The Sorrow Anthology

by Helen Allan

Amun, sensing his puppet pharaoh was no longer one hundred per cent behind him, replaced him later that year. Aha had lived on Heaven since then, and all but forgotten his deal with Megan to aid Sorrow until Anhur came to him one late summer evening a few months prior and asked him to accompany him on a hunt for his perfidious and murderous wife.

  “The raid on the Capital will be no hardship to aid. It gives me happiness to know I am finally able to repay Megan for bringing my mother back from the dead, for allowing me to grow with her maternal love and support,” he said.

  Sorrow smiled. “I appreciate you keeping to your deal, after so long a time, especially given your friendship with Anhur.”

  “Anhur and I are not as close as he believes we are,” he smiled, “I merely keep near him to ensure his plans for the Southern Capital do not come to fruition.”

  “Southern Capital?” Sorrow frowned, “I wasn’t aware he had any interest in Heaven’s other major city.”

  “It is not the city he has interest in,” Aha scowled, “it is in who resides there. Anhur has for some time led a small group who plot the downfall of Osiris.”

  “What? Isn’t Osiris his step-father? And, wait, I have never heard, in all the time I lived in the Capital as Anhur’s wife, that a God still resided on Heaven. I thought they had all left for a new, distant planet many hundreds of years ago, at the height of the Sin Wars.”

  “Oh yes,” Aha laughed humourlessly, “most left, or were eaten, but if Osiris were not here Anhur and his league would have completely wiped out all the Sin and all the humans long ago. Your husband has, for many thousands of years, considered Heaven to be the sole right of the Earthborns; and he wants to rule it.”

  “But,” she frowned, shaking her head, “the collective memories, Aha, I don’t think he is Earthborn.”

  “No,” he sighed, “and that is why he knew you were lying to him about your pregnancy – he will kill you for that you know, Sorrow. He is three-quarters God and has never, in thousands of years, had a child. He would have had you killed for murdering Amun, no doubt about it, as a political move, but for lying to him about a child – for that he will never forgive you.”

  “But Aha, I wasn’t lying, I hadn’t been with anyone else. I was pregnant when he put me in the regeneration tank. He killed our baby.”

  Aha sat for some time, frozen, staring at the screen, considering Sorrow, his face inscrutable.

  “Never the less,” he said, finally, “I am here to help you in any way I can. I will aid your people in gaining access to the Capital and taking what they need.”

  Now, counting down the hours until their raid, Sorrow watched the flames crackle as they caught on the log in the fireplace and took a deep breath as she fought her nerves. She knew she could trust Aha; she just hoped his intelligence about the number of guards in the Capital watching the Sin captives was correct. Fortunately, there were no guards on the supply sheds, because the Earthborn, complacent in their strength, had never, in recent memory, had any reason to fear attack or raids from the Sin or their human slaves. But all that was about to change. Hearing heavy footsteps outside her door, she tensed.

  The door slammed open without a knock, and Sorrow frowned, her clothing was over the other side of the room, she had no hope of reaching it. She stood tall and angry as the interloper turned to her.

  “Khalili, what the fuck?” she growled, “I told you and the others I would be down by 10am. It is not yet dawn. You have no right to barge in here.”

  Striding purposefully towards her, Khalili snarled.

  “I will return with my people today, or I will not return at all.” He stood close enough to her that she could smell the polish on his weapons, the faint animal smell of his leather vest.

  “I know,” she said, turning slightly away from him.

  Fast, as he always was, he gripped her by the arm and pulled her back against his chest. She remained still, staring into the fire as he leaned his face to her hair and drew in a long breath.

  “Don’t bite me,” she said softly, feeling his breath on her neck, “not this time.”

  He growled, and she felt his tusks graze the skin beneath her ear.

  Spinning just as fast as he had done, she twisted in his grip and knocked his feet out from under him. Landing on his back on the rug in front of the fire he growled angrily and tried to rise, but she jumped onto him, straddling his hips with her legs, pinning his arms above his head. He was strong, he could have pulled his arms free, but it would have meant using all his strength because she was strong too.

