The brown robes slid smoothly down her soft breasts and landed as a heap on the floor. The image in the mirror was that of a confident woman with legs that seemed to never end. Marking her milky complexion, just below her smooth and ample bosom was a dark scar.
Starting right below her right breast, the scar ran down her abdomen, ending just below her deep navel. A souvenir from the time of the rebellion. A reminder of her true origins and her true nature –that of a warrior.
Her mind quickly travelled to Vikranth and how his hand usually lingered along the scar, caressing it gently as they lay in each other’s arms. For a moment, she was aroused but then the thoughts quickly turned to fright and anxiety as she wondered where Vikranth was and how his battle with the Forgiven had turned out.
She knew what she had to pray for tonight. She quickly put on her prayer robes and shut out any thoughts of Vikranth and her own rebellion.
A striped lizard crept up a tree in Nallamala forest as its massive round eyes first saw the arrival of the unexpected visitors. Footsteps and the sharp sound of horses treading on plants and twigs echoed through the dark woods.
Vikranth’s eyes were starting to feel weary. The entire ordeal was a tiring one. The scavengers had put up a stronger fight than he had expected. He had lost quite a few horsemen too. He looked back and saw an Ashvin with a crudely bandaged, bloodied stump in place of his left arm. Someone else was missing an eye.
Triven who rode beside him spoke as if he had read Vikranth’s mind.
“It wasn't your fault,” he said. “It was war.”
“And whose fault is the war?” Vikranth asked. The forest responded with silence.
“The Lord’s work had to be done,” Triven said.
“I am tired of doing the Lord’s work,” Vikranth snapped. “Especially when the Lord himself doesn’t tell me to do it.”
Triven’s face turned pale with shock. “Blasphemy!” he whispered.
Vikranth shook his head. “You seriously think the Purohit is fit for the throne of judgement? He rescued me himself, but a great leader is not always the right one, Triven,” he said.
“And the right one is not always a great one,” Triven retorted. “None of us would be alive if not for him. No one else can access the Beam force better than him.”
“I agree. But we need to change how things are done. And we will!” Vikranth stated.
“No offense, but are you sure you are not being swayed by something else?” Triven asked.
Vikranth had often wondered if Triven and Eeshan knew about him and Urushi. He had guarded it as closely as he could, but they were almost brothers to him. But he couldn’t be sure what they felt about it. He would need them for a coup. Triven’s question startled him.
What if they rise against him?
“It is not about me,” Vikranth said. “The laws are holding people back. It is not fair. I am going to speak to the Purohit about reforms once we get back. And if he doesn’t agree, I should be confident that the Ashvins would stand behind me.”
He looked into Triven’s eyes.
Triven hesitated for a moment before finally saying, “Of course! You are and always will be our Dalapathy.”
Vikranth smiled.
“Thank you Triven!” he said. “Kalki Commands!”
“Kalki Comm-” Triven stopped mid–sentence as he suddenly heard something in the distance.
The look on Vikranth’s face showed he heard it too.
A distant rustle of the trees. A silent crunching of the grass and twigs. The sound of a herd moving silently.
“Could it be some wild animals?” Triven whispered.
“No!” said Vikranth with a look of horror etched onto his face. It was far too quiet for any wild animal. He knew what it was.
“Kinkars!”
CRAWLING DEATH
Roy's wrists bled onto the rusty chains as he stood perplexed, wondering why they had stopped moving.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the horsemen in front.
“You holy fuckers tired of escorting us already?”
The horseman’s whip cracked again. All the harsh whipping he had received since morning had reduced his shirt to tattered pieces of torn cloth clinging to his bleeding and swollen back. The blows from the whips no longer surprised him but they still hurt. He was still reeling from pain when he finally understood why they had stopped.
A rustle in the wind. A subtle crack of a twig in the distance. The calming sound of bushes and plants being trampled upon and ploughed through by a silent horde. A horde of things which in the woods were moving, creeping…crawling.
