Wolves of Revolution

“But you see, it’s not me. It’s not my family...”

- Zombie, by the Cranberries

-0-

Grinding against ribs, the knife carried a drowning torrent of blood in its wake. The body of a young man fought against the inevitable. Limbs spasmed, fingers clawed impotently behind him, desperately trying to preserve themselves even as his airflow steadily choked off.

He died, falling into the filth of the street, still twitching as the final sparks of his brain rebelled against their own extinction. Looking down at him, I felt nothing. Not contempt, not sorrow. Only the crushing, empty awareness of the knife in my hand, the body at my feet, and the stench of blood that battled for dominance with horseshit and mud.

In a last moment of strength, the boy flipped himself over. No older than I, perhaps even younger, he rolled and stared into my eyes as the light in his own went out. This first death at my hand, I knew it would stick in my head forever - knew that it was not his eyes that would haunt me, but rather the knowledge that I had done it. That it was because of my action he died.

What I did not feel was guilt. What I did not feel was remorse. And I knew in that moment that I never would. That this death, his blood warm on my fingers, would be only the first of many before we would be free. I knew also that Luca was not yet half-avenged.

It was important, that vengeance. It gave me a direction, a star by which to guide all future deaths that would occur at my hand.

The youth died too quickly. All the words, harsh and biting, that I had envisioned myself saying over him as he choked out his last, dying on my tongue. I did not feel like a hero. Did not feel like an avenging angel, nor a proud warrior. I was only a man, watching another man die.

And in that knowledge was neither grief nor horror. Only the ultimate acknowledgement of the fact that he was dead and I was not. Only the weightless, crushing knowing that had things gone else wise, our positions would be reversed. Neither pity nor shame clouded my thoughts. The only thing on my mind was the terrible awareness that there but for fortune’s grace go I.

-0-

Luca sang with a drunken lust for life. His voice was firm and clear; in another life he might have been a singer. Might have turned his natural talent into a skill that would delight thousands as he stood on a stage under gleaming lights.

But that was not our lot. A step beyond labourers were we, but still beneath the artisan class. He could be taught, could be elevated to the near divine with his voice, but his was not a talent that could call the attention of the powerful to him. His was raw and un-tempered as a lump of pure iron. Beautiful in its way, but unshaped.

He sang the Rebel’s Song alone in the smoky taproom. Sang to soothe the souls of the workers and clerks around us as they tried to drown the worries of the day and of the times. An unsafe song for him to sing. A safe place in which to do it.

What few collaborators we had once drunk with were gone. Wandered off to find places where they would be welcomed. There are always such places, ones that would welcome the coward, the traitor, and the disinterested. Remaining in that place were only those who could be trusted at least to not whisper in the ear of the invader.

And those who fought them.

I knew that Luca idolized those men, the ones who slunk from shadow to shadow with knife in hand. I knew that one day I would lose him to them, perhaps not to be seen until the bells rang, if ever again.

I would never have called myself a coward. But then, I suppose none of us would, and those who do hardly seem to deserve the title. To admit to something so shameful as that is to defang it. Make it impotent against you.

Luca’s song ended and a round of drinks was poured. No one there spoke aloud what we all knew that the drinks were not for him. Like wraiths, four men we pretended we neither saw nor knew raised their glasses, then put them down empty before drifting from the bar.

There were fewer of them than there had been. And there would be fewer still before the war was over. All who drank in that place knew their names, and all believed they would rather die than whisper them. We can all only hope to be so brave.

My cousin watched the wraiths go, blatantly where the rest of us saw them only out of the corner of our eye, and I knew that soon we would lose him. So, I plied him with drink, saying over and over again that it was to reward his most excellent singing. I told him that he could be a performer, the best that our city had ever produced.

He laughed at that, told me that I was a flatterer and should be ashamed. That boasting, even if it was for a family member, was a sin. I laughed with him, closer than brothers. Never knowing what would come next.

Leaving the bar later than we should, all but chased out by the barman’s wife and her broom, we stumbled down the street still laughing. There had been darts and there had been pool, some money had changed hands but never very much. Those were evil times and there was not enough to gamble.

I should have pulled him on when we heard the invaders. I should have put my hand on his shoulder and guided him home. Instead, he wheeled away from me, and I followed. It was easy to follow their harsh language as it echoed through the empty streets, and we found them with our flag under their boots.

They laughed and swayed, clearly as deep in their drinks as were we. Insults and denigrations flowed from their lips as their muddy, shit-covered boots ground the symbol of our nation into the filth of the street.

