Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

“Relax, old timer.” The General continued trying to sound cheerful—a beacon of joy, lonely in its absurdness in the sea of grim faces. “We’ve got the best shots in this whole country, maybe even the whole world. Even your bitch of a witch couldn’t do anything about that. Right, guys?” he asked the soldiers.

“Uh-huh,” one of them unenthusiastically replied, his voice laced with irritation and sarcasm. For a moment there the General looked like he might kill the man on spot, but he overcame his anger and stuck to his easygoing persona: “You’ll see, we can protect you. Just show us the way the best you can and you and your village will be all right. And remember—” His voice got serious again. “If we leave the caves without what we’ve come here for none of them will survive. Even if that’s the last thing I’m going to do, I’ll personally kill each and every one of them, I promise you that.”

The old man frowned and looked at the mine portal: “I have no doubt you’re a bloodthirsty man,” he said. “Killing is as natural to you as breathing and eating. But I wouldn’t count on the fact that it’s going to save you down there. Those lands below are walked by predators of their own, with their own breed of violence. You think that your lights and generators will save you.” He pointed toward Desecrator, who at that moment was pulling a large clew of cables out of the trunk. “But the hunters who dwell below don’t even need to see you to kill you.”

“What matters is that I’ll be able to see them,” the General said, trying to sound confident, although the boy could hear hints of doubt creeping into his voice.

“Yeah, you tell yourself that.” The old man dismissed the General’s words with a flick of a wrist.

The General frowned, and squeezed his teeth. It was obvious that he wasn’t pleased that the old man was taking him for a fool. “I don’t understand what could be so dangerous down there,” he said. “If that girl managed to find her way around those dangers, then how am I and my soldiers going to fare worse than her? We’ve got weapons, and we’ve got numbers.”

“The girl has passed the rite of passage,” the man patiently explained, though it was clear that he was getting worked up as well. “She knows how to navigate the Keep and evade its dangers. There are rules that you follow. She knows them, I don’t.”

“Right.” The General rubbed his chin. “So you’re saying that you’ve lived in that village and yet you know nothing about that place? Do you take me for a fool? I’ve been a shaman of my tribe too, you know, and I have an idea of how much people (who live in a village and have nothing better to do than to spread stories) pick up from the head shaman. Or what, you’re going to tell me that the old witch had a skull of one of those demons above her hut’s door but didn’t explain to you fools what she was praying to? You mean to tell me that she made these herself?” He pointed toward the biggest of the effigies, which was easily five dozen pounds in weight.

“Oh, I know a lot all right,” the old man assured the General. “I was raised on myths and legends about that place, and as I grew older I heard many more things—things you don’t tell your children. Us old folks are less easily impressed, you see.” He wiped sweat from his forehead and continued, “But there’s a reason we weren’t shown the entrance to this place and were forbidden to enter it. I don’t fear your kind.” He looked the General in the eye. “And I don’t fear death, either by your hand or by someone else’s. But I am afraid of fear itself. I want to die a being of sound mind. Those things below… They rest for a reason, and we are grateful that they do not spread their madness throughout the land of the living. The girl made a mistake when she relied on their strength to punish you.”

The General didn’t answer; he chose to ignore the old man instead. Turning to the soldiers who were unloading the truck, he urged them to hurry up.

A few minutes later they were done. The lamps were connected to the generators through cables, and the generator’s tanks themselves were filled to the brink with kerosene. The rest of the canisters that still had some fuel in them were tied with ropes to the backs of a few soldiers the General had chosen himself.

“Hey, you.” He suddenly pointed toward Desecrator. “Get your ass over here, I’m tired of waiting for you all to catch up. Tsetse! Where the hell’s Tsetse? Tell him to round up his soldiers, I have a task for them.”

Desecrator always followed the General’s orders without hesitation, but suddenly a terrible feeling of dread overcame him. The suspicion that the General was going to throw him to the wolves crawled into his mind and didn’t let go, and for the first time he clearly felt that the other boys were right, that they weren’t soldiers to him—they were tools.

“Here.” The General handed him the lamp as well as a bundle of aluminum wire. “Tie it to your chest, so that it points forward. You’ll be our vanguard. What’s with that face? I’m telling you, you’re our eyes. Own it!”

“The eyes?” The boy looked at the cable stretching for what could be fifty feet. His own eyes went wide as he realized what was expected from him.

The tunnels underneath were no doubt dark, and if they wanted to feel safe they needed to have all flanks covered. But with a hundred soldiers, the ones holding the light had to go first, or the rest of the soldiers would obscure it. And they needed light on every flank so that nothing could sneak up on them.

In other words, he was supposed to walk separately from everyone, shining their path. He would be the first to face the horrors that dwelled in the Underworld, and, knowing how trigger-happy and imprecise the majority of the soldiers were, he would probably end up the first to be shot the moment his light conjured something out of the abyss.

“This is some bullshit,” Corpse Eater heard Homewrecker angrily whisper. “Why am I the one to do this? Why me? Why not the others?”

“Hush, man,” Corpse Eater told him, throwing a careful glance at the adults ahead of them. “They’re going to hear you.”

“Then let them hear,” Homewrecker said loud enough that the nearest grunt turned around to cast a curious glance at him. “I’m fed up with this bullshit.”

“Hey, you better, you better watch your mouth, boy,” the grunt told him, drilling Homewrecker with an angry gaze. Last thing they needed was a revolting kid.

Homewrecker met the man’s gaze and endured it, not looking away. Corpse Eater looked at his friend, then at the grunt, and when he saw his bloodshot eyes glance at him, he looked down. When the soldier stopped looking at them and turned around, Homewrecker flipped him off.

Corpse Eater could understand what his friend was going through. The boy was very much displeased with his new role of light carrier. Yet despite feeling the same frustration, he didn’t think it was a good idea to show it. Being used in such a manner was nothing new for him. Making a fuss about it definitely wouldn’t improve the situation and, in fact, could make things worse. Corpse Eater didn’t know if their small numbers would affect the General’s decision to shoot them for insubordination, but he didn’t want to test the man’s temper.

The two of them were assigned the role of guarding their six, so that nothing could sneak up on them from behind. Corpse Eater wasn’t sure yet whether it was a good spot to be in or not. Sure, they had to constantly watch their backs to make sure that no creature was stalking them, and if they lost their focus they could be silently taken out without anyone even noticing. But, on the other hand, would it be better if they were up ahead? Where they would be the first to step into the dark world ahead of them, not knowing what to expect?