"Y'know, chief," Jespar panted. "There's some who would call this slave labor."
He said it as he brought another torn wooden beam towards the center of the square and spat it at the structure composed of beams, sticks, scrap wood, and other items gathered from each house in the suburb. Together she and Jespar had built a monument to rival the statue beside it: old tv sets, radios, ruined books, and other equipment that no longer served any purpose to anyone were consigned to the unlit bonfire to burn too. Then, when Rain-Born finally decided it was sizable enough, she nodded to Jespar, and he collapsed.
"You had to say it, didn't ya?" he panted. "Ya had to say you'd help him. Could've just made him a card or something, but nooooo, we had to build him a Goddamn lighthouse."
She knelt beside him and scratched him behind his ears. He purred in pleasure.
"Please," she said. "I would like you to respect the ceremony of the Hanakh. Though you are not one of us and have told me much of your Old World, now you may learn of our world that exists here and now. I believe you to be as noble a hunter as the bravest of our tribe. Like them, you have the honor of watching the spirits rise to walk the path to the Hunting Grounds beyond this world."
He smirked up at her. "Do you serve popcorn or candy at the show?
She flicked him between his eyes, much to his chagrin. "I can offer you some delicious Stalker jerky. Or perhaps some roasted rats?"
He huffed and rolled over on his back. "Can't get enough of 'em."
"You are becoming pampered, Jespar. A hunter does not have the luxury of choosing his meal. A hunter only hunts and lives off the land before him."
"A hunter can kiss my hairy ass," he replied, wiggling his behind. "I need me some meatballs. Or a Sunday roast. Maybe this fire'll attract a nice juicy suckling pig, and I can get my first proper meal in years."
She sighed and shook her head at his lackadaisical whimsy. She should have reprimanded him for his blasphemy if he had not consented to help her with this project.
Then she heard the sounds of wailing coming from the Chainmen's house. It was a wailing that she could close her eyes and recall. Traditionally, brothers and sisters of the Tribe joined arms to let the song flow from their breasts and fill the dead air of the world. It was odd to hear it sung by only one man, carrying a body towards the bonfire. It was the first stanza of the Song of Shadows – the funeral dirge of the Hanakh.
Weeping-Ash came as though he was a royal Elder walking not on the concrete of the suburb road but striding on the air itself. He placed the first body – the male shooter's – on the ground before the bonfire. His hands had been bound in simple cloth, and his eyes were similarly wrapped with soft paper scavenged from the house. With the body placed, Weeping-Ash turned with the grace of a ghostly apparition to fetch the rest. Rain-Born followed him, adding her voice to his song.
Together they carried the bodies to the pyre, slowly lowering them down, each with the respect they would have given to any member of their Tribe. Rain-Born brought the leader of the Chainmen; her ravaged face another grim reminder of the melee that had overcome Rain-Born's senses. She reminded herself that she wasn't doing this for them. She was doing it for a sister she had never had the chance to meet.
Jespar watched them both lay the corpses down upon the beams of the bonfire with curious eyes. He did not cock his head or scratch himself as he usually did when confused. He lay down and placed his small lead over his front paws, watching the spectacle unfold.
Hell, maybe he'd even see some spirits fly in this place. Stranger things had happened in this world.
Both huntress of the House of the Snake and farmer of the House of Ash joined in the song's second stanza, their voices lowering and rising, pitching their limbs high and low as though conducting an orchestra of Tribal voices. As the song reached its fever pitch, Rain-Born stood over the bodies of the fallen and produced the Guthra fire stone from her pack. She held it high above them all, and as Weeping-Ash's voice wavered in the song's final verse, she struck its surface once with her knife.
Immediately a flickering flame of amber wrapped in threads of crimson danced just above her hand.
"May this light guide you to the place of peace," Weeping-Ash declared. "Walk now the path amongst the sea of stars, and fall before the doors of the Hunting Grounds. Place your hand upon the antlers of the Great Spirit, and let him take you to the place unbeknownst."
And Rain-Born tossed the flame into the bonfire, hearing it strike the wood and spread throughout the entire structure. They watched it lick at the dried wood and stretch its long red tendrils down to consume all the objects of the Old World, which fed its hunger. As the flame grew, it set its thirsting jaws of billowing carmine on the bodies between the beams, and slowly they were taken. They burned as the rest of the Old World burned around them, and smoke began to billow from the tip of the raging bonfire. As he looked at it all, bemused and a little impressed, even Jespar thought he could see smiling faces in the smoky haze spewed into the night sky.
"Go in peace," Weeping-Ash whispered so that Rain-Born could only just hear him over the sound of the inferno before them. "May you find your worth in the Hunting Grounds."
