by Max Jager
A group was beginning to gather on the door frame. They were hollering, lecherous, hungry hollers.
They said (shouted): He won her. He won her fair and square. Take her, take them all. I want the small one. The boy? Yes. Give me that man, yes with the brown hair. Let me have a taste for that leathery hag in the back.
It went on all and they formed a pressured dam wall against the door as half a dozen more began to swarm. The Captain took out his whip, he attacked the floor in front of them, he marked that line of which none moved past. He marked it with five lashings and his tired screaming.
"You'll do as I say. Or you'll die wishing you had!" He slapped Half-face away. "Now go ready the carts! We'll leave tomorrow."
And not a single one crossed that line. Not yet. They smiled, chuckled, stone-faced the Captain. But they obliged him and after a while, stubbornly, they left.
The captain had his hand steady on his blade. His legs, ready to strike and his stance did not change until he heard the final group of footsteps leave the wooden floors of the building, out into the rocky lands beyond.
There was no one but the prisoners and the uneasy Captain now.
"I was under the impression that you were in command? Were. " Jeronus said. "Though...now you seem a little yellow now. do I have that right, Captain? Everyone inside looked at him, prayed for him to stop. Berok tugged at his pants, he could feel his clothes stretching from the grip.
"You shut your mouth or I'll rip your tongue out."
"I don't think your king would like that."
"I don't think he'd mind."
"Can you say that with absolute certainty?"
Silence from the Captain. A despondent glare. One he would reserve for tomorrow as he left the building.
"You trying to get us killed?" Sam asked.
"What do you care? Weren't you thinking of slitting your wrists a couple days ago?" Jeronus asked. Ishmael sucked in his lips and released a dry gasp.
"They said they're taking us somewhere else. So I'm going to give it a try." Ishmael walked up to Jeronus. "Why don't you cool down and think for a second?"
"And you think wherever we're heading is any better than this dump?" Jeronus asked. "Any safer? Any more promising?"
"I think we won't know until we get there, kid. I know running away is all you got in your brain, hardwired like DNA, but the rest of us are going to be as compliant as we can be."
"From suicide to obedience. And you say I'm the one who runs away? You've got no spine." Jeronus put his back against the bars, he slid down them and fell on his butt and looked at the crowd against him. The child too, who hung by an elderly woman.
"Go ahead and do something stupid then, don't expect me to help. Or any of us for that matter." Ishmael said.
So it went for the rest of the day. The few who moaned, the few who sat, most of them who slept. They couldn't tell what was night or day, not from the small beams of light that penetrated through window and brick cut, not from their onsetting exhaustion. They only knew it was time to rest when the demons came to snuff out the flames of the torches. Like cattle, herded and forced into routine.
Jeronus closed his eyes for a moment. An image flashed, that of Harde and he opened them again. He saw the boy, he saw his obligation too. Or curse, whatever it was that made him sad and desperate as he stared into the innocent face. And he tried again to sleep. And he woke up again to that haunting image.
He didn't try for the rest of the day and it showed when the demons came back. His tiredness, in his wide eyes, red and glossy and reflecting with a low hue the fire of the torch inside the hands of the demons. The bars opened with a cry. They were lead out, forced into a line. A rope was tied to all of them, like those mountaineer chains, all of them held accountable to one another around the waist.
They walked up the stairs. Jeronus felt a tug on his body. An elderly woman behind him had slipped. He tried to help but saw a green hand travel past him. The old woman was slapped, pushed up and hit against the left breast with the pommel of his sword. It was a surprise (or miracle) she didn't break into two. Though she coughed and wheezed most of the trail up through the building. Jeronus grit his teeth, almost felt an urge to attack but saw the other four demons winding around them. He didn't move, not yet. He held his anger like a small explosive in his body, ticking, idling.
They came out of the madhouse. The adobe lots around them were dirty, the wood even worse, covered in a cake of soot that wrapped around the grounds of the barracks. There were spearmen atop towers, shields upon the wooden spiked walls. Jeronus eyed a head sitting atop of a stake. He cringed and was pushed back into walking. They made it to one of the gates where the Captain took the lead, his red plumed helmet flowing wildly like horse mane. He had, on one hand, a sword. And in the other, a whip.
"We're leaving. It'll be a long walk so make sure no one gets left behind." The Captain broke the floor with his whip. "And. Don't. Run."
"Not as long as the sword I'll stab through your heart, prick. Just you wait." Jeronus said underneath his breath. The demon turned. He heard it, Jeronus thought. He heard it and it made his blood coagulate and his body stiffen. A bite by a snake, a paralyzing thing. The demon walked up next to him. He looked at Jeronus. His face dull, serious.
Until he smiled.
Chuckled even. And walked away.
Jeronus felt beads travel down his forehead. He thought, what does that mean?
"We'll head out from the west end. We'll go around the valley geysers, it'll take a while before we hit the dome. A few days, perhaps." The Captain said to one of the demons.
"We should just cut through the area."
"We don't know the lands well enough. We'll die."
