Salt of The Earth: The Fall of Barcelona

by Vlada Asta

  “She is not an animal, Your Eminence. I know you are upset over what she did. But I think she had her reasons for this… And those reasons are connected to me.”

  He would’ve left too if he was in her place. Nobody could forgive that.

  “Two overgrown children with no control over their souls, who don’t even realize how much this peninsula depends on you,” the Cardinal sighed. “Lord Almighty, your ways are truly mysterious! Tell me, Brother Sebastian, did you break any of the rules that should shape a warrior’s life? Concerning your relationship with Aeterni.”

  “Yes.”

  Sebastian wasn’t going to be too detailed about it, the Cardinal wasn’t his confessor after all. But Jeremiah was interested in something else:

  “Is your act worthy of a serious punishment?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  “And how should I punish you? Not for her departure and not for your fight with her, it is truly your personal business. But for breaking the rules – how should I punish you?”

  “I don’t know, Your Eminence. I have neither the power nor wisdom to judge such crimes.”

  “Yes, wisdom is truly not your blessing. I don’t think your crime is serious enough to execute you, but you deserve some lashes… Only it won’t help us! All we are left to do is keep Aeterni’s disappearance a secret.”

  “We can’t hide it forever,” Sebastian noted.

  “I know. But we must wait for a new Hente to arrive from Teresa. I hope this one will be more intelligent and patient! As for you… you’ve made too many mistakes to stay on the peaceful streets of Barcelona. I see no sense in appointing you to the squads that patrol the outer roads, since there are no Hente left there. I don’t know why, but our surveillance system hasn’t detected a single one of them this week. Thus there’s only one place left where you can atone for your sins and be useful to humankind. You will leave for Toulouse today.”

  That wasn’t bad. Sebastian didn’t even view it as a punishment. There was some action there… Hente continued coming to the border. He’d have a chance to fight and risk… That was the only thing that could distract him now.

  It wouldn’t be too bad to die in a battle. Death puts an end to many things, including suffering.

  He knew that many warriors were transferred from Barcelona to Toulouse. That was predictable – with the decreasing number of Hente on the peninsula. However, the situation would become less stable with Aeterni gone. But nobody knew she wasn’t in Barcelona anymore!

  He met the evening of this day on the bus. None of the warriors who shared the ride with him knew him personally. They ignored him, and he was perfectly content with it.

  Silence served as the best painkiller for him. He was looking out the window, hoping to see something – he didn’t know what he wanted to see. Perhaps Aeterni? They weren’t sure she left! She could’ve stayed close to the city to return when her wrath cooled off.

  But if she had been planning to do that, she wouldn’t have written that letter to the Cardinal. Her decision was final.

  Sebastian hadn’t seen Karim either. The Hente could be hunting in these forests and meadows, but it was impossible to detect him. He was the best warrior in his Clan for a reason! He could be the one to take Aeterni’s place, though it would surely be a surprise to most citizens. But could a blind man truly cope with it?

  They didn’t make any stops along the way and reached Toulouse early in the morning. The new arrivals were provided with temporary residence where they could rest, but Sebastian didn’t use that privilege. He knew he would be able to fall asleep only after he was completely exhausted. Otherwise he would just spend the night in his bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the things he had done – and could’ve done.

  Toulouse wasn’t anything like Barcelona. In spite of no obvious threat, the atmosphere here had always remained tense. Patrols checked the streets all the time, and the warriors never went on them alone. There was a separate area provided to the refugees waiting for their trial. This area was limited with a tall fence and barbered wire, which took any illusion of peaceful life away.

  The refugees made up more than half of the city’s population. Some of them were waiting for the pass, while the others already had it and were preparing to settle down somewhere. They could spend months or even years here, studying their new country. There was also an elite area given to Toulouse’s temporary residents. They were mostly warriors, priests, the Hydrocompany managers and ambassadors from other countries.

  Few people wanted to live here. The city had a good infrastructure, it looked beautiful, and it hadn’t been attacked by large packs for years, but the feeling that something might go wrong at any moment hung in the air like a curse. A child eaten on their way to school wouldn’t be a great tragedy in this city, it would be considered normal – and that would make everything worse. People thought about their own families in places like this, and they were not happy to stay at the border.

  Nobody here had ever seen Sebastian with Aeterni. To these people he wasn’t “the one”, and it made him feel better. He could concentrate on his work and forget about the past for a while. He didn’t have to think about who he was and how he got here, he was just doing what he was expected to do. He was confident that there would be no-one in Toulouse to remind him about it – and he was wrong.

  “Sebastian? What are you doing here?”

  Lifting his eyes from the road he was walking, Sebastian was shocked to discover Lucas standing right in front of him. They met in the middle of the street, like they had met so many times before – but the city was different.

  “Patrolling.”

  “Don’t act like an idiot, you’re surprisingly good at it,” Lucas frowned. “Why are you here? And where’s Aeterni?”

  “I broke the rules, and I can no longer be her companion. What brings you to Toulouse?”

