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There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.
-Chanakya
Only very gradually did he become aware of the room around him. It was dark, foreign, and smelt rather strange. Potent, perfumed, and yet strangely sickly, as if one was trying to cover up the other. He also came to realize that he wasn’t in the bush anymore. After days and days of waking up under a canopy of trees or the open sky, seeing himself inside was quite unnerving.
He turned his head to the side, taking in what he could. He became aware of the pillow beneath his head, and the fact that he was lying on a bench-like table that was sitting next to a wall. He also came to understand that the structure housing him was quite squat, measuring no more than ten feet on its side and even less than that in height.
He scanned the walls and noted that every surface looked to be made of wafer board and stray pieces of lumber. And several improvised fixtures were mounted on the walls, with various plants hanging from them. He couldn’t recognize any of them, but they clearly had been put up to dry. He also noticed several long rolls of fabric hanging next to them, and some of them were stained with red.
That was all he could gather from his current position at any rate. His body was the next source of concern, as it felt quite exposed, and at the same time, somehow restrained. He raised his hands to his face and noticed that his gloves had been removed. The scarred, swollen sink was now covered in bandages, similar to the ones that were hanging up. Every cut and nick they had picked up in recent weeks, dealing with booby traps and thorny brush had apparently been salved and wrapped in fine cloth.
He tried to move his legs, but was met with a stabbing pain that went all the way up his right side. That’s when he noticed the other set of dressings. Around his leg, a large wooden cage had been placed and strips of what appeared to be leather held it in place.
He quickly remembered his leg, how it had been giving him quite a bit trouble during those last few days of marching. And then, something had happened. He couldn’t quite recall what, but it was clear that it must have given out on him. He had no real memory of the event, but his mind seemed to recall a terrible episode involving great agony. It also explained why he felt restrained. No harnesses or ties were around him and the bench, it was merely the impositions of injuries that held him down.
In fact, there was nothing at all on top of him. When he looked back down, he noticed that his pants had been removed, as had the rest of his fatigues. All he wore now was a thin towel covering his business, and of course the cage and dressings. His stained shirt and shorts, dirty from so many days of continuous wear, were also missing. The strange, fresh feeling on his skin seemed to suggest that someone had washed him as well.
A bit of a relief. He was beginning to worry that some of the smell was coming from him.
A noise at the doorway caught his attention. He rolled his head back onto the pillow and closed his eyes, feigning sleep. He wasn’t sure why he should do this. Something in him just told him to be afraid and lie still. He couldn’t exactly hide right now, but pretending to be unconscious seemed like a good way to hide in his own skin…
* * *
Jamilah stepped through the curtain and was met by a waft of conflicting odors – bodily secretions, blood, sweat, and the various remedies and disinfectants she used to combat them. Running a moist cloth over her hands, she looked to the far corner where her only patient at the moment lay.
For days now, he had been passing in and out of consciousness, shock and sheer exhaustion having taken a severe toll on his physique. In addition to his torn ACL, twisted ankle and numerous lacerations, he was also suffering from borderline malnutrition, dehydration, and severe shock.
She had had her doubts when the others had first brought him in about the odds of him recovering, but the young man had proven quite resilient. Clearly, and despite whatever horrors he had witnessed, he wanted to live. Which was good, because she knew there were people in the camp who had questions for him…
Jamilah moved to her medicine shelf on the other end of the room and retrieved her jar of Poppy Tears. For days, she had been administering them to him to treat his pain, after he had run a full course of Arnica for his shock symptoms of course. In time, he had come out of his comatose state, but remained in a semi-conscious state, moaning painfully and groping at something that only he could see. She was pleased to see he appeared to be resting at last.
And yet, something seemed different about him as she came upon the bench. His body showed a rigidity that she hadn’t seen since he had been brought in. He didn’t look like a man asleep, perfectly helpless and at peace. If anything, he looked like man lying awake, hoping sleep would take him in time…
She placed the jar down on the nearest table and returned to the doorway.
