The search patrol walked in blood frozen solid. The cold was a knife pressed permanently to the cheek, a constant reminder that the bleak lands of Hori were first inhabited by the tribes who had to eat each other to stay alive in winter. The season had been uncharacteristically long and dark and there was something mythical about its slow progression from snow to thaw to snow again, to mud and misery to sickness, as if, in living through it, they were passing through many ages.
The hunt for the missing Habishi villagers was now reaching the hills buried in mist. Eyes fogged with white breath from their mouths, the mountain Resistance Militia patrol, led by Amba, trudged in grim silence.
They had walked every single bridge and treaded in knee-deep slush and followed muddy streams and searched every single track, and as the second day drew to an end, the search for the lost men was advanced into the remote stretch of the Hori mountains; the perfect setting for fear-spurred nightmares coming to life, if one wasn’t careful enough.
The battle-hardened squad was not yet calling Amba a death-wish behind her back. First gunner Gora, a favourite of hers, was still alive, still dreaming of tender chicken fried in maguey oil and in layers of unblemished bread and expensive rice. Her best men, Solon, Rodh and Kunta, had not yet hurt an eye or lost a limb to the blood-lust of mad Colonel Madbull’s murderous army, the Red-Hounds, who had only one agenda – to exterminate each and every member of the Resistance Militia.
The rest of the men who would be injured were still perfectly healthy, and the others, who would die, were still perfectly alive and optimistic after a week of inflicting substantial damages on the Red-Hounds, not just by barrel, but by planting explosives. Retaliation stalked them, deadlier than their wildest dreams, but they did not know that yet. Amba’s own dreams had not become as bad yet; at least the ones she would remember.
The lookout continued till dawn, when, at last, the group came close upon the part where the villagers were last seen. The rear guard pressed closer, glancing nervously at the strange gaps in the rocks, for this was also the stretch where they expected to be attacked by wild animals.
Amba tried to ignore the sensation of being surrounded by dead faces, set in hideous grimaces, floating along with them. Lama, the newest member, who had a habit of starting at the least sound, became the butt of jokes when, frightened of his own shadow, he seemed ready to dash away in mad flight. Tales of monster bats nesting in the Jotsoma hills, who flew from place to place in great swarms
after sunset so large and bloodthirsty that they were rumoured to kill a horse, and even grown men, were taken seriously in their village.
Cutting a wide arc, Amba’s torch threw a strong white light over the new territory. The suspension bridge, an old, rough-hewn contraption of crude wooden uprights, overlooked a deep crack on the earth’s surface. Slick and alive with moss and undergrowth in various stages of decay, the crossbeams on the floor trembled at every step. All around, steep sides of the precipitous gorge were marred by deep gulches, cut jaggedly by dried torrents and ending in a confined subterranean ocean of rocks.
The wind picked up and struck Amba across the face. It rushed into her throat, battering its way into her belly as if all the sky was being funnelled through her, and though she gagged at its coldness and the way its swelling force poured on and on, choking off her breath, she pressed on, her will blazed
up, stubborn and resistant.
Something like hair brushed against her feet. She swiped at it with her right hand and gagged and stepped back from the grinning corpse with a start. The way forward was blocked by a heap of dead bodies, a sight which froze her blood and filled her with pity and horror.
Seemed like some spiteful animals had clawed out their vital organs. Around them, grinning like a dozen ravenous monsters filled with teeth, was certain death – grenades packed with nuts and bolts. Not expected to necessarily bring down structures, but rip open, kill all soft skin targets, which meant animals and humans.
Amba held her hand up and motioned the squad to stop.
“God help us!” exclaimed Solon.
“We have to leave them. We have to go back,” appealed Kunta, his legs ready to dodge any quick-flung missile.
“None of our own will be left for animals to feast on. Even if they are dead.” Amba interrupted with that calm despair, which occurs only in a heart with strings of steel that yields to no danger.
“The dead are dead – won’t feel anything, will they?” said Rodh.
Excerpted with permission from Contamination, Richa Lakhera, Om Books International.
