Of Warriors and Victims

Pang. Klank. Pang. Klank. Pang. Klank.

There was no end to the work.

Day in day out these metallic clangs were Cairon’s ever present melody, accompanied by agonizing moans of men and women alike from every which way. More times than not miserable whimpers would join and be a part of his disjointed, rythmless melody of suffering.

He had long ago stopped counting the days he spent in this hole or hoping for days, in which he could once again stand beneath the vast skies. Truthfully, he had completely forgotten what the sun, the Eternal Light, looked like. The only lights they had down here were candles, vile caricatures of the eternal, which flickered nervously, casting down the shadows of the eternally toiling.

Cairon could still remember, how one could differentiate night and day on the surface: When the light of heaven finally waned, a day had come to an end and another would begin, when the lights started burning anew.

It wasn’t much different down here, truth be told. At night the candles’ lights would be suffocated by the guards, the next day they would return to spark them anew. Although it may have been alike in many ways, there was no comparison even still. Day and night felt utterly alike, the dousing of the flames was a formality more than anything, one that all the prisoners feared, as it left them in the ruthless darkness of the ever-expanding mountain range.

With a faint sigh Cairon wiped away the sweat that was wetting his brow.

There was no end to the work, and every night, as he was lying on the cold floor, tossing and turning, desperate to get a few hours’ worth of sleep before he was ripped out of his hallucinations by the snapping of the whip by the ever-present guards, his body was aching from hours upon hours of work. Time and time again.

Though he rested for just a second, Cairon felt the cold gaze of a guard on his back, hearing the familiar sound of a baton being pulled from its wooden mounting. While the guards did use whips, they preferred to use their batons for any sort of beating they lashed out. The risk of killing one of the prisoners was higher, but it scarcely mattered how many of them died. Dozens of new prisoners seemed to flood in every single day. What was one more corpse?

Cairon gnashed his teeth and continued slamming his pick at the wall that was glittering in the faint lights.

He wasn’t even sure what he was doing here, towards what goal they were working. He was never told in the time he had been here. Just expected to do. And correctly, at that.

The silver stones were picked out of the wall, collected and brought away. If a wall stopped glittering, they would dig deeper into the mountain. Then the process would repeat itself.

Whoever didn’t do as they were told would be beat, sometimes taken away. Sometimes they wouldn’t return. Which was probably for the best. What was one more corpse after all? Cairon always did his best to scramble for whatever they’d leave behind.

An anguished cry pulled Cairon out of his thoughts. Next to him a man was being beaten to a pulp. He did not know what his offense might have been, though he guessed that he did not pick at the rock in quite the correct way.

Helping him did not even cross Cairon’s mind. Down here it was every man for himself.
He used to try and help. But he had stopped trying to help others, or even to pay attention to them.
It was no use trying.

He wasn’t the only one who warmed up to that truth either. None of the other prisoners made even the slightest implication that they wanted to help, only a handful of men even so much as looked into the general direction. They just continued toiling, their pickaxes filling the air with the sound Cairon knew so well. If any one stopped working, they would just beat you as well and they had no mercy for elders, women or children. At first he had tried to fight back, or to save others from their beating, but all it had led to was more beatings.

For whatever reason he had always been a prime target to the guard’s wrath, so he tried to stay out of their way whenever possible. He did not intend to die here.

Cairon knew there was a way out of this shithole, he was certain. Many of his friends have been dismissed, send back to the surface. While none of them have made the attempt to get him out of here, it was still a fact, that they have left, that they once again walked the surface, below the Eternal, warmed by its heat, watched over while they slept. Their suffering was at an end.

When Cairon was sent here it was called that this labour, this suffering, was a fair consequence for what he had done. He still remembered the judge’s face as he decided over the fate of Cairon and many other men that toiled, or had toiled, along Cairon, a stern and angry man. It was the only face of his past that still lingered in the dark recesses of his sodden mind. One he would often see in his nightmares.

Yet he didn’t even remember what his supposed crime had been. It must have been a trivial one.
He had never killed, never stolen, so what had been the crime for which they had sent him here? Beating it to his neighbour’s wife? Was that a crime?

He didn’t remember. He didn’t want to remember. He wanted out of here.

Again he felt something on his back, but this time it was much more physical than a cold stare. He felt the pressure of a baton, pressing down on his neck. Cairon halted any and all of his movements and slowly turned his head, expecting a beating, for whatever reason they could find.
One of the many watchdogs stood behind him, a fat fellow with short hair and a beard that was irregularly trimmed, eyeing him from top to bottom. For a moment his eyes stopped on his back.

“Name.”
“Cairon.”

His breath stopped. It was rare that prisoners were asked for their names. He only knew two situations, in which this happened. Either the prisoner would be executed or released.
The former happened much more frequently than the latter. And he did not mind anymore. He’d accepted death a long time ago. If this was his time to go, then that’s what time it was. Better than to torment himself even longer.

The guard pulled back his baton and nodded.

“Get yer things and come with me. The others’ll do the rest of yer work.”

The rest. There was no end to the work. There was no beginning, no end.

Even so a smile filled his dirty face. If he were to be executed they would say it straight out, Cairon had seen it many times. They took a sick perverted pleasure in the screams and pleas for help, in the utter hopelessness in not only the man who was going to die, but also the ones that were to be left behind.

He did not know where he was going, but it was not to be buried in a pit. Away from the glittering stones of his nightmares.

Cairon ran to the little corner that had always been his sleeping place, an archaic piece of fabric, ripped apart and probably considered useless anywhere else in the world, but the only thing he had here to shield himself from the cold stone, laying on it and a cup with a hole in it, hidden under his blanket, was all he still possessed. He would have no need for them, but he took them anyway and ran back to the guard, following him.

