Chapter 2

869 Words
From the Journal of Malaik Blasted rock and charcoaled tree trunks covered the earth. Dazed people, nearly as grey as the desiccated forest that surrounded them, stood in scattered clumps, the only signs of life in any direction. Some swayed, pain hunching their backs with its weight, crevassing their faces into unrecognisable masks. Others remained motionless, too traumatised from the cataclysmic event to respond to the destruction that had ripped away their beautiful world and replaced it with … this. I stood amid the ruin of our village. Despair curdled my stomach and my heart clenched with grief. Heat seared my eyes. I forced them to stay open, to witness the disaster this handful of people had survived. Half-bodies and parts lay scattered as if some ravenous monster had made a mess of his meal. A stray breeze swept a thin layer of white dust into the air and I had to fight back the urge to vomit. A few short leagues away, pristine columns of energy shot from earth to a churning sky. Clouds seemed to sizzle as lightning flashed. At their base, ash-streaked dirt formed twisting clouds. The breeze turned into wind and whipped the twisters higher, fanning it out into a great storm of sand and death. I closed my eyes and waited for the storm to pass. The sting of sand flayed my body until I thought I could stand no more; that surely I had no more skin left to lose. A whimpering moan reached me and I knew I had no choice. It had been ripped from us all as surely as the life had been rent from our brothers and sisters. The whimpering was joined by another until the cries harmonised with the roar of the storm and gave it a horrible lucidity like no other storm before it. Some voices faltered and faded; others sang on in misery and grew in strength. The wind dropped. Debris settled. The remains of the dead were blown away or covered and the land was clean again. Almost. I forced my head to turn with a grinding wrench of muscles and joints. Dunes had started to form; their surface reflected the torture of the clouds overhead. An entire jungle had vanished in one day, a new desert formed. A river, deep and clear, had become a cracked and pitted gash in the earth. Nothing would grow here for a long time; nothing would walk or hunt, play or dance in this arid expanse. I thought I might cry at the loss of what was and could have been, but tears evaporated as soon as they formed and I was left with nothing but the fist around my heart. I breathed deeply and turned again, to face the columns. Many had died—Alffür, Ryrdri, animals and birds, plants—yet I stood on the banks of a once great river with the swell of hard fought victory prickling my soul, transforming my grief into the heavy realisation that the Alffür would go on, that nothing lasted forever, not even death. Shuffling in the sand, the barest touch in my thoughts, I knew I no longer stood alone. ‘We cannot survive such a h*******t again.’ Uday, one of the artisans, stood beside me. I hoped that she was not the only one left. We would need all the Makers we had left to stand any chance of rebuilding. Tears tracked macabre lines across her cheeks. ‘No,’ I answered. ‘We cannot.’ Others grouped behind us, reaching out for physical and mental comfort. ‘Why must they destroy?’ someone asked. ‘It is their nature,’ I answered. ‘As it is ours to deny them.’ ‘And what of hope?’ I stared straight ahead. One by one, the columns flickered and extinguished. The sky too settled, steel-blue roiling clouds softened to grey and started to break apart. A gentler, cooler breeze washed over them. I could feel the healing start. My mouth relaxed from tight grimace into the beginnings of a smile. Cracked lips stung anew and then they too healed. ‘Hope comes,’ I told them and pointed across the carcass of the river. Figures walked toward the opposite bank, their numbers growing as each column died. A paltry number. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Paltry, but strong. I could sense that much. ‘A buffer between those who would destroy and those who would not.’ My voice was losing its raspiness of a few moments earlier. ‘Who are they?’ Uday asked. ‘Harbingers of future hope.’ The last of our people crowded closer, a mix of curiosity, fear, blind faith … and yes, hope. The first figure to reach the far bank halted and looked around, the hint of a question in the set of her naked shoulders. She looked at me cautiously. I nodded and opened my hand to welcome her to my side. The air around her appeared to shimmer, reflecting light as ripples in water. She vanished behind it. I felt her surge toward me, sensed the exact moment a tiny spark of energy lit in the palm of my hand, and met her dark gaze as it reappeared in front of me. Our hands clasped together to signify a new, eternal bond. ‘Who are they?’ Whispers slid around the small group. Others joined us. ‘They are the Hunters,’ I answered. ‘And they are here to protect us all.’
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