"I do." It was Half-face speaking. The puss out of his missing nose was leaking down to his lips. Was he mad? Jeronus thought. It was hard to tell faces when they were missing most of it.
"We'll do as I say. Because I'm Captain and you're not." The Captain pushed Half-face away with a finger on the chest.
Half-face released a grunt. A small, distinct grunt. A bit humorous, a bit taunting almost. And worse than the grunt? Half-face, who retreated back in file and line. An uncharacterized obedience.
Jeronus's eyes widened.
It was bizarre to see. The platoon of demons behind him, the platoon in front of them. The few that hugged the line of slaves. Some of them stiff, others relaxed. Some of them sweating, others calm and enjoying the breezes. Some joking, others silent. Jeronus looked ahead of the line, four places away was Ishmael. He looked behind. Three away was the kid, Berok. Berok who dragged a bit. Berok whose shoulders were being rubbed by a monster. He felt a hot flash on his face and almost went back to say something. He shook his head though. He went forward instead, towards Ishmael, pushing everyone in the way aside.
"Do you still have the knife?" Jeronus whispered. Ishmael did not turn his head.
"I'm talking to you, do you still have the knife?" He butt his forehead against Ishmael who turned butt his own head against Jeronus.
"Fuck off." He said. Jeronus would have said something back, but he felt a hand against him.
"Get back." A soldier said.
Stubborn he went, still hot in the head. The rope of people wobbled like a bridge caught in a storm. The rope burned Jeronus's waistline. He wiggled, turned himself and noticed the Joshua trees and cacti around him. They were overgrown and seemed to span endlessly. A giant wall of needles of green. A wall that cast a shadow over them.
He eyed the forest of cactus again. White. A beady eye, he swore it upon God (whatever He was worth) and upon his time in the force and upon Harde, he swore he saw an eye amongst the green, round-planked cactus walls.
His neck went cold. His scattered. In front. Adjacent. Behind. Past the pedophile and past Berok, to the platoon of soldiers who now riled. He saw one, then two, then a second pair, beginning to unsheathe. Others gripped their shields. More, gripped their spears.
"Are we lost, Ca
ptain?" Half-face said. His leather and metal armor rattled, a particular sound amongst the heavy footsteps and the solemn wind. He was rattling, excited.
"Of course not. Get back into position." The Captain said.
"Position? Where would that be?" Half-face said.
"Behind him." He gripped his whip. "Or under me. Your choice."
"My choice you say?" Half-face felt his sword handle. The Captain noticed. He gripped his own too, but said nothing, almost hoping him to strike.
"Death in obedience, obedience in death. What choice is that?" He smiled. "I choose neither, and leave you with nothing!"
His eyes went wide as he cocked his hand back. The Captain jumped away, sword in hand. Half-face lunged. His face slobbering fluids from his respiratory holes and his mouth. They clashed sword, brought dust-up upon them and it all began. That slow, process. The adrenaline rush, the chaos. Jeronus turned around and he felt he could see it all in slow motion, the twitches, the charges, the screams. He ran towards Berok. He felt wind, he felt metal, cutting his cheeks. He pushed everyone down on the floor until he got to Berok. They both fell, closing their eyes and coughing from the dust and the cries of steeds falling and running past them.
When Jeronus looked up, he found the pedophile, the demon, looking down at him. He saw his hand reaching for Jeronus's throat, those long nailed, necrosis infested hands. Then he felt blood. Hot blood falling down his face, for the demon above him was the first to get a spear through his mouth.
The body collapsed. Jeronus wrestled with his bonded hands and from the corner of his eyes, saw a stampede of soldiers hoping to die.
Ajax VI
Ajax
Hours after the battle
The legionnaire came around the Joshua tree, sword in hand and a burning question in his throat. He sized up the phony with his hostile glance, toe to head. His grip tightened and he asked: Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you go?
Ajax decapitated him in seconds.
He died immediately but had it in him still to twitch on the floor, shaking dirt and dust up into the air. His hands clenched to his throat and his head rolling to his side, near his feet. Ajax shook with one hand and gripped his quivering blade with the other. When he was calm, he lowered it and strapped the silver steel to his hip. The leather belt was tight around his waist.
"It's a good thing your sword is short now." The Hyena appeared from the shadow of a tree. He rubbed his head against the bark. "Makes it easier to hide, doesn't it?"
Ajax dismissed the words. He moved his hands to shield his eyes from the burning hole in the sky and looked out into the horizon.
"How far is it?" Ajax asked.
"Turn to your right."
Ajax did. He saw the smoke rising that way, the black rings that made the air undulate and shake with heat. A rising cloud of smog covering the implosion of the locale.
He looked around himself, checked his armor, checked the small cape that hung by his shoulders and spat on his hand braces. He was rubbing dirt and blood off them as he walked towards the wreckage. The corpse lay behind him, the Hyena having urinated on the body and walked. Both of them chasing destruction, having already laid waste behind them.
