No peace for the weary

Chapter 4

A/N: First off lets me say how sorry I am for the wait. It seems that dropping your laptop from five feet will put a significant damper on your writing capabilities. Secondly, I’m thinking about switching this story from third person to first person. This chapter is a bit of an experiment so tell me what you think about it.

Evan Gravelle

I woke up feeling like shit. There really wasn’t a better descriptor in the entire oxford English dictionary that could adequately describe how I felt. I glanced down and was almost startled at the heap of cyan fur that was in my lap. Seeing this innocent creature sitting in my lap felt simultaneously terrifying and amazing. I was terrified by the thought that I now had something that I had to protect, but was overcome with wonder at how this sentient being managed to travel trough worlds and make my acquaintance.

Well, enough of those thoughts, I’m really starting to get hungry.

I slowly and gently picked up Rainbow and set her down on the ground. She mumbled something unintelligible but I assumed it was something akin to ‘five more minutes’. I simply smiled and then walked over to Jerry.

Despite the fact that I shouldn’t have, I kind of felt bad for tying up Jerry last night. His body was all contorted as he lay on the dirt. Evidently he tried to find some way to fall comfortably asleep with his hands tied up. I have a sneaking suspicion that his efforts had come to no avail.

As I looked at his face, I was suddenly impacted at just how young he really was. This was just a kid, looking for a way out of poverty. It’s a shame really.

After checking my watch, I decided it would be best to wake Jerry up. I raised my hand and gently tapped his cheek, just narrowly missing a river of spittle that was flowing from his open mouth.

“Hey, wake up.” I said in a gentle voice.

Jerry snorted and slowly opened his eyes. As his eyes opened up to view the world around him, he looked me dead in the eye’s and narrowed his eyelids.

“Sleep alright?” I added with a sadistic smile.

“Like a baby.” He spat.

“Here, let’s get those hands untied.” I grabbed my knife and slipped the blade in the space between his wrists and the rope. With a single, firm cut, the steel blade slashed through the rope and set Jerry free. He proceeded to rub his wrists with a look of elation on his face. There were large red marks on his wrists.

“I’ll try to not tie them so tight next time.”

His answer was a simple nod of his head. I guess he figured there was no point in complaining about the inevitable. I mean, it’s not like I was going to let him escape in the night. I may feel bad for the kid, but I sure don’t trust him.

Noticing that Dash was still asleep, I decided to wake her as well. I sauntered over to her limp form and rubbed my finger on her…wingpit? The place where her wing meets her body, would be more obvious but I kind of like wingpit. Has a nice ring to it.

The moment my finger made contact with the soft wingpit fur, she bolted up and screamed in shock.

I just looked at her with a look of utter bewilderment on my face.

Catching her breath from the surprise, she gave me a death look.

“Don’t EVER tough that spot on a Pegasus’ wings!”

“Sensitive?” I said with another stupid smile.

“What gave you THAT idea genius?”

I shrugged “The fact that you bolted up and screamed like a little baby.”

“I did not scream.”

“Yes you did.” I turned to Jerry, who was not laughing. “Right Jerry?”

“Oh yeah, you screamed like a little girl...or filly I guess.”

A look of defeat on her face, she gave Jerry a death look then mumbled “Shut up.”

With the conclusion of the mornings antics, I felt my stomach rumble. I really do need to eat, it’s not healthy to be without nutrition for so long.

I walked over to my bag and rummaged around a bit until I found a disgusting, cardboard tasting military ration. I sat down on a patch of dirt and begrudging chewed the ‘meal’ I was having. In all honesty, there was more nutrition in tree bark, but the ration kept my stomach at bay and that’s what really counts. The last thing I need to be is hungry in a gunfight.

As I ate my breakfast, memories of my past flooded my idle, blank mind. I find that whenever I get downtime and I am able to just relax, my mind has the oh-so great tendency to relive all of my worst memories.

I sat there, lost in the memories of my friends, the friends and comrades who I would never see again, the people who I had grown so close to. Friends and comrades were simply not an adequate term for them. No, they were more. They were family. They were my brothers, and I will never forget them.

Lost in thought, I failed to notice that Dash was calling on me.

She walked up and poked me in the chest with her soft hoof. “Hey! You in there?”

I immediately snapped out of my stupor and looked at the agitated pony in my direct field of vision.

“Yeah I’m here. Sorry, I got lost in thought.”

“Whatever. I’m STARVING, don’t you have any food?”

“I have some rations.”

She shot me a quizzical look. I guess I would have to explain. “Rations are ‘food’ that you can keep for a long time and not need to worry about refrigerating them.”

“How do they taste?”

“Slightly worse than tree bark.” I accentuated my point by very loudly biting off a piece of my ration, earning me a loud crunch.

“They can’t taste that bad…Can they?”

I ripped off a piece of my ration and tossed it to Rainbow. She caught it with her hoof in a way that I am not even going to try and comprehend, and placed it in her mouth. She almost immediately spat it out and started rubbing her tongue with her hooves.