  He lay, tensed, his muscles rock under her hands, his jaw clenched. Staring into his eyes, she leant down and brought her mouth down to his, teasing his unresponsive lips, opening his mouth to her tongue. He hissed and bucked, trying to rise, but she pulled back, her face as intense as his.

  “It’s called kissing,” she said, grunting with the strain of holding him down.

  “I like it not,” he hissed.

  “I care not,” she laughed, “you have had it your way, but if you are going to your death today, you should at least know what it is like my way.”

  Pulling his hands up higher she held them in one of her own and used her free hand to undo his belt buckle. He was no longer struggling; his erection sprang free of his leather pants the moment she undid them, and she smirked. Looking up into his eyes, she released his hands and placed one of hers on his chest, the other she used to guide him inside her, not shifting her eyes from his.

  He gasped as she rocked her hips forward, raising herself up onto her knees and lowering herself onto his shaft, slowly this time, his full length. Leaning forward he grabbed her hips and pushed deeper as she moaned and leant back, watching his face as she ground her pelvis on him. This time he would not bite her, and this time, he would watch her face as she came, and she his. She knew it was not something he would forget any time soon.

  Later, after he had left, she lay on the rug in front of the fire and slept.

  When she awoke, she anticipated war would begin, but it came from a direction she was not expecting.

  Waking to the sound of shouting and the pounding of feet on rock, Sorrow groaned and crawled to her knees. Falling asleep on a thin rug in front of a fire that had rapidly burnt out meant she was stiff, and not a little sore from her fun with Khalili.

  Hearing more shouts, she put aside her discomfort and rushed to the windows. Throwing aside the wooden shutters she peered down. Men and women were running, screaming, to the walls, weapons raised. Children were running equally terrified towards the castle, some carrying infants, some toys, some holding hands, most crying in terror.

  “Fuck,” Sorrow spat, clambering back from the window and pulling on the nearest thing she could find; tracksuit pants and a hoodie. She paused to strap on her guns and swords before racing out the door and downstairs.

  She met Etienne half way down as he rushed upstairs to find her.

  “What is it?” she panted.

  “Sin, lots of them, pissed off, armed, hungry.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yes, you could say that. They have attacked the East wall to the town, there are parts there still under construction, lower than we would like, everyone was ordered there, but then another attack started in the West wall.”

  “East or West?” she asked as they pounded down the stairs, knowing Etienne would understand what she was asking without her having to spell it out.

  “East. They will need all the firepower they can get. West will be fine as long as the Sin don’t figure out how to climb or breach the wall.”

  Sorrow grinned maniacally; she knew there would be no breaching. She had followed her mother’s rule when it came to building walls thick enough to deter Sin, ‘make them at least two metres thick; fucking thick’ her mother had warned – and she had listened.

  “I’ll meet you on the wall,” she puffed, jogging ahead, “get John, tell him to hover above the attackers and fire the lasers, we should be able to disperse the
m relatively easily.”

  “Thank God for the pod, a few hours later and we would have been on our way to the Capital, and you would not have had the firepower to defeat them,” Etienne muttered, turning aside and jogging in another direction, presumably to wherever John was.

  Sorrow, nodded, also breathing a sigh of relief that the pod was still here.

  Making it to the base of the East wall and pausing to catch her breath, she looked up to see Khalili on the top, directing the humans to shoot arrows and throw spears in a coordinated effort. She noted the humans took direction from him without quibble; he was a natural leader. Racing up the stairs, pausing only to catch her breath, she joined him atop the battlements and gasped when she saw the horde surrounding them.

  “There must be 1000 Sin down there,” she gasped.

  “Never, in all my time, have I seen so many,” he agreed, “many tribes have joined to mount this attack.”

  “Holy shit,” she breathed. “Why would they all get together now? What could possibly have possessed them?”

