Sand Red

10

We neared the Baxter camp on our last day of travelling, having eaten nothing but a skillfully poached hawk raw. The night was coming to a close as we dragged nearer and from the lead, Od lifted a palm to signal us to stop.

'We can't make it past today. Let's stop for the day. We'll start again at dusk.'

I dropped to a dead stop immediately, wanting nothing more than to sleep and sleep and sleep till dark. Od handed out the rations and we sat snugly against a still standing Old World wall as we drank. I tried to savour the moisture, keeping it on my tongue for as long as possible, but my very skin seemed to absorb it and it was quickly gone.

A thought struck me. 'How are we going to get into the sewer system?' I asked the twins.

'I've been thinking about that,' Od said. 'It's dangerous, the sewers will certainly be within the Baxter perimeter. We have the water to go around the camp if we take less than four hundred millilitres a day...'

'Not more scarcity.' Yul pleaded.

'How do we find the sewer system?' Od asked him. 'How do three starved men dig? How will we protect ourselves if we are attacked?' 

Thoughts raced through my head. I looked up at him. 'We have to.'

'We can't.'

'I won't do it. I won't go around,' Yul said. His voice was choked. He sounded close to tears. We're going to die of starvation, Od. Just look at us! Three grown men with our pants falling off 'cause we've eaten two meals in the last week. I can't do it. We have to go through the Baxter camp. I can't go on like this.' He raised his injured palm up to shade his eyes and a tear rolled down his sandy cheek and into his rough beard. His voice cracked. 'I'm going to die.'

We were mute after his outburst. Od didn't even move to comfort him. Yul sat there, wasting his water, sobbing into the crook of his elbow beneath the fading sky.

'He's right,' I said finally. 'We have to find the drains.'

Od was quiet for a long minute. 'I'm going to sleep,' he said in the end and we let him because we knew we had won.

In the evening we partook of our ration before rolling up the blanket. My head was empty of all thoughts as we silently packed up and started forward.

In the late night, the high walls of the camp loomed in the distance, and around midnight, the perimeter came into view in the form of a massive ring of chain. Within were guards making rounds somewhere, there were none to be seen at the moment. We sneaked up into the perimeter. After jumping the chain, we proceeded forward. We ran forward towards the tall grey walls of the camp, feeling for hollowness of ground beneath our feet.

I was panting from the effort when a scout lifted himself from a sand hollow a few feet to Yul's left. My heart stopped. He ran at Yul with a blade.

'LOOK OUT!' I sprung forward, drawing my own knife and raced towards Yul. He jumped out of the way as the scout stabbed at him with the blade. I caught up with them and slammed into the boy's back. We grappled with each other and I easily overpowered him, despite my starved state, and with all the strength I could muster, I brought the knife down hard into his back. Yul stopped a distance away, panting from the exertion. The boy didn't even scream.

'Please don't kill me,' he sobbed, uncomprehending of the knife buried in his kidney.

I lifted myself from him and stared into the face of a little more than a child, his face smooth and his nose tiny and upturned. Od limped up behind us and Yul helped me up. I stood raggedly in the desert wind, a dying child at my feet sobbing to be spared and his blood on my hands. Od moved to retrieve my knife from his flesh.