Maliha
Chapter 24: The Dawn

Maliha jolted awake as a choked cry reverberated through her tent. Her head whipped to the pallet opposite hers to see if it was Enzo, but upon seeing his sleeping face, she was relieved to replace that it wasn’t.

The whining grew louder and more frequent, the painful sobs were like nothing she had heard before, causing a sense of urgency to rise in her being. They were deep, gut wrenching cries that carried above the lustful noises of the occupants of nearby tents. Cries that spoke of such deep suffering that Maliha felt her heart swelling in pain for the unmasked person.

Forcing back her sheets, she climbed from her warm bed and gathered her shawl around her shoulders. Without putting on her sandals, Maliha stepped outside the dark night and listened for the noise again. A guttural groan ripped her head to the side as the cries became louder from the tent beside her.

Xiuri.

Maliha’s heart thudded in her chest as she sprinted the short distance to her friend’s tent and yanked open the flap. The tent was dark, except for a small flickering lantern that dangled from one of the beams that kept the tent up.

Dark shadows moved in the corner as the whimpers grew louder those closer Maliha moved to a tossing Xiuri.

Her blankets were discarded by her side in a tangle of sheets, and her night cloth had risen around her thighs as her body was sprawled out on the pallet. Sniffles and pleas tumbled from Xiuri’s mouth as her face distorted with grief.

“Xiuri.” Muttered Maliha, forcing the damp hair away from her Xiuri’s thrashing face.

“Oh Xiuri.” She sobbed, trying to quell her own cries of grief.

Maliha ran her fingers along Xiuri’s head in strong strokes, starting along her forehead and gradually travelling down her nose and across her cheeks. Applying a little more pressure along the soft skin. Maliha’s brows knitted together as Xiuri remained stuck in her night terror.

What seemed like hours of Xiuri’s unsettled sleep and Maliha’s calm strokes along her face, finally ground to halt as Xiuri’s eyelids began to flicker. A sharp scream rattled from Xiuri’s chest, her hands resting on her heavily thumping heart as she forced her body up.

“Maliha.” She cried, a gasp catching in her throat as she wrapped her thin arms around Maliha’s shoulders, burying her face in the crook of Maliha’s neck in a sigh of relief.

“Oh Xiuri, what plagues you so?”

“Nothing- I” Her body wracked with sobs proving that her words held no truth to them.

“Maliha, if I tell you- I can’t.” Her head shook vigorously as she wiped at her tears. Head cowering away from Maliha’s penetrative haze.

Maliha lifted Xiuri’s chin with the tip of her finger and forced her friend to bear her gaze

“You must speak it Xiuri.” She whispered, rubbing at the stray tears that glided down Xiuri’s rough and scarred cheeks.

Maliha’s grey eyes prompted her to start, beckoned her to cut open her heart and reveal all the cracks and scars it had. Maliha said nothing but her expressive eyes coerced the story from Xiuri’s soul. The green pool lured her in, no judgement or contempt rested in those eyes. Just patience and a slither of understanding, though Xiuri wasn’t sure how much Maliha could understand when she did not know the depth of the suffering Xiuri had been subjected to.

Xiuri would never wish her kind of pain on her worst enemy, for she knew the grips of the torture extended past the physical. The pain tingled through her nerves, filtered through her veins and planted into her mind. The torment attached to her memories like a leach, draining the life from her one suck at a time. The memories never evaded her, even though sleep, she could replace no salvation. Her mind was plagued by the memories of every graphic detail.

“You must speak your story and not let these memories hold you captive anymore.” Maliha encouraged gently.

Xiuri knew Maliha’s words to be true. Her heart was withered by all that she had suffered through and every day she pushed those feelings, those horrors to the back of her mind and every night the memories returned, bringing with them the crippling affects that had her cowering in day light. Xiuri fought a psychological battle with herself, one she had little control over, if any at all. It was so tiring. Sometimes she wished she could just sleep forever instead of facing another day where the sight of a man reminded her of him.

For quite some time, they just sat there on Xiuri’s fur and cushion covered pallet. Xiuri, staring into the earth as if she waited for the world to swallow her up, and Maliha gently rubbing her back until the judders left Xiuri’s frame.

Xiuri gnawed at her lip, contemplating whether she could finally speak on her story. If she could finally say what had started years ago and had finally came to a halt two sun cycle past. She didn’t want to, Xiuri wanted to exist in this moment of limbo where she was not in the past but also not living in the present but then she remembered Kamir. Lovely Kamir, with flaming red hair that matched his heart that was full of fire and warmth. Kamir who she struggled to even mutter simple words to, let alone touch. He deserved better and so did she.

