C5 Chapter 5
After the battle, the soldiers who could walk made their way through the gates, and behind them came those who could not walk. The city's people gathered at the massive gates and watched as stretchers and wagons pulled by donkeys went into the city, laden with bodies barely breathing. The dead were left on the battlefield, waiting to be gathered once the wounded were tended to. Women and the elderly stood by, surrounding the line of wounded limping soldiers entering the city, and watched for the ones they loved.
Pari stood near the front near the gates with most of the mob behind her. She held her hijab close to her face as she studied each man who came through, whether he walked in or not. Pari scratched the backs of her hands and chewed her lip. These last few days, her bottom lip had become chapped and bloody with all the biting she had done to it. A few tears escaped, and she wiped them away before they rolled down her cheeks. Her stomach was a sour knot.
An hour passed. The procession thinned as all the survivors of the battle of Isaf entered Kammun. The crowds were reverent and didn't speak as the brave men, bloodied and broken, returned home after fighting the heathens from the north. But many didn't return, and so far, those included Pari's husband.
Keeping her hijab over the lower half of her face, Pari shouted with no mind for propriety.
”Sallah! Sallah Alhadeen! Sallah!”
Then, as though realizing it was allowed, everyone around her shouted names as well. Pari's voice drowned in the uproar of the crowd. Some calls were answered, and men found their parents or wives and children who ran to meet them with open arms and wet faces. Too many calls went unanswered. Too many in the crowd returned home without their sons, husbands, and fathers.
Sallah did not answer Pari's call.
The last of the wounded soldiers walked through the gates. The gates closed, thudding against the stone walls with the same heavy emptiness as Pari's hope. Her cheeks burned, and the sour feeling in her stomach rose to her mouth. She swallowed the desire to vomit.
Sallah couldn't be dead, she told herself. She would know, somehow, if he was dead. He was alive, and she must have missed him in the large mass of soldiers. Pari followed the depressing parade up the main street of Kammun along with hundreds of other civilians until they came to the large hospital near the middle of the city's lower level.
By the time Pari came to the hospital, the building had filled beyond its capacity. The healthier soldiers set their comrades on the ground outside the hospital. The block swarmed with moaning, crying, and unconscious soldiers like a rotting animal covered in maggots. The civilians didn't leave, though they did keep their distance.
Several people walked through the jumbled rows of wounded, inspecting each one, searching for one in particular. Pari followed suit, though her feet and back ached from not having sat for more than an hour. She rested a hand on her giant belly as she walked.
The crowd around the hospital was thick. Pari pushed her way through, keeping one hand on her hijab and the other on her belly in a sort of protective gesture. She emerged from the crowd and looked down at the men who lay on the ground.
She moved slowly, making sure to look at each man's face as she passed. The sight of them made her sick and uncomfortable.
”Water,” said one of them. Pari looked down.
The man was covered in blood, his belly gashed open, and a purple intestine snaked out and around his waist like a wet rope. Pari recoiled, willing herself not to vomit on the man.
”Water,” he said again, this time reaching for Pari with a weak and bloody hand.
She looked around for a doctor or nurse. There were only a few doctors in the city, and they would all be here tonight—but there were dozens of nurses. They must all be inside, Pari thought, overwhelmed by the number of wounded, and none had yet made it outside.
A bloody and dirty soldier sat at the end of the block by the street, staring at the wounded with unblinking eyes. He held a canteen in his brown hands. Pari approached him with caution.
”Brother,” she said, ”would you share your water with a wounded soldier?”
He didn't look up at her or acknowledge that she had spoken, but after a long moment, he raised the canteen to her. She took it and thanked him, then returned to the gut-torn soldier.
The wounded man took the canteen and drank. He grimaced as he swallowed, and pink liquid squirted from his destroyed abdomen. The man lurched upward and puked. Thick blood and brown vomit erupted from his mouth, covering his face and spilling onto the ground, splashing another soldier who lay beside him. Pari shrieked and jumped back, narrowly escaping the mess.
”What do you think you're doing?” shouted a man.
Pari turned toward the entrance of the hospital to see a doctor, one she recognized, covered in blood and other fluids she couldn't name. The doctor jogged toward her, snatched the canteen from the wounded man, and tossed it aside toward the street.
”Are you a nurse?” he demanded, scowling.
