Kurush: The First City - Chapter 2

 Anka held two wooden figurines in her hands, a man with neatly cropped hair wearing an amber tunic and a woman with long flowing hair wearing a violet dress. The pit of her stomach was as cold as ice, and the cold was seeping throughout her body. She was surprised at herself, she would have thought she’d fly into a blind rage when told she’d have to leave her home. But she knew it would be pointless, she didn’t have the strength to push back. She remembered feeling frozen inside like this on that day ten years ago, when she came home after the Night of Hunger and found no-one there.

Shanessa came into their room and looked over Anka’s shoulders at the figurines, “I wish they didn’t make the faces look so blank. When I try to picture them… I can’t remember what they looked like”

“You were only six. I’ll try to draw them for you sometime”

“Listen, I know you’ve been making good money with the jewellery. Why don’t you buy the house, so we can stay?”

“Oresh told me that Gishka owes twelve gold ingots to those thugs. I only have one. She should have told us she couldn’t make the payments, instead of pretending that everything was normal”

Anka carefully put the figurines into a chest painted deep blue with smooth bronze edges, on top of figurines of grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents.

“Could you carry this?” said Anka

“Sorry, there’s a lot of tablets I need to take. You could ask Kisha, she’s just arrived”     

“Ask me what?”

Kisha ducked through the doorway. She was Oresh’s twin sister, yet somehow she seemed as tall as a mountain compared to him. She wasn’t wearing her armour, but her well-toned muscles betrayed how much time she spent training at the barracks. Judging by her claws, Anka suspected she sharpened them every morning.

“You picked quite a day to come home Kisha”, said Anka

“Did you want help with this?” said Kisha, reaching out to the ancestral chest

Anka picked it up before she could touch it, “I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t be surprised if you gripped it so hard it snapped in half. Go help your mother – you know, that poor woman who raised you?”

“And you wonder why I don’t spend time here”, said Kisha as she left

“Come on folks, I haven’t got all day”, called the golden-scaled lisha from the front door

The family gathered in the street. Oresh and Shanessa carried precarious stacks of clay tablets which held their favourite poems. Anka had her savings, her stock and the ancestral chest. Kisha carried Gishka’s cherished clothes, jewellery boxes and cooking utensils. Gishka, her shoulders sagging from weariness, just carried a miniature wooden ship, Hadash’s most prized possession.

“This sure is a nice house,” said the golden-scaled lisha, “I wonder if the boss will want it for himself”

“I didn’t catch your name,” said Kisha, looking squarely into her eyes, “and what exactly is it you do?”

“I’m Lydda, I run errands for the boss. You don’t need to know what kind of errands”

“You’ll let us come back tomorrow, won’t you?” said Gishka, “To pick up the rest?”

“I’m taking you to a place in the Ekuan quarter which is nice and, er, cosy,” said Lydda, “frankly I doubt you’ll fit all this stuff in there. Besides the boss wants to come here tomorrow. Who has the key?” 

Gishka handed over the notched piece of wood, her hand trembling as she tried to fight back the tears.

Lydda rolled her eyes, “You fancy types have so much money you don’t know how to manage it. Serves you right for spending more than you have”

“You don’t understand,” said Gishka, “my husband, he sailed to the nightward isles, it’s taking longer than we’d thought for him to come back…”

“So you’re just unlucky? Well, you’ll be in good company in the Ekuan quarter. Let’s go”

Lydda led the way down the hill with the family in tow, as they struggled to keep hold of their baggage without knocking into anyone on the busy streets. The mud-brick buildings around them glowed like molten gold in the light of the setting sun. The Ekuan quarter was wedged between the docks and the outer wall, as far as you could get from the Rush inside Kurush. Close to the tail of the docks, they squeezed into a narrow alleyway and left the sunset light behind them.

The cuboid hovels of the Ekuan quarter almost seemed like they were crushed between each other, making them look like they had fused into one gigantic sprawling creature with warped and haphazard body parts. There were planks of wood between roofs, making the alleyway even darker, which lishas and hurums walked across. The alleys were so narrow that some simply jumped across. The further they went in, the harder it became to ignore the stench coming from the detritus that littered the alleys. Kamas, lizards the size of a child, were busy scavenging rotting food in the darkest alleys. When Anka almost stepped on one, it swivelled its eyes and scurried up the wall.

