Jamal IX

PA 1.8

A short walk from the beach saw them back at camp, the girl being calmly and quietly carried by Yue in a way that totally didn’t make Jamal jealous. Why was he the one who got a chunk taken out of his arm by a panicking child?

Actually, maybe he should be glad it only happened to him. He’d already healed anyways.

Setting her down next to the campfire and covering her with the comfiest blanket they had, they began to figure out what exactly was going on.

“So, can you tell us your name?” Jamal asked the girl softly, handing her one of their leftover skewers.

“…Khalila,” she muttered, grabbing the food from his hands. Immediately she started wolfing it down, the two adults patiently waiting for her to finish.

One she was done, he asked the next question. “Hey, you seem like a big girl.

The now named Khalila froze, suddenly looking alarmed. “I, um… I don’t know?”

“You don’t…?” Jamal trailed off, realized what the problem might be. “Do you know how old you were before you came here?”

The girl bit her lip. “Um, I was seven and a half,” she told them, raising the appropriate amount of fingers.

Seven and a half… add the year and a half or so they’d been here, and that would make her about nine years old.

“Wow, you are a bit girl!” Jamal hummed, trying to sound impressed. Judging by the small smile that spread across her face, he figured he’d succeeded.

“…If it’s alright with me asking,” he began slowly. “Would you be able to tell me who was trying to ki—hurt you?”

Khalila was quiet for a long time, long enough for Jamal to decide she wasn’t going to answer. He was about to change the subject, when he heard quiet sniffles, and the little girl began to cry.

Immediately, Yue was next to her, placing a comforting hand on her back.

“They killed him,” she whimpered. Somehow, the muted, tired crying was worse than the wailing sobs she’d been letting out earlier. “They… they came to our home. There were so many of them. And, and Martin, he said he’d take care of me. That he’d keep me safe. And then he… he…!”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Yue whispered, rubbing her back. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Uh, how about we answer a different question?” Jamal asked, desperately trying to change the topic. “What’s your favorite food?”

She sniffed. “I don’t… I want… I want some harira. Mama always made it during Ramadan. She was the only one who made it tasty enough for me. But I can’t… she’s not.”

Jamal and Yue glanced at each other. Okay, that wasn’t working. “Well,” Yue asked softly, rubbing her back comfortingly. “Can you tell us what you were doing on the beach?"

“I was running. I wanted… I wanted to get away. And when I saw the beach, I thought, ‘I know how to swim, I bet I can jump into the ocean and swim all the way home!’” Khalila sniffled, tugging the blanket tighter around herself. “…But I was too scared. What if I get eaten by a shark? I know… I know we can’t die, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a shark’s stomach!”

Ah, there’s an image that’ll haunt his nightmares forever.

“Don’t worry,” Jamal smiled awkwardly, trying to be reassuring. “I don’t think there are any animals big enough to eat you whole. They’d probably just take a little bit and then leave the rest of you alive for later.”

Yue gave him a look that clearly communicated how little he was helping.

“Well, what about a whale!?” Khalila leaned forward, eyes narrowing in challenge. “I’ve seen pictures of them. Some of them are bigger than the trees! I bet they could eat me whole!”

Yue turned to look at Khalila, before turning back to Jamal, silently asking if she was making those up.

Jamal for his part actually had to pause for a second, dredging up some half-remembered whale-trivia. “Whales can’t actually eat you, you know? Their throats are really small. Like, you’re bigger than a chicken, but that doesn’t mean you can eat one whole, right?”

“Wait they’re real!?” Yue whispered to herself, shocked. Both of them ignored her.

Khalila looked at him like he was the wisest person on earth. “I never thought of it that way. Does that mean… does that mean I can swim back home!?”

Crap, he’d gotten sidetracked by whale trivia! He’d forgotten what they’d been talking about in the first place!

“No, no,” Jamal rushed to correct her. “Even if you can swim that far, uh… you’d get lost! It’s not like you’ve got a GPS or anything, you know? How would you find your way home?”

“…oh,” the girl deflated, making him feel like trash despite it not being his fault. “…I just wanted to see Mama again…”

“Hey, hey,” Yue comforted her, pulling the blanket a little tighter around the girl. “I’m sure your Mama wants to see you again as well. And you know what? I’m certain that one day you two will see each other again, got it? You’ve just got to be a little patient.”

Ah, that was morbid, Yue. But I suppose if it helps…

“You really think so?"

