In Huck's Hands

Bonus Chapter: The Butchers Beginnings; Part 1

Bonus Chapter!!! The Butcher's Beginnings Part 1

The desert winds howled louder than any other night in the nearly 2 decades of the young bald Aygu's hard life, whipping up crimson sands that stung tear-streaked eyes. He squinted against the cutting currents, shielding his face as he trudged across the tall dunes of western Buriti, the weight of his rifle a familiar burden on his darkened back.

Even at sixteen, he was no stranger to the harsh realities of life in the arid wastes of Buriti-Vasca. A cry pierced the air forcing Aygu's head to snap towards the source. In the distance, a small group of his tribesmen clashed with a rival clan, their blades glinting in the unforgiving summer sun. Without hesitation, Aygu broke into a run, his body propelled by a primal urge to defend his kin from the never-ending water disputes that took over most of the native's time and strong warriors.

As he drew nearer, the cacophony of battle engulfed him --The clang of glinting steel against shining steel, the grunts of toil from the much larger men, the cries of the wounded being stolen from the mortal coil. Aygu's eyes locked onto a familiar figure, his uncle Razan, locked in a deadly dance with a towering adversary with red warpaint.

Razan's movements were sluggish, his age weighing him down to the point of purely relying on his honed defenses. The enemy warrior seized the slight advantage, his blade slicing through Razan's guards and burying itself deep in his abdomen with a flying splurt of juices. Aygu's breath caught in his throat as his uncle crumpled to the sand, his life's essence spilling forth in an almost spiraled pattern to the sand.

At that burning moment of loss, something primal unleashed within Aygu's young psyche. Every last semblance of fear tore from his soul, his rifle completely forgotten. He collided with Razan's bulky assailant, a whirlwind of fists and fury, driven by a singular purpose -- To avenge the fallen family taken from him once again.

The battle became a blur of unending bloodshed on both sides, a whirlwind of violence that consumed Aygu's every fiber in injury and trauma. He fought with the ferocity of a bottled bat, his knuckles splitting against flesh and bone but still never relenting in their aimed mashing of bone. When the dust settled, his clan's adversaries lay motionless, and Aygu stood victorious, his chest heaving with each ragged breath as he took in the carnage before him...All for a simple means of access to a day's drink, the dusty well they squabbled over was not slated with the blood of many of the older men the village needed for protection.

As he approached his uncle's nonfunctional arrangement of flesh and muscle, Razan's eyes fluttered open suddenly, a weak smile playing upon his shorn brown lips. "I l-lo, y...," he groaned sadly, his voice fading with each word into the scalding breeze of the desert. "Protect t-the children."

Aygu cradled his uncle's cracked head, tears stinging his eyes as Razan's life slipped away in his nephew's scrawny arms. A seed of rage took root within him, a burning ember that would one day ignite into an inferno of vengeance that would be unseen in all the searing sectors of his fatherland.

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Bitter years passed, and Aygu's reputation as a fearsome warrior grew. His skill with the blade was unmatched, his thirst for retribution insatiable. He carved a bloody path through rival tribes, his quest for vindication ever-consuming. Having united the southern front of villages within his own tribe's grasp through several skirmishes that left him toothless and desensitized to the seasons of death that followed his uncle's passing.

Stepping from the shadowed caves of the oldest settlement of Buritain power he was amazed by how easily the younger generation took to his cause...He only made the promise of water and shelter from any form of outside culture, the radicalized nationalist child soldiers were much harder for the other clans to fight. Many lost their children to Aygu's silver tongue and numerous more lost their fathers, uncles, and brothers when his forces swept through the dead of night.