The flame illuminated his face so Rain-Born could see the tears that stained his cheeks. She moved close to him and took his hand in hers. But his face was stuck, it seemed to the burning bodies before him and the smoke that had begun to fill the starry night.
"I am only sorry that they must journey with your bonded," Rain-Born said, turning back to the bonfire to watch the souls of the wicked and the innocent leave their mortal shells. "Such evil is undeserving to walk the path of light."
This, it seemed, snapped him out of his reverie.
"No, Rain-Born," he said calmly, not wiping away his tears but letting them fall upon the parched earth below. He felt the power and strength of the heat radiate towards him, like a blanket of lava wrapping itself around his torso. It was like he could feel the touch of his wife once more, and he closed his eyes briefly and breathed in the fumes.
"No," he repeated. "In life, she cared for all people and things as one. It is right that the souls of her tormentors should journey with her. Her spirit is strong enough to turn them even from their evil ways. They say that the feet of Evil Spirits waver on the path to the beyond, Rain-Born. Well, then, my wife's soul shall be there to steady them. She will cleanse their spirits in death, and the dogs of the Hunting Grounds shall judge them, not us."
She turned to him suddenly as if struck. She could no longer restrain her inquisitive nature. Even in his pain, she had to ask him something that seemed in this moment to be a question of more import than the nature of life and death themselves:
"You speak as though these were your friends, not your foes," she said. "Do you forget the horrors they have unleashed on you and countless others with their evil ways? How can you not throw every curse our shamans know at them? How can you stand calmly and watch them fly with the spirit of your wife, who they took from you?"
She instantly regretted uttering the question as she saw him turn and look at her with sadness. But he spoke softly, still letting the tears melt from his numb, dust-caked eyes.
"We are only the living, sister," he said. "We have killed, we have destroyed, and we have maimed those who we call enemy. I have walked with the spirits of The Deadlands. I have danced among them and have felt their joy and their pain. No doubt you have met some of these beings on your journey, too."
He turned his face back to the flickering fire, and the bodies within that were no longer even recognizable.
"What we of the Ash have seen as we walk the realms of the spirits is this: we are all merely vessels half-filled. The pitcher of our lives holds both darkness and light in equal measure. But the people of the Old World have sullied even the purest glass. Your friend has a song he sings, Rain-Born. He sings of "The Wicked." I thought it strange that a creature such as he would sing of things he knows not, but perhaps there is wisdom in this song from an age which has draped its darkness over our world."
He looked at her without tears, knowing his wife was gone from this earth.
"We are all The Wicked, Rain-Born," he said. "You, I, and your friend who watches us with curious eyes. By what right do the living dare judge those made in their image? By what right do we say that The Guthra are our enemy when we breathe the same corrupted air, hunt the same vile beasts of the dust, and slaughter entire families without mercy? I ask you, Rain-Born, have you not done these things in the name of the Tribe? Are these not the ways by which you have served Father-Mother?"
When she did not answer, he went on.
"This is why I do not judge these Evil Ones, sister. We are all The Wicked now," he repeated, gazing steadily as the flame licked away at the splintering fibers of wood that were left. "Day shall not break. We walk in the night."
Rain-Born turned and joined him in observing the final knell of the bonfire, watching the raging fire lift more and more smolders of the world she had never known into the sky with the souls of the departed. Maybe, she thought, Weeping-Ash was right. Perhaps there was no hope for good in the world the Old Ones had left them. They had eaten at the table of plenty and had thrown the future generations their scraps, which they fought over with tooth and claw and instruments of death.
But she watched the flickering fingertips of the fire fade into the night, and once again, she was afforded a vision of the glittering sea of stars that beamed down at them from above. She knew that Weeping-Ash's wife was now among them, along with her brothers and sisters, his brother-in-chains, and perhaps the Chainmen themselves. Equal in death and stripped of the fetters bound them all to this world of wickedness.
She did not want to correct her brother in his moment of grief. But as she looked at this sight before her – of their burning fire delivering lost souls to the stars above – she wondered if he genuinely believed what he said.
For if the light still shone in the darkness of night, was there truly no hope left in their world?
...
The following day, under the ruined bonfire, still crumbling piece by piece, Rain-Born and Jespar bid farewell to Weeping-Ash.
"You are certain you will not come with us?" Rain-Born asked.
He smiled, and through his wrinkles, she could tell that this time there truly was a kind of happiness hidden in the folds of his mouth.
"No, Rain-Born," he said. "You have your duty, given to you by the Elder. And I have mine, which has been thrust upon me."
