Sentience, page 33
part #1 of Farm Land Series
Luke
“Now tell me, sweetling,” Luke said, crouching beside Bracken’s fallen body, “since you’re so fond of talking. Where would those other cows have run to?”
Bracken tried to crawl away. She had clearly been beaten badly. A huge gash covered one side of her head and her arm was broken. She nursed it at her side, and I could see bone protruding from her shirt. Blood and spittle ran from her mouth. As she tried to crawl away, he reached out and slapped her across the face.
No! I cried. But my voice went unheard.
“I don’t like that she talked, Luke,” said one of his men, his eyes darting nervously from side to side. “They’re not meant to be able to talk.”
Luke smiled and stared down at Bracken. “It doesn’t matter if they can talk,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if they give each other names, or if they can feel.” He sounded like a child taunting another. “They are lesser than us, and it’s about time this one learnt that.” He grinned, grasping Bracken’s chin. “Not so brave now, are we?”
Bracken closed her eyes, drew back her head and spat into his face. A great glob of blood and spit landed right in the centre of his eyes. Luke fell backwards, shouting with rage, wiping his face.
“You know nothing of courage,” Bracken said as her head flopped against a rock.
Behind me, Skye groaned, and started to stand up. He had heard his sister’s voice.
“There’s another one!” shouted one of Luke’s men, pointing at Skye who was struggling to stand, trying to walk towards Bracken.
“He was dead!” shouted another. “There is witchcraft here!”
“Get him,” said Luke, pulling himself up. As the men hesitated, he turned on them. “Get him!”
As the men rushed for Skye, I leapt into one of their heads. As they fell on him, I pushed them back, punching, kicking and swiping with the knife in my hands. “Get away from him!” I screamed. “Get away from him!”
They fell back, looking at their comrade in astonishment, and then others shouted.
“The spirit possesses him!”
“See, Luke? See? This is what we spoke of!”
Luke stared at me, his head cocked. “Peter?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “Is that you?”
I was Peter, Frances’ father. I had not recognised the body when I leapt in. “Peter is no more,” I said. “I am the spirit of my people. Leave this place, and no more of your men will die at my hands.”
Luke did not look in the least scared. He stared at me for a moment and then started to laugh. “Look around, great spirit,” he said mockingly. “How many of my men do you see fallen, and how many of your cows? People? These are not people. This is a herd. You are the spirit of no people. You are the spirit of dead cows.”
“Do not test my powers,” I said, thrusting out Peter’s knife. “You will regret all you have done this day.”
Luke laughed again, an ugly, barking sound. “Oh yes…” he said. “Tell me, great spirit of the cows. Can your powers prevent me from doing… this?”
With vicious force, Luke lifted his knee and brought his boot down on Bracken’s unprotected face. There was a rock at the back of her head. A sickening sound, of bones breaking beneath his boot, shattered the air, and a muffled cry came from Bracken. Her face imploded into her skull.
I let out a scream which seemed to never end.
Bracken twitched. Blood streamed over the broken mess of her once beautiful face. Her arms thumped feebly on the earth. She stopped moving.
Luke laughed. Louder and louder, it grew, rising like the smoke, echoing about the village.
All grief and sorrow of the world suddenly burned in my heart. I was blind to all but fury. Dropping the knife, I ran at Luke, my first blow taking him to the ground. As I knocked him off his feet, he rolled, and jumped back up.
I should have Reached. I should have taken his body, run with it and thrown it from a cliff, but I could not. I could not centre my thoughts. I could feel nothing but rage, pure, white and blazing. I wanted to put my hands about his throat and squeeze until the light left his eyes. I wanted to kill him. That was my sole purpose.
He stood in a crouched position, and called to his men. “Take that one alive,” he said, nodding to Skye. “Leave the dead, we have enough.”
“What are you doing?” asked one of his men, as Luke turned to face me.
“Killing the spirit of the cows,” he said with a grin. “Go now, take him.”
A shot of panic leapt through me. I tried to centre my thoughts, tried to leap into another mind, but fury had claimed me. I could not change minds. I could not concentrate. My rage and sorrow was too great.
“Don’t go far,” I shouted at them. “I will come for him, and for the rest of my people.” I turned to Luke. “But first,” I said, my voice shaking with wrath. “I am going to kill you.”
Luke smiled. “You’re going to try,” he said and beckoned to me. “Come now, spirit of the cows, show me how ghosts bleed.”
With a shriek of burning sorrow and furious rage, I charged.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Darkness
I ran at Luke, my fists curled into balls, my head filled with wrath so uncontrollable that I knew nothing but the brightness of its flames. I had no thought in my head, nothing but the pain of loss and the rage of grief.
I wanted the head of the man who had killed my people, murdered Bracken, and destroyed my world.