The Thuggees had had many stories about these beasts to tell when Roy had been with them. Cautionary tales of horror and gore to spice up the nights…stories of legend and myth to be exchanged –sitting around the fire.
The horses were now starting to get restless. The mute beasts neighed and reared as they picked up signs of the approaching mutant beasts. The horseman guarding Roy was now trying hard to control his horse, pulling hard at the reins. Suddenly out of nowhere came the first of the Crawlers. It jumped onto the horseman, pushing him off his horse. The creature had been so quick that Roy hadn’t got a good glimpse of what it had looked like. All he had seen was a scaly, spiny creature on all fours, jumping out of the bushes and sweeping away at the clueless horseman.
He immediately snatched his katana from the saddle bag of the now rider-less horse but before he could gather his wits, another crawler latched onto the horse pinning it to the ground and chewing away at its neck.
There were screams everywhere. The horsemen abandoned the horses and ran while the Forgiven tried to unlatch their chains from the horses.
Roy stood in shock, watching the unholy feast happening before him. None of the stories he had heard did the actual creatures any justice. The creature plucking away at the horse was pale and hairless. Its skin was stretched over its bony frame like a leathery rag. It unpleasantly reminded Roy of the insides of a bat’s wings.
Yet one could clearly see that this monster in front of him had once been a human. It was strangely yet familiarly humanoid in shape but moved about on all floors like a scaly lizard. The pale skin was pockmarked with long and sharp spines that protruded out of the skin like needles.
The spines were scattered on its head and ran all the way across the middle of its back. Its forearms and ankles were also covered in spines.
The real horror though, was that it did not look totally mindless as its sharp razor-like teeth dug deeper into the horse. There was still a semblance of cognizance and intelligence buried deep inside.
Maybe it was the clothes that gave Roy this impression. The creature was covered in a crude torso armour made out of chains and pieces of metal, wood and tree bark.
As he looked transfixed and shocked, the Crawler paused for a moment and slowly turned to look at him. It looked into his eyes –the long, red coiling intestines of the horse dangling from its mouth. Blood streamed down the Crawler’s jaw as it bit slowly into the intestines. But more horrifying than the gore and guts were the creature’s eyes. Red-veined bloodshot eyes that peered into his very soul and stripped it naked.
The General screamed in pain as a Crawler bit into his arm.
He caught the monster by its neck and pulled it off his arm. He kicked the Crawler in the ribs sending it tumbling away. He threw his chain around its neck and started pulling.
The Crawler writhed and screamed as it choked. Its lean and muscular arms were strong but not strong enough to counter the brute strength of the General.
Another one jumped on the General from behind, forcing him onto his knees. It dug its teeth into his shoulder. He could feel the blood wetting his back, followed by an unbearable pain as the Crawler bit out a chunk of meat from his shoulder. He screamed hard, lifted his arms, grabbed his devourer from his back and punched it hard in the face. The Crawler staggered for a moment and hissed sharply at him.
The Ge
neral stood up and looked around.
Crawlers started surrounding him from all sides. Their sharp claws and teeth were hungry for his guts. They slowly closed in like a cloud of death around him. He stood there panting for a moment.
This is not what I have survived so long for, he thought.
This was not how he would go. He knelt down, picked up the chains and started wrapping them around his bulky hands.
The chains felt heavy and cold. He wrapped them around and around until his entire forearms and fists were armoured in the black metal chains. He slowly stood up, his hands heavy and ready by his side.
He clenched his fists harder.
“Bring it on!” he whispered, as the circle of death closed in around him.
Vikranth shot a kinkar in the face, and saw an eyeball flying away as the face erupted into smithereens.
He turned around and shot another one. One of them bit his arm. The kinkar’s teeth dug deep. He could feel its teeth touch the bone in his fore arm.
He screamed as the gun fell from his arms.
“Do not abandon your posts!” he shouted to his fellow horsemen as he kicked the kinkar away.