“Nurradin!” She yelled. When no one answered, she raised her voice and tried again. “Walad! Get in here, he’s awake!”
That garnered a low moan, and Jamilah looked back to see her patient sinking into his improvised bed. Now he looked helpless, but far from at peace.
* * *
Marcel opened his eyes slowly and saw the dark, thinly-built face before him. The eyes bore into him intently, like an angry animal staring at cornered prey. He became lost in those eyes for a moment. Despite the man’s obvious youth, there was a lifetime’s worth of experience in those eyes that let Marcel know that he was dead serious, and probably not to be trifled with.
Between that and his injured leg, Marcel felt completely and utterly cornered. He couldn’t move and couldn’t speak. All he could do at the moment was hold the man’s gaze.
“Private Marcel,” the young man said finally. “That’s your name and rank, right?”
Marcel nodded, careful not to make any other moves. He didn’t see a weapon in the man’s hands, but his slowly-returning memory was making him aware of something sharp and threatening from him. Perhaps the young man had been so armed the last time they had met. Perhaps he still was…
“Do you know why you’re here, Private? Do you know where you are?”
Marcel frowned. Despite the sensory impressions he was getting, he could not for the life of him remember where he was or why. Nor could he recall how he got here. He shook his head carefully and then went back to lying still.
“Alright then,” the man said. “Then let’s start with something basic. My name is Nurradin Al Mo’alej. This is my mother, Jamilah. She tended to your wounds.”
Behind the man he know recognized as Nurradin, the woman who had entered earlier stepped into view. He could see the resemblance, how her son’s thin features and high cheeks mirrored her own. But at first glance, he would not have guessed that he was her mother. Somehow, their ages didn’t seem to add up right. A strange thing to be noticing now, of all times, but it was there.
However, he did noticed that same look in her eyes, the one that foretold of much terrible experience. In contrast to her face, they looked hardened and weathered. But unlike her son’s, hers possessed some small measure of concern as well. Whether it was for him or her son, he could not tell. Perhaps it was for the both of them, of one might do to the other…
Nurradin continued: “You’re at Neuvo Acoma, in the Jemez Mountains. You have any idea where that is?”
Marcel closed his eyes and tried to remember. He could recall walking along a hillside for days – the dry heat, the terrible thirst, and the aching in his legs as he marched. He remembered the merciful feel of shade and the smell of pine, the wonderful feeling of getting off his feet from time to time. But the names were not holding true…
“We found you and your friends wandering below us, looking to get up to the high ground. We came upon you. Do you remember that?”
Marcel began to shake his head, but then gripped by something terrible. The feeling that was slowly stalking him suddenly struck him with full force. His eyes drew shut and he sucked in a deep breath.
He remembered now.
Of Dixon falling first.
Of arrows hitting his comrades and spilling their blood.
He remembered bullets ringing out with futility into the bush, and feeling like they were getting it from all around.
He remembered running… and then blackness.
He opened his eyes and screamed out in pain. It was not coming from his leg anymore, but a sudden burning sensation in his chest. Whatever fear he felt for the man cornering him was temporarily drowned in a sea of anger. Even he seemed taken aback from the way he reeled.
“You bastards!” he yelled, then sputtered. “You killed them…”
“That’s right,” said Nurradin, recovering in his crouched stance. “You and your men were trespassing on our lands. But we spared you and brought you back here. Do you know why?”
Marcel drew in several quick, shallow breaths. The fire in his chest was threatening to consume him and he needed to put it out. The man continued to talk, interpreting his lack of an answer as ignorance.
“We want to know who you people are, where you came from. You and your friends aren’t with the Mage and his Rattlesnakes. So we’re naturally curious who you are with. We also want to know what you know about all the action that was taking place in the valley a few weeks ago. We get the distinct impression you might have been involved.”