“Ack! That was so nasty! How can you eat those?”

“You just kind of get used to it.” I shrugged. “I bet Jerry has eaten his fair bit of rations, eh Jerry?”

“Yep. Rainbow’s reaction was jus’ like mine, except I had a little more cussing.” He chuckled.

I laughed as well. Something about Jerry’s laugh was infectious. Rainbow was glaring at both of us.

“Well, while both of you are laughing, I’m still starving over here.”

Jerry was the first to stop laughing. He looked like he wanted to talk. I nodded at him, giving him the go ahead for whatever he wanted to say.

“Aren’t you a horse? Couldn’t you just eat some grass or leaves or something?”

“Yeah,” I said grabbing a handful of grass. “Eat up.” I tossed the grass in her direction. Dash just deadpanned.

“I don’t like grass.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers now can they?”

“Just shut up.” She said, slowly grabbing some grass to eat. I returned to my ration and resumed the ingestion of this amazing delicacy.

***

We were on the move again, walking down the red dirt paths that lead to the Tutsi village. In all honesty, I seriously doubted the village would be anything less than grim. I clearly saw Hutu military coming from that direction, and when Hutu and Tutsi people meet, it ends with one of them face down in a pool of blood.

The main purpose of going to the village was to find some form of transportation. A car, a truck or something, frankly anything would be better than walking. No matter what we would find in the village, dead bodies or not, Rainbow would be a problem. If there were civilians alive, he would have to keep her out of sight. If there had been a massacre, he would have to hid the village, and its grisly content from Rainbow’s innocent eyes. She didn’t need to see that. She had seen death already, but that was a kill or be kill scenario, and they were combatants. If she saw what the Hutu did to Tutsi, she would be a complete wreck.

No one, pony or not, could see a whole village, hundreds of men, women and children killed and not be changed. It would traumatize most, but I had been through a lot, and this would not be my first time seeing extermination. I doubted Jerry would be all that shaken as well, he had been here and he had seen combat.

I really do love humanity, maybe I should have been a pony and live in that little happy land Dash calls equestrian….actually, scratch that. I like my hands too much to change them for hooves. Even if they could somehow grab things, I would have to ask rainbow about that sometime.

Anyway, I’m getting side tracked. I should be paying attention as to what’s around me. I proceeded to raise my TAR-21 up to eyelevel and scanned the road through the holographic sight.

“Something the matter?” Asked Jerry, anxiety seeping into his voice.

I waited a moment before speaking. “What did we agree upon before Jerry?”

He sighed. “No talking unless talked to.”

I smiled. “That’s right.” I lowered the weapon. “And no, nothing is the matter. I was just checking.”

He nodded, clearly a little shy about me shutting him down. I kind of feel bad for him, forcing him to obey, like a dog. But he was a prisoner, and prisoners had to know their place.

As we continued on our quest to the Tutsi village, I saw something that made my blood run cold. In the distance, I could see a plume of smoke coming from the exact direction of the village.

“Shit…” Muttered Jerry under his breath.

I did not even bother to scold him, as he stole the words right out of my mouth. Rainbow looked at both of us and could evidently notice the solemn look we had plastered on our faces.

“What’s up? It’s just some smoke, probably for cooking or something…”

I looked at Jerry and noticed the surprise on his face. “Uh…yeah. It’s a cooking fire.”

“So why did Jerry swear?” She pointed out.

“Got a cramp.”

“Okay…” She said, putting emphasis on the end of the word, evidently not believing our relatively pitiful excuses.

As I kept looking in the direction of the village, the plume of smoke was becoming less, and less visible due to the darkening of the sky. By the time we would get there, it would be nightfall.

I suppose that could be a good thing, it would make the village less visible and hopefully, Dash would not be able to see what was going on from some hiding spot I would find for her.

That said, I have a sneaking suspicion that she would not stay in some hidey-hole I would find for her, so I would need to think of a way to keep her put.

Whatever, those are problems for later, lets just focus on actually getting to the village. I tightened my grip on the rifle and quickened my pace, I want to get there when its dark, not the next sunrise.

***

The village was just a few hundred meters from us now. There was a hill keeping the village out of view, the road went around it, but I figured since we were on foot, we may as well just go straight up it, it’s not like it’s steep or anything.

When we reached the base of the mountain, I had a plan of how to keep Dash from the carnage that was right over the hill. It was not exactly a good plan, but it was a plan.

I turned to look at both Dash and Jerry. I then took my TAR-21 and removed the magazine and tossed it to Rainbow. “Can you pull the trigger?”

Somehow she did something with her hoof and it made a click. “Ofcouse I can.”

I tossed her the magazine. “You stick that ammo in the gun.” She gave me a strange look. “I’m leaving Jerry here, you are going to guard him. If he tries to escape, shoot him.” She had a look of horror on her face. “…In the knees.” I looked to Jerry and winked, he knew what I was doing.

“I-I don’t want to shoot anyone!”

“Well, if Jerry is nice, you won’t have to. Now, I’m going over that hill to scout, ill be back in about thirty minutes. If I am not back do NOT come and try to find me. I’ll get out of what ever jam I find myself in. Okay?”