They are not strong, he thought, but quick and deadly.
He picked up his gun, and shot a couple more of them as they tried to latch on to him.
He saw Triven struggling with a kinkar to his side. He quickly ran over and pulled the creature away from Triven. It fell to the ground and Vikranth put a bullet through its head.
He helped Triven get up.
“Huddle up. We can beat them if we stand united. Gather everyone,” Vikranth instructed Triven.
They quickly gathered few other Ashvins and were looking for more, when Vikranth first saw the Priest Eater.
The legends were indeed true.
A huge behemoth walked towards him; standing over eight feet tall, and towering above all others was this unearthly kinkar.
He was dressed in shoulder and knee pads. Chains ran across his upper body as a sort of a makeshift armour. He breathed heavily and with each breath, his fangs bared themselves –long and sharp as knives.
He walked like a huge deformed gorilla. On his back grew spines both small and big. To his right side, the spines grew out of his back disproportionately into sharp and deadly deformities. Spines and scales covered his head making his head look like that of a porcupine.
This grotesque monster carried a wooden club. Nails were driven onto the club’s head. Its end was connected to chain that was wrapped around the Priest Eater’s huge wrists. He stooped a little as he walked – like a caveman. His skin was scaly and lizard like.
A chill ran down Vikranth’s spine as the Priest Eater gave out a deafening roar and hurtled towards him like a raging bull.
Vikranth aimed his gun and started shooting.
The Priest Eater was not especially quick. But what he lacked in speed, he made up for it in brute strength.
Vikranth was sure a bullet hit the kinkar but he didn’t stop. Vikranth could feel the ground tremble beneath his feet as the beast approached. The chains around his upper body rang and clinked sharply as bullets ricocheted off them and then suddenly, click.
Vikranth ran out of bullets.
Before he knew it the Priest Eater was right in front of him. Vikranth felt as if he was staring into the eyes of death. The Priest Eater was frighteningly large, especially when seen up close.
Vikranth looked on in shock as the behemoth swung his club at his head, and then darkness was all that Vikranth knew.
Lifeless bodies and torn limbs surrounded the General. But those were not the corpses of his fellow Forgiven or their captors –the Sinless. They were the corpses of the Crawlers.
The General lay in a bloody heap, covered from head to toe in blood and organic tissue. His hair was drenched and matted in blood and slime. His hands were covered in chains that had turned bright red from all the blood that they had spilled, all the flesh that they had torn and all the bones that they had broken.
He sat alone among all that carnage, laughing hysterically. Tears streamed from his eyes mixing with the blood and the slime that smeared his face.
Through the tears, he saw the Crawlers retreat, hissing at each other, conversing in their own primitive language. He saw their leader up ahead in the distance, roaring and signalling his muscular arm to retreat and move on.
On his shoulder, the giant leader carried the body of one of the Sinless. Alive or dead, the General didn’t know.
He recognized the body as the leader of the horsemen.
The Crawlers were either taking a hostage or taking back a trophy, depending on whether the one he was carrying was dead or just unconscious.
The General observed that the Crawlers were cleverer and more cognizant than what he thought of them.
At least their leader was.
It wasn’t long before Roy ran up to the General.
“General! Are you ok?” Roy said, kneeling beside him.
“Oh my God!” Roy whispered, as he surveyed the entirety of the General’s body.
There were bite marks all over him. He was missing huge chunks of flesh. There were no means of telling how much of the blood on him was the Crawlers’ and how much of it was his.
But one thing was certain. The General no longer had a left upper arm. It was completely eaten off, baring his shoulder bone. His arm was completely gone right from his shoulder to his biceps. Thin strands of flesh hung loosely to the bone.
“We need to clean you up!” Roy said, still reeling from the gory image.
“Cut it off!” the General said.
“What?”
The General grabbed Roy by his collar.
“Cut my arm off, you little shit,” the General barked. “It’ll only get infected. Cut it off so that we can burn and close off the wound.”