  “There is your answer,” Khalili said, pointing to the adolescent they had previously taken to the caves.

  “Oh, that little cunt,” Sorrow spat.

  Khalili picked up a spear and hurled it, hitting a Sin midway between his heart and his head and knocking him off his feet.

  “They will rush; some will bolster others on their shoulders – they may manage to breach.”

  “No,” Sorrow said, raising her eyes to the sky as the pod suddenly loomed overhead, “they won’t.”

  Khalili bared his teeth as the laser began to shoot out of the pod and decimate row after row of Sin. For a minute they stood, stunned, as their fellow tribesmen fell around their feet, cauterised in half, arms, legs, heads, cut off instantly. On some unspoken order, almost as one, they suddenly turned, fleeing back towards the forest like a dark tide. The pod followed and cut down another hundred or so before they reached the safety of the trees before doing a 360 turn and heading to wreak the same carnage on the attackers of the West wall.

  The surviving Sin regrouped in the trees, Sorrow knew they would make another attempt to breach the wall, but this time would likely do so in a different manner. Knowing the Sin, and the fact there were several different tribes combined, the decision on the how and when would be violent and lengthy. This would give the humans a little breathing space to regroup and prepare.

  She could already hear a growing cheer rolling along the top of the wall from the defenders, laughing as they watched the Sin retreat.

  Sorrow stood back and stared sadly at the black mass of bodies lying all around the wall as the people cheered. It gave her no joy to see so much death, she wanted the Sin, humans and the Earthborn to live in peace.

  “It isn’t ever going to work is it?” she whispered.

  Khalili, his hearing remarkable even above the din, bared his teeth.

  “It will work,” he said, so quietly she almost thought she imagined it.

  She turned to him and met his gaze before he nodded and walked away.

  Sorrow stood for a long, long time looking at the bodies, before making her way back to the castle for some food and the inevitable meeting she knew she must call. She anticipated what the people would say; there could be no raid on the Capital today, no rescuing Khalili’s last remaining tribe members. They must defend the human populace at the expense of his friends and relatives. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she couldn’t think of any way around it.

  She was still trying to think of a solution when she walked into the castle to be greeted by deafening applause and shouts that she was a hero and had saved them all with her wall and weaponry.

  She didn’t feel like a hero.

  She stood shoulder to shoulder with her friend, keeping watch on the West wall, waiting for the inevitable attack.

  There would be no help from the pod tonight when the fresh wave of Sin inevitably attacked - she had sent John and a small contingent to the Capital, despite the angry opposition from the townspeople, to rescue Khalili’s tribesmen and get weapons.

  Naturally, the Sin leader had insisted on leading the raid, and although she knew she could have used his leadership on the walls, and although he was telling her, not asking her, she had nodded her assent on the proviso that Etienne stayed behind.

  She stood now, shoulder to shoulder with her French friend, waiting. Beyond her, dozens more men and women were lined up along the walls, spaced in pairs 100m apart, arrows cocked. The South and East walls were the same. All able-bodied adults and those old enough to throw a spear were at the ready. Many had vehemently opposed her plan to divert the pod to the Capital for the planned raid – others had suggested the pod should return with food, rather than weapons. But Sorrow had stayed firm.

  “There will be no use having weapons if our children are starving,” one woman shouted during the meeting.

  Sorrow raised her arms to quieten the crowd, eyeing the woman who had spoken and each vocal opponent individually. “The raid must go on as planned; we will retrieve weapons and the Sin – food will come from the outlying farms – you know as well as I do that word is spreading of our rebellion, people come every day from the prairies.”

  “And there will be no good having full bellies only to be eaten by the Sin,” a woman shouted from the rear of the crowd.

  There was some cheering and jeering at this.

  “You trusted me to build the wall,” Sorrow said quietly, so quietly that the crowd had to quell its angry buzz in order to hear her next words, “trust me now. We need weapons and medicines, and we need the Sin, those who helped us build the walls – we need them on our side, we need them as part of our new community. The walls will hold. The next time we raid the Capital, if there is a next time, we will get food, if we need to – but I honestly believe it will not be necessary. When the portal opens, many of you will go back to Earth, those that stay will be well-provisioned.”

