Snipe

A Start

A/N I wrote this at the start of the year, then it got left in favour of Icia St.Clare.

I am revisiting it and another story trying to see what can be made of them. Please comment and tell me what you think. vote and share too...

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The structure appeared on the horizon, not for the first time that day, but for the first time it remained in view.

The caravan of wandering shapes each paused momentarily atop the hilltop and looked at it of in the distance, before moving on.

The long row of walkers each wearing the standard white or cream smocks, mostly shapeless and hiding most of their natural shape underneath, even the large beasts that would have once been called camels, but no longer truly resembled the magnificent lords of the deserts, were equally covered in the same white sheets to protect their bald hides from the burning sun, making them look like children's ghosts wafting across the desert floor, in the early daylight.

As one figure crested the hill it stepped aside to get a better view of their destination, away from the bobbing heads of those ahead of them. It sure was a sight, the vast pillars of rusting iron, red and white hoops, stood dug into the sandy ground and holding the flat platform high up out of harms way. On the wide open flat storey were containers and cranes mostly looking redundant to the observers eyes, one of the hauling devices hung over the side, the strong cable barely visible over the distance and through the heat mirages, lowered to the ground and some form of cradle, possibly a device for lifting supplies and animals up to the safety above.

"Get back here!" Came a hushed cry from the lower part of the slope. A man of ageing years dropped the reins of the animal he was leading and left it to stop a moment, while he scrambled up the loose sand to grab the arm of the stare figure.

"You know what happens to stragglers!" He whispered as he moved higher.

"I just want to see the rig". Replied the lone figure in the cream travelling smock looking from the large out of place structure ahead of them on the flat dune floor to the old man and his tired, windblown face below her.

"Besides they couldn't hit me from here!"

"You'd be surprised child, now come". He grabbed the arm that lifted to point at the distant structure and pulled her stumbling down the slope a short distance closer to the ever moving train of people and furless camels. Before they had rejoined the line a silhouetted figure started shuffling up to the top of the next dune.

"What's she doing?" Asked the girl as they climbed over the next hillock, pushing back the hood and exposing her shaved head to the sun,, the dried white mud covered her face, a sign of stature among the travellers, a sign of a true traveller, one who had seen more than the desert there were.

An old woman ahead stopped and raised her arms to the side, raised a head aloft and cried out.

"Lord Whitelight take me!"

"What's she doing?" The girl asked as a sound carried on the wind made her look up towards the sound.

*Pfffssstttt*

The bullet hit the ground a short way ahead of her, a familiar sound that made many of the walkers flinch, most had not seem the woman behind them set off to sacrifice herself on top of the hill, but they heard the bullet impact the ground.

A second and then a third bullet sounding, streaking through the dry air, one sailed past and sunk into the sand near the girl's feet.

It was the forth bullet that found its target. The old woman's contorted and damaged body, jolted back and left, distortedly and then a fifth hit and she dropped backward, the final shot disfigured her face into a mess of blood and exposed flesh.

The lifeless form slipped down the slope and a sudden shuffling of activity started, first off a few younger travellers ran out to drop down at the ground, hunting for the bullets that had missed.

"What are they doing?" The girl asked tearing her eyes from the dead woman.

"Collecting the bullets, they will try to trade them back to the snipers who fired them on the rig". The old man pointed as one child jumped up holding a small black stone like ball.

"Come on, we should move" Said the old man calling the girl after him as he grabbed at the camel's reins.

The girl bent down for a moment and then ran after the man.

"But what about her..." She shouted, but as she did, the sand about her started to move, from under her feet, small creatures dug their way to the surface, ten or twenty, lizard and crab like creatures appeared and scurried to the dead form that was leaking blood into the dry dusty ground.

As she watched the animals climbed over the form and started to consume the old woman, in the time it took to walk past the body, the scavengers had stripped away the cloth and started on the flesh, devouring all they could.

"Hurry!" Came the insistent voice next to her, the travellers clearly knew something, for the tail end of the caravan picked up speed trying to get over the dune as quickly as possible.

"What is it, why are we rushing?" She begged.

"Them?" Came the cry and a hand shot skywards". Large black shapes were descending on the hilltop, the lizards and crabs scurried away, digging their way underground as from where they came, one holding a hand, another a lump of flesh.

The black carrion birds dropped in and tore at the flesh with vigour and speed.

"Who shot her?" The girl asked once they had stopped running.

"There". The old man pulled up the monocular he carried about his neck and pointed at the rig ahead. Puffing in heavy breaths, clearly the heat and the effort was too much on his old lungs.

Where he pointed she could just make out men carrying long guns.

"They hit her?" She gawped.

"From there? Wow!"