After the Carnage

 

As Alithea and Fallon approached the garrison compound, the silence made them especially cautious. When Erthen pointed to the waiting elephant and made a sound, Alithea covered his mouth with her lips to signal quiet to the boy.

“Sisseku?” Fallon called out as they neared the open pavilion. He put out an arm to block Alithea as he scanned the tables where the bodies slumped in death. “Sisseku!” Her body was slumped forward at a nearby table, her head cradled in folded arms. As he had done with the others, Fallon touched her neck to feel for a pulse.

“What?” Sisseku abruptly jerked awake and lifted her head. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“I thought you had died like the others,” Fallon said.

Sisseku  looked past Fallon to Alithea and Erthen. “Who are they? They are not from the village.”

“My partner and child.” Since they were leaving, Fallon saw no point in lying and introduced them. “We are going to leave. We don’t feel safe here.”

Sisseku was disappointed. “Help me load the meat onto the pallet. This is a wonderful gift for the others in the village.”

Alithea wandered through the bench seats in the pavilion, occasionally reaching for a pulse on a soldier’s neck. She came upon the queen, her head slumped on the table in front of her. She reached down, grabbed the queen’s light brown hair and gently lifted the head from the table. The skin was pale in death, as though carved from a stone of pale moonlight. “I do my own bidding, not yours.” She turned her face to Erthen, who reached up a small hand to touch her lips. “Respect, baby boy. We respect others.” She leaned her face to the boy as he gurgled babble words at her, then let the queen’s hair loose. The head fell forward with a dull thud.

Fallon helped load the meat on the pallet, ready to fend off any questions about the food or Alithea, but Sisseku did not ask how Alithea came to be there. “Sisseku, where did the Fae rider go?”

“She went over the palace earlier while we were preparing the food,” Sisseku said as she looked around. The elephant curled its trunk around a clump of grass, yanked it from the dirt, then tucked the grass into its mouth.

“Such strange creatures,” Fallon said.

“We need some of the meat,” Alithea reminded Fallon.

“Why don’t you come down to the village?” Sisseku asked. “It’s getting late and you’ll be safe.” She looked around. “You’ll need water and I wouldn’t drink what they have here. Who knows what killed them?”

Fallon glanced at Alithea, who was alert to the conversation. “Sisseku suggests that we spend the night in the village.”

“They will be curious about me,” Alithea warned. “Now she knows that we are together.”

“Let’s take the chance. Since the queen and her garrison are dead, they may not care. In the morning we can properly prepare food for the journey.”

“There’s a Fae rider in the village who patrols with a wolf bear at night,” Alithea reminded him.

“The village is north,” Fallon argued. “The cave where we were captured is that way. There may be some of our belongings there. We cut up the meat and leave tonight from the village?” They agreed and Fallon helped tie the meat to the pallet, then covered it to protect it from flying insects which were becoming more numerous in the twilight air.

“How do we tell this beast where to go?” Alithea asked as she bounced Erthen on her hip.

Fallon turned to Sisseku. “Without the Fae rider, how will we control the elephant?”

“She knows water is down in the village,” Sisseku said as she looked to the trees. “Grab a switch. We may need to urge her on from time to time. They dawdle to eat.”

Sisseku held the small branch in her hand as Fallon walked alongside the pallet, making sure the meat stayed secure as the travois bumped along the lumpy ground. Alithea followed behind, carefully dodging small animals that poked their heads out of dirt burrows under the darkening sky.

Suddenly, the elephant picked up its pace and Fallon had to walk quickly to keep alongside the pallet. “How do we get it to slow down?” he asked as he glanced back at Alithea who struggled with the quicker pace.

“I don’t know,” Sisseku answered as she hurried along. “Her trunk is curling up. She smells another elephant close by.”