the east.
The crescent of the sun burned over the horizon alighting the world. In an instance the black woollen night was torn away and the world revealed. Miles upon miles of dry, drought ridden land, and desert further on stretched in all directions interrupted only by dunes, hills, and dead thicket.
His eyes stung and tears ran down his cheeks. He blinked away the pain, pulled down his scarf, and felt the warmth on his face and on his hands. The deep cold night defeated once again by the warmth of day. He unclenched his right hand, a knuckle cracking as he did so, and wiped his eyes, and scratched his nose.
A faint ringing marred the serenity of dawn. Frowning he scanned the horizon and to the north saw the harsh outlines of roofs. A town?Fortunate. He tapped Vispa on the shoulder and pointed to the buildings in the distance.
‘What?’ She turned, ‘Oh. Thank heavens, my back is killing me,’ she said and whipped Simbar with the reins. Simbar broke into a gallop and kicked up a cloud of dust.
Nemo pulled his scarf up and snapped the reins. Atars leapt into action. The half sun rose higher and another day began.
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