Darkness

"The hounds of war will always feast, teacher. They will leave nothing for us but ash" A twisted version of the saying that was scrawled on her flesh, but one that felt far more true. The anger that raged within me was enough to tell me that I was still alive.

The rough coldness of the stone floors brought a strange sense of relief to know that the ground beneath me felt so solid. The chaffing straw became a reminder of how different these armed figures would be treating us, how they viewed us. 

Next followed the smell, something heavy and persistent but not as bad as the smell of corpses told of the company I was in. Before we were tools, machines of war, but now, we were animals meant for a purpose I didn't quite understand. 

Before I could stand, I was overwhelmed by an obtuse pain in my ribs and the throbbing heat from my temple, a symptom of my idiocy that was met with the swift boot of an annoyance guard. 

"But the flames, the fire it was all over me" I couldn't help but replay this thought in my head, in search for an answer I hoped would reveal itself, but for all I could remember, a simple reality was made clear, that I shouldn't be alive.

"Where are you?" The first time in so long that I heard someone call out in a familiar language, I wasn't even sure they were speaking to me, the hope was enough to get me scrambling about, to the source. With my vision being the last to return to me, the murky surroundings took shape, as I tripped over a water trough, landing in the mud nearby.

"You move like a newborn. That won't earn you any mercy from the guards." A rough and worn hand lifted me up before it dragged me along. They never asked for my name, only that I stayed quiet and followed behind them. 

Once we stepped outside, the space helped to orient myself. Far to the east, I looked to the entrance of this place, or where we were let out after we arrived. The smoldering remains of my people cindered and charred still, and directly in front of it was the building the armed figures first stepped out of.

From out of the pens we came out, the other occupants stirred awake, as the animals rummaged and huffed about. 

It looked like we were among the spares, or rather the tools from what the elder said, from what I could make of his language, while the rest of us were put into pens close by evenly spaced with the use of spiked fencing. 

Soon after he had wandered out, the armoured guards left the main house before marching to the pens, where hollowing screams were heard before people were flung out into the mud.

"The slaves are put to work in different places to serve different roles on the governor's estate." Handing me a bucket and pointing to the well and the trough nearby before he wandered back into the pen we came from.

'The governor.' What this was is a private home away from the fighting war lords, and it is where he enjoyed his riches. From searching the war lords in their factories to tending to them in person, what kind of god would create such a world ?

While I thought they had attacked us for what we had been working on, the truth is that they simply attacked before our initial captors attacked and claimed their territory, we were nothing more than the spoils of war. A fact they were all too eager to boast about, they thought themselves safe and comfortable.

But comfort isn't anything we ever knew, what we were taught was to be useful. With Salu gone, a bridge between us and actually understanding our captors became me. At first, I managed to piece together hush words, insults and curses. After sometime, their whispers were as sharp as a full conversation and after four years under the governor, the guards were weary to watch their words if ever the observant among them could spy on me.

Salu would have been better, as a teacher or a guide, but they were looking to me. Merrina should have been the one standing her, but she wasn't the same after what those guards did to her. So, for everyone's sake, I learned and then I taught them so that no one would be thought useless.

When the governor first took notice of me, it was only a few months after we were brought her as on this scorching day, the armed guards had called on us to stand at attention. Each of us lined up onto the courtyard. I found myself among hundreds, of various ages, a sign that we were not the first or the last to be brought here. 

What must have been a guard captain upon realizing that the governor was present, expressed their command with words only a few of us could grasp. Expecting absolute compliance only to be met with a broad set of blank stares, only worked to enrage them.

Pulling a few from the line up, they were forcibly guided to what would be their work on the estate by gunpoint of the guards.

Again he shouted his orders, and again blank stares filled the crowd, who now cowered at their approach. Those with a grasp of what was asked held their mouths shut. The lack of curious showings had the governor suggest something that sent a pit into my stomach from my throat.

"The others will be feed."

"We can work…we can learn!" I shouted.

"What?" The guard captain returned to my side of the lineup, bashing my chest with the butt of his gun. Over and over the blows fell upon me until he held his wrath with the approach of the governor.

"What would a tool possibly know that I would want?" Planting the gilded sole of his boot on my head as he watched me struggle. My blood ran hot and my hands felt both cold and numb as I tried to force the air back into my lungs/

"We know the tools. We made tools before, for them. We make tools for you now."

"Tools…do you mean weapons?" The word was strange but was quick to learn as I matched the hissing sound.

"Yes…weapons."

"Hmm.." The governor looked at the rest of us in the lineup then back at me. Eventually walking away after sharing his last words with the guard captain. I tried to hold on to each word he shared but a ringing noise stole any focus I had, as piercing and dull as the pain was, ensuring that everything else became a blur.

A few moments more of dull delusions, whether minutes or hours had passed I don't remember, only that I was lifted up and dragged away. Coming to, in a large outdoor workshop, housing heavy equipment both rusted and mint in condition, with the space outside littered with the chassis of unmoving vehicles and the discarded axles of a few war machines.

Foula along with Merrina greeted me with a bowl of water. 

Foula explained that the governor wanted them to build the same weapons and tools we created in factory

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know what else to say"

"Foula told us what they were planning. They only want more weapons, child. Building weapons is what kept us alive this long, if it means you'll get to live a few more years then I'll make sure every drop of sweat is a bullet that keeps you all safe." They were scared, we all were, but still, they were willing to make that promise.

'Salu, maybe I can still pass on your lessons.'

Given some time, the governor was more willing to agree to our terms, from freshwater and fruit to keep us in good health to more learning materials to help educate as many of us as I could under the guise of making it easier to follow their orders. 

From what we learned, the local warlords were always at odds trying to undermine each other in securing more and more territory that was untouched by the war, with figures like the governor using their rank to hide away from the frontlines of the war. So to protect these claimed territories, they would take any attempt to secure stockpiles of weapons, but in their last attempt, they only managed to destroy the region's only operationable factory.

And after almost six years under his capture, he had succeeded in acquiring a stable source of munitions he could easily trade for his preferred war machines capable of defending his estate.

With the improved workshop being responsible for not just saving us, but in a strange twist, things were better in some ways that what we had before, in others, Merrina and others like her would never heal from their scars.

In spite of what they've done for us I share her feelings on one thing:

"They aren't our saviors, they are merely hounds of war" I mused about the thought after closing my notebook and locking it into my desk. In a space separate from the rest of the workshop, a corner in the attic was closed off with almost no one knowing of it, it helped to take a break from everything, from being needed by everyone.

"I think it's time we put down these dogs." Merrina appeared with Foula at her side, the two of them never being beyond arm's length from one another, after what they've been through I couldn't imagine they ever felt safe alone, so for them I was willing to carry an even greater weight.

"Merr, Foula, do you need me for something?"

"Yes. It's finished."

"Are you sure?" Her mind for all its brilliance lost certainty after what he went through. For what she was saying, I needed to know that she understood.

"If you don't believe me then here, you can see it for yourself."

"Tonight, we'll be saved, or eat our last meal. I can't claim to be as good of a cook as Hane but I'll make sure everyone has a meal to remember" Taking the device in her hands, I could feel its weight, but her shaking is where my mind wandered. Slipping it into my pocket before embracing them both.

"Foula, make sure everyone stays in their pens tonight. The guard's patrol might be particularly violent."

'Anyone caught outside tonight is going to die, I'll make sure that the governor is one of them.'