Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

XLII

We had discussed the Kitty problem with Lin and Tito told her about his idea of an accident. Fatso thought it was a good idea, but Lin didn't like it, saying it went against what she wanted for us.

We had secluded ourselves in the brothers' room, which I was seeing for the first time. I'll admit that I looked for the tiger skin, though I remembered Erk saying he kept it in a storage room.

We entered through one of the corners, so the back of the room was on our left and the brother's beds were there, against the wall, with their trunks at their feet. In front of the door was a shower and washbasin, because the former Captain, whose room it had been, didn't like sharing showers with the rest of us. The brothers preferred to have humidity in the showers rather than in their bedroom, so it saw little use.

To the left of the door, there was a small desk with a laptop – turned off –, a small brass lamp with an opaline shade – incongruous in this setting and above all, it was difficult to imagine the giant carrying such a delicate looking thing from one posting to another – and in the middle, two of the mess hall benches, brought for this extraordinary meeting.

Lin trusted her mercenaries for normal Company missions, but for this matter, for Tito's idea to work, we had to believe it. And we were soldiers, not actors. Better that for the other patrols it looked like a real accident.

So, we were sitting on the benches, Erk on his bed, we were waiting for Lin whom Mike had called at the last minute. Kitty and Baby Jane were laughing softly as they looked at Erk. He had closed his eyes, his back very straight, in the lotus position. To a less than discreet chuckle he responded with a raised eyebrow, triggering real hilarity in the girls.
- Fine, little geese, you'll have to explain to us what is so funny, so we can all have a good laugh too, he said opening his eyes.
- Geese?
- You cluck as much as a barnyard at meal times. Would you rather I call you hens?
- Personally, I think the geese are much prettier, with their white feathers and long necks, than most hens.
- Fine, geese if you like Erk, Baby Jane said, but the reason Kitty and I are laughing is because you don't really look like a guy that does yoga. You're more a krav maga or veehema type of guy, you know. Or, even better, axe fighting, complete with leather pants and fur jacket.
- Well, like ballet dancing, yoga is a good exercise to control your body.
- Ballet dancing?

And then he probably realized that he had only told one person about ballet, yours truly. So he quickly explained what he had already told me.
- OK for ballet. But... yoga, for a fighter?

Kris said nothing, keeping silent, sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the giant's bedpost.
- If you fight in anger, the Viking replied, it quickly becomes a mess. You have, almost all of you here, seen the results of it in the... the fortress...

He couldn't go further. Kris, without looking at him, raised his hand to find and gently squeeze his knee. And, as Kitty and Fatso watched in astonishment, we all came to touch him, just like we did before we found Kitty-Alyss.

He took a great gulp of air, closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. One after the other, we pulled away from him, Tito then Kris last, the latter giving him a pat on the knee.
- There you have it, Baby Jane, why yoga is important. That day, I lost control of my emotions, I let my anger consume me, and even if, as Cook told me, I had every reason to do so, I still turned berserk and killed. I killed the Sons of Roumi's Hell because their leader wanted to geld me. Was it a good reason? I wouldn't know. What I know is that we had already thinned their ranks by a good third the day we got the reporter out of their hands and that in less than thirty minutes I killed about thirty men and wiped this group off the face of the Earth. And today, I have a hard time... talking about it. If I had kept my self-control...
- You'd have ended up a eunuch in the chief's bed and then, when he'd had enough, in the brothel for his soldiers or at the bottom of a ravine with a bullet through your head, Kris said in a voice that got tenser and tenser, so enough with that, Erik. Yeah, yoga allows you to control your emotions and your breathing, your heart rate end everything and that's all very well, but as for me, God damn it, I'm glad you lost control that day. Now move on, if you can.