Sinners- The Dawn Of Kalki

by Naveen Durgaraju

  It was almost night now. The sky had dimmed down to a dark blackish red. Pradeep could feel the immobile weight of Veda on his back and understood that she had fallen asleep. He knew they had to soon stop somewhere for the night. They had to rest. The horse too. He couldn’t risk overworking the animal now.

  The sound of the hooves had a rhythmic effect to it. It would have lulled Pradeep into sleep too if he hadn’t heard something else in the air suddenly. A familiar sound. No. Not right now. Not again. This time, he had spotted it immediately.

  A wild tusked boar down the road –grunting slowly. But it wasn’t alone. There were four of them. All walking towards him, slowly. Their heads swayed from side to side. They looked bigger if not as big as the ones that had attacked him the last time. Pradeep pulled the reins tightly, bringing the horse to a stop. Veda had woken up from this sudden change of movement.

  “Pradeep!” she shouted the moment she saw what was approaching them.

  “Shh!” Pradeep whispered. “Do not move.”

  They breathed rapidly in silence, watching the herd advance towards them. The beasts grunted, snorted and growled as they walked slowly. There was a feral rage about them that sent a shiver down Veda’s spine. Pradeep’s wound tingled under his bandages with memory of what had happened last time he had faced one of these wild beasts. He remained motionless and sweating.

  The boars slowly surrounded them –circling the horse and looking at Pradeep. Just when he thought they would attack him, he observed that they were watching him closely, only him. The herd’s eyes were fixed on him like glue. Not even for a single instant did the pack move their eyes to Veda or the horse. And inevitably Pradeep’s eyes met the beasts’ and once again he had the same feeling as the last time. As if they were beings of intelligence that were watching him– studying him. He could feel Veda’s nails digging into his shoulder as she grabbed him tightly every time one of the boars came closer. Pradeep slowly drew his blade, moving nothing but his arm but he didn’t have to use it.

  As mysteriously as the boars approached them, they had left. A snort here and a grunt there but no screeches and no battle cries –no mauling with tusks took place that night. Pradeep and Veda sat still on their horse, surprised and shaken. Veda had eventually relaxed and the panic had escaped her wary mind as they rode on, slowly galloping across the road but Pradeep hadn’t forgotten the way those things had seemed to watch him –the way it had felt when he had unfortunately looked into their eyes. It was the same feeling once again – the dark feeling of his dreams –of the horse and of the fire.

  Roy turned away from Vikranth in disgust.

  “That’s gross, man!” he said, trying to ignore the wet sound of Vikranth hacking away at the neck of the huge beast.

  “What do you need the head for anyway?”

  “A gift for someone I love,” Vikranth said panting.

  “You know, I cut a man’s arm off recently. Still have nightmares,” Roy said. “This shit’s going to scar you deep, man, I am telling you,”

  “You were trying to kill me a week ago, and suddenly you are my Avadhani now?” Vikranth said looking at him– a frown writ large on his face. “Get the hell out of here, before I change my mind.”

  “I need something from you,” Roy said without looking back. He could hear the dagger cutting through bone now.

  “Where’s the Purohit?”

  “What do you need him for?” Vikranth asked curtly.

  “I want the fucker dead.”

  “Looks like we both end up wanting the same things often,” Vikranth said.

  The horrifying sounds of knife cutting through flesh had stopped. Roy turned back and saw Vikranth sitting on the great beast’s corpse, examining its severed head. Blood and flesh dripped from the head. Roy averted his eyes and fixed them steadily on Vikranth.

  “I was planning on a coup myself,” Vikranth said. “But right now I got somewhere else to be. The Purohit’s in the first tower. High up. But you won’t make it.”

  “Why?”

  “Dwarapalaks” Vikranth replied. “Guards at the door of the sanctum. Two of them.”

  “I have a few men. We can take them down.”

  “Try not to kill them. They are good men. Loyal men. Just doing their job. Tell them that the Dalapathy is planning on a coup and is on his way to kill their least favourite Avadhani! They might understand. Slim chances though.”