“Doesn’t anyone clean the streets here?” said Oresh

“There used to be sweepers who knocked on your door and charged a leaf or two to clean your porch,” said Lydda, “they don’t come anymore, I guess no-one down here can afford them these days. If you don’t want shit outside your house, you gotta clean it up yourself. If you can find the time”

Almost all of the lishas had golden scales and the hurums had olive skin, wearing plain and threadbare tunics. These were the Ekuans, the natives of the island. Oresh, Kisha and Gishka had mostly leaf-green scales, Anka and Shanessa had deep-tanned skin, and they were all wearing bright patterned clothes. They would not have stood out more if they were juggling gold ingots.

A lisha man on a rooftop above them elbowed his friend and nodded toward the family. Anka tried to ignore the hunger in their eyes as they leered at her and her sister. She looked round at Shanessa and noticed that she was wearing a very short top, the kind that was fashionable among teenagers from the Rush which flaunted the entire belly. She kicked herself for not noticing earlier.

“Do you have a cloak you can put on?” Anka whispered

“What? No,” said Shanessa, “why?”

“Do you ever listen to what I say? Oh, nevermind, now’s not the time…”

“Here we are folks,” said Lydda, “your new home”

The sounds of a couple shouting at each other came from the ground floor. Lydda led them up some stairs on the outside and pushed open the door at the top. The flat was dark and bare, with nothing but broken pottery strewn across the floor. In the ceiling there was a hatch that led to the roof, and a hole the shape of a lisha’s foot. They jumped when the sound of snoring came from the corner.

“Oi! Get up!” said Lydda

“Just a bit longer…” said the lisha man

Lydda grabbed his collar, dragged him out of the door and threw him down the stairs. He lay in the alley moaning. Anka noticed that his face was chequered with scars.

“Do you have the key?” Anka asked

“Ha! You think this place is fancy enough to have a lock?” said Lydda

“It’s good to see up close what life is like for the, er, underprivileged,” said Oresh, “but maybe we’ll just stay here for the night. Tomorrow we’ll try and find some friends who can put us up for a while”

“You mean tomorrow you’ll try and find a ship that’s heading to Parua and never come back,” said Lydda, “That’s not happening. You’ll be staying here, where we can keep an eye on you and make sure you pay what you owe. You’ll be paying double the rent for this place, and then maybe we’ll be even after ten years or so. Well, I’ll let you settle in. Welcome to the neighbourhood!”

Lydda slammed the door behind her. The family stood in silence, listening to the couple still arguing underneath them. Gishka fell to her knees and started wailing like a toddler. Shanessa dropped her tablets onto the floor and ran to hug her adopted mother.

“We’ll be okay! We’ll work really hard, and make everything right again. I know it!”

“It is what it is,” said Anka, “before we can do anything else, we need dinner. I’ll go to the meat market, Oresh could you come too? I’ll need some help”

“I’ll come,” said Kisha, “I can carry more than Oresh”

“I’ll come too”, said Shanessa

“No, stay here and tidy the place up”, said Anka

“Are you planning to keep me in here for the next ten years? I need to get familiar with the area, would you prefer me to explore it on my own?”

“Fine, fine,” said Anka

She spotted some blankets in the corner of the room. They were covered in dust and had stains that she didn’t care to look closely at. She draped one around her shoulders and tied it around her neck.

“But put this on”, said Anka, handing Shanessa one

“Immersing yourself in the local culture is all well and good, but isn’t this going a bit far?” said Shanessa, who suddenly looked nauseous

“Just do it”

The three of them left Oresh to tidy, unpack and tend to his mother, and wound their way through the alleys once more. The meat market was just outside the Ekuan quarter, next to the Bloody Gate, the only way through Kurush’s outer walls. Anka gripped Shanessa’s arm so she wouldn’t lose her amidst the hundreds of lishas and hurums jostling to buy the cheapest steaks or revelling with friends with jugs of beer in hand. The ubiquitous smoke coming from the grills stung her eyes.

“What’s she doing?” asked Shanessa

Atop a tall pillar sat a voluptuous and barely dressed hurum woman, happily chatting with a dozen lishas who were gazing up at her as though transfixed.

“She’s there to whet appetites,” said Kisha, who was ogling the woman as well, “it’s good for business. I’ll get water from the well near the gate”

“Okay, we’ll get the food and meet you by the well”, said Anka

They picked a stall without a long queue, but they still had to use their elbows to have any chance of getting to the front.

