36. Vapas
36
VAPAS
T he resistance members move quickly through the streets. The chaos has most of the citizens retreating to their homes, or what remains of them. Smoke is even heavier in the air than it has been since the quakes. The acrid scent burns my sinuses.
We’re heading for the outskirts. I push aside all other thoughts besides moving. Eyes alert to every hint of a threat. The slightest motion and my attention is there, expecting a Maulavi army to emerge from every shadow.
Occupying my attention is better than thinking. I do not understand what she has done. What her connection is to all of this. Was she always part of the resistance? No. No time for those thoughts.
It isn’t long before we reach the outer edge of the city. The two Urr’ki leading the way stop, look around, then motion us into a building. I follow the leader into the dark room. The only light is that which penetrates through the cracks and holes in the walls. The leader goes to the rear wall and crouches. I join him there.
“Maulavi guards,” he says, peering through one of the cracks in the wall and pointing.
I look for myself. Two Maulavi in their dirty white robes huddle close while two other guards stand around looking bored. They’re guarding one of the exits from the cave. It is new for the Maulavi to be there.
“Plan?” I ask.
“We will create the distraction,” he says, pointing at himself then the other resistance member. “You two slip past. Do not engage. Run.”
I glare, unwilling to take a passive role. If there is to be a fight, I should fight.
“I can fight,” I protest. “We can beat them.”
“No, brother, we cannot,” he says. “If we could, you wouldn’t be going on this mission. You think we want to join forces with the lizards? You think we like this anymore than you do?”
“Then why?” I ask, anger surging. “They have destroyed everything. They kill us without remorse. Why engage with them?”
“Because, Vapas, they are by far the lesser of two evils. If we don’t stop the Shaman there will be nothing left of us to fight. The lizards kill our bodies. The Shaman is killing our souls. You see it, don’t you?”
I grit my teeth, not wanting to admit he’s right. It goes against everything I’ve ever known. The Zmaj are the enemy. The stories we grow up with says they are the monsters. Driving us from the surface and then finding us here they continued their genocide.
But he is right. My people are no longer what we were and it is not the Zmaj who have done this to us, but the Shaman. The spying, the mistrust, the whispers, the total loss of honor. This is not who we are.
“How?” I ask. “How am I to entreat with them?”
“The humans,” he says, “they are the key. They’ve opened the door and we must walk through.”
“Vapas, I can help,” Phoebe says, her voice trembling, though it’s barely a whisper.
I look at her, uncertain what I see any longer. I thought I knew her, but I was wrong. She has secrets and layers that I never suspected. She is not the scared, lonely female who reminds me so much of my former dragoste. She is something different, more maybe, but deceptive above all. And that is a hard pill to swallow.
“Fine,” I snap. “We will run. I will try this. If I end up dead, so be it.”
I rise and walk to the hovel door.