As I flew at the grinning murderer, his awful smirk poured brimstone into the crucible of my fury. My body hurtled across uneven ground, wet with the blood of my people. I ran at Luke, my mouth open, screaming unintelligible noises. He waited until I was almost on him, and neatly sidestepped my enraged charge. As the force of my own attack sent me hurtling past, Luke brought his joined fists down in a great blow across the middle of my unprotected back.
Air left my lungs in one great whoosh. I crashed to the floor. As I rolled over, gasping for air, moaning in pain and surprise, his boot caught me in the stomach. I felt the muscles of Peter’s body flinch, crushed by the hardness of Luke’s boots.
Again and again he kicked me, jumping, to give each blow more strength.
I rolled away and pulled myself upright. Staggering backwards, I fought to breathe. Even as I hauled myself up, I saw Luke grin again. “Not giving up?” he asked mockingly as he stretched his arms. “Good, I don’t like an easy fight. It takes all the fun out of life.”
“I will kill you,” I said. Breathlessness made my threat weak. Luke laughed.
I took hold of a club of wood, discarded in the fight. With all the strength I could muster, I raised the club and ran at him. As I reached him, I swung the club at his head, but he ducked, and in one smooth motion knocked my feet out from under me.
I hit the floor and fell on my back. The club tumbled from my hands. As I went to roll over, Luke grabbed my shoulders and threw me across the dirt, my body whirling as though I weighed nothing more than a bag of grain. I saw the barricades as I flew towards them, but could do nothing to stop what was about to happen. I smashed through the barrier. Wood and thorn scraped my skin and shards of the barricades tumbled over my head.
I touched my hands to Peter’s lips, and winced as I saw fresh, bright red blood. I could feel this body weakening under the onslaught of Luke’s attack. I struggled to my feet, staggering, feet faltering to find stable ground.
The body I occupied was not in good shape. Wincing, bowed over, I realized suddenly that despite the strength of my anger, I did not have the skill to kill this man.
He was practised in the art of murder. I was not.
But I was not going to surrender, not while this monster drew breath.
“Give up, oh mighty spirit of the cows?” he jeered, his feet bouncing on the ground. Luke had barely a scratch on him. He looked as ready to take on the world as I was to leave it.
I screamed. All anger, all pain flooded through me as I rushed towards him. I wanted his blood, wanted to revenge myself on him, as though he were the embodiment of all evil that had been done to me, to my people, to this world, and I was the instrument of justice.
This time he didn’t move away. As I hurtled against his body, his arms opened and encased me. We fell to the floor as one, writhing, struggling, my hands and fists punching his face, his beating mine. Over and over we rolled across the wet ground, mud splattering over blood that ran from wounds all over my skin. We hit the barricades and he forced himself on top of me, his legs held down my arms, pinning me to the ground.
As he pulled himself up over my struggling body, he spat into my face and slapped me. “Know when you are beaten, cow,” he said, leaning forward, his arm resting on Peter’s throat.
I could see dark spots. I could feel the desperation of a body which knows it is under threat of death. If I could have centred myself to Reach, I would have. I would have taken Luke’s body and thrust a knife into his heart with his own hands, but the desperation of death and the fire of anger is no place to find peace to exist in mind alone. I struggled weakly underneath his vice-like grip, feeling the panic of death envelop me.
“No,” I croaked weakly as his arm pressed down on my throat. “No!”
As the world disappeared, as the blackness of death encompassed Peter, I heard Luke’s mocking laugh.
“So dies the great spirit of the cows,” said Luke.
I fell into darkness.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Light
I don’t know when my consciousness left Peter’s dying body. I don’t know when my spirit was released of its bonds by his death.
When my mind awoke, flowing and ebbing like the waves of the ocean, I was free, floating in the wind blowing over the ravaged ruins of my home.
As my mind awakened, something crashed upon me, hard and heavy, pushing my soul to a place so dark I thought I might drown. At first, I knew not what it was. But it came to me. It was the weight of sorrow, never to be released.
I had failed them, all of them. They were dead because of me, because I had not been strong enough to stop the flesh-eaters, because I had not protected Bracken, because I had not stopped them from dragging Skye away. Too fixated on Luke, I had allowed the man I loved to be taken. In my quest for revenge, I had failed Skye. I had broken the pact of protection between us.
I should not have tried to kill Luke with my hands. I should have taken him away, made him tear out his own heart with his own hands. I should have been here, to help them, to fight beside them. I should have saved them.
They all thought you so powerful, I thought. They did not see how helpless you are.
All about me was blood and death. I baulked from the staring eyes of the dead, and the brightness of the flames which burned life from the village.
On the floor near me was Peter; his face livid and bloated, his skin purple in the dancing flames. I stared at his face for some time before I turned to look for Luke. He was gone.
I am a ghost, I thought. I have become one of Hathor’s broken people, floating on the wind of sorrow.