“I know so.”

“…Ah, that’s…” Khalila yawned, looking exhausted. Despite not needing to sleep, the desire was still there, and after a day like that Jamal wasn’t surprised she was feeling tired.

“Here, let’s go lay down,” Yue hummed, leading the girl over to her tent. “You can sleep with me tonight, okay?”

“Like a slumber party?”

“Uh, sure?”

As Yue put the little girl to bed, Jamal sighed, emotionally drained. To think that even kids could be God-Kings… and that there were people out there who’d be willing to murder them…

A moment later Yue returned from her tent, settling across from him, the smoldering embers all that was left of the campfire.

With Khalila settled down to sleep, the two adults looked at each other, worry spread across their faces. Jamal had no doubt they were both thinking the same thing.

“What are we going to do if we run into that King?”

“Jamal, what’s a whale? Are they really that big!?”

Or, maybe not.

Yue coughed, blushing lightly. “Sorry. Uh, the King? How sure are you that it’s a king who’s after her?”

“It sounded like this ‘Martin’ character was her guardian, or acted as one at least,” Jamal told her, leaning back. “And then he ended up at war with someone else, who attack their home and killed him, leading to Khalila running away.”

“…You mean like us?”

“…I guess, huh. The circumstances were different, but the end result’s the same.”

They fell into a contemplative silence after that, both of them getting lost in their own thoughts.

Jamal considered the little girl they’d just picked up. Another person from his homeland. Another person who’s life was ruined by this fucked up game. No, not just a person, a child.

People acted differently around children. Whether it was censoring their words, moving a bit more expressively, or even just smiling a bit more in their direction, there was something in the human mind that was wired to make people care about children.

A rational person would probably point out that this was an evolutionary advantage. That instinctively helping your offspring strengthened the species as a whole. Other more spiritually inclined people might say something about the inherent goodness of man, that people were just naturally kind.

Personally, Jamal thought it was because kids were, well, young—they didn’t have the time adults did to build up annoying personality traits or accomplish cruel deeds. They were blank slates that everyone understood were capable of changing, and so accepted both the bad and good behavior from them with equal consideration.

In Jamal’s mind, this meant that anyone capable of deliberately harming a kid was the worst kind of scum.

“Do you think she’ll be alright?” Yue whispered, glancing over at her tent, worry spread across her face.

“Hm,” Jamal grunted. “Perhaps. Physically, she’ll be fine. But mentally, well…”

“…Well, regardless, we’ll keep her safe, right?”

“Of course,” Jamal hummed softly, looking back out into the dark forest. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep her safe.”

--

Much as he feared getting caught by the bastard God-King chasing Khalila, Jamal agreed with Yue that they’d have to wait until morning before they could leave. The mortals needed their sleep, and travelling through an unfamiliar forest at night was a bad idea no matter what. Jamal didn’t want to stay put, but he acknowledged Yue’s point and decided to wait.

But it wasn’t like he’d just sit around doing nothing. So while the others slept, Jamal worked on packing up as much of the campsite as possible. He put out the fire, packed up their supplies, and once all that was done he patrolled the forest around the campsite with a nervous energy, jumping at every sound.

Then, finally, the forest was lit up with the faint glow of sunrise.

“Why the hell are you waking me up so early…” Fei growled as Jamal half-dragged him out of his tent. “It’s not even morning yet for—wait, who’s the kid?”

“The reason you’re getting up so early,” Jamal told him, already moving towards Ishi’s tent. “Pack up your stuff as quick as you can—we’ve got people chasing after her so I want us to get as far away from here as we can.”

Fei gave his back a groggy, incredulous look, before turning to give the little girl a wary look. “Uh, hey? Kid? Who are you, and what the hell did you do!?”

“I—I didn’t do anything!” the girl wailed, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Fei!” Yue shouted, storming over to him, deep bags under her eyes. “Stop harassing her!”

“Harassing!? I didn’t do shit!”

Less than an hour later the group of four—five—were packed up and ready to go, months of practice allowing them to do everything quickly. With Khalila having come from the south they decided to turn west and travel away from the coastline, following the setting sun.

“So, run this by me again?” Fei asked as they were rushing their way west. “You said the kid’s being chased, right? By who? Why?”

