The air grew thick with tension as the rumble of engines heralded the rebels' arrival. Through the haze of smoke and dust appeared the imposing outline of Aygu, The Mad Butcher of Buriti. His scarred mouth was set in a cruel grin, relishing at having reduced the capital to smithereens.
I had narrowly followed Aiko's athletic militant figure out the door before they had caught us off guard. There must either be snakes among my men's ranks or these guerilla fighters actually were a real threat. I cupped my hand to my eye as I was surrounded by royal guards. The large ally tank aimed dangerously above my head.
Aiko moved swiftly in front of me, shielding my body with her own as she leveled her rifle at the warlord's bald head. Her entire body trembled with rage at the sight of her family's killer, her finger hovering over the trigger.
"If it isnt would be Queen Aiko," Aygu rumbled in his gravelly voice. "I hoped we would meet again. You've grown more lovely since our last encounter." His lewd gaze raked over her as his men fanned out, cutting off any escape.
"I've dreamt of this day," Aiko hissed through gritted teeth. Her eyes blazed with a fury I had never seen. All soldiers but her were anxious. I felt my dreadlocks blowing in the Buriti breeze. Chalky crimson dust integrated with silver dust stung my eyes as it clung to anything on its track.
Aygu simply chortled. "The orphan turned concubine still clinging to her delusions of vengeance. When will you realize your precious lineage were sufficient casualties?" He wiped his bald head with a small rag. His soldiers could be no older than mere boys. The head among them; was a 14-year-old boy with an eye scar like mine.
With a primal scream, Aiko crammed the trigger. The thunderclap rang out, despite Aygu still standing smiling with absent teeth not paved to the sky. The royal guard remained steadfast as Aygus Cartel squirmed in apprehension.
Aygu knew as much as Aiko and I rued we would get nowhere with more Buriti bloodshed. The smoke from her rifle rose above the barrel of the tank looming above us. I hope I am not seeing the premonition of its blast.
"You have said enough Aygu...If I were you--and im glad I'm not; I would think very carefully about the way you address the Minister of Internal Affairs and head general of all Vascan armies." His eyes narrowed as the titles stabbed his ears. Not even Buriti cased bullets pierced this man...but a woman in power seemed to gut him for every stray bullet meant for him.
He twisted his lips to speak. "You mean to--" I stepped from behind Aiko fiercely planting my feet into the ashes of my homeland. The sudden shift caused his soldiers to take their safeties off as he raised a solitary hand.
"I don't MEAN to do anything....My cousin said that to me and I let the people play with his insides. I am telling you how this works." I motioned to the half-destroyed statue of my father that sat in ramshackle near the factory. The backdrop reminded me of the collapsed mines my father toured. His 'condolences' were always more than enough for the people--now those who didn't flee lay burned and dead among the ariel obliteration.
"You have fought your whole life for the good of Buriti! Like Aiko, you bleed for our country and rally the people in campaigns to better our ways. I do not see why we cannot work together to continue our push against Svetlan." I saw the weary young eyes of Aygus cartel members waning with each word. I do not think I am doing anything to sway the adults but...disarming the enemy is key to this.
I noticed the wide, weary eyes of several young rebel soldiers as Aygu and I faced off. Boys that couldn't yet be men, hollow-cheeked and covered head to toe in the same crimson dust that swirled around us.
Most looked more exhausted than bloodthirsty - years of grueling warfare having extinguished that early call for violence. Their fate and families had been tangled with the rebel cause from birth; Aygu's closest followers knew no other life.
I wondered if in their shoes, with my family destroyed and homeland in ruins around me, I too would cling to any shred of purpose...even one as twisted as Aygu's dreams of power. In desperate moments it mattered little whether briefly shared goals were virtuous, only that they offered reprieve from despair.
As I stepped forward to confront the Butcher of Buriti, I felt a swirl of emotions. Foremost was bone-deep weariness - when would we stop tearing each other apart? Underneath lay cold rage at this monster who tore lives apart without a second glance. But the anger collided with resignation - the recognition that brute force had only bred more devastation.
