Early in the morning, Az stood on shaky legs and insisted on making his way to a nearby brook to bathe and make toilet. Returning, he sat in stubborn silence as the Huldo treated and dressed his wound. He had to admit, it looked better. Bound by thick thread stitched through the skin, it had begun to scab over. More importantly, the area around it no longer had the pink and inflamed appearance that was the precursor to infection and death. His fever was gone and his strength returning. Though it pained him to admit it, he really did owe the old woman his life.
With his arm in a sling, he sat by the breakfast fire, feeling refreshed and almost human again. Eating heartily of a thick porridge served to him by Obodas, the stony-faced middle-aged man, Az asked to be provided with a crutch, so that he might carry himself. “I’m tired of being baggage,” he said, “And besides, I must regain my legs somehow. The sooner I am allowed to hobble, the sooner I will be able to run.”
Soon the camp was packed, the canvas of the teepees rolled up and their posts discarded. Seeing everyone shoulder their packs, Az felt a deep sense of guilt, thinking of just how difficult it must have been to drag him while carrying everything else. In his pride, he wanted offer to carry something, but thought better of it, entrusting even his sword to the care of those around him. If I can manage to carry myself, I’m sure that will be enough for them, he thought.
The going was slow, and many times Az was forced to admit that he needed time to rest. Luckily however, the distance was not great. A day’s walk is a relative thing. And it soon became apparent to Az just how little distance the group had been covering in a day. By noon they had reached the first scattered outposts. Abandoned houses, toppled by the cruelty of the elements and the iron hand of time, long stripped of their metals and left to rot. These houses were not unique. They were the same as those that dotted all the lands of the south. But, at the first of those counted as belonging to Petra, identifiable only to those of the ruined city, Huldo and the others paused and gave a silent prayer.
For much of the day they followed what Az assumed had been their usual pattern, walking at the edge of a giant’s road where the going easy, but where they could easily duck into the cover of the underbrush. Now, as the spaces between the houses grew smaller, the group left the road and began moving between the ruins themselves. Here, where piles of crumbled brick and rusting steal lay between towering walls not yet succumbed to entropy, the land lay like a maze of tunnels and caverns. To the outsider, these appeared as nothing but the probable dwelling of some vermin or predator. But to those born of the city, natives of this ruined landscape, these were the paths of safe passage, the corners in which they themselves could find refuge, and from which they could hunt their pray and stalk their enemies.
The two youths, Aretas and his sister Gamil, led the way. Heavy packs on their backs, arrows notched in their large bows, the picked their way through passages formed naturally as things collapsed, and through others meticulously carved and cleared by tiny hands. Obodas brought up the rear, his posture the same. Between them walked Kat, Az, Rhea and Huldo, with the boy, Bobby, stumbling along under the weight of his heavy pack. Shrubs, weeds and small trees sprouted up from the sprawling expanse of concrete and asphalt. While all around lay the reddish-brown dust of the bricks, slowly returning to the earth with each heavy rain.
Leaving the cover of a rusted piece of corrugated steal, Az looked up and shuddered to find that they were passing beneath a human ribcage twenty-times the size of his own. Looking around he could see other bones, bleached white and overgrown, but not the skull. Strange, he thought. During his ruinous trip to the Concrete Desert, he had seen many of the giant skeletons, and the skulls had always stood out among the other bones. Their large empty eyes often a window into the lair of whatever beast or insect had come to call them home.
“Where are the skulls?” he asked.
From behind him, Huldo answered. She had a bandanna over face, blocking her nose and mouth from the dust. Yet still, a smile was audible on her lips. “Those who inherit all, want for little. You will see soon enough.”
Having passed slowly though many ruined houses and the spaces been, yet still very much on the outskirts of the city, they were greeted by a whistle, and three figures stepped out through a crack in a nearby foundation. Two were young men, dressed as the others, their bandanas hanging down around their necks to display the same fifteen scars that adorned the faces of Holdo and the rest. The third was a young woman, her hair covered and face exposed. Unlike the others, her scarification took the form of an X, carved above her left eye, and a single vertical line below her right one. The three came forward, distractedly exchanging greetings with their compatriots while evidently fighting the urge to stare at Rhea.
For her part, Rhea had had spent the day carrying her load in contemplative silence. She had avoided Az’s eye, and stayed focus on the road before her. Now, evidently aware of her strange position, she stood by Huldo, he back erect, expression stony and unreadable – clearly playing in to the sense of mystery that surrounded her.
Once the newcomers had taken all the heaviest packs, the group continued, now moving at an increased speed. Burdened only by his own weight, Az found this an unwelcome change of pace, but said nothing, increasingly aware of his position as an unwelcome tagalong. Weaving between fallen cinderblocks, over heaps of rubble and along the edges of basements reduced to gaping chasms, the group headed ever deeper into the heart of Petra. Around them rats scurried from one burrow to another, while above dozens of vultures, hawks and other birds of prey circled menacingly. It was clear to Az that without a keen knowledge of the paths through the city, none but the luckiest outsider could hope to penetrate this deep without coming to a violent end. Soon too, the faces of both children and adults peeked out from corners and above bricks, excitedly trying to get a glimpse of the procession, and of Rhea, before scurrying off to tell their kin.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
As the sun grew low and the shadows long, the group came to the end of a row of tumbled houses. From there, they looked out across a long stretch of open ground at a massive rectangular cinderblock building, still largely intact. Half of the roof had collapsed, but half still stood. And atop it they could see guardhouses and watch towers, looking out from more than thirty feet at the flat expanse that surrounded it on all sides. “We have almost arrived,” said Huldo. “Before us you see Qalea. The great fortress and meeting place of the people of Petra. Now we need only cross the concrete moat and we will be home. They are flying a green flag. Obodas and Gamil will lead the way and, if it is indeed safe, the rest of us will follow.”
