Mala Fides

2: Battue

battue

-the beating of woods and bushes to flush game

also : a hunt in which this procedure is used

The battue is a technique practiced by hunters in order to give them a clean shot at their targets. The hunters' assistants (or sometimes the hunters themselves) rap sticks against trees and bushes in order to scare animals out of the woods and into open space. It derives from the feminine past participle of the French verb battre, meaning "to beat."

The buildings are falling towers of a lost past. They crumble under the impact, the soaring hard waves of elements ripping their foundation apart. They quiver and tremble under the force of weaponry build by human hands.

Rubble and dust whirl around us in waves, getting carried by the sheer force of tumbling structures. It kisses my brow and leaves heavy flakes on my lashes.

I'm protected by the confidence that no sharp-edged piece of metal or a projectile will ever graze my skin. Tip of the legion. Reinforcement for both my cousins. And strangely enough, I would never have it any other way. My fear and all the hateful words for war machinery blur into a blurb of nervous energy in my stomach.

Not suited. Not accessible. Too rigid and too unstable.

I'm on the right flank almost right behind Evangeline now. Our bodies whip between rotting excess falling, exploding and burning, stones, steel, iron and the smell of war that seeps into my pores. Black armors and dark uniforms, we bleed into the very truest definition of dark tidings.

I waltz through the ruins with six pairs of eyes. Skinwalking in the air, below our feet and running along the frontlines, my senses try to pick up signals and decipher them all the while I am still present behind the magnetrons.

When I slip into the dog, the chase blares through my body, and I surrender willingly to it. The adrenaline pumps through my veins excited, and I feel invincible a moment. Hours ago I was almost dead, buried in a swamp of mud below an arena. Now I pledge myself to hunt the perpetrators. I can smell fear radiating of the red row of meat shields. Fear for their lives. Pulsating anger joins in. The silver swarm is not scared of anything. The dog inhales the perfume of this twisted calvacade. So do I.

The hawk glides over the tipping top of a tower, a sharp turn to the right, feathers adjusting in the aerial fight to steer clear. It lets loose a long drawn scream, but no one except me can hear it in the marching, the explosions and all the other noise of war.

Below the tower trembling, Evangeline's hand swipes away a shower of daggerlike splinters falling, out of my face, away from my scars, holding it back.

For a moment my eyes are just mine alone, and I look at her face. A small line of something angry runs along her brow like a crack running through the skeletal forms of the monstrous steel buildings. I give her a nod. Her arm swings again and with force, the metal flings and crashes into the ground, impaling the earth.