Chapter I: Deist
“Brother you’re at it again.” I reminded the restless one, who gazed at the burning bonfire as I rested beside it, worried upon his health from our recent failed attack. Tirek was not looking at me, piercing through the embers with a solemn glare as if casting his hatred upon the heartless fire, but in truth, bearing the pain of his foolish mistake. Contemplating on this tragic event, he was simply only hurting himself further to the point where it worried me if we were ever going to make it through the day, or at least week.
“What went wrong?” he began, “I had this all planned out. It was perfect. The moment we engaged, we should have come out victorious. Now we cannot go back home without bearing the news that they are all dead. Now we must wait and find some other way to take that city.” He was too drove into those thoughts of failure that I had suddenly coughed from the cold I picked up along the way of our retreat. He looked at me with a worried expression, before sighing calmly and looking back at the flames in silence. For a few minutes he eventually broke the silence and spoke to me.
“Brother, get some rest for the day. You need to heal your body.” He said, causing me to sigh. My health was not really much of a big deal to me. Only his.
Tirek was my brother, and the only member of our family left. This mission may have failed for the both of us, costing the lives of our soldiers and friends, loyal to us to the end. However, it should not be his burden to carry…it should be mine for his sake. He was afraid of returning back home to inform the love ones of our soldiers of the great lost and the sacrifice that was taken, costing our victory and purchasing us our shame. If there was one thing Tirek despised, it was showing any sign of shame. He was stubborn…as always.
“Yes brother,” I replied, moving onto my back as I gazed into the star lighted sky only being reminded next to the flickering sound of ember that the darkness up there was nothing compare to the darkness forming in Tirek’s heart. Sorrow and shame; where only his pain would continue to grow if this was not settled. Sleep took me in its embrace and so I was at the mercy now to the illusion of dreams.
The next morning came and I was up on my feet, stretching out my back and wings before looking around, spotting Tirek putting our supplies back in the saddle bags before tossing them closed upon his back to carry. He stared East, through sandy deserts of Kali’ and soon turned to me. He gestured a hello before putting out the fire with his hooves as soft light dusty winds blew against us from the west.
“If we travel east from here, we may be able to hit the Diamond Dog caravan and get us some more supplies and perhaps find a path down to a village. Maybe they have water there.” Tirek stated, pointing towards the direction where the lands expanded and the winds blew roughly to softly against the floors it picked up minerals from. “I trust Aquarius’ information on the map he pointed out a week ago before we began our attack.”
“Brother,” I began, already feeling this was not needed of him to perform such actions, believing we could at least trade information with the caravan if possible. “Do we have to raid them, what if they have manticores? Perhaps a peaceful approach would be recommended so no conflict can be aroused in this moment of time.”
Tirek shrugged his shoulders before rolling his eyes and gazing back east. “Should we ask with empty pouches?” he questioned, in a rhetorical fashion, but as I opened my mouth to still speak, he continued, “we are out of food, money, water, and have no elixir to cure your cold.”
“I will be fine, brother,” I protested, “but if we are to attack a caravan and let’s say if things went wrong; we might not make it out and if we do, and if we do; who is to say one might make it out and back to their kingdom to alert their ruler of our actions. We would be plunged into a war that none of us would be able to get out of.” I stared at him sternly, waiting for a response. But returned with that stubborn expression as usual.
“Would you rather we die of starvation, or obtain what we can!” I flinched from his raise of tone, “You and I both seen how they managed to take us down! Back in the attack, back when Cancer surrender! He was young and not ready for combat, he was only our medicine carrier. They killed him regardless, execution style! My brother, we must fight and take whatever we can in order to survive upon the next die, or die with our white flags plunged deep into our hapless skulls.”
I knew there was no getting to him when he was this hot-headed. So I sighed and looked away, folding my arms against my chest before heard his hooves begin to clop against the dusty sands and proceeding the designated path he was intent to go towards. I followed him, silently, and alerted I was. Though it was as usual with Tirek as mother and father would say countless of times. Tirek never listens.
I felt the day become ever so tiring as our walk through these miserable sands continued. Compare to him and I, Tirek just kept going, without need of rest at all. He was full of magical energy after all, however, for me...I was not. I could not manage weeks without sleep, or perhaps months if I was lucky enough to keep awake and on guard. Though no matter what day I just couldn't stay awake upon, Tirek watched over me without complaining one bit. I was glad...at least. He sat down, suggest I rest, and he watched over for the night.
He was looking after me, but whenever I think about it too hard...whenever we are walking long and far to obtain something without resulting in violence (from my suggestion that is always denied by Tirek), I feel like I am the one watching over him. Such a strange thing honestly, but it would not stop me from doing what he wanted on this conquest to his personal redemption. Even when there were various methods to ending something so…brutal.
Our trek took hours upon hours where it was already close to being the evening. Tirek remained restless as usual, keeping his pace at medium for me to catch up as I remained bored and glancing left and right at the plain sands that whither around and blew gently. Soon though, I stopped and looked at Tirek who was keeping his movement still and eyes trained forward. Ahead we spotted two splits between a large sections of the canyon where a ravine would usually be at, but at this time of hour where rain was most likely rare, it was dry and only full dirt; however made an easy pathway to get to one destination to another without having too much trouble from above.
We came to a stop at the edge, peering down where we spotted a small caravan moving through calmly with only two Manticores. I told Tirek what if they had Manticores. Tirek could only groan in annoyance before sitting himself down still keeping a close eye on the group below.
Manticores were hired mercenaries from the kingdom of Pahlavi. They were strong, fierce, and natural born hunters with intelligent communication skills that differ them from their native kin. The comparison with them were these types of Manticores had red stingers upon their tails while the native ones had black or purple. This was easy not to be confused with either party of the kind, however, not best to be taken lightly. Diamond Dogs were in peace with them, as well as a fine trade since they always kept to their mining ways, finding the best of diamonds and rubies and supplying them for not just profit and protection, but as tokens of peace to the Eastern Borders of Pahlavi.
If we attacked them and one gets out of there alive—either of them—our kingdom could be in big trouble. We wouldn’t be able to survive. I could see Tirek still planning it out, but did we really have to go through with this? Did we really have to attack them?
“Brother, I ask of this to you, how are you going to approach this? What if things go extremely wrong? We can resort to peace and at least show kindness. After all, they are simply traders, they are no fighters,” I suggested to him but he only growled and scanned the areas of the cliff. “Brother, think hard on this,” I stated sternly, glaring at him in frustration.
“I am and it is settled, we will attack them.” He stated coldly, before holding out his palm towards north part section of the ravine. I furrowed my brow, clutched my claws, and as my wings folded, I had no choice but to let it be and go along his destructive pathway. Red magic was fired from his palm, striking the layers of the rocky earth that caused the very ground to shake and section he hit to plummet. I could only watch down there how the caravan were paused, startled, and gazed up at the incoming calamity of debris my brother has started.
Perhaps it was time I only hope to put them out of their misery than let Tirek did. I clutched my medallion and gave a silent prayer to them…at least they would rest in peace once we were finish. And at least they will be with their God.
To Be Continued