That was the fifth demon Ajax had killed in his time down here. It would not be the last.
When they arrived at the doors (or what should have been doors) Ajax hugged the walls carefully and peaked through the corner of his eyes. He noticed the quietness. There was no sound around them past the crackling and popping of wood and adobe. No cries for help. No moans, nothing but the distinct sound of a dying city, pops and wheezes and collapsing wood. He pushed the doors of the barracks aside, they nearly collapsed at his fingers. The pointed-tip wood walls were splitting into logs in front of him, separating, rolling down like some kind of medieval trap. He jumped over two. Nearly burned his feet on the second. He heard the roof of a building next to him fall, he jerked away. Behind him, skewered heads and scalps now burned to crisp like giblets at the campfire. He wanted to shout, but couldn't. His mouth was covered by his hands, the fumes were seeping through his fingers and down his lungs. He just nodded his head in sadness, in disgust. There was no time for anything else.
He came to the other end and suspected this was the source of the flame, an archers tower laying on the floor as ash. It had no more fuel to give, it laid smoking with the charred remains of soldiers buried beneath the ash, their armor still a hot red, their leather burned and either ash or glue upon the floor. Next to the tower was the opposite door of the barracks. He went through it. He heard the wooden arc behind him collapse. There were bodies on this road that stretched on, into a field of cactus, into a trail of even more smoke.
He heard breathing. Ajax jumped back, his hand on his sword handle. A demon lay on the floor, his nose (or rather, hole) dripping blood. The Hyena pointed with his snout. He was pawing at the armor of the soldier.
Ajax walked over, still cautious. He knelt, picked up his ponytail and raised the demon's head.
"Are there any survivors?" Ajax asked. The demon inched his face towards Ajax. He spat. It hit Ajax across the forehead, the mucus and bloody substance that was sticky at the touch.
Ajax slammed the demon's head down on the pavement. He did this twice until all that remained of the foul green face was red and dirt-brown. He brought the face up to him again.
"I'm not in the mood for your shit. My body is killing me and I'm out of time, you understand?" He said. "I've got a deal. Not a good one, but a deal. And I'm very fickle, I'll have you know. You tell me where this road is heading. You tell me what this caravan was doing. You tell me it, now. Or never, and enjoy the nothingness of death."
"Why should I trust you not to kill me, smooth-skin?" It was Half-face, his voice reduced to rasps.
Ajax slammed his face on the floor. "There's my evidence." He bashed his head on the floor again, teeth flew out. "Who are you, a monster to judge me, a man?"
"I'm...I'm not a man?" Half-face whistled through the gaps in his teeth. "What do you think I am?"
His rotten face peeled. The Hyena sniffed the air.
"A couple seconds away from worm meal. Answers, now."
Ajax raised his blade. Half-face reached his hand underneath his belly. A slight move.
"You're weak. You think weak. You will not be my killer." He was breathing through a broken mouth. It sounded like a long winding wheeze.
"You're talking but you're not saying the right things."
"Oh?" Half-face found his grip on his sword. "Let me show you want I know. All of it, boy."
Light reflected from Half-face's blade. It struck Ajax in the face. Half-face rose, his eyes with that glare, yellow and strained. His face wet with spit and mucus and blood and puss and mud, the makeup of warriors. Ajax opened his eyes again. He was staring at the point of the blade. Getting closer, closer, closer. Coming up. High, to his head. Straight through, yes, to his brain and he imagined it then, as he moved quickly to bring down his sword. He imagined the sword through his lobes, down to his stem, severing it all. And he thought, maybe I can kill him with me. Maybe my momentum will carry out the kill.
But Half-face never made it to his mark. He was gripped.
The Hyena had bit down on his neck and immobilized him. A growl. A crunch. The Hyena mauled through bone and flesh spilled everything every which way. The shattered spine looked like small white seeds below Ajax's feet. The small nerves like curled and split hairs inside the gelatin of marrow from the now open spine.
"Fuck," Ajax screamed. The birds scattered. The Hyena came up, jumping and prancing atop the body. He delivered five more clamps, almost enjoying it.
"Get this shit off me." Ajax was wiping his face.
He looked down at the body, then to the Hyena and looked around to the other corpses, almost collapsed. His hands were on the blade handle and his upper torso was low.
"Almost died again." Ajax breathed heavily.
"But you didn't."
> "Well isn't that obvious!" He screamed at the Hyena. His eyes flaring crimson. They stared at each other, standoffish before Ajax looked down. "Sorry. And thanks."
He took off his balaclava from his face, took his helmet too and wiped everything off. Then seeing the bone and blood on his cloth, dropped it to the floor.
"Look at this mess." He poked the body on the floor. "What happened here?"
"How would I know? It could have been anything. It could have been nothing. Maybe it was an idea, maybe it was for fun. What do you think?"
"I think everything is fucked, is what I think." He threw his helmet on the floor, he rubbed his eyes, they still felt blurry. "I feel like the world is collapsing and here I am, standing on a little piece of dirt as it all falls down around me."