  “Actually, I’ve been here for weeks! Remember what happened at the beach? The day when I didn’t let the warriors from my squad kill Aeterni? Fathers weren’t thrilled by it. I didn’t do anything wrong officially, but you know they don’t like those who act differently.”

  “But your subordinates broke your order!” Sebastian reminded. “They were the ones who deserved to be punished, come to think of it!”

  “Well, it turned out that my behavior was worse than what they did. I was the one sent out of the city. At first I was patrolling the roads, and I even caught a couple of Hente. But then they transferred me to the border. It’s much calmer on the peninsula now, Aeterni is doing a great job!”

  “Yeah… she’s great.”

  Sebastian didn’t want to lie so bluntly, but it was better than telling the truth. He decided to change the topic:

  “How do you like it here?”

  “It’s fine. And the guys who have been staying here for over a year say it’s gotten too calm!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hente used to be trying to break through the border more frequently, and they often succeeded. But lately they’ve been surprisingly passive. Some warriors believe it’s a good thing.”

  “But not you?” Sebastian asked.

  “I’d want to – but I can’t. Do you know what it reminds me of?”

  “What?”

  “That quiet moment that happens right before a huge thunderstorm. There’s still no rain, but you can’t see or hear any living creatures. The air is so heavy, loaded with electricity, and it’s getting hard for you to breathe… That pause before all hell breaks loose. The greatest storms come after the quietest moments. I grew up in a village, so I should know.”

  Sebastian couldn’t help looking at the direction where the wild lands started. He didn’t see anything but the city buildings, naturally. They were too far from the territory where Hente felt at home.

  But in those lands of danger true freedom awaited him.

  Chapter 16

  The attacking Hente was roughly two times bigger than the young wo
man it was fighting, it was a large one even within its Clan. But Aeterni liked that. The stronger her opponent, the more fun it was! She had to find a way to let her anger out on someone, and that Hente was a perfect candidate.

  It launched at her confidently, and its claws flashed bare inches from her face. Aeterni smiled faintly and caught its paw, pulling the creature to her. She slashed her talons over its wrist, and the cut limb immediately turned into ashes. The Hente howled, but didn’t pull back. It knew running was futile – there was nowhere to run here.

  A wounded beast always acts desperately; the same was true for Hente. It tried to jump at her with its entire body, pressing her to the ground. It knew she would cut it some more this way, but it was hoping those traumas wouldn’t be too serious, and it would have a chance to deliver the final blow.

  The creature was wrong, naturally, wrong from the very beginning – when it decided that her fragile body was a sign of weakness. The Hente barely felt the moment when her small hand broke through its chest and ripped the life core out. A couple of seconds – and everything was over. A cloud of ashes was carried away by the wind.

  Aeterni looked at the life core thoughtfully and then crushed it between her palms. She wasn’t hungry and had enough energy stored for years of such existence. Those hunts were ceasing to entertain her… All of them were too predictable.

  She shook the ashes off her clothes and walked down the street slowly. She was surrounded by a dead city, nearly lost to time and nature. It was curious to observe plants swallowing concrete and metal. This place had its own beauty… But Aeterni caught herself thinking that she liked inhabited cities more.

  She turned around the corner and saw a human standing in the middle of what used to be a broad avenue. It was a little girl of around eleven years old, not more. She was wearing a white blouse and a tartan skirt, long white socks and black boots. She looked like she had just left school, or she was going there. She didn’t belong here – she was too clean and too innocent… She was hiding her inky black eyes under mirror shades.

  Aeterni didn’t show any surprise, because she didn’t feel it. She had felt the presence of another Hente long before she saw her. She continued walking without changing her pace. She passed the girl and moved on, and the girl joined her.

  “Why are you here?” Aeterni asked, sounding displeased. “I didn’t call for you!”

  “So what? That’s the main advantage of our Clan – we can make our own decisions.”

  “I want to stay alone.”

  “And I want to talk to you. See, we all have our wishes.”

  The girl didn’t say she ended up here by accident, and that eased Aeterni’s frustration a bit. She liked honesty.

  Maya was one of the few chosen ones who knew about the Barcelona mission. Aeterni had been contacting her and Karim from her first days there. This mission was extremely important to them, so it was only logical that the strongest warriors of the Clan knew about it.

  In most Clans all Hente were pretty much the same. They were normally large, strong and enduring – perfect war machines made by one example. Unique warriors demanded too much time and effort, and Mothers didn’t like that. Teresa’s Clan was special in that regard too. The representatives of it had their own personalities, their appearance copied not some sample, but the appearance of other Hente’s victims. That didn’t make them any weaker though. For instance, Maya’s little body allowed her to reach stunning speed in battles, avoiding all attacks and finding the life core faster. She was a perfect living trap, because she didn’t look like she was dangerous at all.

  Her looks had nothing to do with her personality. A child’s body was the home of a mature soul, as wise and experienced as Karim.

  “I think you should take my place,” Aeterni admitted. “I failed everyone… You’ll cope better.”

