[TheMHasSpoken]: 599.The Innocent Evil.To Kill the Wolves

She did not want to leave and neither did he.

“They say we might get into a fight,” Naqada expressed, his tone mellow but his face, as always, betraying his unease.

“Do they?” Mila said in casual interest, a much better actor than the dear prince.

“The border lands usually have skirmishes.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Do you have a blade ready?”

“It’s never ready…”

Naqada looked up at her in confusion.

“… To kill someone, that is,” She smiled.

Naqada scowled.

* * *
A fight had begun. Occupation was not an option. These Seprichal bordermen were far too accustomed to Halamay brutality. They would rather die by the Halamay’s hands than live under them. This was not a problem for the Halamay troops. They had to restock and planned to raid the town anyway. And after all, bordermen were dangerous and better off dead.

“My prince,” a Halamay commander exclaimed with a bow. “They are holding up better than normal. We may need your blade.”

Naqada sat on his tall stallion, Mila at his side in her boyish disguise. Rage was boiling in Naqada’s eyes as he surveyed the massacre and then he descended like a spark onto the quivering ground.

* * *

“You shouldn’t feel that way,” Naqada grumbled from his seat in the grass.

“Should I enjoy stabbing stuff?” Mila laughed with a raise of her shoulders.

“No!” Naqada cried, sounding offended.

* * *

The Prince carried two blades that he unsheathed like ribbons. Fearfully Mila brought out her own, worried not only for the prince and herself, but also for the fact she would kill tonight. She was raised with Seprichals and was beside the Halamay as a Seprichal spy. Killing bordermen was killing comrades. Yet she had to protect herself and Naqada. She’d have to kill for protection. Her mind flashed with memories and then returned to icy purity.

The pads of Naqada’s laced sandals dug into the loose dirt and he charged as a hawk would dive. Mila, with her natural stealth slunk into the shadows and lurked about the walls. She did not want to kill. She would avoid a situation where protection was needed.

She watched him. His movement was unnatural.

“The dance…” Yes, Mila recalled a rumor her
Seprichal commander once trained against. The Halamay had a new style of hand-to-hand based on a traditional women’s dance with long weighted scarves. Two swords were chained together, for speed as well as range. It was a ballet with knives and was beautiful until it was draped in blood spray veils.

Slash after slash appeared on the bordermen’s bodies before they had a chance to feel the first one. In the sway of falling bodies the porcelain prince twirled like a white string, his face a mask of hatred.

* * *

“Then why should I be ready to gut someone?” Mila questioned.

“Protection.”

“You call strutting into a border town protection?”

“They are like wolves, Thabit,” Naqada scowled, using Mila’s male name. Not even he knew who she really was. “You kill wolves near your city so they don’t eat the children. Protection.”

“But they aren’t wolves! They’re people!” Mila laughed.

* * *

A Seprichal caught sight of her and charged. Please no, please no, she thought. Don’t make me kill you! Please no! Protection, attack, what difference is there if people still die?!

* * *

Naqada froze.

“You lived with them,” Naqada mumbled, referring to her made up past as a slave to southerners. “When you are with them for a while they seem like people, but it’s a trick…”

* * *

Did she have the right to draw blood because he was the one attacking? But then who was the attacker here? Wasn’t it the Halamay? Who has the right?! Her mind raced while the warmth of his blood spilt over her hands. The borderman gave a final growl and then fell limp onto his knees. His eyes fluttered. In his language she whispered, “Sorry.” Lot of good that would do him.

* * *

“They’d have to be mighty smart to play a trick like that,” Mila smiled.

“Not as smart as us. They are failed children of the gods. In their jealousy all they want is to harm us.”

How solemn he sounded, quoting one of the many tales in the new cult of the kingdom, started by Naqada’s father.

Mila’s mind raced back to that day in the great hall. The smooth walls stared at her with their murals and old worn carvings and the atmosphere was too dark for the torches to spread their light. People gathered, talked. Slave girls danced. Music played. All was dark except the eerie glow the light cast on everyone’s wide olive eyes. And sitting in his thrown, modestly hunched with a golden scepter of a crutch at his side smiled Zoca, the Halamay king. He appeared a vessel of wisdom, honesty, kindness and compassion. Yet on a closer look Mila saw his eyes… his gleaming dark eyes. They lusted for the minds and hearts of his people. Everyone was a pawn in his master game. In his shell of fatherly love there was a hungry beast.

