Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

XII

Now, telling the tale is becoming difficult. Because what the Viking went through is hard to talk about. I'm looking for words, for polite words, sometimes, but more often what comes are the other words. And I remember his gaze getting lost in himself, the pain in his voice, hoarse from screaming.

Because, yes, the Viking is awake and, like a good little soldier, he wanted to report asap. Lin, Kris and I were there. I was trying to take notes, but sometimes just couldn't. And, at times, I had the impression of having a robot in front of me, because Erk spoke in a monotonous voice, without inflection, until the pain would catch up with him and Kris would take the injector and dose him with morphine, against his will. But the giant didn't really have the strength to refuse. Neither the desire, I thought. The little brother can't bear the pain of the big one. I think I'd be the same.

Of course, we had gone looking for him as quickly as possible, in the Land-Rover, with the SRH fortress as objective, hoping with all our hearts that we weren't wrong.

At the river, back luck, there had been a big storm in the mountains during the night, it had swelled and the ford had disappeared under almost a meter of water. Not to mention the strong swift current. It was high noon. Lin, who drove us here, had to go back to base, as she couldn't leave the truck, even camouflaged, nor could she camp alone in the mountains, too dangerous.

We didn't hesitate much to cross. One of us, rope around his waist and guns in the air, carefully crossed the river. Then he anchored us with the help of a boulder and we followed.

Same team as the first time, since we knew the way, plus JD and the dog. It was the one enjoying the crossing the most.

We trotted for as long as possible. Kris was possessed, there's no other word. He ran like a wolf, with a long-legged lope that allows him to cover a lot of ground. He took pity on us, gave us a 2-hours break. I think he's the only one who didn't sleep. He took sentry duty on his own. We collapsed in a heap on the ground and slept like that. Of course we were stiff as two pokers when we woke up, but we didn't say anything, just downed granola bars and orange juice and off we went.

The dog, Yaka, a female, started tugging on her leash a bit before we got to the fortress, but we were all so focused on our goal that we didn't really pay attention.

We reached our goal around noon the day after our departure. We'd been fucking fast, goaded on by the urgency. And by Kris.

No sentries. Not a sound.

And then, a sound. We all jumped up. We saw a jackal come out of the fortress, blood on its muzzle. It looked at us, licking its chops and then quietly went away.

We exchanged stares. If the beast roamed freely in the fortress, that would mean there was no longer anyone alive in there. And the blood...

We went in, following the scavenger's tracks. There were others, it hadn't been the only one to feast. They took us to a basement room, where the smell of blood, shit and something indefinable lingered.

Whining, Yaka refused to enter the room, so we started to fear for the worst. We walked through the door. And we came out right away, heaving out our granola bars.

There were about twenty lifeless bodies, none dressed in the Company's sand-colored fatigues. Some sported slashes from the saber found at the foot of the steps, others had a broken neck, still others had no visible injuries, but Kris told us it was a hit of our martial art, which we hadn't learned et. A lightning blow to the plexus, stopping the heart.

There are other details, grimaces of terror on faces, some... I have no words. Just impressions, and I can't write them down on paper, these impressions. Sometimes at night I dream about these and I wake up, my heartbeats at 150 and drenched in sweat.
- Hold on a sec! You mean to say that Erk was the one who killed them all?! exclaimed Baby Jane, incredulous.