“We were born into the Svolik Mahmatain. Our mother was kidnapped by the Tiburi river when she was fifteen and hand-fasted to an important man among the tribe. The Svolik nation were different from what my mother knew, she was blessed by Holy light, but they rebuked Savuriya. They had weird blood thirsty practices that encouraged heavy hands to a non-submissive woman.

“When I turned thirteen I was hand-fasted to the leader’s son, Rojal. Ciur hadn’t developed fast enough, but i- I had. My Umahu warned me of what to expect of him and my hand fasting. My mother told me to be still and not to cry when it was time for him to claim his rights, but I didn’t heed her warning.” Xiuri’s eyes shuttered closed as she fresh tears poured down her face.

“He licked my tears as I cried, turning more brutal with every struggle and sob.”

Her voice croaked with despair as she trembled in pain, her eyes were distant and glassy as she looked through Maliha.

“By the end of the night, he had violated me in unspeakable ways and given me these.” Her hands motioned to the two jagged scars that lay puckered along her cheeks.

“For years he abused me, dehumanized me. Debased who I was but it wasn’t until I saw him carving Ciur’s face in the same way he had mine, that I snapped. My mother was dead –I- I had my children beaten out of me but when he touched Ciur…”

Her head shook heavily as she wiped the tears from her face.

“We fled the tribe, with nothing but what we had. Stumbling through lands for weeks, my body growing weaker and sickness taking over. I implored Ciur to leave, to replace the nearest tribe and never return because I knew he would come for me.”

Maliha made no move to speak or touch her, she just sat in the same spot as she had been and listened to her friend’s story, anger rising in her soul at the abuse Xiuri had suffered at the hands of a man.

“My sister did not want to leave me, but I was heavily wounded and weak so Ciur fled to replace help and whilst she was gone- “Xiuri’s eyes clenched closed as she tugged at the short-ragged strands. Her teeth gnawing at her lips as she tried to bottle up the rabid storm that was churning within her.

“Whilst Ciur was gone a Svolik hunting party led by Rojal, found me. I was- “

Xiuri’s eyes were filled with so much pain, Maliha couldn’t bear to sit by and watch as she completely unravelled but she had to trust in the process. Trust that by finally speaking of her abuse, she would begin the first step of breaking the hold he had over her.

“I was raped repeatedly, so many men and it hurt…” Her voice cracked, face twisting as her lower lip wobbled. “It hurt so bad. Their groping hands, tongues, their bodies over mine…”

It was so hard for Xiuri to revisit over those memories. The way they would take turns raping and beating her until she struggled to breathe, and her body was a mass of blood and bruise as she lay in a pool of her own excrement and still, she would be shown no pity.

“Sometimes I can still feel them touching me, hear them” She whispered hauntingly.

A chill running over Maliha’s skin at the despondent look that entered Xiuri’s eyes.

“I couldn’t tell you how long I was there for, my mind just wandering as they used me. I wasn’t present for some time, but I felt my mind return, and when it did all I saw was fire. Fire and Ciur.”

Ciur had Stumbled upon the Der Surjaz and after hearing her story, they had volunteered to help her. they had brought Xiuri back to the tribe and slowly healed her body, but her mind had not been as rapid to follow.

“Oh Xiuri.” Cried Maliha, her arms wrapping tightly around the crying woman.

“My friend, so strong.” She gasped, chanting words of praise and apology into Xiuri’s ear.

The sun rose and still they clung to each other, their tears dissolving as the heat of the day began to penetrate through the material of the tent. The bright light dispelling any remnants of the trauma that was discussed in the dead of the night. The warmth seeped through their beings and illuminated their souls.

No one would ever know what it took for Xiuri to live with even a modicum of normality that everybody found so easily.

Xiuri was not the awkward and timid person Maliha thought she knew. No, she was a warrior, one whose life experiences had damaged her so deep she surrounded herself with an impenetrable shield but now she would begin to let that shield down, if only so she could catch a glimpse of sunlight.

Maliha struggled to sleep that night. After Xiuri had finished her story and purging her body of the strangled emotions the retelling her suffering had conjured up, they had sat together sipping on chamomile tea but it’s usual soothing affects did not work on Maliha. As they sipped on their tea, Xiuri confided to Maliha what the argument between her and Kamir had been about which had only added to Maliha’s restlessness. All night her mind had ticked away and before she knew it the first peels of sunlight were breaking through.

