WARBRINGERS: Revenge and Revolution

LITTLE PSYCHOPATHS

Suliana put a poster of a faceless man on her wall.

She drew it on paper and stick it to the wall with a special kind of tree sap. The man on the poster was tall, he was wearing a white shirt covered in goat blood—like a Millos in a protest. Suliana then bought steelhawk feathers on the market. Steelhawks are types of birds with feathers that the tip can be sharpened to the point that it can pierce the skin.

Whenever Suliana was mad, she’d take of steelhawk feather and throw it on the drawn picture of the faceless man. It would pierce the wooden wall in a juicy thunk, directly on the man’s blank face. Suliana wouldn’t feel any satisfaction.

She then lay on her bed and looked back on how Camia made a sacrifice for her. They were eighteen then, and Camia who was disgusted at the thought of romance and having a boyfriend… fell-in-love. Suliana knew it was inevitable, that it wasn’t Camia’s fault, but she hated her then. Until she made a sacrifice…

Suliana’s eyes welled with tears. She held a steelhawk feather on her face, looked at the sharp tip of its shaft. She then raised her other hand and pricked his finger with the tip until blood oozed from the pad of her finger.

Blood sisters, she remembered a phrase that once lived on her tongue. We were blood sisters…

***

GON

A KRILL funeral is a day-long occasion. Before the sun could even kiss the sky, the grieving family will cook food for the anticipated number of visitors. The smell of honeyed chicken would wake people up from their sleep.

Usually, in a krill funeral, by the time darkness breaks, there would be singing. Only a few krills would be assigned to work that day. Most will stay to attend a fellow krill’s funeral. Supposedly, they’d help in the preparation of the food, too.

That didn’t happen in the morning of Camia’s funeral. The krill trader assigned a lot of jobs to the krills.

“Gon, you are assigned to—”

Before Baladin can even finish than sentence Gon spoke, “No.”

Baladin frowned. He put one of his hands on his hip, the other is holding the scroll. “What do you mean no? You can’t say no.”

“Today is my friend’s funeral. I would like to be excused from work today, thank you.”

“Oh, because that works,” said Baladin, nodding his head. “Yeah, that is how we do things here. You imbecile pansies tell me what to do, and I follow them. Oh yeah, that’s what we do here.”

“Really?” said a young krill beside Gon, he looked confused. “I didn’t know that!”

“Of course not, i***t!” said Baladin. Spit went flying off his mouth that the little boy beside Gon flinched. “You will do everything I need to say, okay? Or else I won’t pay you for a week!”

The money you pay us is not from your pocket. It is from the kingdom and it’s not even a decent pay, Gon almost said. But being cocky wouldn’t help him today. “Can I just get double tasks tomorrow?” said Gon. “You see, she’s my friend and…”

“No,” said Baladin. “The fields are still rat-infested—”

“No, they’re not,” said another krill. “We’ve managed to kill all the rats—”

“They went back and became the undead, you f*****g moron!” said Baladin. “Just shut the f**k up!”

Obviously, Baladin was just making excuses. He didn’t want Gon to attend the funeral. It was probably because of the soldiers.

Yesterday, Baladin blew his s**t when he was called by the king to explain why Gon and Mastaro attacked their soldiers. Apparently, Jaider told the king what happened and the king got mad. Baladin was scolded by the king, he was told he can’t discipline a bunch of uneducated krills. Baladin apologized to the king and promised it wouldn’t happen again. When Baladin came back to the krilldom, he asked the other krills to tie Gon on a tree for two hours as punishment. Until now, Gon was still scratching his arms bit by angry ants.

“Please, akir Baladin, please,” said Gon. He almost went on his knees in front of Baladin. “This is the day I would say goodbye to my friend. Please let me have this, please.”

“No, I can’t let you do that. Every task has to be finished today—”

“I’ll finish it for him,” interrupted Mastaro. He was sitting in front of the krills. His hand was still on a cast.

Baladin looked at him with a mocking smile. “You? You’ll help him?”

Mastaro nodded. “I will.”

“Your bones aren’t even okay yet, you little psychopath.”

“My friends will help me finish Gon’s tasks,” Mastaro said.

“What?” Mastaro’s friends reacted.

Mastaro gave his friends a sharp look and they all murmured, “Okay,” at the same time.

“If you only want the task to get finished, I’ll do it for him. We’ll do it for him,” said Mastaro.

“What happened to you, pig-faced boy?” said Baladin with wonder on his face. “Aren’t you a heartless psychopath?”

“I’m not,” Mastaro said. “And I may not be nice, but I am not heartless enough to stop Gon from grieving.”

Baladin shook his head. He was still obviously annoyed with the suggestion, but he was in a dead-end and couldn’t make another weird excuse. “Fine,” said Baladin. He rolled the scroll. “If that’s what you want, fine. The three remaining tasks will be for you and your friends. Now get your inbred-looking faces out of here.”

Mastaro’s friends groaned. Mastaro raised one of his eyebrows at them and they got silent. Some of the krills got up and whispered to each other, probably discussing what Mastaro just did.

Mastaro turned to Gon and nodded his head. Gon smiled at him and nodded his head too, before mouthing, “Thank you.” His heart was filled with gratitude.

Mastaro saved the day.

***

SULIANA

SULIANA and Gon were holding each other’s hands as Camia’s casket was lowered in the grave.

Camia’s mother kept on crying while she was on her knees beside the grave. She kept on calling her name, saying that she was taken too early. Suliana felt her sadness pressing on her chest like a heavy iron so she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She felt Gon squeeze her hand.

I love you, Camia. You will always be my sister. You will always be alive in my memories. And I promise you, I promise you that the Millos will pay for what they’ve done. I promise you; you’ll have justice.

She opened her eyes and the casket was now completely buried in the dirt. Some of the few krills who attended the burial left the cemetery, perhaps to go home or to go to Camia’s house to eat. Gon and Suliana stayed with Camia’s mother until she got up and looked at them while wiping a handkerchief on her face.

“She loved the both of you,” Camia’s amir said. “She would always talk about you.”

Suliana felt the heavy feeling on her chest again.

“Thank you for being there for her,” Camia’s amir said, looked at the grave. She sighed and looked at them again. “Come to the house. I prepared honeyed chicken. You must eat before you go home.”

“We’ll stay here for a while,” Gon said that made Suliana look at him. Gon looked tired. His silver hair tangled and matted to his head. There were bags under his eyes.

“Okay,” Cami’s mother nodded. “But promise me you’ll stop by first to the house to eat.”

“We will,” Gon said.

Camia’s mother hugged them before walking away, occasionally sniffing. Suliana looked at Gon again.

“Why?” she said. She knew something was wrong, she can feel it under her skin.

Gon licked his lip and took a deep breath. “I have something important to tell you.”

“Okay…” Suliana’s heart was now beating so fast against her chest. “What? C’mon say it.” Her hands were now damp with cold sweat.

“The Millos didn’t kill Camia, Suliana,” said Gon.

A chill went down Suliana’s spine. The wind hit them with its strong, cold breath. The leaves of the trees rustled. Her mind was filled with questions. Questions she knew she wouldn’t know the answer to unless she asked…

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not the Millos, Suliana. They’re not our enemies…” Gon’s face broke, and soon he was crying. “It’s the soldiers…”

Suliana couldn’t say anything. Her face felt warm as if she was slapped. Her hands felt numb as they trembled.

“It’s the soldiers, Suliana. They’re the ones who r***d Camia…” Gon said. “They’re the ones who murdered her…”