Fast Friends: Day 16

[S] Another mossy stone (16,381 / 1,000,000)

I stuck my spade into the dirt beside me and leaned my back against the wall of the pit I’d been digging. I wiped my brow on my forearm, achieving nothing but a redistribution of dirt and sweat.

“Hey,” I called up, “help a guy out, will you?”

I tilted my head back and took a moment to gaze at the black disc of sky that filled the opening above me - no stars out tonight. The silhouette of a head and shoulders shoved it’s way into my view, barely visible against the night sky, and a hand reached down to me. I stretched up and grasped it, pressed my feet against the wall, and clambered out of the pit. I didn’t bother standing up when I made it to the top, I simply rolled over the lip onto my back and stayed there. The same silhouette poked it’s way into my vision once more.

“You didn’t have to go for so long, you know. There’s no rush after all,” the silhouette spoke, a hint of dry humor coming through.

“Hah!” That earned him a dry coughing chuckle from me.

I rolled onto my side, gazing east. Dotting the distant horizon were barely visible flecks of shimmering embers - campfires. Hundreds of columns of smoke twisted upwards and disappeared into the dark sky.

“I guess you’re right, it won’t make a difference anyway,” I rasped through a parched throat, humor gone from my voice.

Soft footfalls made their way through grass behind me, and I heard the rustling of a pack follow. A weight thudded into my back and settled to the ground gurgling. I sat up and grabbed the water skin. I hastily uncorked it and took deep, gratifying gulps.

“Thanks Ro,” I said, after a satisfied sigh.

The silhouette approached, and plopped down next to me.

“No problem,” the voice replied.

The voice was one very familiar to me, one I had heard since as far back as my memory went. Ro wasn’t my brother - not in the strict sense. But we were as close as any brothers I knew. He sat quietly beside me, his arms rested on his knees, and he turned a crust of bread in his hands thoughtfully. He took a bite, and passed it over to me. I bit into the stale scrap, nearly chipping a tooth, and we both sat and chewed in silence for a while.

“Hey,” Ro began, humor abnormally absent from his voice, “Why don’t we run? Don’t you think we could make it?” His voice was a shameful whisper, and he didn’t look at me while he asked.

I turned my gaze towards the glinting horizon again, and sighed.

“And leave the town to fend for itself? Ro, we can’t do that to them, there’s barely any men or women left to defend it. Old Man Aggod even dusted off his ancient sword from his days in the First Wars,” I said dejectedly, only finally realizing that I had decided to stay for sure.

“What are we supposed to do?” Ro spat, sudden anger uncharacteristically spewing from my long time friend. “The Golden Horde doesn’t even use swords and shields. They don’t fight with honor. Nobody has resisted their advance, and they leave nobody behind,” he argued. In the twenty or so years that I had known him, I had not once heard him speak with such venom.

“We can’t run, Ro,” I countered. “It’s like you said, nobody has resisted their advance. Let’s assume we avoid the roving mercenaries that take their coin, and we make it to another town. Then what? We wait until the Horde reaches us there?” I shook my head. “No. We stay,” I finished flatly.

Pale light shone down upon us, and I glanced up to see the moon peeking out from behind dusky clouds. I looked over at Ro and saw streams of tears gleaming in the light, cutting lines through the dirt on his cheeks. Noticing my own heightened emotions, I knew that my face looked the same. I pressed my forefinger and thumb into my cheeks, collecting some tears. With my other hand I grabbed a pinch of soil from beside me. Mixing the tears into the dirt to make a paste, I painted a crude symbol onto the back of each of my hands. One which represented “father”, the other “mother”. Beside me, Ro reverently performed the same ritual. The symbols he painted on his hands read “brother” and “mother”, in respect to his fallen family.

He looked up from his completed task, staring resolutely towards the ember-dotted horizon.

“Okay,” he stated finally, almost to himself. He grabbed the worn shovel that I had been using, and strode to a spot a few paces from the pit I had finished. He slammed the spade into fresh ground.

“You’re going for another one?” I asked, as he proceeded to dig. My eyes drifted to the pit I had just finished, and then past it to the line of pits behind it. Dozens of dark holes marred the earth. The line of pits stretched out into the distance and marked a jagged line between the open plains and the start of the sparse forest within which our village lay.

“I have been known to one-up you in every regard,” Ro quipped, his typical tone of dry humor returned.

I chuckled again and looked down at my blister-pocked hands. When we were kids, our parents would challenge us to see who could dig the deeper hole, sometimes tempting us with tales of buried treasure. Really, they just wanted to get us out from underfoot for a while, and they wanted us to chip away at our boundless stores of energy. He did usually dig deeper than me during those adventures. He had a determination that I couldn’t match, even with my size advantage.

I took the opportunity to rest, the rhythmic sounds of metal striking earth lulling me into a drowsy, contemplative state. When you’re young, time is a curious invention that old people worry about. It’s something you don’t think to appreciate, having so much of it sprawled out before you. I thought that I finally understood those old people. Only when your time is almost up, do you finally think to appreciate it. But by then, it’s too late, isn’t it?