  Roy nodded. “I will try.”

  Half an hour later Roy and Girish with three other Forgiven had reached the huge door of the Purohit’s sanctum. Two guards stood at the door. Both men were clearly bigger than Roy but he knew he was quicker. Maybe he had a chance. The two guards drew their daggers and also to his surprise, firearms. Roy hadn’t seen any of the Sinless use firearms apart from when they had attacked them at the caves. Now Roy understood why Vikranth had given all three of them pistols and bullet proof jackets before leaving. He drew his katana out while the other two Forgiven drew their guns and pointed them at the guards.

  “Surrender and no one has to die,” Roy said.

  “No one enters the sanctum without the Purohit’s approval,” one of the guards said.

  “The commander of your horsemen –what did he call himself?” Roy turned to Girish. He had always pegged Girish to be the smartest of them all.

  “Dalapathy!” Girish replied.

  “Yeah, the Dalapathy is planning a coup. The streets are rioting. There are our men everywhere. Dalapathy has gone to kill your least favourite Avadhani,” Roy said, hoping he had delivered the message correctly.

  “Vikranth is going to kill Shukra?” The guard asked, surprised.

  Roy nodded confidently, hiding his lack of both information and knowledge of the Sinless’s hierarchy.

  Both the guards exchanged confused looks with each other seemingly unsure of what to do next. “We can’t let you in. Our oath clearly forbids it.”

  Roy rolled his eyes.

  “Let me in and continue your jobs once the coup is done or we can all play. You will be at least injured if not completely fucking dead. And we all know there aren’t enough antibiotics or skilled surgeons in the world anymore to treat you properly for your bullet wounds. So either we are going in or you are dying painfully.”

  One of the guards lowered his gun after what seemed like a silent eternity.

  “We can’t let you in. Not on our own will,” he said looking at the other guard.

  The other guard lowered his gun too.

  “But if we were to be somehow incapacitated….If someone forces themselves into the sanctum …”

  Roy understood.

  “Smart decision. We are going to tie you up then. Let’s go. Hope we have got enough rope for you big suckers,” he said.

  “We’ll take care of them. You go on ahead,” Girish told him, pulling out a bundle of rope from his satchel.

  Roy nodded. He asked the guards. “Any Avadhanis in this tower?”

  The guards nodded. “In the prayer hall,” one of them said.

  Roy turned to Girish. “Get the General to one of the Avadhanis. Get him treated.” He patted Girish on the shoulder and walked up to the doors.

  “Roy!” Girish called from behind. “I know you are angry about what happened to Niv and you are also upset,” he paused. “But it wasn’t your fault. None of us could have done anything to save her.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t save her. At least I can avenger her,” he said. His father would have, he thought as he stepped through the doors into the sanctum.

  A FACE IN THE SAND

  The night sky was surprisingly clear. It had been a while since Pradeep had seen stars in the sky. The dark clouds bearing their dark waters seemed to perpetually engulf the sky whenever he looked up. But the stars had returned that night. Little dots of glistening light and beauty.

  He was lying on his back under those stars with Veda sitting by his side. They had stopped for the night in one of the villages. They found a small hut which wou
ld offer them shelter through the night. Pradeep tied the horse to a nearby tree. He wanted to relax under the naked sky for some time before they headed to sleep.

  “You like them? The stars?” Veda asked him.

  Pradeep nodded.

  “Reminds me of my childhood,” he paused. “My parents.”

  Veda remained silent. For a moment, her silence reminded Pradeep that she used to be mute.

  “Was it the purge or the common death?” Pradeep asked. “The one that – ”

  He hadn’t found the right words to complete the sentence.

  “It was a purge,” Veda replied. “You know when I was little, my parents had a hard time keeping me away from fire. They had to hide all the candles, lamps and matches. It looked so pretty,” she said, her eyes all dreamy.

