When The Stone Shepherds Awaken (eBook)

2. Jarrnee

Sabienn found the welcoming door of a bar with a rancid bad smelling wooden floor. He set up two shots of rice wine on the bar which he downed smartly, making him belch and stagger as it kicked like a horse. His head began to swim and he clenched and unclenched his fists.

On the footpath, Sabienn looked up and down. This was an area inhabited by the Turr people. He watched them on the street, pull hats down over their face to cover up. Their ears were a little larger and pointed at the top and in the bottom lobe almost triangular. Define Turr, Sabienn thought. The people who live amongst us on the planet. Similar in physiology to humans. But will you ever become anything as noble as a human? Stupid Turrs. The Great Leader doesn’t like you and I don’t like you either.

Sabienn walked by the shops, some with boarded up display. A few shops had already been sprayed with a large red “S” to symbolise their status as “Sharpies”. Some merchants displayed the loyalty sign. A standard poster in patriotic colours which read “This shop supports locals. Buy Hayddland. All hail The Great Leader.” They’d sticky-taped their allegiance to the glass in the hope it wouldn’t get broken tomorrow.

He saw a number of shops had “For Sale” signs. The shops had been there as long as he’d been there. There was a milk shop with Turr dairy where he’d buy cheese, a tailor where he’d once had his trousers taken up and a trophy store where once he got a good deal on a chess tournament prize. All were gone.

Why do you even bother opening your doors? Sabienn directed his thoughts with contempt on some Turrs walking on the other side of the street. Why do you swim against the tide? There’s a whole lot of water coming for you. And I’ll be on the wave. Right there at the front.

Out of a grocery store, a mother and her little girl left quickly pulling their cloaks and hats over their heads. They rushed towards Sabienn who saw the girl. She was possibly five years of age and she lost her hat to reveal her curly hair and Turr ears.

Without much effort he changed course to stand in front of her and made hands like claws of a wild beast. His teeth were bared in front of her face. “RARHHH!”

He watched the girl’s face turn petrified. Her big dark brown round eyes were in shock against her pale skin. Someone had already given the girl a “cut along here”; a black marker pen dotted line along the left ear lobe. It marked a desire to collect it when she was dead. She was in such a catatonic state, she began to pee herself down her legs.

Her mother swiftly gathered her hat and covered her ears and then picked her up and swept her away.

Sabienn watched them disappear up the street. I’ve just made a little girl lose her lunchtime fruit juice. Right down her leg, he thought. On a scale of one to ten, how patriotic do I feel? He didn’t feel fulfilled. He just felt empty.

“Hey!” Sabienn turned at the voice to a lone witness of the event. Lone witness in that there were a few people in the street rushing past with their eyes turned but he was the only one who wanted to bring him to book.

“That’s just a kid.” It was an old man begging on the steps of a closed down store. He was dressed in the white robe of an aged care facility and where the sleeves had been pulled up, there were marks; dark black splotches on old leather skin. He had white receding hair and a beard with no moustache and was selling handmade cards and figurines of angels for one kee each.

“Did you say something, old man?” As Sabienn’s full muscular youth bore down and towered over him, there was a brief uncertainty in the old man’s eyes.

“I’m a veteran of the Bol War,” said the man defiantly. Scars could be seen on his arms remnant of that conflict thirty years ago.

“Then you fought with The Great Leader,” said Sabienn, offering a begrudging respect but he was in no mood to be checked. “Don’t talk to me like a child.”

“But that’s what you are,” said the old man. “Men fight wars to realize wars are not to be fought. You’re not a man. Now, go away.”

The blood rose in Sabienn’s face and his fists clenched. Behind the old man in the front display of the closed down store, there was still a shelf of statues and figurines and porcelain pigs and pieces. The shop window had already been daubed with its “S” and there was a crack going down and across the large window pane.

With little effort, Sabienn brought the full force of his youth behind a punch and smashed through the window. The old man was now screaming as loose glass fell to the ground. Sabienn shook his hand of the blood on his fist and viewed the figurines before him.

He picked out one of an angel with her white widespread wings outstretched at her sides and reached in and grabbed it. Now covered in his own blood, he handed it to the old man who was now cowering for life at this explosive display.