Dash nodded.

“Good.” I pulled out my USP40 and the silenced that was in my left thigh pocket. I screwed it on and racked the slide, chambering a round in the gun. I got up to leave and I rustled Dash’s mane, the scowled but I just smiled and ran up the hill.

Like I said before, it was not exactly a steep hill. But when you have body armour, grenades and ammo, it makes the run a little harder than would be expected. Even for a guy with impeccable fitness, like myself if you’ll pardon the extreme modesty.

As I reached the top of the hill, my worst fears were confirmed. Fires raged, bodies were left mutilated and butchered throughout the village. I could still see a few Hutu soldiers, wandering around with machetes, finishing of anyone who was left.

A gust of wind blew over me and the smell of dead, decaying bodies enveloped me in its disgusting scent. I nearly gagged.

I cracked my knuckles, and then my neck as I crawled down the hill. The darkness was complete, but I did not want to make any noise that would attract the attention of the soldiers.

The soldiers would have to be dealt with, and a stealth approach would be far safer and practical. I had both the element of stealth and surprise. The only immediate threat I could see was the various fires that illuminated parts of the village, I would have steer clear of them if I wanted to survive this.

I finally reached the edge of the village, there were bodies literally everywhere. A soldier was lazily patrolling the area, so I was forced to drop prone on top of some bodies. The smell was overpowering and I vomited.

Luckily the soldier did not hear me as he was far too engrossed in lighting a cigarette with an empty lighter.

As he stood, in the darkness trying pointlessly to get a flame from the shoddy lighter, I left my prone position and returned to one of a crawl. I moved my hand ever so gracefully to my right thigh, and unsheathed the seven inch combat blade I kept for occasions just like this.

I could hear him swearing in his native tongue, the noise gave me the chance to move a bit faster.

I was finally directly behind him, a very slowly stood up and was about to go for the kill, but then he shouted. His cigarette was finally lit.

In one swift motion, I took my left hand and wrapped it around his mouth, my right bringing the knife to his neck. I then whispered into his ear.

“Those thing’s will kill you. Let me speed the process up.”

My knife tore through his neck, blood spurting out and a sickening gurgling sound came from his body as he choked on the blood leaving his throat. I held him in that position for another few seconds before letting his limp body fall to the ground in a pool of blood.

I then began the infiltration of the village proper and held my handgun at the ready. At each corner I expected an enemy, only for none to appear. It was tense sneaking like this, no matter how much experience you have at it.

Rounding a small hut, I came face to face with a soldier; he was about to shout in surprise, but a round from my suppressed pistol into his forehead kept him nice and quiet.

As I left the soldiers lifeless body, I decided to take count of how many soldiers there actually were.

There were two roving the village centre, one was in the distance, smoking a cigarette next to a plethora of innocent bodies. And I could hear voices, and a few screams emanating from the village’s church.

I decided to take the two roving guards out in quick succession. I fired a round into each of their heads. My suppressed shots went unheard as the two soldiers fell to the ground, dead.

Noticing that the smoking guard was now making his return to the village centre, I rushed him. I sprinted at him and tackled him, my knife plunging into his heart as he fell. He started to scream but I slapped my hand over his mouth before any noise could escape.

I held the man there for about a minute, feeling his life leave his body with each beat of his heart. Once it stopped beating, I left the body and made my way to the church, four bodies in my wake.

As I walked into the church, the scene that played out before me sickened me. There were many bodies on the ground and the pews had all been moved aside. Two soldiers were naked, and raping a Tutsi woman at knife point. One had his hand over her mouth, but every once in a while it slipped and a scream escaped her dry lips.

I entered slowly, but in the open light the woman saw me. Her eyes shot open and I raised a finger to my lips. The two men kept holding her down and ravaging her, not noticing the surprise on her face.

Slowly and coldly I raised my pistol and my knife.

In a matter of seconds I shot the man holding the woman. The other man was so surprised; he did not even react when I lunged at him with my knife. Pinning him to the ground, I dug the knife into his heart and twisted, killing him much more quickly that the soldier outside who endured a similar fate.

The woman, in ragged, torn and bloody clothes was sobbing uncontrollably now. I cooed and stroked her hair. She was quite young; she could not have been more than sixteen years old. Her ebony skin was flawless, despite the bruises around her hands, mouth and crotch.

“It’s okay, they are gone now. You are safe.”

She responded in her native tongue, and I did not know what she said.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here.” I brought her to her feet and led her out of the church to meet the gore outside.

As I exited the church, Tutsi girl in tow, I saw what made my heart drop.

There, in front of me, was a crying, shaking, bloody Rainbow Dash. I looked to find Jerry and he could be nowhere to be found.

So there I was, in the middle of a decimated village, an incredibly shocked rape victim and an innocent, traumatized cyan Pegasus pony. I do not usually swear, so when I do, it should really reverberate with who ever I say it to.

“Fuck.”

No other word could come to mind at that very moment.