“It’s the same reason that Queen wanted to kill me,” Jamal replied, adjusting Khalila in his arms while he did so, the girl’s short legs unable to keep up the pace they were setting. She gave a grunt of discomfort, but otherwise was much more cooperative than yesterday. “The, uh, gods want us to fight. To, I guess prove ourselves? But they want us to fight and kill each other until there’s only a handful of us left. Then we get some kind of prize? Honestly, the whole thing’s really stupid, but apparently there are more than enough people willing to murder everyone else over it, and the rest of us just have to deal with that.”

“…Ah,” Fei replied, looking much more uneasy than he did before. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Jamal let out a harsh laugh. “Shit.”

“…Do you think they’ll catch us?” Ishi asked softly, tightening his grip on his pack as he glanced warily into the forest around them.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I’d rather not take the chance either way. We’ve hopefully made it far enough away now, anyways.”

And, with such timing as to make you think the universe was actively working to make his life harder, a sound echoed through the forest.

Awwooooo

“Was that a wolf?” Jamal asked, glancing in the direction of the noise.

Yue flinched, letting out a sharp breath. “No. Their howls are much deeper than that. It doesn’t sound quite right, but there’s no mistaking it! That’s a hunting dog, without question!”

“…Is there any chance that they’re just hunting deer?” he asked nervously, unconsciously picking up the pace.

“We can hope.”

AWOOOO

“But we probably shouldn’t.”

They broke out into a run, abandoning their walking pace for an all-out sprint. Unfortunately, the forest wasn’t accommodating, with roots and bushes and branches constantly slowing them down.

And despite their best efforts, the howling was getting closer.

“We can’t keep running forever!” Yue hissed behind him. “Especially not with all our supplies! We’ll have to stop eventually anyway, so let’s just dump our stuff here and get ready for a fight!”

‘You’ll have to stop,’ Jamal thought to himself. ‘I don’t. I could keep going, forever and ever. Even if my legs were destroyed, they would grow back in an instant. Even if I don’t get to sleep for years and years I could keep on running. So long as there are only mortals chasing me, I’ll always be able to escape.’

He’d just have to leave his only friends behind to do it.

“Fine!” he shouted, stumbling to a stop. Glancing to the side, he saw a group of trees growing close enough together to give them just a little bit of protection. “There! Dump your stuff between the trees, try to make some kind of chokepoint!”

The howling was getting closer.

Too close, now. They wouldn’t be able to run if they wanted to at this point.

“Stay behind me, Khalila,” Jamal told the girl softly, placing her down gently. “If things get bad, I want you to run, and don’t stop no matter what, got it?”

The girl stared up at him with wide, watery eyes. “I’m tired of running,” she whispered softly.

Jamal felt his shoulders drop. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

And then they arrived. The crunch of branches underfoot. The snarling of hunting dogs. The raised spears of loyal soldiers.

“You there!” the lead soldier called out, slowing to a stop in front of them. “I apologize for my bluntness, but do you know who that girl is behind you? I'm afraid I need to speak with her for a bit."

“Why are you asking?” Jamal replied, hand falling to the hilt of his dagger. His heart was pounding, his vision starting to shake as his worst-case scenario came to pass.

And the worst part was, they weren’t even after him.

“That’s our King’s daughter, you see!” the soldier gave him a disarming smile, looking past him at the little girl. “She ran away from home, you see. Had a big fight with her mother and declared that she’d run away and start up her own Kingdom. Precocious little one, she is. But when she didn’t come back within the hour, I was sent along with these fine gentlemen to bring her home!”

“They’re lying,” Khalila whimpered from behind him. “They killed… they…”

Of course they were. Who would send a hunting party of a dozen armed soldiers after a single little girl? Even if he weren’t already aware of what was going on, the obviously rehearsed lines the leader was spewing off would have set off alarm bells in his head regardless.

“I find that hard to believe,” Jamal replied, narrowing his eyes. “Especially since you’re soldiers of the King who conquered her homeland and killed her father.”

The leader’s eyes lost all traces of joviality. “I see. So, you know about that, do you?”

The man’s face turned hard, and he settled into a fighting stance.

“We’ll give you one chance, travelers,” their leader frowned, raising his spear. “Return to us the girl, lest your lives also become forfeit.”

Jamal tensed up, considering…

No, there was nothing to consider, was there?

Reaching down, he unsheathed that bone-dagger that the Queen had tried to kill him with, all those months ago.

With fear in his heart and a snarl on his lips, Jamal fought.

9,880 God-Kings Remain