“Get off my foot!” Anka told a stranger, “And don’t breathe on me, you stink of vomit”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” a lisha man with golden scales was saying to the stallholder, “I couldn’t afford this even if there was enough work for all the dockers”

“Then try harder to find work,” said the stallholder, “that’s the price, take it or leave it”

“Must be pretty tasty if it’s this expensive”, said a portly lisha man

“Look at it Dimoz, it looks like shit,” said the first, “this is a scam”

“This is as low as I can go,” said the stallholder, “if you’re just going to insult me, then get out of my face. Who’s next?”

As the lisha turned away, his eyes met with Anka’s. He had dark arrowheads running down his face, and there was an unsettling glint in his eye. Anka pushed forward.

“Five steaks. And do you have any bread?”

“No bread. That’s fifteen leaves”

Anka had planned on haggling, but the two lishas who had been in front of them were just standing to the side, drinking in the looks of the two girls. Anka handed over some bundles of leaves, took the steaks, and pulled Shanessa away. They slinked through the crowds towards the gate, coming to a throng of lishas and hurums waiting to draw water from the well. But Kisha was nowhere to be seen, being so tall she should have been unmissable. Anka looked behind her and saw the arrowheaded lisha and his friend marching towards them, their eyes focused.

“Ow! You don’t have to grip me so tightly, you know”, said Shanessa

“Let’s go”, said Anka

They went to the pillar with the voluptuous woman, Anka would not have been surprised to see Kisha drooling over her. But there was still no sign of her. Where had she disappeared to? Had the bitch given up on her mother and brother and decided to go back to the barracks?

“Maybe we should wait,” said Shanessa, “I’m sure she’ll-“

“No, we need to go”

As they walked briskly back into the dark labyrinth of the Ekuan quarter, people started lighting torches in their homes. The dim light and the erratic shadows coming out of their windows made Anka rub her eyes as she tried to navigate around heaps of rubbish and hidden puddles as quickly as she could. I need to focus, she told herself, I need to focus. But she jumped every time a loud cackle or a sudden roar came from one of the hovels. When a pile of rags started to move and groan, Anka instinctively launched into a run.

“Anka! Wait!” shouted Shanessa as she ran behind

“Keep quiet!” Anka hissed back

“Are you sure this is the right way?”

“What? Yes, isn’t this… oh fuck”

Anka realised that she had been running aimlessly for some time. They could be anywhere.

“We didn’t come this way before, I’d remember that dead kama, and th- ah!”

Shanessa tripped over and fell to her knees. As Anka ran over to her, she saw the two lishas at the far end of the alley. Her stomach turned to ice.

“The steaks…” said Shanessa, reaching to pick them off the ground

“Don’t worry about them,” said Anka, dropping hers onto the ground, “Come on”

She dragged Shanessa to her feet and down a side alley. Running wasn’t helping, the only other option was to hide. She noticed some crates stacked alongside a high wall, climbed on top of one, lifted Shanessa up and over the wall, then jumped up and over herself. They found themselves in a warehouse stacked with amphora, with no light other than the rising moon. They huddled in a vacant slot in the racks.

“Have you got any orokosa?” Anka whispered

Shanessa shook her head. Anka pulled the gourd off from around her neck and handed it to her.    

“Keep it hidden and then pour it in at the very last moment, got it?”

“It won’t come to that, surely?” said Shanessa, who was shaking, “They’re not actually going to… are they?”

There was a sound like wood creaking. Anka put one hand over her mouth and one over Shanessa’s. There was silence. Anka strained to hear something, anything, but could only hear her heart pounding. Time ground achingly to a crawl. But as they sat there frozen in the darkness, the idea that maybe the danger had passed and there was nothing more to worry about slowly crept in.

“Staroz! Here!”

A lisha’s foot and then his toothy grin appeared. The girls barrelled out of their hiding place and started running, only to find their way blocked by the lisha with arrowheads running down his face. They were trapped between the high stacks of amphora, one lisha in front and one lisha behind.

“You’ve got shit luck. Of all the warehouses to hide in, you picked the one me and Dimoz work in. And I got a copy of the key. I guess the Sun gave all your luck to us today, so we could have a good dinner! Which one you want Dimoz?”