Of its own accord, my hand caught Luca’s arm as he tried to surge forward. This was an occupier’s right, is what I thought then. They had control and thus could do what they wanted, I was only happy that none of our people were under their boots instead.

“Don’t be a fool,” I hissed, desperately scared that the soldiers would hear me. Would see us.

“Someone has to do something,” he snarled, wrestling his arm out of my grasp as one of the occupiers tied our flag behind a horse and sent it walking a circuit around the street. As horses will do, it relieved itself right onto the flag now dragging in the muddy street behind it, smearing insult across the injured fabric.

Luca ran forward, shouting at the soldiers.

I watched him run through a world that had all but ground to a halt. Stumbling and swaying, he shouted words at them that I did not hear but still I understood. He was angry, blood boiling, too drunk to fully comprehend that there were four of them and one of him.

Maybe if I had joined him, the fight would have been more fair. But we were not soldiers, we were not warriors. I knew how to fight, who didn’t? But knowing how to swing a fist and knowing how to avoid being killed by drunken soldiers are different things.

One of the soldiers laughed, a cruel sound that I still hear echoing in my head whenever someone mentions my cousin’s name. He pointed, calling the attention of his friends to Luca. They fanned out, and I knew in that moment that my cousin would die.

Knew also that there was nothing I could do to stop it.

A rifle butt cracked against my cousin’s head and he stumbled. More harsh words in that cursed language of theirs and another strike landed in his stomach. Still standing, Luca raised his fists, swaying more from the blows than the drink, and swore viciously at the soldiers.

Grinning, the one who had struck him first leaned his weapon against a cart that had once been hitched to the horse. He raised his fists and lunged forward, dodging Luca’s wild swing at him and exploiting the now open guard to drive his fist into Luca’s face.

Luca went down, arms coming up over his head to try and protect himself as he lay in the filth of the street.

With a sharp crack, a boot hit his side and Luca cried out. Bones broke as more kicks found their mark. Laughter, wild and sharp, echoing down the empty street.

Around the carnage, as more blows landed on Luca’s shuddering body, shutters slowly drifted closed. Average people trying desperately to not be noticed, to not be drawn into whatever violence the occupier visited on some poor soak too stupid to avoid them.

I could not hate them then. I could not even hate myself.

Drink and fear and pure shock kept me rooted to the spot. Watching as my cousin began to sob. Began to beg. Watching as the soldiers redoubled their efforts, howling with glee.

No. I couldn’t hate the people who turned away. Who closed their shutters and held their children and hoped that whatever mania the drunken soldiers were reveling in passed them by. They were only trying to protect themselves and their families. They were not fighters.

Neither was I.

Some time after my cousin stopped moving, after the pitiful cries for mercy faded to a dull gurgle then to awful silence, one of the soldiers pulled back. Taking a flask from his pocket, he opened the lid before saying something to his friends. He drank deeply, the others pulled away, and from the bed of the cart against which their rifles stood, he produced a rope.

Tying this to my cousin’s feet, he attached the other end to the horse’s harness and slapped the animal’s flank, sending it trotting off again. My cousin’s body trailed in the filth behind it, shit and mud streaking his dead face, covering his wide, staring eyes.

Before leaving, one of the soldiers draped the desecrated flag across Luca’s ruined corpse.

They were still laughing.

-0-

Looking down at the corpse at my feet, the one who had first struck Luca with his rifle, I contemplated spitting. It was what the stories were full of, a great hero spitting on the corpse of his enemy to show distain for the ideology that had brought them into conflict. But I didn’t.

I did not know his name, and if not for that one night, I would never have known his face. Only a boy, really. Now dead.

But he would not be alone in death.

Carefully, I wiped my knife on his jacket before returning it to its hiding place. If I was lucky, then I would find one of the others that night. If not, then I would keep searching, and any other soldier from the invader’s army that crossed my path would join this one before his friends.

As I walked away from the corpse, vanishing into the shadows that had saved me from Luca’s fate, I wondered if I was a coward. I had not fought with my cousin against overwhelming odds, had not taken up a brick, or even claimed one of the rifles that the soldiers had abandoned.

Maybe I had been a coward then. Or maybe I simply had not fully understood what Luca and the wraiths from the bar were fighting for. The war had always been a nebulous thing, one that I wished we would win but never felt to impact me.

Then my cousin died.

And I would be damned if I didn’t do something about it now.

-0-

This is part 2 of 4 of a series of related but not sequential vignettes. I hope you enjoyed :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4