Chapter Ten

Katalene did her best to sleep until daylight. She knew this would prove an arduous task but attempted it anyways. The depraved thoughts and depressing visions showed themselves to her, with each return, it became more difficult to bog them down again. She wondered if there was ever the chance for peace, after all she’d seen, after all she had taken away from her. The time, at last, for her to awaken, replenished about all she could have expected to be, given the circumstances.

Katalene took refuge in the Tomb of Alemay, her ribs, as well as many other nagging injuries were beginning to heal.

In the corner opposite her, Sol snored loudly.

The Dragon Creature was interesting to say the least, and it seemed to understand the Whispey Deserts well.

She climbed to a standing position and did her routine stretches, splashing some of the water from the tomb’s springs on her face. A small doorway beside the springs, hidden mostly by the many plants, was one she hadn’t noticed in her previous visit. The doorway led to a second, much smaller room, with plants that looked plain and ordinary. She held the leaves between two of her fingers.

“I would recommend not eating those,” Sol advised.

Katalene turned to see his creepy-ass head poking in from the doorway. “Unless, of course, your objective is to suffer from an unfortunate case of death, that is. It’d certainly make my life easier.”

“They’re poisonous?” Katalene asked, releasing the plant from her grasp, and walking toward Sol.

“Belladonna, other-wise known as Deadly Nightshade,” Sol said, taking his head out from the doorway and allowing Katalene out.

“You know a lot,” Katalene said.

“I’ve lived a long time,” Sol replied.

Katalene nodded her head, plucking some of the safe plants off and biting into them. They were hardly a meal, especially after the spoilage she had from The Hallow’s feast. “The drawings on the cave showed a dragon with wings breathing fire.”

“Why would wings need to breathe?” Sol inquired, confusion in his voice.

“Not the wings, you,” Katalene corrected, not particularly sure if he was joking or not.

“Why would a dragon breathe fire? Surely, it’d be more practical to breathe air like everyone else?” Sol said, and even still, Katalene knew not if she was on the receiving end of a jest or not.

She paused for a moment. “So, what happened to your wings?”

“Unsure, had them before my hibernation,” Sol replied seriously.

Katalene walked down the steps, out from the Tomb of Alemay. She shielded her eyes from the beaming sun and looked about the endless terrain of sand. The irony that she left Wilson to escape the mundane scenery, but now practically had her eyes stained with the sight of sand, was not lost on her.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” Sol asked, walking awkwardly down the stairs, his feet much too large for the steps coming down.

* * *

The days after harvest were always the nicest ones, because everybody was less stressed and wasn’t exhausted for a change. The most abrupt change was in Father Ark, who allowed himself to live a little. The man had bags under his eyes worse than the sternest dog, but when the job was done, and he believed it fair to sleep, he did all the sleeping he could.

Wilson didn’t really experience bad winters, Tuncid mostly stayed warm all year around. This was different than in other areas of Zeal, Jerleak avoided the brunt of it, but the further you went in that direction, the colder it would get.

The feeling they felt after harvest was enough to make it seem cooler though, a certain uplifting optimism that they didn’t have to deal with it, at least for a few weeks.

“Surrender, or I’ll have to bring you in, by force!” The eight-year-old Katalene announced, readying the oddly shaped stick in her hand, she imagined it as an ax.

The fields no longer having any stocks made finding a good hiding spot more of a challenge, she walked with a slow-pace, looking around the scenery, knowing the infatuation her brother had when it came to scaring her. She stayed on her toes. She heard many footsteps behind her and turned around fast. Then, a giggling noise from another spot, coming from right beside the three silos that were filled with the year’s harvest.

“I’ve got you!” Katalene yelled, circling around the silos with readied hands, and as she ran, she saw someone running to the other-side. She followed on with hurried steps, “I’ve got you! I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” She continued to shout, but, then, amid her running, she ran into a blockade, the blockade being her father.

“You’ve got me!” He hollered back, catching her off-guard and grabbing her from under the shoulders. She released the stick from her hands and laughed, feeling herself tickled as he lifted her up. “Or, do I have you!?”