Marcel’s breathing slowed. The feeling of fear was coming back, but not necessarily for the same reason. Quite rightly, he was beginning to suspect that his captors were interested in something other than taking his blood. And though he was not yet in full possession of his faculties, his knew enough to feel bad about it.
Nurradin nodded. “I see that you understand what I’m talking about. That’s good. As soon as you’re feeling up to it, we’re going to move you to somewhere else. Then we’re going to have questions. Depending on the quality of your answers, you just might be walking out of here on your own two feet.”
Nurradin stood up and moved out of the way. His mother stepped forward and gave him a look of disapproval, but said nothing as he stepped past her and through the curtained doorway. With him gone, Marcel let out a small shudder. It was not so much relief that brought it, just the feeling that his body was burdened by their little meeting. The tremors continued, and he felt colder than he had before.
That’s when he noticed the woman standing by his side with a small vessel in her hand. She held it to his mouth.
“Your parched,” she said. “Here, take some.”
She began to tilt it towards his lips, and Marcel’s mouth gratefully accepted it. He took several large gulps before she removed the cup and placed a hand on his head, gently pushing it back to the pillow.
“Easy there, you don’t want to take too much. You’re likely to throw up. And you need rest more than anything right now. You’re at risk of running a fever.”
Marcel did as he was told and laid his head back down. He closed his eyes and let his body sink back into his bed, the tremors subsiding as exhaustion took him. When he opened his eyes again, the lady was standing next to him, refilling the vessel and adding powder from a jar she had set on the table nearby. Slowly, she brought it back to his lips.
“This will make you feel better, and help you get back to sleep.” She noticed his hesitation and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to worry. As long as you’re in my care, no harm will come to you. And this is safe, I promise.”
Marcel looked at her and the cup uncertainty. For all her knew, she had put arsenic in the cup, hoping to put him out of his misery before her son and the others could get to him. He wasn’t sure that would be such a bad thing. But some part of him believed her when she said she meant him no harm.
Placing his head up and his lips to the vessel again, he began to draw the chalky water in, sputtering a little as he did so. Once it was empty, she withdrew the cup and placed it on the table, keeping her hand rested on his shoulder.
“My son…” she said hesitantly, “…he may seem hard, but that’s because he’s had to learn to kill. We all have, especially if we wanted to stay alive in the face of those monsters out there. But thanks to the actions of others, we have had to learn to do more than just do battle with them. We’ve come to learn that there are two types of people in this world now – those who believe the only way to survive is to protect their own and look out for one another like never before. On the other hand, there are those who believe that the only way to live now is to take from others, to take all they can by whatever means they have and only look out for themselves. We consider ourselves the former, and my son and his friends believe it is their duty to protect us from the latter.”
Marcel said nothing. He wasn’t sure how to answer, whether this was her attempt at an explanation, a warning, or some kind of rationalization. He simply listened and tried not to move too much, waiting for the medicine she had given him to work.
“I feel sorry for him sometimes, so does his sister,” she continued. “But I understand why he feels the way he does. He fights because its what he has to do, just as I do my best to heal because it’s what I do. I can imagine you know something of this yourself. You would have had to fight those creatures out there in your capacity as a soldier.” She leaned in close just then, her eyes losing that look of concern for a moment and becoming just like her sons. “But your presence here, when we’ve been hearing about such terrible things coming from below, would suggest you are one of the men who believes that you need to take from others to survive in this world. And for that reason, my son and his friends will be most cruel to you if you choose not to help them.”
She stood up abruptly, causing Marcel’s bed to shift. She stood over him now, and issued on final statement before turning to leave herself.
“My advice to you, Private, is to cooperate. We can ill afford to spill the blood of our own anymore. And I think you’ll see, though we all want to live in peace, we are prepared to deal with those who don’t.”
She looked to the door, and said just one last thing before leaving. Marcel began to feel the warm, numbing feeling of something spreading through him.
“Try to get some sleep, Private. You’ll have much to deal with once you get better.”
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
