Lost Assassins

Dark Night under the Moon Part II

After racing leilah through short cliffs and ground for few moments, she slowed down finally when she reached the pond. She never let the camp out of her sight. The wind weren’t chilling cold but still they were relief from that packed cage. She was remembering her palace, huge and was still full of light and wind, with big windows and great balconies. She never feel packed there. The chilling winds blew from the Zihman river filled her palace all the time with life. She would spend her leisure lying on the railings of her balconies just watching the streams of Zihman and how its flowing water reflect the sun like thousands of small mirrors in formation and just vanished and then appear again and so on, not a safe hobby but relaxing. Its usually have ships making round, those ragged and old dirty things, sure spoil the view.

She was strolling down softly around the pond. When she got enough close to she it clearly, she gasped at the sight she witnessed. Rather than crystal like fresh water, she saw a dump with all kinds of waste and debris. The water was deep dark, like sewers. Its surrounding was black muddy soil from the animal dung and the trashes which were lying around, rather than green bushes or grass. Surface of pond was partly covered in green blanket of some algae at random places, it wasn’t anything good that she could tell. The smell was neither the crisp of wet soil nor the moist of greenery, it was a sour smell of days of soaked trash.    

She was wondering how they even call it a pond, she never ever have seen a pond like this, but again she hardly ever left the fort and never even take a step outside of capital walls. The streets of capital is rather crowded, smelly and mostly filthy, her palanquin had to cross through there on few occasions but she always thought the countryside would be green and clean, and would smell like flowers and crops, the lakes and pond will be like flowing crystals, like she had read and told to.

Her mood turned sour again, the tingly strange smell was beginning to bother her. When she was about to turn, she saw at the other end of the pond near the camp, she was and disheartened as she realized the cause of all this. Hundreds of horses and and buffaloes were being washed there and the servants were carrying the big baskets and dumping them there, the trash she presumed. The animals were tied there so they defecate there and dirty clothes and utensils were being washed near the wells and the filth was also draining into that pond.

This realization just made her sad. To reach out to west, many caravan must have travelled through this road and stopped here too, dumping their waste and move on. She felt guilty somehow, it was their lands and people and they were hurting them. The Khadjah family have helped run this country for hundred years, the each member is responsible for this realm. But she couldn’t plead to Sultan. She could hear him laughing at this mundane matter, but she didn’t want to let it go. She have privileges, she could do something, My God, what will they use, she thought.

She lashed the reins and galloped hard toward the village. The last remnant of the sun in the sky disappeared and now the moon came out followed by stars, few at this moment. The dark was spreading and she could even saw the lamps of the far. Near the village she encountered a big and thick banyan tree. She halted there and climbed off from the mare, and adjusted her clothes and cloak . At the foot of the banyan tree a circular platform was raised with bricks, circumferencing it. The trunk of that tree must be 10 ft width, and platform was attached, it looked like a giant table with tree at its centre. She sat on it, and then she suddenly noticed that, they were like ropes hanging, many of them at every branch, looked like roots more. The tree suddenly began to look like an rooted potato.

She was at peace under the the great tree, its branched spreading out far that it could have hundred people under its cover. She folded her legs up and put her knees close to her chest then rested her head onto them. She was humming, a song of her favourite. As she was humming, her body was dingling with the rhythm, slight back and forth.

It was hardly a moment passed that she saw riders approaching from the dark. Their huge stallions were galloping like thunder thumping through. She knew her moments is over for today, she got up and came forward as those riders halted in front of her.

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