“You’ve got me!” Katalene cried out repeatedly, unable to contain her laughter as Ark tickled her, himself smiling as well.

“Now, you haven’t gotten anyone else yet, have you?” Father Ark asked, allowing his daughter the chance to breathe.

Katalene shook her head. Rooven and the other kids had done well at hiding themselves from her.

“They always run away from you when you get too close, never stay in one spot for more than a few seconds. Have you considered hiding from them?” Father Ark asked, a sly grin on his face that showed his wheels were turning in a mischievous direction.

“What do you mean, Daddy?” the young Katalene asked, looking around Wilson, seeing all the townsfolk roaming around, but seeing no signs of any of the children that played with her.

“Let’s set a trap,” Father Ark replied, walking around the silos and over to one of the five barns that Wilson had to its name. He opened the front-doors and peeked around to his left and his right, presumably to make certain that none of the other children were watching them.

Looking over to Katalene, he ushered her into the barn, for which, she complied with, confusedly. Before her, she watched as Father Ark rolled into view, an empty wheel barrel, then, grabbed her from beneath the shoulders and loaded her up into it. Katalene giggled and obliged when Ark instructed her to lay flat. He walked out from the barn for a second and returned, handing her a stick that was far from as powerful and devastating as her ax.

“I’ll wheel you out there and roam around, in time, the kids will begin to pile out from wherever it is they’re hiding, then, you attack!” Father Ark smiled as Katalene nodded her head, showing her approval in the idea. “Just make sure you don’t make a sound, and have patience, it’ll take some time, but it’ll definitely be worth it.”

Just as he said, Father Ark buried Katalene in straw and wheeled her out from the barn. It was a bumpy ride, but soon, they stopped, in-front of her house, herself feeling nothing but the itchy straw poking her and embedding itself into her hair. She peeked out, seeing another barrel filled with hay as well, not too far from her.

Then, Father Ark walked in front of her, “Don’t peek around too much or they’ll see you,” he said.

Katalene nodded in agreement than obliged, hearing the footsteps of Father Ark walk away from her. Herself feeling very giddy, she did her best to stay quiet.

The minutes began to accumulate, leaving Katalene to sit and try to find comfort in her boredom. It was an arduous task, her patience not being of the impeccable standards that Father Ark seemed to expect it as.

When she heard someone approaching, she braced herself, peeking out through the hay, she saw Father Ark rolling out a third wheel-barrel. He made eye-contact with her, nudging his head, his way to telling her to hide. She obliged.

He must have been trying to make it less obvious. That was the only thing that Katalene could infer from it all.

As more time elapsed, she found her squirmy discomfort becoming too unbearable to contain. An argument in her head subdued her for a times, trying to express the value of patience, using the stern voice Father Ark gave when he’d tried to instill it.

By the time it felt as though she had all she could take of it, the sound of her father’s shouting voice befell her ears.

“Kids, dinner!” He yelled, the same way he did every night.

Confused, but relieved to be able to leave the hay, Katalene climbed out from the wheel-barrel, and, as she did, she saw Rooven climbing out of the wheel-barrel right next to her. From the wheel-barrel behind her, she watched her cousin Dally climb out as well. All of them looking bewildered by the events as they unfolded.

“You dick!” Rooven said, it had to have been a knee-jerk reaction, as he would’ve never yelled a word like that in the open. Even more so, the fact proved true when Katalene realized he directed it at their Father.

Father Ark sat on the porch, drinking from his mug, he feigned being offended by Roo’s remarked, then, laughed it off, very amused with himself. They had spent hours hiding in wheel-barrels of hay, meaning to scare each other.

Katalene went onto regard this as one of the happiest memories she had of Father Ark, and one of the many great memories of what was, in-retrospect, all the makings of a great childhood.

* * *

“Let’s set a trap!” Katalene answered, walking through the sand. It had felt like so long again since the last time her body hadn’t ached, but it didn’t ache right now, not excruciatingly, at least.

“And, how do you suppose we do that?” Sol asked, planting his bottom down in-front of Katalene, his body perched up and carried like a statue.