”N-no, Doctor Marhab,” Pari squeaked. ”I'm Parwana Alhadeen. I'm sorry, he was thirsty and I—”
”Alhadeen?” Marhab said. ”Sallah's wife? Get out of here before you kill someone!” He waved a hand at her and spun around to return to the hospital.
”Doctor!”
He turned. ”What?”
”I'm looking for Sallah. Have you—”
”Do you think I'd know exactly where he is among two thousand soldiers? Go home, and you'll find out about your husband soon enough.” With that, Doctor Marhab stormed away.
Pari blushed and stared at her hands that rested on her round belly. Inside, the baby stirred.
”Do you think you could get that for me?” came the voice of another man.
Pari looked down at the soldier. This one was short his left leg, the stump bound in dirty bandages and covered in sand. She looked away from it and up to his eyes. They were tired.
”Pardon?” she said.
”The canteen. It landed over there. Could you get it for me?”
The man pointed, and Pari looked. The canteen lay just outside the crowd of people, dripping water on the street. Pari picked it up, noticing the blood and vomit on its mouth. She brought it to the soldier and held it out for him.
”I wouldn't drink from it,” she said.
”Water is water,” he said, then added a quote from the Bagh'ra: ”Let it not be wasted, for it is rare and precious.” The soldier leaned back with his mouth on the canteen and drained all that was left, then licked his lips and sighed. ”Thank you, sister.” He gave her a friendly smile that did not reach his drooping eyes.
She smiled back, though he could not see her face. Her eyes found their way back to his bloody stump.
”It was a spear at first,” the soldier explained. Pari turned away, embarrassed. ”It's fine. Go ahead and look.”
She did. ”A spear took your leg off?”
He shook his head. ”A spear brought me down, stuck into my calf so far I'm sure it went through the bone. I tried to pull it out, but it wouldn't budge. The tall man who threw it wanted it back, tried to pull it out, gave up, and took off the whole leg with a sword. The spear came out easier then, somehow.” His head dropped, and he frowned. ”Why didn't he just kill me?”
Pari wasn't sure if he was asking her or talking to himself. Either way, she had no answer. ”Do you know Sallah Alhadeen?”
He stared at her with empty eyes. ”Sounds familiar.”
”He's one of the prophet's guards.”
”Ah. I'm sure he's fine, sister.”
Small feet clapped against the hard ground of the block, and Pari turned. A short nurse carrying a pitcher of water and a wooden cup came to her and the soldier.
”Thirsty?” she asked him.
The soldier made the same tired smile at the nurse. ”This nurse has already given me water, but I can always drink more.”
The nurse turned to Pari. ”Who are you?”
Pari cleared her throat. ”I'm looking for my husband. His name is—”
”I'm sorry, but you have to leave. I can't help you.”
Pari nodded in understanding and retreated away from the hospital and wounded, back into the crowd of spectators.
”Thank you, sister!” the soldier with one leg shouted, but Pari kept her head down and avoided the eyes of all who were there.
She pushed her way back through the crowd, this time away from the hospital and into the city streets. Tents filled almost every available space on the roads, sheltering refugees from surrounding towns and villages. There were now nearly as many homeless in Kammun as there were people with houses.
They were mostly women and children, with some elderly mixed into the bunch. The men who were of fighting age had all joined the prophet's army to ward off the Northerlings, but a few had managed to escape fighting by claiming illness or low birth-order. Pari walked past the hundreds of tents and what seemed to her to be thousands of refugees as she grew ever closer to the safety of her apartment. The people looked up and watched her walk by. She kept a stern gaze on the ground before her and her hijab close to her face. She didn't have to hold it, but she always felt more secure when she did.
”Hey, sister.”
She didn't look at the man who called after her. She continued toward the inner wall that separated the lower level with the midlevel. The temple's domed tower poking over the buildings, guiding the way to her apartment.
”Come here and sit with me a while,” the man called.
Then a second man's voice: ”Sister, come sit! I have no chairs, but you can rest on my lap.”
Someone laughed, and Pari hurried her pace, using one hand to grip her skirts so she wouldn't trip. Behind her came the pat pat pat of heavy footsteps.
”Where are you going?”
”Come back, you must be so lonely!”
”We won't hurt you, we just want to talk with you!”
She jogged. The footsteps behind her kept pace. The muscles in her legs tightened, and the hairs on her arms stood up. The pulse in her temples pounded as her heart beat faster and harder.
