99 Stories About Chickens: An Anthology

Chicken Soup - by theidiotmachine

They rode hard through the scrubby flat lands, the sun hot and heavy in the sky, the air shimmering. The road was barely marked, but because they knew their direction and the ground was level it didn't matter. Their steeds sweated in the rapacious heat, their flanks glistening; their riders were little better off, their white cotton sudreh merely blunting the sun.

Eventually they stopped. The older of the two drew a circle in the ground, and passed his hand across the sandy soil, and sang the chant of water. Soon enough, the earth gave up its bounty, and the water bubbled up to the surface, cold and clear as remorse.

They all drank; then the two magi prayed; and then they sat, the sun low in the sky, and ate and debated what to do next while the horses cropped the stubbly grass.

'It's going East,' said Aoshnar. He was the older, and his beard was grey and wispy, and it shivered in the evening breeze.

Dravasp nodded. He looked out where the sky was drained of colour and the stars were appearing like rain in the dust. 'East are the mountains; and beyond that, the deep desert,' he said. 'It could not survive the desert any more than we would.'

'That is so. It must either turn, or die.'

They had been chasing this daeva for six days, riding south east from the shimmering city of Lest. They were exhausted: but the thing needed to be killed, and there was no one else. It too would be weakened as it fled, but it was still a powerful devil, and the fight would be difficult.

Dravasp was afraid. He had glimpsed the thing when it had escaped the sorcerer's den, a boiling cloud of brilliant orange smoke with eyes like the fire pits of Teth. It had stared at him and laughed, before streaming into the sky, leaving the stink of sulphur and despair. Although the journey was hard, he dreaded its conclusion.

Aoshnar stood. 'We need to leave.'

Dravasp heard the silence, smelt the fragrance of the evening blooming plants, saw the calm of the horses. He took a deep breath in, enjoying the stillness.

Then he imagined the daeva unchecked on the world; and he exhaled, and then he stood too.

Aoshnar nodded approvingly.

'Good. We're close. This ends soon.'

# # #

The horses were faster in the cooler evening. They cut across the land like a knife through silk, the leagues disappearing under their hooves. Dravasp felt the joy of the animal, allowed to run as it pleased in the crisp air, and he smiled.

They passed a village, some way away, but it wasn't where they were headed; and then finally, as the dark was almost total, they saw a lonely farm, huddled down against the feet of the mountain.

It had a single hearth light, an orange blaze visible across the great plain. The night was young but nevertheless absolute, the moon an evil yellow crescent that refused to provide enough illumination to travel. So, given it was in the right direction, they headed there, their horses going cautiously across the dark ground.

The farm was not much, just a wood and mud hut on the edge of humanity, far from any road. There was a wheel for pulling water from the ground, or saqiyah; a stable; small fields of low crops; and a goat, tied to a post, which watched them with curious eyes.

They dismounted.

'I'll see to the horses,' said Aoshnar. 'You go and speak to the people inside.'

Dravasp nodded, and handed him the reins of his horse; then he walked to the rough wooden door, and knocked.

There was a sudden commotion inside. The door was flung open, and a man stood, holding up a talisman to ward away evil. Behind him was an older man, shrieking insensibly. Both had only one eye, although the older was missing the right, and the younger the left.