"..or in the words of old,
dare I may think?
but never alone beyond the darkened trees,
and hills,
the sea..
the ebb and flow"
Again he made a swift glance. Observing. His pursed lips twitched as he eyed the woman. He paced awkwardly returning to his fervent prayer. The day awakening to its right.
"But never alone along the river,
eternal horde,
sweet glistening stones
and sands....
dear ill fate,
where did I drown of regret
I gasp at the deafening resent..."
His feet and speech in one rythem. The gongs and drums seemed to hasten as the young Sun welcomes the wet earth. His pace followed an old path, but his look stretched beyond the huts that were far away from the march. The woman was still there, eyes swollen with her painful tears. Her feet naked at the kiss of the sands and the salted sea. The march went on, around a barren lot that seemed corrupted after the burning, chars of black wood and mud.
"Or in the words of the gods old and new
might there be salvation?"
At long last the sun is up. And his prayers had ended its final words. The drums sang its last hastened beating. But the woman still on her lonesome pace. He noticed something on her hand, although tight it is in its grip. It was a hunting dagger, bloodied and defiled. But no game could be seen. Dead or alive.
--the guards are no where near him, the prayer march had disabled them with their weapons and duties. His eyes followed the mysterious woman, a few feet away from him but closing in to his lead. Slowly and surely he readied himself, as if an imminent danger was to lure him in into that knife. He pulled his own knife out of it's sheath, blinding his eye from the glistening reflection of the sun. He dropped the piece of wood between his legs and kicked it away from the marching crowd. He tightened his grip and hid the knife below the Chant engraving, there his hand readied it's forthcoming thrust, only when provoked.
" Your gods?...
your gods! all of them!"
Alas! The woman had spoken with grief!
"Your gods are cruel!
they who have mercy
but know not any name of it!"
"My child! my child
they took away!
from my breasts, my child!
they took her away!"
"Your gods..... my child!"
Her cries halted the crowd in their own bewilderment. Whispers of panic and shame flooded the plains.
"I...
mock your gods!
they are but stones crafted by man!
wood carved by man!
There are no gods!"
Her eyes bloodshot and teeth trembling. The woman's arms seemed to raise, there the blade could easily be seen. The woman raised her hand aboveher hair. It blocked the light from the sun and glistened with an unholy hue. The woman fell to the ground, and there the air had sent no cries and anguish. Only the sound of her last ill-fated breath.
YOU ARE READING
The Land Archaic
Fantasi"In Laang's eyes, most seem gone in time and afar. As his senses succumb to a darkling light. Floating into void and deviant peace. Thoughts of slowing space and time, in timid pacing. Light surrounds his mind, blinding his eyes from a source unknow...