Body after body was on the floor. They had only taken some of the dead, no doubt thinking the corpses would rot before they could get them to town. They wanted fresh meat, and they had taken many, of that I was sure. What was left were the scattered remains of my friends, my family.
Against a tree, his body broken and distended, was Thorn. His face was unrecognisable, but there was no one as large as him. I stared at this man, this giant who had possessed such a gentle spirit. Thorn had been the first man to show kindness to me; the first man to demonstrate that I did not need to fear them all.
Behind him, fallen almost as she had reached the tree line, was Fletcher. The back of her head was smashed in and her face had been stamped into the mud. Thorn had died trying to save her, trying to give her time to get away. I could see no trace of Bay.
I floated between horrors, my mind blank, barren, broken.
Finally I came to Bracken. I stared down, unable to think.
My heart was in pieces, lying on the ground with my friends. A bit there, with Ash, a bit there, with Thorn. A huge, bloody chunk within Bracken. More fractured pieces sailed away with Skye, with all who had been taken. My heart was no more within me, but without, shattered, disembodied, taken into death and captivity with my family.
As I stared numbly at the destruction, there was a soft noise. A gasp. I turned to see Hathor, her face grey and horrified, as she slid from Seraphina’s back. Hathor’s mouth gaped and her face grew pallid with shock. Behind her, a group of five Farmers stood warily at the edge of the village, their antenna whirling, making patterns in the smoke.
Hathor staggered to a standstill. She made no noise, she just stared. For a moment, in my own grief, I tasted hers. This, this fresh horror, was an echo of her own.
Whilst I stood on the edge of hell, she was returning to it.
I looked up. My body was lying across the back of the spider. They had rushed here to help me, but they were too late.
I flowed into my own flesh and felt it constrict with agony. Not the hurt of the physical form, for Peter’s body had taken all pain for me. This was the crushing pain of loss. I slid off Seraphina’s back and curled up on the floor, a ball of grief. As my sides shook in sobs that bore no tears, I felt Seraphina’s leg touch my back.
Holt, came the voice of Mother. Holt… I am so sorry. My soldiers came to defend your people, to save them… but we are too late.
I could not say a word.
Holt, came the voice again. We will help you to lay them into the earth.
I couldn’t answer. I curled my arms about my body and pulled my legs to my chest. The gentle bump of my child was encased in a cage of sorrow. No tears came to my eyes. There was not enough water in my body, in the world, to grieve for the magnitude of all I had lost.
As I coiled into myself, I felt pressure on my shoulder. A gentle hand stroked my hair. “You did all you could,” said Hathor gently in my ear. “You could not have done more.”
I shook my head, feeling my face contort into a mask of pain. “I failed them,” I said, my voice breaking like the cracking of lightning over a darkened sky.
“I failed them,” I said as her arms reached about me, sheltering my shaking body with the softness of her love.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The Womb of the Earth
“You did all you could,” said Hathor, her voice gentle. “No one can ask more of anyone.”
I looked out onto the mound of earth; a slight hill, away from the village. This was where we had gathered the bodies, to return them to the earth.
Bracken, Thorn, Ash, Eryngo, Bramble, Flint, Fletcher, and so many others. So many of my people. So many dead.
Bracken had once told me that in order to understand justice, respect for life, our forebears had had to experience what it was to be subjected and abused. I understood then the same was true of sorrow. Until the crushing agony of my loss came to me, I had not understood Hathor’s grief, not really, not as I could now. The weight of it, its darkness writhing in my belly, my heart, my soul… An endless maw which would never be filled; a gaping wound in my soul.
No wonder Hathor had filled that maw with the voices of her people. I would have given anything to hear Bracken again, or Ash. Even if they spoke harsh words, accused me of failing them, I would surrender my life to hear them speak. At least then, I could hear them. I would know I was not alone.
The Farmers had dug their sharp jaws into the dark soil, pushing soft mud into mounds as they burrowed. Their legs had pushed soil out of the way as they ploughed into the hillock, making a space for the womb of the world to take back her children.
I looked down; bodies of my people, few in comparison with how many had been taken, were lined up at our feet, their faces covered with cloth. Although Hathor had said this was the way to inter people, I could not help but think we covered their faces so they would not see my failure. We covered their faces so they could not see the shame that coursed over me, through me, in me.
I had failed them.
Although Hathor might tell me I could have done no more, I was not so sure. And now the last vestiges of my people were taken, bound and encased in cages, on their way to meet death in the bellies of the flesh-eaters.
I had Reached to them, even though Hathor told me I was too weak. I had floated on the wind, following the path of the river, and found them. My first thought had been to take control of Luke and capsize the boat, but my people were bound; if I tipped the boat, they would drown. I was too weak to take control of Luke. I had burned to, I had tried to, but the fight had taken much of my strength. All I could do was watch his face, his smirking, happy face, as he jeered and poked my people through the bars of their cages.