“No hard feelings, old man,” said Sabienn through gritted teeth. “You’ve given great service to the Realm. But don’t ever speak to me like a child.”

“Help me,” the old man held on to the bloodied gift and cried limply to anyone that may listen.

Quickly Sabienn left the scene before any police could arrive. But his image was probably imprinted on some surveillance camera. There’s another nail to my coffin, he thought.

As he turned the corner, he could feel a whole bunch more nails being hammered. Before him were four people, one of whom he had been actively trying to avoid for days. As chance would have it, he ran right into him and was now face to face.

“What have we here? Dead man walking,” said the new arrival. Jarrnee Krenn was in Sabienn’s graduating group. He was the son of the Academy boss General Boxx Krenn, the man who blocked Sabienn’s tattoo.

Jarrnee wasn’t as tall as Sabienn but he had a similar build. What set him apart was his brown hair with multiple bleached streaks and a sparkling earring which made his head look like an exotic chocolate. Also the purple and white cloak he wore was from the fashion house “Place” and had its brand plastered over its back and up the sleeve.

He was flanked by three other classmates, Pattee Standd, whom he had his arm around, and the twins Shyne and Cole Dryde.

“Word gets around. You had to get the black wolf. Why’nt you show Pattee your mark?” Jarrnee continued pulling Pattee in closer to him.

It was an unusual partnership, Jarrnee and Pattee, and Sabienn could see she was not completely fluid with his touch.

“Please say you didn’t get it,” asked Pattee quietly.

Sabienn liked Pattee because they dated briefly. She was interesting, informed, and intelligent, gave him the best sex of his life and then dumped him.

Her figure was much to his liking. Short and stocky. Not fat but muscular, with ample breasts and hips. And if it’s the Pattee I know, thought Sabienn, she would have been more interested in cuddling up to the office rather than the human it was attached to. And Jarrnee, of course, isn’t much of a human.

“Why would she want to see my mark?” Sabienn said. “She’s already got a wolf.”

Indeed Pattee nailed her wolf with distinctions and credits. It was already instilled on that lovely back of hers behind that fickle little heart.

“Not the wolf,” Jarrnee continued. “Show her the other one.”

Not to be outdone in a challenge, Sabienn started unbuttoning his tunic with his bloodied hand. “Sure, Krenn. You show me your mark and I’ll show you mine.”

“Oh when you take your shirt off Feel, you’ll see both,” called Jarrnee. “Because that wolf you have is mine. When your heart’s ripped out, that wolf will be mine.”

“Honestly,” Pattee’s tone was exasperated. “You’re like two peas in a pod. If you boys had hit the books when you had the chance, you wouldn’t be fighting.”

“I got my wolf fair and square,” Sabienn threw his tunic to the ground and looked Jarrnee squarely in the eye. “I was ninety-nine. And you were one hundred and one.”

Pattee tried to move between them, “You make that sound like it’s something to be proud of.”

“Even Fat-boy Willninn beat you,” continued Sabienn keeping his gaze on Jarrnee. “He was one hundred. Fat-boy! You remember Fat-boy, hey Cole.”

Cole Dryde stepped forward. “Oh, I wasn’t in this fight. But I am now.”

Now being drawn into the argument, the Dryde twins were identical in appearance being tall and fit, save for Shyne’s habit of bleaching his hair white to distinguish him from his brother’s black. They were also identical in ability in that as far as the rankings go for the black wolf, Sabienn was looking at number one and number two, Shyne and Cole respectively. They were athletically and academically untouchable and their marksmanship was pin-point. But their personalities could not have been more different.

“I don’t mind saying this, Feel.” continued Cole. “I don’t care who hears it. I hate your guts.”

“Oh drop it brother,” Shyne said. “That was ten years ago. Move on, will you?”

Ten years? Sabienn thought, surprised at the passage of time. That long? I was such a jerk then. But if Cole keeps biting, I’ll keep throwing out that bait.

The incident that Cole couldn’t let go was something Sabienn wasn’t proud of. Every person there knew of the incident. Every person there knew of everyone’s incident.

It harked back to the first year of high school when Cole was set upon by a gang of boys that Sabienn...