A TALE OF CAGES AND VINES (COMPLETE)

PART 5 - THE BURIAL

 The Burial

Kalen being a familiar face helped a little. He snuck medicine to her when he saw that she had gotten hurt. He made small talk and he tried to give her and anyone else she knew easy jobs.

Jayl and Yang cautioned her. He was still one of them. He had the power to summon a weapon yes, but he was kind. He always looked sad and tried to take the blame off of a lot of the other prisoners wrong doings.

"I don't trust him with my life but I am sure he just wants to ease our suffering," Dev whispered to her brother as they kept digging. Yang was once again telling her not to trust Kalen while Jayl just nodded in agreement.

"As long as you remain cautious," Jayl told her.

Dev nodded.

The sound of a horn blowing three times interrupted their digging and Dev felt her heart sink. Three times.

The three horns signify that a hunting party was coming in, it was big and they were coming with more prisoners. Dev glanced at the other prisoners and watched their faces grow wearily. Every time a new party came to the prison camp, either more of their families have been captured or more tribe members entered the sad grounds.

From then, they had to show them how things were done in the camps. There would be a slight hesitation in the new prisoners, a few beatings and then life would go on. Dev sighed as she got back to digging. Even if they wanted to see who had arrived, they were not done with work yet.

Her brothers soon followed suite and got back to work. When it was time for their one-time break, Dev swung her pickaxe over her shoulders and forced herself to walk out. They had dug deeper into the earth looking for more diamonds as the ones on the surface were completely gone. She wondered if one day, they would be any left for the children to see.

If they were even allowed to have children anymore.

At the rate that they were going, the invasion of their land wasn't slowing down and her people were now a dying race. She heard rumors that their land was almost completely taken over. The only place that was untouched was Ulsa. The land of the God was still untouched. Those who made it into the land were the lucky ones.

Those who didn't. Ended up like her.

As they came out of the caves, her eyes burned and she shut them briefly so they could adjust to the midday sun. The sweat from her brow ran down the side of her face and she muttered a little prayer hoping for at least a gentle breeze to cool them down.

Yang was behind her and maneuvered her so they were sitting behind a rock with several other prisoners. All waiting and hoping for their guards to have mercy on them and to bring them water. Yang was keeping an eye out for Kalen as he usually tried to find Dev in order to give her some water during her break if he wasn't in charge of them during the day.

Dev sat down and studied her pickaxe before moving to her hands. The blisters she once had now gave way to the rough callouses. It made her sad.

"Where's Jayl?" Yang asked as he craned his neck and scanned for their dark-haired brother.

Frowning, Dev looked up and searched for him as well. A few of the prisoners were with them but there was no sign of her brother. Letting go of her pickaxe, she stood to better scan the place.

Suddenly a few of the prisoners rushed started to stand as a commotion broke out.

A few of them asked what was going on when one them broke through the crowd and came running. He stopped to scan the crowd before his sight landed on Yang who was watching with a frown.