The dagger had been lodged deep in Dulab's gut and any movement resulted in the blade tearing his insides and driving the man into pain. Orgeeg knelt beside Dulab while Masutap stood several paces away. Death was something she was used to, it's something she dealt in and knew thoroughly of. Dulab was going to die, the stench from the wound said as much. He'd raptured something vital, his face was an oblique pale glow in the moonlight. His lips trembled and his eyes lacked even the strength to peruse either which way.
Yet Orgeeg was stuck to Dulab's side, never mind the thrashing of the undead all around them. He knelt by Dulab, consoling him. Speaking to him of the sun of all things. Promising a dying man that he would see the sun again, what use is the sun to one who was dying? Will the promise of a ball of heat in the sky inspire one to live? Thinking of the sun reminded Masutap of Meena's domain where four suns etched the sky. She shivered and it wasn't due to the cold of the night.
"Save your strength. Don't speak." Orgeeg was insistent.
Masutap walked to what was once a former Royal Black Guard, now lying mangled on the ground. She remembered when she'd dropped him, two consecutive punches, one to the head and the other to the neck. Now the man's head bent at an awkward angle, his brains riddled the ground and looked almost silver in the moonlight. Yet the man still twitched, moving and stirring as if forcing himself to finish the mission regardless of whether or not his body was whole.
She squatted next to the undead. The thrashing heightened with proximity to her, with a hand she forced her way into his exposed skull, grabbed all she felt in there and pulled it out, tissue and brain matter felt wet and sticky to her grip. She counted heart beats, waiting for the undead to finally relinquish its soul but no such thing happened, it continued to twitch, defying the odds.
"Dulab will turn." She said and felt Orgeeg turn to face her.
"You know nothing." Orgeeg answered.
"Proximity to death spurs the undead to rise, as long as he has died by their hand he will turn."
"Shut your mouth you... You..." She waited for him to say it, it was at the tip of his tongue and she very well knew it will not be held back. Never mind that they'd fought back to back, Orgeeg employing a Form of Rage she'd never seen before. Instead of upward and downward strikes he moved in a circle, cleaving in waves. She'd been amazed, her blood lust had stirred, she'd felt— "You traitor!"
She spun. "And why am I a traitor Orgeeg? Do you know my story? Do you know how I've suffered under the people you so diligently serve?"
"Nothing excuses turning your back on duty."
"Everything does! You dolt! Can't you see some of us harbor pain the likes of which duty ceases to matter in its presence? Do you think I slept peacefully at night knowing the Royalties were safe? I wanted death. I wanted them to feel pain I wanted a raging," She paused. "A raging inferno."
Orgeeg stood up, finally leaving Dulab's side. "A raging inferno? Do you presume this life to be a bards tale? You framed me for the murder of Desan. Turned the whole of Binoria against me. Forcing me to become a fugitive and for what? So you can kill those you swore to protect? Do your oaths mean nothing? Want kind of human are you!"
"I am human!" She shrieked. "Humanity is something I touch on more than you since I grasp the very order of things. From the budding of a shoot to the death of a mighty Jiganda tree, I see it all and I feel it all. I see the patterns within patterns. I see oblivion inching ever close by with the steady march of time so don't lecture me on what it is to be human."
"You have no soul!" Orgeeg exclaimed.
Masutap fought back tears. How was this Rank One hurling her into a place she swore she'd never trod? How were his words breaking the walls she'd so carefully laid about her to prevent tears from ever welling in her eyes? He doesn't understand. Yet she found herself wishing he would. As if his belief mattered. She wanted to tell him about her mother, about how she'd been raped by King Vayin Vigon and had sired her, a thing that rendered both her life and her mother's life obsolete before the throne.
She recalled running, her mother screaming out to her to escape, to go past the walls of Binoria, to disappear as the soldiers closed in on her mother. Blades rising and falling. Her mother had been branded a traitor and thus was the punishment for treachery in Binoria. The loss of one's life, the loss of all life connected to you too. She'd run, just a child, running, ever running without looking back. She didn't look back as the glow of a fire roared from behind her, their shack being set ablaze by the Binorian soldiers. She'd run until she could not and once far off enough, she'd collapsed and cried. And it was then she'd sworn never to cry again. Yet here she was, blinking away tears.
"What can you do to me Orgeeg?" Masutap asked, turning to face the Rank One. She saw his jaw tighten, his eyes narrowing. The signs of Order were wrapped around him like a mesh. This blonde man, too young to be in the lead and too qualified to have anyone else take it. "There is nothing you can do to me." And she meant it, with her strength she could rip him in half.
"I need you." Orgeeg said, his shoulders slumping. He ran a hand through his trimmed hair and sighed. "I need the Masutap I knew, the one..." He hesitated. "The one I thought of as a friend."
Pathetic! She wanted to scream. Yet all she could do was nod. As if she understood, and in a way she did. Orgeeg had been on a mission to kill her. Capturing her wasn't even part of his objective. But they'd encountered something else, Leba. The lost Prince wasn't so lost, he was alive and changed. And with him came extinction. With him total annihilation and she understood that Orgeeg saw this and wanted a reprieve from all the unnecessary feuds. They needed to unite, the whole realm needed to unite to bring down Leba.
"Orgeeg," Dulab said, his voice barely a whisper. "My soul, it's trapped in my body, I feel it in my flesh, it refuses to let go. It refuses Orgeeg." He coughed a mouthful of blood.
Orgeeg looked shaken, his face ashen in the moonlight. "Don't speak Dulab, everything will be okay."
"No Orgeeg, things won't. But—" He coughed more blood. "But we have a chance, don't you see? A live specimen."
Orgeeg only stared, fear making him dumb, rendering his acute mind incapable of comprehension. He opened his mouth to ask what Dulab meant but Masutap spoke first. "He wants to be taken to Dahli, to the Queen of Binoria where he will be proof of what Leba ... has become."
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