“I find it difficult to believe that a trap will be able to take care of three-hundred plus raving rapists and murderers,” Sol answered back.

“We haven’t finished watching them yet. And maybe each act won’t kill all one-hundred of them, but, maybe, it will kill five,” Katalene countered. “I have all the time in the world.”

2

In the days after, Katalene reduced herself to only a handful of small objectives, solely observation, in-fact. The act was needed to let her ribs continue to heal, but, also, she wanted to know The Hallow’s routine. She wanted to make certain what she’d witnessed in her initial night was a standard practice.

* * *

“They’re heading this way now,” Katalene commented, standing a size-able distance away from Sol, who had buried himself in the sand to remain inconspicuous.

“Took them long enough, laying in this hot-sand isn’t exactly comfortable,” The Dragon whined, letting out an audible growl to emphasize his own displeasure.

“If it wasn’t for my brother and I waking you up, you’d still be sleeping in the hot-sand for an eternal nap.” Katalene remarked, watching them as they arrived.

“Still,” Sol replied. “And I wasn’t always asleep.”

The Hallow had established a routine with their movements, every day, as soon as the sun was out, a group of men skidded on sand rays, carrying cargo along with them that they brought either west or east. If they brought it west, that likely meant they were taking it toward to the Trade Network Katalene had heard about, whereas east would have taken them to Zeal. The sand rays all pulled the same black casket-shaped crates as the ones they loaded up their kidnapped victims with, but they were loaded up with legitimate cargo. It seemed most likely to her that The Hallow acted as a distributor, a checkpoint in-between The Trade Network and Zeal, capitalizing on being the only real affiliation willing to travel the sandy plains to such depths.

On this occasion, The Hallow’s sand rays pulled this near Zeal. From afar, Katalene counted three of the creatures skidding through the sand, each one of them carrying about four or five men. On Sol’s back, clamping onto the dragon’s fatty excess skin, Katalene ventured a far distance away from The Sanctuary, staying on The Hallow’s route. She made sure to place herself at one spot and The Dragon on another. Sol would have to initiate the attack by himself.

If one of The Hallow members were to escape, they’d head back to the fort and inform them that The Dragon had offed some of their men. Shear already knew The Dragon existed, but he didn’t know that The Dragon had sentient thoughts and was being led by a human. If he did, he’d take even greater precautions, if the Whispey Deserts wasn’t so spacious, he might even try to hunt it. Thus, Katalene needed to keep her existence as a secret.

“Sol, when they arrive, you’ll want to stomp down the sand rays first and foremost. You won’t be able to catch-up to a sand ray, but they won’t be able to escape from you on foot.”

“Very well,” Sol remarked, “And, you want me to leave one of them alive, one of them that you can talk to?”

“I want to know more about The Hallow,” Katalene answered, then, added, “They have their integrity about them, but maybe if one of them sees what you’re capable of, they will feel inclined to provide us with some information.”

“If nothing else, you enjoy being the one to kill them,” Sol replied, the sand rays are only a short-distance from him now, and very soon, he will be making his presumptive strike.

“What makes you think I enjoy being the one to kill them?” Katalene asked.

“The gauntlet connects us with a telepathic link. You can’t read my mind and your mind can’t be read on my end, but our connection has other depths. When you are under distress, this instills a sense of urgency in my mind, and our moods synchronize.”

Sol stopped speaking, the sand rays neared him now, his presence unbeknownst to the men. In seconds, The Dragon sprung out from beneath the sands, throwing itself on one of the sand rays like a cat pouncing upon a mouse, Katalene could hear the loud squealing sound that came from the sand ray, even from afar. With great haste, The Dragon swiped the other men from off their sand rays, throwing them off into the sands. As the third sand ray tried to flee, he grabbed one of the men and tossed him forward, knocking them off from the skidding creature, sending them flying about through the sands while the creature skidded away, still carrying the cargo that was chained to it from behind.

The men tried their hand at fighting back, but Sol was strategic in his offense. Many of the men were also incapacitated from his attacks.