  “The colours –yellow, orange and red –how they flickered and danced. It was all so beautiful. But then on that day I saw it consuming my mother and I saw my dad running into those colours, trying to save her.” She pushed a dangling strand of hair off her face.

  “Now it doesn’t look beautiful anymore, Pradeep. Now all I see is its ugliness. I can’t even stand looking at it anymore. Its beauty was lost that day along with my voice. I don’t know … after my screams that day, I just shut down,” she paused.

  “You made me reconsider coming back, Pradeep. You made me take the first step. All those tiny little steps until I think the attack on our caves had finally snapped me into taking the final leap. All that death and all that fire,” she stared into the distance. “That ugly fire. My voice returned but its beauty has not,” she sighed.

  “You know how they say that life changes us all? But life can never change us as much as death does. Especially the death of our loved ones,”

  Pradeep took her hand in his. “You miss the old world?”

  “Not as much as I miss the people that made the old world. The people who belonged to me.”

  Pradeep pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed on it, only to realize a moment too late that his mouth was wrapped up in bandages.

  They both laughed awkwardly for a moment before Veda reached out and slowly removed the bandage around his mouth, unwrapping it carefully. Pradeep flinched as the wound drove tiny pangs of pain with the movement but then immediately forgot all about it as Veda leaned in and her moist lips met his. Their lips hungrily devoured each other.

  Their hands fumbled to find each other’s cheeks, necks and curls of hair where they lingered and moved, to slowly outline their faces. When Pradeep’s lips separated from Veda’s they immediately moved hungrily into the curve of her neck. He could hear her breath quicken and grow heavy with each moment and with each tiny kiss he planted on her smooth lower neck. Soon his lips returned to hers and they met each other fiercely this time. Their tongues now escaped their captivity to cradle each other’s in a wet embrace.

  Pradeep’s hand now moved down, leaving her face reluctantly but with eager anticipation and found the ebbing of her breasts in them. He could feel her nipples – hard beneath the fabric. He could sense the sharp intake of her breath as his fingers ran above them. His fingers fumbled with her buttons in a hurricane of urgent passion. Soon both of them were naked and sweaty, on the ground –the hard earth uncomfortably bearing their burden as their limbs tangled in a hurried union. The sky was black but there was a strange light in both of them that they shared through their warm skins.

  Veda gasped when Pradeep’s fingers first entered her – a warm intrusion into her soft wetness. Pradeep’s other hand caressed her ripe breasts, his fingers gently squeezed her dark nipples and his eyes watched her face as her eye lids drooped, her face lopped backwards and words failed her. Only sharp breaths, subtle twitches of her face and an occasional ecstatic trembling conveyed her approval, amidst moans of pleasure. Her hand had found Pradeep’s manhood and his breath quickened. Both their hands now moved frantically –each building a wave of euphoria within others as their lips and tongues stayed locked in a dance of pure desire.

  A few moments later, Veda was upon Pradeep, her hands firm on his wide chest. He was now inside her, watching her entire body move in rhythm –her moist firm breasts, her soft slender waist around which he had his hands wrapped and her shapely hips –a blissful rhythm filled with pangs of pleasure, the dizzying smell of each other’s bodies, heavy breaths and mindless exclamations. For a moment, in their union, they were happy and content, everything was all right and the world had never ended.

  Shukra sat in the darkness of his chamber. His face was heavily creased by lines of worry and fear. He had always felt that trying to capture the Forgiven was a big mistake. But the Purohit never listened to him. Now those damned cave dwellers were going to be the end of them all. Any moment now the escaped prisoners were going to get to his chamber, drag him out with their filthy sinful hands and pull his insides out.

  For a moment the words of the Sinless rang in his head –

  Men shall be judged

  And the sinful shall be punished.

  Shukra surely knew his sins. Maybe this was his judgement day. Maybe it’s the day on which he had to pay the price for everything he had done.

  No.