“The thick one!” he said with an asinine chuckle

“You’re one to talk, you fat bastard!” said Anka  

“Fine by me,” said Staroz, “the skinny one looks yummy”

“Shanessa, run!”

Anka tried to throw her petrified sister between Staroz’s legs, but the brute slapped her with his tail. Before she could do anything more, Dimoz grabbed her from behind and lifted her into the air. The lishas ripped off their dirty cloaks and jewellery like they were wrappings. Anka squirmed and kicked and punched and bit and clawed, but the grip of Dimoz’s hands stayed so tight she thought her ribs would break. Shanessa opened the gourd, but Staroz stole it from her and threw it over his shoulder.

“Nice try, but you’re staying down. I’m fucking starving and you’re gonna fix that”

“No, please!” Shanessa screamed, “I’ll do anything! I’ll do anything!”

Anka knew there was no point begging. From the pure hunger in Dimoz’s eyes and the saliva dripping from his gaping mouth, she knew that they were nothing more than food in their minds. When he lifted her as high as he could, she swung her feet at his chin in a bid to use his own jagged teeth against him. But he swiftly scooped her feet up in his mouth and gulped them down. He span her round so that she was facing away from him and let her slowly slide down into his throat. His cold, wet tongue slithered underneath her tunic and started savouring her soft belly. His groans of pleasure confirmed what Anka had suspected for years – she was delicious.

In front of her was an amphora on the upper rack, she grabbed hold of the handles and tugged with all her strength. But it didn’t budge, it must have been full to the brim. Maybe this was always my fate, she thought, to become a meal. She heard a crack. There was a fracture where one of the handles joined the body of the amphora. She pulled and shook and eventually pried the two handles off. She rolled over in Dimoz’s mouth so that she faced him. He saw the clay rods in her hands and the steely look in her eyes, and started swallowing, but it was too late. She plunged the handles into his eyes, twisting them as deep into his sockets as they could go. He let out a muffled howl and staggered around, colliding into the stacks of amphora and collapsing onto the ground, which threw Anka out of his mouth. Clutching his blood-covered face, he rolled on the ground screaming in agony, until Staroz suddenly stamped down on his neck with such force that the amphora rattled. Dimoz rasped and wheezed as Staroz pressed down on his throat. Shanessa was between Staroz’s jaws, her face frozen in fear, her hands reaching out to Anka. Staroz threw his head back, gulped, and Shanessa disappeared. Dimoz fell limp and started gargling.

“By the Sun, what a racket”, said Staroz, “let’s hope no-one heard that”  

Anka found the gourd and threw herself at Staroz, clambering up his hulking body to his face. But Staroz caught her in his grasp.

“Give her back!” screamed Anka as she flailed, “Give her back now!”

Anka pushed the gourd to his mouth, but he plucked it from her hand and threw her to the ground.

“Throw her up and eat me instead!”

“Was she your friend? Your sister? She tasted absolutely amazing, I’ve never had a dinner that good before. She’s staying in here”

He patted his bulging stomach with a chuckle and poured the pungent blue syrup from the gourd onto the floor. There’s no other way but to kill him, thought Anka. Still holding one of the amphora’s handles, still covered in blood, she shot at him, ready to tear him open. But quick as lighting he span round and his hefty tail slammed into her chest, sending her flying into the wall.

“You wanna get eaten this badly? Hm, I don’t think I have enough room for the two of you. Maybe I could give you to another friend of mine? Ah, but I better clean this mess up before someone finds it,” Staroz gestured at Dimoz’s corpse, “I’ll go and dump the body in the canal. You should be grateful I’m doing this for you. I mean, you’re the one who gouged his eyes out”        

Slumped against the wall, Anka watched as Staroz looked around and found a gigantic amphora. He chucked the bloody handles and the gourd in, then heaved Dimoz in, and finally scooped up the patches of blood-covered dirt dotted around the aisle. Anka felt the burning rage draining from her body, only to be replaced by icy pain. Her mouth hung open, waiting for magically persuasive words to fall out, but nothing came.

“You still here?” said Staroz as he struggled to close the lid, “I wasn’t joking about giving you to a friend”  

Anka stumbled to her feet. She took one last look at the bulge in his stomach, and ran out of the warehouse.

Next chapter

Constructive criticism welcome

© Paul Bramhall