If we continued answering blood with blood, retaliation justifying retaliation, eventually we'd all lay dead atop the smoldering ashes of a once-vibrant land. Neither Aygu's men nor my soldiers had enough spirit left for this ugliness without end.
So I hid the raging black storm inside and instead spoke of ceasefires and compromise. Aygu searched my steady gaze, perhaps seeing the flickers of sorrow and fury and disgust within. In the end, he too was tired of endless war, the sacrifice bringing diminishing returns - what sort of leader can't deliver either basic security or hope?
And so an allegiance was brokered atop the ruins. Both believe we could use the other to advance our own goals in time. While those around us clung to weapons and glared across enemy lines, inside both Aygu and I felt the true fight seeping from our bones after too long with no glimpse of peace. Even warlords bend before the promise of quieter days.
Aygu's face turned up in disgust as he spit into the cracked city street. "I will not work with you while those Light-Dogs seek refuge in our border." His eyes flashed to two of my soldiers who were blue-eyed and light-toned. I knew what was coming next yet I must play my part.
My eye twitched as he began pointing his gun at the two low-ranking soldiers. "Those two have no reason for life among our sands--I demand to be made honorary war chief counsel; This way you may not trick me with your silly 'politics'" He motioned to his open mouth as the only remaining teeth he had were 4 sharpened fangs.
This was one of the silliest traditions held since our people were mere nomadic storytellers of the dunes. What first was a generational mutation culled had resurged as culture late into the second century. Small contrivances like this and Aygu's family still keeping this trait are why im not deemed fit for the rule. I bared my straight teeth as I knew he would speak again
"I am a true Buriti noble-blood, surely you cant deny me such right as to take hold of our kingdoms tribal might...If I am made head general--The war will be over. You have my promise by blood pact Huckleberry Vasca." He stepped forward. I could feel Aiko burning a hole in the back of my head in rage.
She most likely thought I had subverted her position--I did not have time to explain to her the simple tactic of keeping a wild cave dog in a cage. "You have my word you and your men will be treated as equal political and military entities throughout the country. I expect you to set up a base of operations and handle the task of briefing yourself on the current state of affairs." I stuck my hand out as he continued his slow pace.
He pulled a knife from his belt and handed it to me blade first. This was a clear sign of disrespect among our people... I Meant to say I am a welp who needs testing before even handling the steel. "You will answer to your king like tradition dictates, Aygu. You know the sacred duty as my war chief is tantamount to blasphemy unkept..."
I slashed my hand as my dark blood mixed into the ashes below me. The smell of iron quickly disappeared. Aygu stuck his hand out expentantly waiting for me to return the knife handle first.
I felt the hot sun on my back as I violently headbutted the bulky man square in the bridge of his nose. I put the knife quickly to his throat as the nearing 60-year-old man struggled to his knee. Aiko and my soldier's guns clicked in unison as the children seemed to freeze in fear. their leader lay there nearing death
"All you Vasca scum are the fucking same...you kill you own brothers to fill your pockets...." His words meant nothing to me, I only knew my next move as the air was thick with ash and tension.
"Stick your hand out to me Aygu....again" He hesitated looking past me--most likely at Aiko's piercing gaze and firing squad ready to end us both. Slowly he stuck his hand out to me as I lifted the knife from his neck.
I heard his screams before I felt myself repeatedly hacking off his fingers with the blocky dull knife. His right hand poured blood as the once infamous butcher's digits fell to the ground with no fanfare.
Aygu clutched his bloodied wrist, face contorted in agony and primal fury. His knees buckled as he swayed, no longer the imposing rebel warlord but a weakened aging man undone by trauma. As his severed fingers dropped into the dust, he reached for them with his intact hand - a reflexive, pathetic attempt to undo the disfigurement. Masterless fingers twitched in the ashes like five separate hearts ripped free.
When Aygu finally touched his forehead to the ground in submission, the effort nearly caused him to collapse entirely. I bore some of his weight as he shuddered, face ashen beneath the crimson dirt. Only by locking eyes with me did he slowly regain some composure - my own manic rage reflected back sparking his will to vengeance.
