In Huck's Hands

Chapter 7: Whole Lotta HoopLa

I sensed sweat drip down my forehead as we witnessed the fruits of Yana's merciless command. A sole royal sentry decorated in all-black military garments made his way silently into the scalding white dunes. Far ahead, a squirming burlap sack dragged a crimson smear toward the dunes fringing the decimated capital. 

The sun had finally begun making its red-strewn dance to sleep. The rusty vast canyon of our desolated home glowed violently as we sat there, ash-strewn deeply into the sands. How long had this land laid bare? One soul river connecting the frigid steppes of Svetlan to the fertile rainforests south of the Doigans...Yet no rainfall bathed our lands. I wished they had not kept me so cut off from true studies in order to keep me as an 'unbiased' judge...yet I knew the sins of the past like the back of my hand.

As I surveyed the devastated remnants of the once-glorious capital, a flood of reflections on my family's burdened legacy arose unbidden. The Vascans descend from a centuries-long monarchic line, whose dominion once spanned numerous prosperous territories beyond this now-barren sand-scoured realm. We Persisted through eras of slavery, rebellion and reluctant autonomy under Svetlan's yoke before finally claiming tenuous leadership over a newly-minted Buriti 250 years prior.

My great-great-grandfather seized power by aligning with native Buriti tribal elders during their country's slavery, promising them false authority in exchange for their public allegiance against Svetlan. In truth, he dictated unrestrained for decades under the Svet's backing, siring dozens of now-exiled children to bolster his clan's influence while they still held actual control. My deposed grandfather carried on similar machinations masquerading as the people's "Holy Popa" while wielding the full might of the throne, he was said to have been so depraved that the Old Vascans had to annihilate all 34 of his illegitimate children in order to rectify the now muddied family line.

In contrast, my recently deceased father,  took a more laissez-faire approach, preferring to profit from covert trade alliances that ultimately armed the Svets, Diogans, and any other nation willing to profit off of cheap labor and oil. I still smelled the sharp sting of sulfur on the windswept dunes, echoes of my progenitor's explosive downfall.

 I was not yet seven when I first met that old piece of shit...He looked at me with such disdain--My dark black hair, unlike his crimson, light brown skin not even close to his almost jet-black facade. The disappointment as my mother carted me off for the next few months for redying and primping. Every moment I spent changing myself for approval I became more conscious of my own unwanted existence, later furthered by my cousins coming from distant lands and becoming instantly loved by him. It didn't matter now Dennis, My Father, Kyler, Mother, and even sweet free-spirited Kasiha now lay to rest among the dunes.

I shut my eyes against the memories, their voices yelling together loud as the carrion-fattened hyenas before me fighting over Vadim's remains. Here unlike the cool stone cells of the capital palace, justice was meted out under the baking indifferent sun. The bloody spectacle attracted more hungry beasts than any human crowd, I noted with grim irony. 

Let them feast, those ancient sentinels of the dunes. On the execution-stained sands, morality and nobility seemed distant, fragile notions I must somehow embody if any kingdom were ever to arise from this wasteland again. My mind cleared of the screams plaguing them as my eyes focused back on the carnage before me...It helped to see the true consequences of nature.

Hyena whoops and frenzied barking erupted where Vadim now lay. The laughing arbiters of death attacked swiftly as they tore into the bloodstained bag. Luckily the resolute guard had already begun quickly making his way back to our armored vehicle, the vicious sand wolves almost mocking his fear with their loud screeches that mirror joy. I smiled as the bad ripped open along with Vadim's insides...the beating we had given him rendered him unable to even attempt escape, his flensed face shreds staring toward the sky like a discarded mask.