  He couldn’t die like this. He was an Avadhani for God’s sake. He was next to the most powerful man in the wastelands. He couldn’t be dragged to death by a bunch of wasteland scavengers and cave dwelling scum. There was no way he was going to allow that to happen. He pulled out his drawer, took out his dagger and held it close.

  Shukra suddenly heard footsteps approaching his door. He slowly moved to the farthest corner of his chamber. Then the impending doom started knocking on his door.

  Knock.

  No, he thought

  Knock.

  “No!” Shukra screamed.

  “It’s me, Shukra ji!” The familiar voice of Vikranth diffused into the room from the other side.

  “Open up!”

  Shukra sighed in relief. He quickly slithered to the door and opened the lock.

  “Thank God you are here Vikra-” His words stopped dead in their tracks.

  What hit him first was the foul smell.

  Vikranth stood at the door, looking like he had just been through hell. He had a thick beard and tiny scars all over his face. He was drenched in blood and slime. But what shocked and scared Shukra was what Vikranth held in his hands.

  “A little present for you,” Vikranth said.

  From Vikranth’s hands, staring at Shukra was the huge lifeless head of a kinkar. It was humongous in size, almost bigger than Vikranth’s torso. A third of the kinkar’s spinal cord was still attached to the head and was dangling between Vikranth’s hands. The spines on its head were broken and bleeding. One of its eyeballs was dangling down from the socket. The horror was that Shukra recognized the kinkar. Shukra’s face grew pale as the blood drained from it.

  Vikranth smiled maliciously.

  “Thought you would like to say hello to your pet, Shukra Ji!”

  Pradeep was in the desert again. As he watched with awe, the stallion was yet again rising out of the swirling vortex in the sands, its ears flicking nonchalantly. The rippling sand was cool again beneath his feet. He was walking towards the horse, his hand outstretched to comfort the elegant white beast.

  But something was different now.

  As his feet rose and dug again in dull steps into the sand, he noticed that it was no longer cool and comforting. It had started warming up. He stopped walking forward and looked down. The sand was now slowly boiling up like water, turning red all the while.

  It was not just his feet but his entire body that felt hot now. The cool breeze had turned into a fierce warm wind. And then suddenly there was fire everywhere, around him. A circle of massive fire erupted, encircling him and the horse. The smoke and the heat was choking him up. He looked down and found beneath him, the red, burning sand shifting, moving –scrambling into a strange form. It was a face but not a face too.

  The sand caved in, rose,
fell and danced in myriad directions, occasionally giving the illusion of what Pradeep could only assume was a gigantic hooded face.

  And in this grainy face, shone two eyes.

  Two glowing beams of light that saw far and wide. Two eyes that looked deep into Pradeep. The face now spoke. He heard the words, not in his ears but in his mind.

  “Get up!” The glowing eyes seemed urgent. “Awake! Run. Run now! The fire’s coming!”

  Pradeep looked up and the horse was now made up of fire

  A great flaming stallion of heat and light. It was now neighing and rearing, thumping its hooves hard onto the red sand. The sound of its neighing filled the burning skies.

  Pradeep woke up to the sound of the horse neighing. The first thing he felt was the heat. The sun hadn’t risen yet.

  He was lying naked on the ground. Embracing him tightly with her head on his chest was Veda.

  Sweat glistened on both their bodies from the heat. The horse which he had tied to the nearby tree was now uncontrollably rearing. He quickly wrapped back the loose bandages around his mouth. He shook Veda.

  “Get up!” he said. “Time to go.”

  Veda woke up sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “Grab your clothes, now!” Pradeep said running into the hut. “We are in purge zone”

  That seemed to wake her up.

  “Shit!” she said, got up, picked her clothes which were strewn around the ground and ran behind him, hooking her bra.

  They both hurriedly put their clothes on, as hurriedly as they had removed them off each other in the night. Pradeep picked up their leather bag and ran out of the hut only to see the entire village burning. The fire seemed to travel in their direction, one thing after the other closer to him burning spontaneously.

  For a moment, he was left motionless seeing all the fire and destruction until Veda ran out screaming.