  “And I believe you’re thinking about yourself too much. It wasn’t only about you! The destiny of the entire Clan is at stake. But you concentrated only on the things you like… Maybe you should’ve viewed it as some personal adventure all along?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the Clan!”

  “Oh yeah? For how long? Five minutes, ten?” Maya inquired, being demonstratively curious. “I’m not the only one who sees this, Karim has been staying by your side, and he noticed it too.”

  “Has he been reporting to you?!”

  “He’s been sharing his doubts with me. You got too carried away with that human. What’s his name?”

  Any mentioning of Sebastian still hurt her. She was trying to escape those memories.

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “Here we go again,” the girl commented. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I even believe it’s great that you can feel it. If we are to work with humans, we’d better understand them! And love is the highest form of human feelings.”

  “I didn’t say I love him!”

  “That’s not what we’re discussing now. We’re talking about your actions and their consequence. You should’ve put a line between your mission and that human, if you loved him and kept thinking about the Clan. That way you could’ve concentrated on your mission after breaking up with him. That’s called duty. But you simply ran away instead.”

  Aeterni remained silent. She couldn’t argue, Maya was right, as always.

  But… how could she do this? How could she stay in this city knowing that he was there? Even if Sebastian was the one to leave Barcelona, that wouldn’t change anything on the big scale. What she felt for him was the best thing that had ever happened to her. And when she learned it was just a lie, Aeterni felt like half of her body was torn off, and she would disappear too… that she wouldn’t be able to live without that feeling!

  “What exactly did he do?” Maya asked quietly.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Let’s talk about it.”

  “There’s no point in it!”

  “There is. I’m not a human, but I was made of human cells. I remember some things about their life. Sometimes emotions, even the best ones, get in the way of seeing the situation in the right light. Maybe there’s a solution that you don’t see, and I will find it.”

  Aeterni doubted it was possible, but she decided to try it. She was totally confused, and she didn’t know what to do next. She suspected things couldn’t get any worse.

  She told Maya everything, omitting some details. About the late party, their dance, her visit to him, that magical night – and the bitter discovery in the morning…

  “I wasn’t really asleep that night,” she concluded. “He was, not me. But I pretended, hoping to look more like a human to him. When he left the room, I was puzzled. I followed him and watched him go through that damn scanning… He didn’t notice me at first. You have no idea what I felt…”

  “I don’t,” Maya sighed. “And I’m sorry you had to go through this. But I think you’re wrong.”

  “What?! I thought you’re on my side!”

  When she agreed to tell her everything, Aeterni was secretly hoping to get support – and got this instead!

  “I am on your side, that’s why I don’t want you to make yourself miserable. Just as I’ve told you, you’re too fixed on your own persona. You’re thinking about your disappointment and pain. But have you thought about that human? Not as the one who offended you, but as the one you love. He crossed an important line for you and broke his traditions. And it’s okay he was confused, he didn’t know what to do. To understand his own actions, he started looking for a catch and went to that scanning… He didn’t call anyone and didn’t blame you! You should’ve been kinder to him. But what did you do? You didn’t even talk to him, didn’t give a chance to explain!”

  “There is no explanation for this! I couldn’t look at him!”

  “You couldn’t suppress your pride,” Maya specified. “And what did that lead to? You hurt both of you, and everything became complicated.”

  “No!”

  “No – and that’
s it? That’s all you can say? Not too impressive. The way you chose… And you chose it for both of you, mind you! That way leads to nothing but saying goodbye. I might take your offer and replace you in Barcelona. But that won’t change anything for you and him! You’ll lose each other and that strange feeling that is truly a miracle.”

  The words Maya was speaking made Aeterni feel cold inside. She couldn’t even imagine such a future! Without him, forever… Same thing every day with no sense and no hope…

  But she was too stubborn to admit it.

  “I’ll be fine without him!” Aeterni claimed. “I’ll recover here and then go for some other mission!”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll try to make a union with another country! With the Kingdom, for instance! Maybe I’ll meet a new man there!”

  “Are you trying to say that no particular man matters to you?” Maya smiled. “You care only about the process, and your partner can be replaced easily?”

  “Exactly!”

  “I see… Well, if all men truly are the same, than losing one won’t be such a tragedy.”

  “What do you mean – losing?” Aeterni became alert instantly.

  “Just what it sounds like. I believe the man you love will die soon, together with all of his friends. But it doesn’t matter to you, you can replace him easily.”

  “Drop the intrigue! What exactly are you talking about, pipsqueak?”

  “You shouldn’t be so rude about it,” the girl noted. “How unpleasant. Follow me, I’ll show you something.”

  They walked together to the nearest tall building that somehow survived amongst this forest. The construction’s condition left much to be desired, and it could fall any moment. Part of the walls and ceilings had already collapsed, and the staircase was rotten. But that wasn’t a problem for the two Hente, they just climbed up the vertical wall and soon found themselves on the roof.

  It opened a splendid view to them. A sea of greens with rare islands of abandoned buildings, peace and quiet… Aeterni was hoping she’d get a glance at the peninsula from here, but no, they were too far.