Maliha wasted no time in heading back to her tent and wiping her skin down before changing into her washed clothes. She slipped on her sandals, plucked up her small bucket and then ran out of the tent and through the slowly waking tribe. She jogged through tents and headed to the structures that held the animals. She quickly gave the chickens some food, collected a few eggs for Enzo, Xiuri and herself to eat before carrying on with her journey. She had never been this far beyond the structures, but she knew that to the right of Ujarak’s. House and beyond these structures, the warriors gathered early in the morning to train before they headed to breakfast.

Maliha’s pace picked up when she could make out the faces of sparring men and women. Though she was completely tired from her little sleep, Maliha had plans for the day and in order to accomplish them she had to start early. It was a sacrifice she was willing to make.

As she approached the warriors, she noted that energy pulsed around them in large, surging waves. They stood in a cluster watching two warriors fought, fissures of light shooting from their bodies. Their arms and legs kicking and punching in the usual way, but fire shot out with every swipe or move.

“Move faster, Yusef. Tamal, stop being sloppy.” Grunted Abazz as he stood with his hand behind his back.

“Jonah, Lima, join.” He barked.

Simultaneously, the two warriors joined in the fight, both going towards Yusef who at the present moment looked like the weakest link.

Maliha stood in awe as Lima called the dirt and sand beneath her feet from the ground and gathered it into a floating ball in her hand before shooting it as Yusef. Yusef’s arm flexed up and he dusted it a way with a force of wind but as he moved to do so, a spark of fire shot out and knocked him to the ground.

“Ravnal, pick him up. Tamal, pay attention.” Barked Abazz and like busy bee’s following their leaders command, they moved in sync. A tall dark-skinned man helped Yusef climb to his feet and out of the ring, checking if he was okay, whilst the three warriors continued their sparring.

Maliha wasn’t sure how long this would continue for, but she didn’t have all morning to stand around waiting. She slowly approached the cluster of warriors and lightly tapped Abazz on the shoulder.

His head snapped down at her, mouth wide, no doubt in preparation for a reprimand but at seeing Maliha he halted. His eyes widened in shock at her appearance.

“What are you doing here, Maliha?” He questioned, his head rising back up to the fight where he barked some more orders before looking back down at her.

“I’m sorry to disturb you during training but I need to speak to Kamir urgently.”

Abazz head tilted to the side inquisitively before he nodded for her to go and replace him amongst the warriors, when she did, Kamir looked to Abazz for confirmation before following her to the side.

“V’adar, Kamir. I know you are training but I need to speak to you. It is important.”

“It is so Important, that you are up this early?” he questioned. “And I see you have collected eggs already.” He added, motioning down to her bucket that had the few eggs she had gathered.

“I know what you and Xiuri discussed last night.”

At her words, his smile instantly dropped, and a sadness entered his eyes.

Last night, a simple conversation about their relationship has turned into a massive argument. At first, Maliha had wanted to curse Kamir and the ground her walked upon but Xiuri’s explanation had given her pause. Xiuri had begged him to leave her alone, to replace some other female that wouldn’t drag him down. Some young girl whose life wasn’t’ traumatised like her. That didn’t have the ugly scars that Xiuri carried both physically and mentally. Kamir had taken those words to insult, as if he was such shallow man that such scars would hinder his capability of loving a woman like Xiuri. He had told her as such, practically declaring his love for her but instead of being embraced or even positively acknowledged, his words had sent Xiuri over the edge. She had become frantic.

Maliha had heard the raised voices but Xiuri had begged Maliha not to thing bad of Kamir. It was her friends pleading that made Maliha decide to do this.

Xiuri, did not believe she was worthy of love and hearing all that she had gone through made Maliha that much more determined to see her friend happy. To Make Xiuri, realise that the scars she carried made her even more precious.

Xiuri was a warrior of heart and spirit and who was better for a warrior of heart to be tied to, then a warrior in body and soul.

“I cannot say what she has told me in confidence and I know it is not my place to interfere but-” Maliha hesitated before saying her next sentence, knowing full and well that to say what she did could make the matter worse.

“I would like you to join Xiuri and I, at our new fire for our final meal this night.”

Tears gathered in Kamir’s eyes at Maliha’s gesture. By inviting him to their fire, Maliha was telling him that she would help in whatever way that she could, to heal Xiuri and ensure their happiness.

It was an offering of friendship and Kamir humbly accepted.