Kneeling in the cover of hollow, where several large and rotten beams lay propped up by a pile of debris, the group looked out over the open ground from between a large thistle and a tall tuft of goldenrod. Around them, the wind blew between the fallen bricks and, as promised, produced a haunting wail. With a glance to the sky and a quick prayer, Obodas led the way, staying low as he jogged across the broken concrete, his daughter Gamil not for behind him.
To Az, long accustomed to avoiding open spaces, it felt like it took forever for them to make it clear to the other side. He could not help but think how much longer it must certainly take for him to make that same run. What a stage trade-off these people had decided to make. Endanger themselves every time they came and went from their colossal fortress, all to be sure it was defensible in the unlikely event of some future invasion. These were people who clearly favoured autonomy over safety, and who were willing to demonstrate their willingness to die for the independence of their people on what must be a nearly daily basis.
When Obodas and Gamil had reached the far side, Kat stood up with her customary self-assertion and nonchalance. “No time like the present,” she said, stepping forward and making to run out into the open.
However, just as she made to leave the hollow, Aretas’s strong arm shot out and grabbed her above the elbow. “The flag is red,” he said, gesturing to a small piece of fabric flying from a pole at the top of the nearest watchtower.
There was a pause as each looked nervously around, trying to catch a glimpse of what the cause of this change might be.
One of the three who had joined them within the city limits, the girl with the X carved above her eye, spotted it first. “There,” she said.
Coming up the road, loping their way along, their massive tongues dangling thirstily from their mouths, came a group of wild dogs – a mother and her two pups. These creatures, a bearlike blend of wolves and fighting dogs, walked fearlessly between the tumbled structures. Zig-zagging from here to there, sniffing the air and the ground, they passed by where the group huddled in terrified silence. Banking left, they continued on across the broken and overgrown parking lot, trotting off into the distance and out of sight.
“They are headed north,” said Az. “I can only imagine what would happen if a beast like that were to fall upon the General’s army as he was giving siege to Quarryhold…”
“I can only imagine what would happen if one fell upon me, walking from here to that building,” said Kat. “Really, I’m having trouble thinking of much else right now.” She turned to Aretas. “Thanks for stopping me. You people really aren’t nearly half as bad as you look. I’ll buy you a drink when we get inside. And by that, I mean I’ll let you buy me one. Cause obviously I have no money. You gave me these pants…”
Aretas blushed, looking away as she continued to ramble. “It was nothing,” he said. Then, pointing to the watchtower, “Look, the flag is green. It is time to go.”
Pushing their way through the leaves, the group began to scurry over the open ground, their progress hampered by their heavy packs. Trying to keep up, Az leaned heavily on his crutch, unable to move much faster than slow walk. Beside him was Huldo, the old woman seeming to keep pace with him more out of politeness than necessity. And beside her, as always, was Rhea. At each split in the concrete where a row of grass burst forth, affording partial cover, the faster members of the group would pause and wait for the slower. Az, puffing and feeling faint from the exertion, refused to let himself rest at these outcroppings. Should he stop, or worse yet sit down, he was not sure he would be able to stand again.
After what felt like an eternity, but could not have been more than fifteen minutes, the group finally reached the other side. They now found themselves standing at a place where a cinderblock had been painstakingly chiselled from the sheer face of the wall. In place of the block was a large wooden gate, left open, with several sentries standing by, bows in hand. With Huldo leading the way, they passed though the gates into a large antechamber with another set of gates at the far side. These gates too were open and before them stood a welcoming party which Az recognized instantly to consist of three village elders, behind whom stood a group of disgruntled looking women. Each of the three elders had different ritual scars, and all had been whispering to one another right up until the moment that Az and the others entered the chamber. Now, breaking from their huddle, one, a tiny shriveled old man with a hooked nose and hourglass mark carved into each cheek, stepped forward and addressed Huldo.
“The Araknas tribe welcomes you home, Huldo.” Without waiting for a reply he turned to Rhea. “And is this the girl of which we have heard so much? The one who has stirred up such feelings among the young and old? And who has caused so much discord, even before stepping foot in Qalea?”
“Oh, Puzur, you pretend to greet me with pleasantries, yet confront us before we have so much as entered the gate,” said Huldo. “It seems to me that it is not the girl who has stirred things up here, but you. Now let us pass un-harassed. We are tired after our long journey.”
“Of course,” said Puzur, a malicious smile spreading across his wrinkled face. “We would not think of preventing you from entering your home. However, there is one matter that concerns the girl before she may enter. Behind me you see many aggrieved women, each of whom has separately issued a challenge. Before she may enter, the law dictates that the girl must settle all outstanding claims against her.”
“Claims against her for what?” began Az, but Huldo held up a hand, gesturing for him to remain silent.
“I have explained our ways and the situation to the girl,” said Huldo. “She understands and is ready. Who have they elected as their champion?”
The old man tuned and a massive woman emerged from the group. In her late twenties, easily a decade older than Rhea and almost twice her size, the woman was broad, tall and in the prime of her strength. Bearing the same hourglass shaped scars as the old man, she looked down at Huldo and Rhea with icy confidence. “Women of three different tribes have elected me as their champion. Does the girl accept?”
Without waiting for Huldo’s answer, Rhea stepped forward and addressed not so much the large woman, but those now standing behind her. “I do,” said Rhea. “If you are the one they have selected for death, then so be it. But as for the rest of you, when in the coming days you find you are without her and wish she was still among you, do not blame me. Remember always that it was you who decided that she should die – I merely held the knife.”