“No… I can’t…There must be…” Roy muttered.
“There’s no other way. Now make it quick and make it precise. This is the closest you’ll ever come to putting that stupid sword of yours to good use.”
Roy reluctantly stood up and drew his katana. He held it high in the air above his head. He blinked and gulped, looking into the General’s eyes. He couldn’t digest what he was about to do.
“Do it, you fucking coward! Where’s that Thuggee blood of yours?” The General snapped through gritted teeth.
Roy screamed out loud, and brought his katana swinging down with all the strength he could muster.
THE PRIESTESS
Pradeep and Veda ran towards the scream. It was the General screaming.
They had reached him only to find him lying in a pool of blood with Roy by his side. It was only when they walked closer that could see the severed arm.
“Run, boy. Fetch me something to burn this wound close,” the General’s voice shook with pain as he ordered Roy.
Roy left, shaking his head.
Pradeep dropped to his knees beside the General.
“Don’t look at me like that,” the General growled. “I am going to be fine,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
He groaned a little before continuing.
“I need you to do something for me,” his breath was raspy.
“Anything!” Pradeep promised.
“The weapons chamber of the caves,” he said. “It’s beyond the water passage. The fire…” he grunted in pain.
“The fire might not have reached it. Run now. All of us can’t. We are too fucking wounded and too short of food. Going along with the Sinless maybe the only chance of survival for us. But not you –you run,” he ordered. “Run before the Sinless round us up again. Find the other Forgiven that have escaped with the Librarian and get hold of the weapons. Then maybe when the time comes and if it is needed, you may come rescue the rest of your brothers and sisters from that tyrant.”
Pradeep shook his head.
“No! I can’t General. I can’t leave all of you. I go where you go.”
The General coughed a
nd grunted in pain. “Run, Pradeep! Before the Sinless recover from the attack,” his voice sounded forced and weak. “You want to really help the Forgiven? This is the only way you can save us.”
Pradeep shook his head. “No…Especially leaving you in such a condition…”
The General held Pradeep’s hand, covering it with blood.
“This is what I want. I have tried to protect these people all my life. It’s now up to you. I have always trusted you, Pradeep. I know you won’t let me down. Go now. Quick!”
Pradeep hesitantly stood up.
“I am coming with you,” Veda said.
Pradeep shook his head vigorously.
“No, you aren’t, Veda! You stay with the General.”
“Roy and the others will take care of him. I know the General better than you, Pradeep,” she said looking at the General. “I know he will pull through. For me,” she said, looking at the General.
The General nodded.
Veda looked into Pradeep’s eyes.
“If you are going to do this and do this right, you are going to need help. The wastelands are a dangerous place, even for the commander of the Forgiven.”
The General grunted.
“She’s right. Now get out of here,” he urged.
Pradeep took Veda’s hand, and turned to the General.
“Forgiven, Forever!” he said.
“Forgiven, Forever,” the General repeated.
And with that, Pradeep and Veda mounted one of the horses –a white stallion with dark feet. With Pradeep’s red scarf and Veda’s hair fluttering in the winds, they rode off into the jungle, on a journey that would take them closer to their dark fates.
Urushi picked up the Book of Kalki, and walked down to the prayer hall.
The book had always felt heavy and out of place in her hands, but today it felt awfully burdensome. The old yellowed pages seemed to be screaming at her in agony for being squished between the front and back covers.
She ignored the screams.
Her smooth skin felt cold and sterile as she entered the prayer hall. The huge walls and high ceiling looked down upon her like great stony beasts. She knelt down at the pillar of penance and lighted an incense stick. The smoke and aroma always took her back to the day when she had been first brought to the pillar. They had it as homage to all the Sinless that had died during the Night of the Kinkars. It would stand as a symbol of courage and strength that the martyred Sinless had displayed on that day.
Sinners- The Dawn Of Kalki Page 11