Aiko's body flinched as my knife blade hacked bone. Her iron discipline kept her rifle trained ahead, but I glimpsed the fire in her eyes guttering to apprehension. The royal edict against obstructing a Vascan king flickered in her mind - to intervene was treason punishable by slow impalement even for one raised like a sibling. As Aygu's wailing subsided to whimpers, Aiko let her rigid stance falter ever so slightly, angling away from my dissolving sanity. She had longed for righteous vengeance, not this perverse and pitiless mutilation. With Aygu kneeling in fealty she saw the truth - I was carving our fates as Buriti's protector and avenger myself now in blood using Aygu as my stepping stone in this quest. She would stand guard or die with locked jaws following any order...but feared what black future awaited with me enthroned. If not she knew now clearly where I stood for my country
The young rebel troops looked on in dismayed shock as their leader - once seeming an indomitable monster - howled over his mangled hand. Eyes wide, one boy vomited into the crimson dust. Their faith in Aygu's strength was fundamental to their cause, as central as family. Watching his casual cruelty toward his own was deeply disturbing yet clarifying. They had pledged their lives to a master who considered them as disposable as Buriti waste. Their bodies recoiled in synchronized pulses of anger, nausea, and disillusionment.
As Aygu's blood dripped down my forearm, my breath came fast and hard, almost euphoric from the release of violence. I realized a vital pressure valve had blown - years of swallowed rage at weak and corrupt leaders who brought our land only suffering. In maiming the warlord, I had crippled my own patience with non-solutions dressed as tradition or propriety. Buriti's head continued rolling, her body decaying; fear and frail dignity resolved nothing. We needed decisive action.
The electric fury slowly left me, but it felt righteous...even familiar already. I knew such power could grow addictive and toxic, yet offered the only way forward I now saw. I would rally our fractured armies and march North to tear that white Svetlan flag off Buriti's wretched face...or die with honor trying.
The facade Messiah would not get my sister's hand in marriage as they planned with my mother safe in their capital. He would feel my Moldavite fist buried deep in his esophagus; changing the fate of this world or burnt out in my own heat death.
His eyes bulged as he held his misshaped bleeding stump along with his severed fingers. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU--THAT WAS MY SHOOTING HAND!" The mad war tyrant nearly seemed to cry as he looked into my eyes. Something must have chilled his bones because he no longer feared his bleeding hand but fell silent waiting for me to speak.
"You are mine now Aygu....Everything in this whole fucking country will bend to me or die beneath the sand--Do you understand me? Or is that not strong enough for a true Buriti King to expect of his sacred people?" silence fell upon the whole area as I turned, Putting my bleeding hand in my pocket.
I knew he would plot his revenge--He would have to get in line...
Aygu clutched his bloodied wrist tightly, face deformed in agony and crude outrage. "You sadistic royal fuck!" he spat. "You expect me to serve under you after..." His chest heaved as he fought to stand, swaying unsteadily.
I came back swiftly before he could even catch his shitty breath then grabbed his shirt collar, pulling his face dangerously close to mine. "Look around you," I hissed, I felt my red eyes flash in the heat of the moment. "Your rebel army are nothing but children with deadly toys, your hand a mangled mess. Buriti burns while Svetlan's laughter echoes from the hills." I tightened my grip. "So yes, you will call me King and bow, or join the corpses feeding the fucking flies."
Aygu searched my cold eyes, finally glimpsing the same unhinged desperation that drove him. We both knew the pain of watching our homeland raped and dismembered time and again. It resonated in the marrow of every Buriti child. He saw reflected in me the same willingness to visit cruelty upon enemy and brother alike when vision narrows to blind survival. I locked his gaze, refusing to be the first to yield.
"The enemy of my enemy..." Aygu muttered at last. He tried to kneel, wavering as his body betrayed him. I steadied his mass, blood slick between our skin. His forehead touched the dust in supplication. When he rose again the warlord's eyes held a new gleam - the prospect of vengeance without bearing its ultimately lethal cost alone.
Aiko braced against the factory wall as this blood pact forged. I sensed her military rigidity barely caging the howl within. She had dreamed so long of wreaking vengeance herself....yet this was not justice.
I knew an earful was in my future from anyone who could speak into it. Yet I chuckled to myself again.
I WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED....