Rieren was breathing heavily when she reached her destination. A few men had gathered here to accept the delivery of the resources from the Sect, far enough away from the encampment that they wouldn’t be seen by any of the villagers. It wouldn’t do to let the unfortunate folk know just how much food they were missing simply because of greed.
But Rieren had found them. With nothing better to do over the past few days, she had taken to observing the encampment from a distance at different times of day. It hadn’t taken long to find the routine of those who brought in the Sect’s deliveries.
It was a simple matter of following them at a distance to find out where exactly they conducted the acceptance of the shipment. Even easier to determine the best way she would carry out her theft.
The guards from the Sect brought in their delivery on a cart. Once they met the men from the village who would be taking the resource for distribution, they would leave, returning later to take away the empty cart.
Conversely, the village group consisted of a couple of beefy giants to bear the load, and three smaller men to load the rice sacks, vegetable bundles, water skeins, and the rest upon the bigger men’s shoulders. The switch between the guards leaving the cart and the villagers taking up everything it held took a moment, though.
A small gap where Rieren could swoop in and get what she needed.
“Everything looks good,” the villager, a smaller man in charge of the party, said to the two guards. He handed them a small pouch, jingling with coins. “Pleasure to do business as always.”
The first guard grunted, pocketed the pouch, then turned around to leave with his companion. “Just make sure you don’t leave any stupid trails. The master has been concerned for a while.”
“Worry not, friend,” the villager said, far too sweetly. “We will make sure no one knows a thing.” When the guards had walked far enough away, he muttered, “If your stone-headed master is so worried, he can come and take care of things himself.”
He spat to the side and took a few steps past the cart to call his fellows. The rest of his group had been sitting around a tree, playing a game of sailor’s regret.
Now was Rieren’s chance while the first man was distracted and the rest were too far away.
She ran. Her heart sped up along with her feet, thudding so loudly that it felt as though it had taken residence inside her head. Everything was too loud. Not just her heart, but her feet thumping on the ground, her breaths gusting out in a storm, even the flap of her dirty clothes made far too much noise.
Nevertheless, Rieren reached the cart. The sound of her arrival made the first villager whirl in her direction, but she had already lugged up one of the sacks of rice and started running off.
“Oi!” the bastard, greedy, scum-of-the-earth villager shouted. “Get back here, you thief. No, don’t run after you fools, keep the cart safe.”
Rieren huffed wildly as she ran. Monkey’s balls, the sack had to be half again as heavy as she was. Her thin frame wasn’t built to carry that kind of weight. But she couldn’t fall, no matter what. This was life or death. She’d be happy to collapse and never run again, but first she had to get the rice to her father.
Those idiots wouldn’t dare come after her. Not yet. They wouldn’t leave the cart undefended in case there were more people waiting in the wings to take more of their precious goods.
Rieren was certain she could exhale out her entire lung by the time she reached the little hollow she had dug in the ground. Taking the entire sack of rice back to her shelter would only invite scrutiny. Hiding it away would allow her plausible deniability in case the real thieves in this situation came looking.
She stuffed the sack into the hole, looking around to see if anyone could see her. It was getting dark, so her visibility was low, and the wind making the leaves on trees and shrubs shiver drowned out any sound of any intruders.
Deciding not to worry ceaselessly, she quickly poked a hole into the side of the rice sack and cradled out as many grains as her cupped hands could hold. Then she resumed running once more, this time towards her father, though in a roundabout manner. No point in worrying. No heeding her anxiety overmuch. No veering from her task.
First, she had to ensure her father received the food he needed.
Still, Rieren needed a moment to rest when she finally reached her “home”. Her heart took some time to calm down, and she dabbed away at the sweat beading her brows. No time to waste, though.
There was a little pot and some water they could still use. She poured the rice into the pot with the most of their remaining potable water, putting it on the fire to heat up.
The longer Rieren waited for the rice to properly coo, the harder she shook. Fear of discovery, worryingly checking to ensure her father’s condition hadn’t worsened, forcing herself not to shiver in rising chill. If Rieren could have dug a hole for them to hide in, she would have done so. All this fidgeting was going to give them away at this rate.
But people were going about their business as usual. There was no difference in the way some of them talked, in the little tasks they kept themselves busy with. Rieren’s frantic mind still caught suspicion in every movement, in every little glance that looked over them, in every conversation that popped up in her line of sight.
What more could she do to hide them? Maybe they ought to move. Yes, that should help. If anyone asked, she could claim that the area was too cold and windy, not good for her father’s—
The water started bubbling.
“There!” she said, smiling in relief. “Food is ready, father.”
They had no bowl or utensils to speak of. Rieren swaddled her hands with the ends of one of her father’s blankets and pulled the pot off the fire, tilting it to get rid of the excess water. She shook all the while that she was forced to wait for it to cool down. Blowing on it didn’t help much, unfortunately.
Eventually, Rieren scalded her hands as she picked up the rice and brought it to her father’s mouth. “Wake up. Here you go. We now have food. We have food, father.” A sob caught in her throat. It was mostly the burning pain in her fingers, but she couldn’t deny that relief had a lot to do with it too. “You will be alright, just like I promised.”
Atelen was slow to wake. She wasn’t certain he was properly awake when he opened his mouth just enough for her to push the rice inside. His eyes were still closed, and he hadn’t spoken. The rice was hot, and likely hurt him, but he needed warm food to counteract the chill around them.
“There,” Rieren said. She tried to speak gently, but it came out halting. “Eat up.”
She continued feeding him until half the pot was empty. Her fingers—her whole hand, in fact—were shaking. When Rieren took in a mouthful of her own, she had to stifle a scream. It seared her tongue and the inside of her cheek. She managed to swallow it down, blinking away tears at the same time. No time to tend to pain.
“Father, we need to move,” she said after they finished their meal.
Her stomach felt weird at eating plain, half-cooked rice after not having had anything substantial for over a day, but she ignored it. They had greater safety concerns to deal with.
Atelen didn’t reply, nor gave any sign that he had heard.
“Father,” Rieren hissed. “We must go. This place isn’t safe any longer.”
This time, Atelen did move a little, though he groaned lightly in protest as well. Rieren sat and stared for a moment. A part of her wished to bemoan that she was forced to deal with this all on her own, that there was no one she could turn to for help.
Rieren kicked those feelings in the space between their metaphorical legs and got to work. The first thing she had to do was find a suitable spot to move them to. She couldn’t drag her ill father around without a proper direction in mind. Somewhere south, downslope from the wind, closer to more people, where the thieving bastards would find it harder to do anything.
“I shan’t be long, father,” she whispered. Her stomach churned, hopefully with worry. “Once I find a new location to shelter in, we can move there together.”
Rieren took a look around to ensure there was no immediate danger nearby, then hurried off. It was terribly difficult to locate anything in the deepening dark. She breathed in deep, tried to fend off the fear, and focused on looking for a better spot to house themselves.
After what felt like around twenty minutes of searching, she found a little nook between the tents of a few other villagers. There was another large tree here, one they could take shelter under. A few people nearby saw her, but no one looked askance at her. At this point, uncaring neighbours were a blessing.
Now, Rieren just had to find a way to drag her father here. She swallowed. A worry for when she reached their original destination.
Her guts seemed to squeeze in on themselves. Rieren looked down, frowning. It wasn’t the anxiety and worry that she had hoped. The rice she had swallowed had started acting up. This was insane. On top of everything, she now felt as though vomit was building in her stomach like a volcano.
Rieren shook her head. She could eject all the food she wished once she had finished securing their safety.
But when she managed to find her way back to her home, her father was gone.
Leaving nothing but blood everywhere.
Fear threatened to cripple her. All that blood… and, a stench struck her. One of sick and vomit. She looked around, noting the little bits of rice and other fluids besides all the dark crimson. Her heart sped up until it was trying to escape. What had happened here? What in the world—
Her own stomach cramped and burned as though she was being branded there. Rieren pressed her hand to her guts, willing it to quiet down, tears stinging her eyes.
Not now. Not when her father was gone. She had to find him first. Maybe he had gone off somewhere to vomit without ruining their shelter any more than he already had. Maybe she would find him at the edge of camp, or perhaps near the hastily dug latrine pits.
Rieren dashed off. Her throat constricted at the need to call out his name. To yell at him for leaving her alone, sick with worry and fearing for his life. Didn’t he know how dangerous it was for them here? Didn’t he understand?
Frantic, she asked nearly everyone she came across if they had seen Atelen staggering off in some direction. No one replied with an affirmative.
“Have you seen my father?” she asked the man who used to bake for the villagers.
He shook his head sorrowfully, quickly ducking back inside his tent.
“Do you know where Atelen went?” she pleaded with Tivior, a neighbour who lived at the end of their street.
The man ignored her entirely as he hurried on his way. Rieren stared after him for just a second too long, before swinging herself away to ask other people.
“My father,” Rieren huffed at Lestice. “Have you seen him?”
“No,” the old woman said without looking at her, focusing on the weeds she was bundling together.
Rieren swallowed. She hurtled off to interrogate the other villagers. But no one, not a single soul, had seen anything. After a while, Rieren stood near the eastern edge of the encampment, slowly letting her burning guts twist into the knot of realization she had been trying to deny herself.
They had seen. They knew. The simple truth was that they were too afraid to speak.
It really was at the latrine pits that she finally found him. The stench of human wastes polluted the air, making her stomach rebel all the more. But there was a different stink that cut through the normal ones. The odour of death.
A few paces from the nearest pit, her father lay on his back, wide open eyes staring into nothing. He was stretched out, limbs pulled in all directions. If one looked at it from the side or from downslope, it wouldn’t be wrong to imagine here lay a man who was enjoying the sight of the starry night sky.
But from her angle, Rieren could see just how her father’s torso had been hollowed out. They had taken almost all of Atelen’s vital organs. His lungs, his heart, his kidneys, liver, and more she probably couldn’t make out in the distance. There wasn’t much blood around the corpse. Certainly nowhere near what one would expect, given the state it was in.
Rieren could only stare, on and on as the hours of the night passed away. All the little injustices of the world had piled up to lead to this moment. This incident where her ailing father was forced to give up his life. And all Rieren could do was stand and stare and rage and, in the end, perhaps end up dying with him.
Her roiling guts finally had its way, and she failed to keep down what little food she’d had.
“I cannot have that happen again,” Rieren said, staring straight at her father despite the tears threatening to pull free from her eyes. “I will not.”
She couldn’t tell how much he remembered of those last few days. His ailing body had been asleep for so long, barely aware of what had gone on. How confused must he have been when those bastards had awoken him in their attempt to harvest his organs? How terrifying was the nightmare she had let him wake up to?
Atelen approached her again, his kind smile an unspoken part of his effort to calm her down. “There is more hope this time, Rieren. Things are different. We are in a better position to rebuild if the opportunity arises. The Sect is making sure of it. We won’t have the same problems this time.”
He wasn’t wrong. Those fools were somewhere out there, but they wouldn’t dare show their faces within a league of her if they could help it. Not after what she had done to them. No, her father wasn’t in danger from any mortals.
It was the thought of losing him to something far worse this time that made Rieren worry.
“There is one important thing you must know, father,” Rieren said.
The look on Atelen’s face changed. His expression grew gaunt and grim. “Is it of your life after… my passing?”
Rieren nodded. “For the actions I had to take in my past life, it is inevitable that I will be targeted before long. In fact, I already have been. But I intend to survive, and I will make sure you do not have to suffer either. I only tell you this because I want you to remain vigilant. Be wary of who you speak to. We will also need to be careful about when and how we meet.”
Atelen slowly shook his head. “What in the world did you do, Rieren?”
“Now you wish to know?”
Her father grimaced, though it was mostly lost in his bushy beard. He had so far been avoiding the topic of the past like a plague, yet now, his curiosity had finally overcome his restraint.
“I won’t ask if you aren’t inclined to speak of it,” Atelen said. “It doesn’t matter. You’re my daughter, and nothing can change that.”
Rieren blinked. Ah, so he suspected she had done something extremely heinous. Well… he wasn’t wrong, depending on who was asked.
“The truth is dangerous and, as you say, of little consequence in and of itself,” she said. “But perhaps one day, I will be free to tell you as much as I can. For now, suffice it to say that my enemies are far stronger than I am, which necessitates that I grow strong as well, as fast as possible.”
“So, you will be quite busy soon, I assume.”
Rieren nodded.
Atelen took a deep breath, then smiled at her, this time in encouragement. “Well, you know you have my eternal support. Ask, and I shall deliver as much as I can.”
“I know.” She smiled back at him. “I can always count on you, father. In fact, perhaps I will let you take a message to the guard…”
He smiled, a little twinkle sparkling in his eyes. This time, when he embraced her, she didn’t pull away.
