Movers (uncut version)

Prompt: Write a short story or poem using the following sentence. The sentence can be anywhere within the story, but it must be written exactly as it is here.

'The movers come on Tuesday.'



As the Gods threw another mighty bolt and it tore across the inky sky, throwing the barren, rocky desert around them into sharp relief--Lena saw that they were lost. The bandits had moved in around them with implausible speed, apparently unhindered by the great, stinging, filthy raindrops that blinded her, or the deranged wind that howled past her ears, battering and pulling her in all directions at once. She jammed the last pin into the great ox hide, now stretched taught over their little caravan, and raced towards the driver's perch. A wordless cry of terror escaped her lips as she scrambled into place beside Brunt.



“They're on us!” she yelled over the din of the storm.



Brunt's face showed no change, but he'd understood her alright. He handed her the thick leather reins and leapt to the ground in one smooth movement. The grace that this huge man was capable of never failed to astound her. No one can beat him she thought, not one of those whimpering, greedy, half-starved bandits--not even twenty of them! And Brunt wasn't alone; Symthe and Danby had his back.



She turned her head in the direction she knew the city walls stood, not more than a dog's dash ahead. We were so close. She could sense them, though she could not see them: towering above her, colossal, strong, impenetrable and unmoving amidst the swirling, screaming madness of the storm. Another bolt split the sky. There was a deafening crack as it struck the walls and a huge chunk of stone was torn free. She didn't see it though. In those brief moments of vision granted by the bolt, a far more terrifying apparition was revealed. He was so close she could touch him; a dirk clenched in his fist, his lips spread in a maniacal grin. His callused hand closed around her ankle as she scrambled backwards. Her scream was lost in the storm, as the bandit took the dirk in his free hand and raised it, still grinning. His grin never faltered, even as the huge rock crashed down, shattering the perch. It remained fixed in place as the oxen bucked in terror, caving in his skull with a cloven hoof. His grin was the last thing she saw as her head thumped on the rocky ground, and blackness overtook her.

         

         The first thing she was aware of as she woke was a deep, sickening nausea spreading through her belly, but the pounding, splitting headache followed close on its heels and rudely pushed its way to the forefront of her consciousness. She groaned and rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the soft pillow and willing herself back to the peaceful, painless folds of unconsciousness. All at once, her eyes snapped open and she jerked back around, as the memory of the preceding night entered through the pain. She looked around, quickly taking in the unfamiliar, bare stone walls, the filthy wooden floor, and the haggard face of the old man perched on a small wooden stool next to her bed. 

“Where am I?” she croaked.



“Thee'r safe nar,” he replied. “T'were me boy't found ye, a'er t' squall. Looks like yer 'van got took by 'em bandits; must'a missed a speck like ye in that wild wea'er.”



“And,..and, my friends?”



“Arr, bes' not be worryin' ye'self o'er  them, gone to the Lor', they be. Ye on yer own nar. Movers come on Tuesday, ye'll no be seein' 'em agin.”



“M..Movers?”



“Aye gal, thems what takes t'dead n dyin. City's a hard place t'be sure. If yer pas' it, ye can't be kept; hard enough to look a'er number one. heh heh.”  With this dry rasping chuckle he pulled himself up and walked to the door. “Bes' ye get som'ore rest,” he said, as he shuffled out.



         'Tuesday', she thought. For once she is glad of her schooling in the old tongue. A day was an ancient measure of time, before the sun was lost. She looked at her ticker, it showed thirty full turns, almost exactly. Tuesday was the second day and each day had twenty-four turns; these movers would come today and her friends would be lost to her forever. Gingerly, she sat up and swung her feet down off the little cot. The world seemed to spin and sway around her, but she had steel at her core. In three paces she was at the door, looking out onto a twisting stone stair. The old man had turned left and headed down, so she began to climb. After two twists, she found herself emerging onto a small balcony, looking out from the city walls over the vast, barren wasteland below. What she saw took her breath away. At the foot of the walls, some thirty feet below her, city guards, all in bronze and iron, were piling up the cities dead on stretchers. Just piling them there like common trash. These bodies would not be burnt, the words of the Kanjima would not be spoken into the flames, ensuring their souls' passage to the place of the Sun.