“And furthermore, Katalene,” Sol continued in her head, “There is never a happier time for me, then, when one of us is killing something.”

Sol grabbed one of the Hallow members by his arms, ripping off his limbs like they were pieces to a doll. Katalene could not hear his screams from where she stood but could damn-sure imagine them. She watched on.

The men were all ended, all except for one, as Sol was instructed.

“Good job,” Katalene remarked, Father Ark had always praised his animals for good behavior and punished them with negative reinforcement for the bad kind.

Sol left the man rested within the sand, himself battered and not in any condition to run away, the Dragon came and brought Katalene to their position. The man had tried to crawl some in that time, but it was nothing substantial. After all, Katalene was only far enough to not be obvious, but still see them be offed.

The man looked on confusedly when he saw Katalene climb off from the Dragon’s back.

“What the fuck,” The man said, “What the fucking fuck?”

“What the fucking fuck, it’s a woman and her dragon, it’s not the end of the world,” Katalene replied, standing over the man, the blade drawn out from her gauntlet. “Well, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world, for you, if you give me some information.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” The man spat at Katalene, tenderly holding his wounds as he continued to bleed out into the sand. “And, besides, you leave me here, I’m dead anyways, think I can just crawl back?”

“I understand,” Katalene said earnestly, retracting the blade back into her gauntlet and planting her bottom down into the sand in-front of the man. “How do you justify yourself as the chosen one of God when his grand master-plan is what brought you into this situation?”

The man scoffed at her with an outward defiance, “I’ll be rewarded in death. You saw those Sensations back at The Sanctuary?” The man smiled widely when Katalene showed a disgusted reaction, she could see his large teeth, filled with plaque in-between the gaps. She adjusted herself to hide her temper. “Imagine bigger breasts and tighter cunts, that’s what God has in-store for me. You, … you’ll burn, there’s lakes of fire and you’ll be forced to swim in them. Peeling flesh and scathing limbs.”

“And The Devil will look down and laugh, stabbing at me with his pitchfork.” Katalene mocked, miming as if she was carrying said item.

“God’s perfecting his creations like a scientist, dabbling in different formulas, … concocting, perfecting his recipes, he makes the strong to help find his perfect child, and we do so by throwing away the failed attempts. This isn’t The Devil’s decision, there is no Devil, Hell’s God’s way of punishing his failures. He’ll peel you back and make you suffer, yank off your flesh and gag you in miasma, fuck you up the ass with a log, for all he cares. But, after that, after his frustration subdues, after all of that, you’ll simply cease. No Hell, just God letting off some steam.”

“And you have a book that tells you this?” Katalene asked, “I was taught the Book of Meredith, what book tells you that God is this monster?” Katalene asked.

“God isn’t a monster, God is great, more than you’ll ever be worthy to know about,” The man answered back, with that confidence and passion in his inflection that she hated above all else.

And, with that, Katalene threw her fist, flinging the blade out from her gauntlet and driving it through his throat. The blood poured from the wound, his mouth gargled, and his body went into convulsions, but his eyes never shut, a calm expression on them of a life lived assuredly well.

“There’s that happy feeling in my heart again,” Sol confessed, satisfaction in his voice as he stood beside Katalene, looking over her shoulder at The Hallow victim.

“Be quiet,” Katalene replied dryly, retracting the blood blade back into the gauntlet.

She climbed back to her feet, looking at the several dead bodies that surrounded her. If the approximate guesswork of there being just over three hundred in The Sanctuary was accurate, then, this loss would be felt.

She walked over to one of the black cargo crates attached to the dead sand ray. She slid her hand against the hot-metal container, it burned to the touch. The crate came open easy, however, and with little force needed. Kat wondered if the crates had been mechanized in some way to keep them from being opened on the inside.

“The comment wasn’t meant to taken as offensive,” Sol said, breaking the silence.

Katalene looked at the contents, she recognized the bottles and jars, recognized them so fast it came as a shock to her. The pesticides, the medicines in little glass vials, they were separated by wooden barriers. Plentiful in quantity, after all, if these were the very same items that the apothecary at Tuncid provided, then it would be expected to cover whole fields.