  And that was the crux of the matter. There might not ever need to be another raid, once the portals opened.

  Looking now at the humans’ erect shoulders as they stood on the wall, she thought over her promise at the meeting earlier that day. When the gates opened, all those humans who wished to go back to Earth would do so. Those who wanted to stay could, although they were few enough, limited really to those fourth or fifth generation Heaven.

  To those who wanted to return to the world from which they had been kidnapped she had issued a warning: you might not go to the time you were taken. To a man and woman, they could care less. All they wanted to do was escape the Sin, the Earthborn, and a planet upon which they were doomed to live a basic and rudimentary existence. For those who had been stolen by the aliens from modern-day Earth, there was no question of them wanting to return, no matter at what stage of human history they returned – it would at least be human history.

  Sorrow had agreed that as soon as this Sin force was defeated, and the pod returned from the Capital, she would begin marching on the gates. She aimed to overthrow the Earthborn guarding the portals and allow the humans access straight through. She knew many would lose their lives in the effort, but it was a risk all but those with children had decided to take. Those humans with small children had agreed to stay behind at the Keep until the gates were secured. They would be transported by pod to the portals the moment the Earthborn were subdued and the gates commandeered by humans. Others had said they would join her in the assault on the gates; still others said they would follow further behind – ready to jump through at the first opportunity.

  For her part, although she had not yet shared her plan with Etienne, she intended to stay.

  Now, standing on the battlements, she considered the darkness, the too-quiet forest, and thought of her interlude with Khalili the morning before he left, his dark body under hers, the heat, the lust. She knew she wanted to do it again, not because she loved him, because she wanted him, wanted to feel him inside her, wanted to scratch him and scream in
ecstasy, leaving all her troubles behind as he pounded her body. ‘What does this say about me? That I want to use this man’s body, to sink my teeth into his muscles, to lick his sweat. Have I changed so much? Or am I just enjoying life as a normal 19-year-old girl would, for the first time?’

  “How many women have you slept with Etienne?” she asked her friend as she stared out into the dark tree line.

  “Ah minette, that is not a question that ever ends well for me,” he chuckled, adjusting his stance so his fingers were relaxed on the bow, his machine gun having run out of bullets weeks prior.

  “I’ll not asking as a jealous lover,” she laughed, nudging him with her shoulder, “there won’t be any ramifications.”

  “There are always ramifications,” he sighed, “why do you wish to know?”

  “I just wondered, you know, Mum said you were a French Lothario, that you had half a dozen mistresses in Cairo during the war and plenty more in every place you had ever been. I wondered if, well, if you loved any of them.”

  Etienne looked at the stars and smiled.

  “Every one of them,” he sighed, “I loved aspects of every one of them. I am, you might say, a connoisseur of women. I find them interesting, challenging, sly, devious and wonderful creatures. I have never met one whom I didn’t admire for one reason or another. Except perhaps the bitch-slut who kept us prisoner in the Capital, but even then, you know,” he grinned, “there was something to be said for her breasts.”

  Sorrow snorted and shook her head.

  “I should have known better than to ask,” she said ruefully.

  “Not at all,” Etienne said, his voice serious now, “I am being truthful. As an artist, I see beauty in many things, not just physical beauty. It might be in the way a woman sighs, her turn of phrase, the way she steps, many things.”

  “And what do you think they see in you?” Sorrow laughed quietly, “apart from your rapier wit and obvious charm.”

  “Mon Dieu, you are vicious tonight,” he laughed gently, “they get from me what they cannot get elsewhere. A small, beautiful escape from the drudgery of their lives. And, of course, the best sex they ever had – and there is a lot to be said for losing yourself in the physical act, setting aside all your worries, your fears, surrendering yourself wholly and completely for however short a time, to pleasure.”