“I’ve been on the other side of the village, and I brought some news with me,” he announced to the other two.
“What is it?” Erika inquired.
“Deganawida had some kind of emergency meeting with some elders of this village. It seems that they decided that even the area around the village isn’t safe to stay within,” Derek related to the two of them. “We are probably going to be evacuating the area pretty soon, to go deeper into the forest. Word has been sent to the other villages of the Onan, and other tribes of the Five Realms, to prepare them for the kind of assaults that hit this village last night… It was evidently the first time that kind of attack has ever happened.”
“So we are going to be on the move again,” Erika remarked, a little regretfully.
Derek nodded grimly, clearly sharing her frustration. “It sure looks that way, but what can we do? With flying creatures like those used in that attack, no village is safe. Well, I’m going back. I just wanted you to know what had happened, so at least you have some idea about what’s coming. If you see Janus, let him know about it. I’ve already located Kent, Logan, and Mershad, though I’m not sure whether Logan even heard what I was saying to him.”
Erika nodded. “We’ll tell Janus, I promise.”
“Hang in there,” he said, giving them a brief smile, though Erika could not fail to miss the half-hearted nature of it.
After wiping his forehead clear again, he gave them a thumbs-up gesture as well, though his eyes betrayed the real truth. Erika knew that he was a very tough man, and also knew that his stoic demeanor was not just his own way of handling the tragedy, but was also intended for their own benefit. Casting a presence of strength, even if just a semblance of it, was a lifeline that they could all hold onto within the storm of misery. It was a foundation when everything else seemed so unstable.
“Hang in there, both of you… It sounds crazy, but I know that it will get better. I know that it will,” Derek then added.
“It will, Derek,” Erika replied more firmly, giving him a warm smile in return, wanting him to feel a little of the confidence that he wanted to instill in the others.
He returned the grin, though it was laced with sadness. Derek then turned and set off with heavy steps to resume his efforts within the sea of tragedy.
JANUS
It had taken no small effort to force himself to walk into the village on that unforgiving morning. He was not about to let the good people of the village and his friends work through the rubble alone. Heavy hearted, seeing the world shrouded in the coldest gray, Janus had forced his legs to take each step up the hillside and past the outer palisade, taking him into the interior of the destroyed village.
Though he had expected horrific sights to meet his eyes, the lack of surprise in finding them did not diminish the thunderous ache in his heart as his eyes swept across the inner grounds of the Onan village.
All of the calamities in view were more than burdensome to his already fragile psyche. One of them, though, had been nearly enough to shove him over the edge and into an internal abyss.
Though unbeknownst to Janus, it was the very same sight that had compelled Logan to sit down, broken and angry, amid the ruins of the village. It was the scene of the child sobbing into the fur of her dead dog, as she rocked back and forth on the ground, cradling the crushed body.
The image conjured up a thousand upon thousand demons within Janus’ delicate mind. The horror and sorrow etched upon the little girl’s face, as her tears wetted the fur on the still body in which she had probably once found comfort and a sense of freedom, were far too much for Janus to be able to handle.
Instantly, he connected intimately with the great pain that was embroiling the little girl. The thunder of the agony he felt for her, and felt from the wounds newly ripped open within himself, caused a river of tears to break through and flow outward.
He slowly walked over to the little girl, squatted down, and hugged her tightly, sobbing himself.
Her dog, a large, stout, grey-furred breed, was clenched tightly in her arms. Its head was caked in blood and misshapen, where one of the cruel rocks from the sky had struck it during the dreadful night.
Janus memory invoked a contrasting image, one that made the current scene all the more acrid. He could imagine the little girl, just a day earlier, running through the village, squealing with joy as the dog bounded along playfully at her heels. He could still see the two wrestling and frolicking around, the dog licking her face, barking excitedly, and wagging its tail vigorously, as she threw her arms around it and hugged her furry friend close. The daunting veil of mortality now irrevocably separated the two companions, who had been happily playing together without a care in the world just the previous day.
However the roads arrived at it, this was the ugly culmination at the end of all lives. Through violence, age, or disease, and whether sinner or saint, all paths led to the awful conclusion that extinguished the wonder of a unique, irreplaceable life. That, in its naked reality, was the true face of death.
Death held the countenance of an unbowed conqueror. As always, the only death that Janus desired with all of his soul was the death of death itself.
The little girl continued to cry into the fur of the dog, but after some time curiosity must have moved her to look up to see just who was hugging her. Janus spoke no words, just trying to comfort and console her by his close presence. He understood her pain implicitly, but knew that there was nothing that he could really say.
He wished that he could somehow take the pain away from her, even if it meant that he added it to his own sustained, and continuously worsening, perdition. He hugged her to him even tighter, wishing that he could somehow squeeze the sorrow out of her, and let it seep into his own world-weary body.
Janus silently held the little girl close and snug, for what seemed like an eternity. He did not mind it in the least, knowing that it gave the poor child a slim anchorage to something that transcended the hideousness of the world.
Eventually, he felt a gentle hand lay down upon his shoulder.
Slowly looking up, he beheld a young village woman, whose face was stained with tears. New ones were welling up and moistening her reddened eyes, before beginning their downward trek. She was a very attractive young woman, but a great abyss of sorrow had left her looking haggard and drawn.
“Thank you… for being here, with my daughter… man from afar,” she said with great effort, in a voice hollow and exhausted. She tried to force a smile, clearly moved at the compassion that the foreigner had shown to her daughter, a child that he did not know.
Janus nodded quietly to her, knowing what she would ask, as he slowly released his embrace of the girl, and methodically got up to his feet. No words needed to be said that the girl’s mother needed to take his place as the comforter. The anchorage that he had instilled in the child, diminutive as it was, would be strengthened tenfold by the presence of her own mother. Many children in the village were now bereft of such a grace, a thought not lost on Janus as he watched the mother’s emotion pour forth at the reunion.
The mother instantly dropped to her knees and hugged the little girl tightly, letting the tears flow swiftly again down her angular cheeks. Wordlessly, Janus shuffled away from the scene, feeling numb in his heart, though his chest seemed to throb with the emotional pain that he held within. His legs were weak, barely able to support his weight.
Two times, he tripped on debris and fell to the ground. Each time that he fell, he dragged himself back up and continued onward, heading towards the village’s entryway. Janus wanted simply to head away from the village and its immense sorrows. He knew that he needed to get away from everything before he lost control of his tenuous hold on sanity, or could at least deceive himself that he could get away from the pain for a few moments. In truth, one could never escape such an experience, as it left a very unique kind of wound. The bleeding could possibly be stemmed, but the scar would never fade, as Janus knew well enough.