Cairon gazed at the prisoners he walked past. They were hard at work, hitting hard into the silver metal.

Pang. Klank. Pang. Klank. Pang. Klank.

Finally, the work had found an end, for him at least. Finally, he would see the Eternal again, even if just for a moment, before the darkness of death would devour him.

Cairon followed the guard. It felt like hours that they walked through the dark corridors of the cave, the ever-present sound of pickaxes following them all the way back up. He never before realized how deep they have dug into the mountain in the time that he had been locked in here.

They came upon the entrance of the mine. A golden shine of light fell into the innards of the mine.
Cairon grunted, moaned, like an animal that was finally let oud to graze, he wanted to run, see the sun, the Eternal, with his own eyes, bathe in her indescribable warmth, feel the cool wind sweep over his skin, smell the thousands of smells.

It had been so long. So very long. He’d missed it all so much.

But he couldn’t run to embrace it. Not until he got an explicit order. One rash step and they could banish him back into the freezing darkness of the mines.

At the entrance stood nine men. Not wearing batons, like all the other guards wore, so that prisoners couldn’t get their hands on weaponry. No, at their sides were swords, blades sharp. They were soldiers of the clan.

But Cairon felt no fear. Any fear, that he might have had, was itself scared away by the radiance and the warmth of the Eternal.

She was sitting at the sky; on the same spot, on which she had been sitting when he was lead into the mine all those years ago, his back turned to her like a man who knew not what he was about to lose. Cairon couldn’t remember how long ago it was, but it was like she was still waiting for him. Like a loyal lover, whose man had gone to war.

A broad, childish smile appeared on his face and inexpressible sounds of joy escaped his throat.
He was back on the surface.

“Take his stuff.”

One of the soldiers tore Cairon’s possessions out of his hands and threw them onto a wagon, that stood waiting a few paces away. Another grabbed Cairon’s arms and ruggedly tied them together behind his back. Then he was pushed onto the wagon, the soldiers seating themselves next and opposite of him and the horse pulling the cart started to run.

A horse! Cairon hadn’t seen one in an eternity. Sometimes they would hear a horse’s neighing coming from far above, like it was a thousand miles away. Yet here it was.

He should have been panicked, question, where he was being taken, but all these things that were missing from his life for such a long time, filled him with curiosity and bliss. He smiled and giggled, like a small child, as he watched the rabbits chase each other across the fields of Osmua, the insects swirl around each other in a maddened dance, until his gaze fell upon the soldier sitting opposite of him, who was still barely older than a boy.

He did not share Cairon’s optimism; his expression was one of sadness.

Then he was nudged by his comrade next to him and he averted his face immediately.

For hours the wagon drove on, none of the soldiers uttering a single word on the way. It made no difference to Cairon, he didn’t tire of seeing the wonders of the surface.

The grasslands of Osmua were hued in a deep lively green, birds cawed at each other above the fields, landed on trees, bulging with leaves and fruit in the most fantastic of colours, whose scents found their way to his nose, caressing it with their fresh aura.

Would he ever tire of these wonders? Maybe these years of torture have been a serendipity. He saw the world in ways he has never noticed before. Everything that used to be daily routine was now something he could marvel at for hours on end, discover that, which he would’ve thought mundane before, anew entirely.

Eventually the wagon came to a stop, in front of a cave, which was surrounded by houses. A village, Cairon reckoned.

Out of one of the houses stepped a well-dressed man, his face shaved completely, except for a moustache that was waxed into a majestic twirl.

Cairon smiled at him, curious as to what this man had in store for him.

“Oh, is that the newcomer you promised? Cairon, am I correct? Welcome, friend!”

For a moment he smiled, inspecting Cairon from top to bottom.

His eyes stopped on his chest and he sighed.

“Why are all the prisoners you bring so… burly?”, with a wave of his hand he stopped every attempt at an answer, that the soldiers might have made, “No matter. My guards can handle them. Take him down.”

Cairon’s breath turned solid in his throat, his smile died.

Prisoner. Guards. Handle. Down.

They wanted to take him below another mountain. Just as he’s been to the surface, seen its wonders that he’s missed so long, they wanted to wrench it away from him.

He whooped, tried to slip from the soldier’s grasp, to flee. The sharp-dressed gave a snobbish giggle, watching Cairons futile struggle, as if it were the death throes of a deer he had finally slain after a long hunt, before turning away, without uttering another word, and entering his home.
The soldiers held Cairon in their grasp, prevented him from fleeing or fighting. But he had no strength left either way. His head felt heavy and his body lighter yet. They pulled him into the cave like they would have pulled a sack of potatoes. With less care even.

The first thing to disappear was the colour of the world, then the smell of the flowers, then the sound of the birds, then the warmth of the day and lastly the light of the sun.

They were replaced by the sight of guards, batons and prisoners, the sound of pickaxes, the smell of shit, death and unwashed bodies, the ever greyness of the rocks and lastly the nervous light of flickering candles.

Crudely they threw him into a hollowed-out space deep in the stone wall and then they threw his things, his shitty blanket and his useless cup, at him. Just like before.

“Welcome to your new home. You know the rules.”

The soldiers turned around after he spoke his parting words and walked away. Just one soldier remained, who stood in front of the small crevice, watching Cairon, who was curled up to a ball, silently answering his gaze.

It was the boy, who’d already stared at him in the wagon.

His expression was still one of sadness.

No, not sadness. Pity.

Then he also disappeared into the darkness of the cave, along with Cairon's hopes of ever leaving this place.

Cairon was where his day had begun. In the dark, surrounded by his melody of suffering.

Pang. Klank. Pang. Klank. Pang. Klank.

There was no end to the work.