* * *

She heard Naqada scream and her knife slid out of the poor man and let him fall. In three quick strides she stopped. Naqada was not the one in need of saving. In his passion he yelled, straining to put even more power and speed into his ribbon dance. He sliced through one person, two, three, he was becoming the obvious menace and his enemies began to flock to him, only to meet their demise. What a terror he had become! Where was the ignorant boy with the grumpy scowl? The demanding princeling? Her Seprichal commander said he had nightmares from dealing with this boy. Why, she did not know till now. Naqada’s eyes were dull and dead and his face was someone else’s… yet he moved just the same with his feminine grace. Where was the mercy? A boy like Naqada would have mercy! A boy like Naqada would want prisoners, not bloody stumps! Who is this?!

* * *

“So what are they? Wolves or people?” Mila asked as she folded her arms.

“Animals,” Naqada said plainly. “They’re just quick animals.”

Mila could no longer be amused by the seriousness in Naqada’s voice.

“So I should want to kill them…”

“Not want to. Just know that you must… for everyone’s sake.”

“For their protection…”

“Yes,” said Naqada, looking back from a buttercup, his face lax with the hope she was getting it. 

“But aren’t the animals just protecting themselves too?”

“They attacked us and pushed us back into the deserts!” Naqada cried.

The other northern kingdoms had broken the Halamay Empire 200 years ago. The Halamay had been in a dark age ever since. Zoca had been the first sign of life the north had seen in centuries and it was not a welcome one.

* * *

All her training seemed to fail her. She froze, oblivious of everything except the strange demon moving like a feather in a gust of wind.

“Stop…” her voice croaked almost soundlessly.

* * *

Mila cracked a smile. Naqada sounded like her Seprichal commander, with his endless points as to why the Halamay were sub human demons from the sands. Everyone took this symbolically, rising with the metaphor into a fury in battle. But Mila began to think that he really believed what he said.

“What?” Naqada questioned.

* * *

His shoulders lurched with heavy breaths, their sound barely audible among the flames. The bordermen seemed to have disappeared. Their bodies faded into the ground unnoticeably like piles of rocks. Mila stepped forwards with a trembling out stretched hand. She wanted to turn Naqada around, see his face again but was scared she’d meet someone else.

Naqada began to walk forwards too, away from her, looking around with his face intense and alert. At his feet he stumbled upon a Halamay soldier, dead, around 16, the same age he was. A trembled traveled down his spine and he stopped.

Mila froze; a stricken part in her expected another volley of blades.

Naqada fell on to his knees, staring at the young frightened face then at the still oozing blood. Another tremble and a choke. A tear jerked from him and sprayed onto the corpse below.

* * *

“So, since they are animals…” Mila said, changing the subject. “Is it alright to kill them?”

“Yes.”

“Even civilians? Wouldn’t that be murder?”

“Murder?! Murder is when you kill people. I would never kill a person.”

“Eeeeeh?” Mila asked playfully.

The prince was loosing his temper.

“I do not murder people!” He yelled.

* * *

A slippery whimper slithered up and twitched Mila’s ear. In shock she jumped and looked down to see the blood stained eyes of a child. Its golden curled Seprichal locks were matted in a slash on his forehead. The sound must have been his last breath since now his eyes where wide and lightless. … What about the wolves’ children? Mila’s mind asked as her chest began to heave. Whose protecting the children?!

“Naqada!” she screamed, her fists clenched her short boy hair.

“Thabit!” he whimpered without turning. “Why do they kill us, Thabit?! Why do they exist! Why can’t they all just disappear?!”

The dead boy’s stare burned into her arm. Why did she have to walk into the line of his eyes?! Was she the last thing he ever saw?

Naqada was crying now. Mourning the savage kill of the young soldier; the only death his brainwashed mind could feel the impact of.

Mila’s eyes drifted to him. It was Naqada again… innocent Naqada… innocent. After his death dance he was still innocent.

What is this? Mila’s stained mind questioned. How can he…? Who… who is the killer here? Who is the victim? Who is protecting the children?! No one! No one!!

* * *

Naqada sat back down in a puff.

Mila giggled over how easy it was to manipulate him.

Must be why Zoca loves him so much. She mused. Easy enough to make him believe all that shit. 

“Sire!” called a young soldier. “The captain says we should get going…”

Naqada eased off of the ground and brushed off his tunic.

Mila gave a little sigh and prepared herself for a long night.