The other crates ended up being filled with the very same items, though, she couldn’t check the crate carried by the third sand ray that escaped. As she looked, it felt like a revelation, the fact of how largely integrated The Hallow was to her own society. The fact that bi-weekly they brought the pesticides that took care of their farms and the medicines that helped save the sick.

“How do you see humans in your eyes? You’ve always been told what to do by them, what do you think about what they have you do?”

“Every master I’ve ever had, every person ever that has told me what to do, has told me to kill. They’ve never had me carry the wounded to safety, they’ve never used me to do anything other than kill.”

“Is that why you frequent the Tomb of Alemay, because it shows you kindness in a world where it’s few and far between?”

“The Tomb of Alemay has water and edible plants,” Sol said bluntly, then, after a short pause, “And, because she was the only person that ever showed me kindness.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Sol spoke again, “By stopping these men, that is.”

“Your old master, Birgo,” Katalene started, looking in the emerald eyes of The Dragon, “He was a bad man?” She asked, then, turned her head in the direction of the fort, her mind scattered in various directions.

The second group of sand rays heading to The Trade Network had already left. Sol would not be able to catch up to them, and so, they’d have to wait until they made their way back if they wanted to ambush them. Thus far, she’d only seen one group from that side arrive back to The Sanctuary and had no idea when they left. The trip could have taken days, could have taken weeks.

“Birgo had nothing but cruelness in his heart, nothing else that he showed of himself, never to me.” Sol answered coldly.

“And, when Birgo killed people, did you feel the same happiness as when I kill people?”

“When Birgo murdered, it was for his entertainment. The act aroused him. The Trials of Calpera pitted poor for population control and to find who should serve the Pharaohs. Birgo was already of royalty, he did it for sport and he did it for pride. This is not how I see you, Katalene. You’re trying to prevent what can and will happen if one lets it. What The Hallow is capable of.” Sol answered, and, for the first time, Katalene felt sincere emotion in his thoughts.

“They have existed all of this time, The Hallow, do you really think they are that much of a threat? I mean, on a larger scale, to the people of Zeal, to the people of Maharris?”

“The Book of Meredith, does that tell you what happened to the Pharaohs, to the people during the Sand Trials?”

“They left,” Katalene answered knowingly, “The people migrated out of the Deserts and the Pharaohs, well, Calpera gathered them all up by the order of God and they went back to Heaven with him. The book said they’d come back when we, as people, were ready for them.”

“That is a story,” Sol said. “What happened to the people during the Sand Trials and almost all the Pharaohs, is that they killed each-other. The world was in constant chaos for a times and it journeyed beyond simply the Whispey Deserts. A group of Pharaohs, known in Maharris as The Aeonians, ventured to the Mountain of Jalint and sacrificed themselves to creates veils over each major city as far as their scope could reach. But, the rest of the Pharaohs, they continued to fight until the bitter end. The Sand Trials are called The Trials of Calpera, because he led to the end, because Calpera was the last Pharaoh when the dust settled. His men died from malnourishment, from dysentery, when they tried to leave, they were offed by him. Everyone thought they were better, and so, everyone killed each other until no one was left.”

“Let’s ready ourselves, Sol,” Katalene replied, her eyes having no more tears to cry, she still did feel a connection to Sol at that moment, The Dragon had become imperative to her own survival. She rested her hand on his stomach, “There’s more of the right thing to be done.”

* * *

Rifling through the pockets of each dead man brought very little useful information. They found handfuls of coin and a travel book in one of the man’s pockets. The book was personal, and thereby, had lots of cryptic information on it, the name on the first-page, professing ownership of the book, matched many of the names that were listed in the writings, family, is what Katalene assumed. She placed it into the pouch of her leggings and continued digging, only finding one more item: the keys to the sand ray’s shackles.

Removing the shackles from around the deceased sand rays, one by one, Katalene shackled them to Sol’s back-legs, having him carry them to the Tomb of Alemay. Transporting the crates required very little exertion on Sol’s part.