Martha and her puppies poked themselves out from under the flap of the Chainmen's knapsack that now hung from Weeping-Ash's back. She gave his cheek a tiny lick, possibly by way of thanks.
"Hmpf," Jespar huffed. "Guess this is goodbye. See ya around, Martha. I'd only hurt you."
She withdrew back into the bag almost immediately, and Jespar looked to Rain-Born, who only shrugged.
"Why do I feel like she's the one who dumped me?" The hound scoffed before trotting up to Weeping-Ash and offering him his front paw.
He looked at it and double-blinked.
"You might not want to talk to me, mate," Jespar said. "But if you're a man who dances with spirits, will you at least shake the paw of this thing, not of the earth?"
He considered it briefly and then knelt to shake Jespar's waiting paw.
"Alright then," the dog said. "I'll leave you two to your goodbyes. I'll be waiting by the house."
As he trotted off Rain-Born looked after him with a smirk. He almost sounded like a proper Hanakh hunter.
"You do a noble act, Weeping-Ash," she said as she turned back to her brother. "These dogs will be an asset to the Tribe. They may hunt with our greatest warriors when they come of age. But are you sure you can make it back home?"
He rose to his full height and sheathed the machete he held by his side.
"I have the protection of my ancestors to guide me," he said. "They are what led me to you – one of the House of the Snake who showed me there is still hope for our young. You are compassionate beyond your years, Rain-Born. But I would caution you to temper this with wisdom. You gave me the gift of my life, so I give you the only gift I can bestow on you – the wisdom of one who walks with spirits if you shall accept it."
She nodded, surprised by his suddenly morose expression. He leaned in close, eyeing Jespar out the corner of his eye to ensure the dog did not watch them too closely.
"Your companion," he began, measured and careful. "He is not a thing born of this world or the Old. His form may seem physical, but there is no weight to his acts or words. And no spirit lies within his frame."
Rain-Born felt her eyes widen in anger. She would not hear this of her friend. Weeping-Ash knew this, and yet he went on with a gulp.
"He is an unnatural creation born from a dream, not from a creature made in his own image. You may listen to these things I say, or perhaps you shall not. But my wisdom to you, Rain-Born of the Snake, is thus: do not trust his words."
She said nothing at first, and they merely shared a final stare into the burning eyes of the other. Both knew this could be their last time seeing the other, and these words would determine their parting thoughts on the other.
He felt her grab his arm with force, but her face was serene and calm. She was controlled.
"I wish you luck, Weeping-Ash," she said.
He grabbed her arm back, and they shared the traditional goodbye shake between warriors who had bled as one.
"Good luck to you, Rain-Born," he said. "May you find what you seek and return to us as a hero to pass into the annals of legend. I shall prepare the Tribe for your coming. They shall know you as an emissary of the Great Spirit itself."
They let each other go and shared one final stare before she turned her face from him to return to Jespar. He watched her go for a moment, feeling the kicking in his backpack full of his new charges, and after closing his eyes to feel the wind hit the tiny strands of hair he had left, he turned to walk the path back to the Tribe.
On her way to meet her companion and resume her journey, she was surprised to find a remnant of the Guthra fire stone that had survived the fire and shone under the rubble. She decided to take it. Even the smallest conjured flame could come in useful.
When she reached Jespar, she gathered her pack, checking her newly rationed supply of meat, water, and medicine she had taken from the Chainmen's pack.
"Hey, Rain-Born," he said. "You know you don't have to do this, right?"
She looked up at him in confusion.
"This is your chance," he was saying, not looking at her but staring straight and resolved at the city"s entrance before them like it heralded his grave. "You could head back with him and those dogs and tell your Tribe you tried. You said it already: your four days are up. You could go back home."
She knelt down beside him and shook her head like she was talking to a foolish child. "We both know I won't do that, though, don't we?"
She heard him sigh. "Yeah," he said. "I guess we do."
He felt her rest her hand on his head again, and he let her pet him. He knew he shouldn't. He knew it was a mistake. But at this point, there was little he could do about it. Guess what they said was true: you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
"I am with you, Jespar," she said as she stood to take in the towers of ash-clouded grey before her. "I shall find Callisto within the Iron Forest. And you shall be with me till the end."
She waited for a moment to see if he would say anything, then she led the way into the city.
She did not feel his haunches rise or his eyes bulge with fright as she had said the word. She walked ahead as he thought his legs quake of their own accord. He looked at her walking confidently towards the city, solid and present even with her bandaged shoulder that had barely had time to heal. She was pressing on like she was transfixed. Like nothing would stop her.
Yeah. That's the look they all had.
So that's what you're after.
He sighed again and then meandered after her.
That's what I was afraid of.