It was too much for her to bear. “Nooo”, she howled “not Brunt and Smythe and Danby. They were good and strong and brave! THEY DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS”. Her last cry echoed off the conclaves of the city walls, but the words were caught up by the wind and no one below heard or looked up. She gazed out at the wasteland, wondering what she could do and that's when she saw them. There must have been a hundred at least, dark, hooded shuffling shapes, moving steadily across the desert. This made no sense, only the bandits lived in the waste and they never survived in bands more than ten or twenty. A chill of cold horror ran through her. The guards were not the movers, the bodies were being laid out to be taken by these, these..things!

         “Bes' not t'look” the old man's cracked voice whispered behind her. She whirled around to face him. “What are these things?” she cried, “What do they want with the dead?”.

“Non can say, t'be sure. None as ever goes w'em comes back. We've no room fr'em ere though n it keeps 'em things from comin' in.”

She turned back to the scene playing out below. The old man tried to cajole her back inside, but she could not tear her eyes away. She would watch them go and speak the words. She could not give them to the flames, but perhaps the words would be enough. She owed them that much, at least. She owed them her life. The man's tone was becoming more demanding now, but she was deaf to him. The movers were nearly at the gates, only the  dead waited silently to greet them, the guards had all returned to the safety of the city.

She began to speak the sacred words of the kanjima as the first of the movers arrived and set about loading the stretchers of the dead onto the large wooden sleds they dragged behind them. No more that huge, flat planks of wood, it took ten movers to drag each one. Tears filled her eyes and fervour filled her words, as the movers found and surrounded the remains of her caravan. At that moment, she felt a bony hand enclose her arm. His grip was vice like and cold as ice, as he spun her to face him. “Come down” he said, all expression of friendship and kindness had left his face, now a mask of cold, contemptuous, cruelty.

Before she could react, some sound reached her ears from down below and made her turn her attention back. She only caught the briefest glimpse, before the man holding her arm began to wrench her away from the balcony, but what she saw filled her with horror. Brunt had emerged from the remains of the caravan, sword in hand as a circle of movers closed in around him. Her focus was now fully on the old man; her adversary. “They're alive” she screamed, flailing to free herself, “you left them out there to die, but they're alive!”.

“It's as you said” the old man spat, all traces of his pleasant, peasant accent vanished. “They're good men; brave and strong. Not the sort of men we can risk letting in. The sort of men that go about ruining our trade”.

'Slavers'.

The realisation hit like lead in her stomach and her legs threatened to give way beneath her. She'd heard tell of the cities put to slave when the armies came from across the water. It could not be true though, surely not here. She moved suddenly, yanking his arm up and sinking her teeth deep into his flesh the way Brunt had always told her. “Fight dirty” he'd said, “use, teeth, nails and go for weak spots; a tiny thing like you hasn't got a hope fighting clean”. For a moment it worked, the man screeched and let his grasp loosen allowing her to pull her arm free. The force with which she pulled away sent her reeling backwards. Backwards, into the short, crumbling wall at the balcony's edge. She tried to get her footing, but it was too late. She felt gravity's inexorable pull dragging her further back, then down, down, down.

She landed with less of a thud and more of a squelch, her fall broken by the corpses. Her already frail consciousness was fading once more, as she turned her head to take in a last glance of her surroundings. She could have cried when her eyes took in Brunt's gentle face smiling back at her. He was there, right next to her, taken but not killed. He had a faraway look in his eyes and a dart protruded from his neck, but he lived and he knew her. 'They want him alive', she realised, as the huge heavy sleds started to move off. 'I don't know where we're going, but they didn't kill him and now we're going together'. She reached out her fingers and touched her father's big, square jaw, smiling to herself as she slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.