Maliha
Chapter 5: Sunset

The sun beat down on her back like a whip to the skin, the harsh ray’s streaking across her body. The insufferable heat making it impossible to breathe. The sun sizzled high in the sky gifting the land with fortitude in crops. Crops that Maliha had spent hours cultivating.

She had been here for over week now. Her body had fully recovered after the third day and so Maliha had been put to work, her body crying for reprieve though she would not see any. Each day as her skin became darker and darker and her fingers more and more calloused, she wished that she had taken up their initial offer. That she had swallowed her mountain of pride and picked a lover because if she had then all she would know was pleasure and not the crumbling pain of her body. She felt weak, fatigued.

For the past few days she had started wheat harvesting as soon as the sun had peaked through the clouds, the bird’s songs of merriment her wake up call. The sun had not been so heavy then but as the day progressed and the sun reached its peak, it came with a sweltering heat that made all work a struggle. Her hand sickle was slippery in her sweaty grasp, the wooden handle blistering her hand and leaving painful splinters. Calluses and blisters from the day before were rubbed raw by the wood within her hand.

Many people worked in the fields, women had woven baskets full of wheat that they had cut down with their own sickle’s whilst many men who helped, used scythes. Large, wooden handles that were crafted in an arch with a sharp curved blade attached. The men used the scythes in a sweeping motion, cutting the grain from the bottom. As they strode forward, broad shoulders gleaming with sweat and thick legs braced apart, young children of ages 8 or so gathered the wheat. Collecting large bunches and bringing it back to the women. They wrapped the bunches with string and placed cloths around them, leaving it to dry.

The tribe worked well together but it was hard to miss that the majority of people who worked the fields were female, the sexual division noticeable from the jobs they occupied. They seemed content to do the hard labour and maybe they were, but Maliha was not.

Her soul was weighed down by the chains they had wrapped around her ankles, she was a prisoner though the brand on her arm said differently. The brand said she was theirs, one with the tribe because Xiuri was not treated like a slave and their brands were identical in pattern. The brand was that of a sun, long jagged orbs surrounding the circular orb. Each jagged arm of the sun represented each realm that Savuriya had created at the beginning of time.

The brand declared her as one, but she was not one of them, just one they owned. Her body was forced to work longer, harder, faster. The women in the field talked and laughed as they plucked at the wheat but not Maliha or Xiuri, eyes always watched them as they worked just like eyes always watched them when they ate by the fire. They were always the last to eat, the scraps left for them because they were not one.

She was not one, always flittering on the outskirts. She had been free to roam,

listening to no one but the demands of her body and the call to her soul. She had been free, her being souring with all the tribes, the cultures, the scenery. She had been free until she wasn’t.

Chains wrapped around her now, suffocating her as they twisted around her neck and rubbed behind her ear. She wore a collar to tell all that she was not one because that was what the jewellery was. Gold chains dangled from her nose and hung just above her lip. It continued behind her ear and then connected at the back of her neck where the thick gold collar wrapped around her neck like a noose.

This hard-laborious work was a death sentence. She would not survive the season.

She had only been working for five short hours with a half hour break in between and already her arms were quivering with the extortion. Her back stiff with the strains of bending over the crops. Maliha worked alongside Xiuri, the two creating a sort of routine. Maliha was practicing her cutting skills with the sickle while Xiuri was gathering the bunches in her basket and tying them together. In an hour or so after they had their second short break they would swap positions, giving her calloused hands a break but Maliha couldn’t wait that long to tend to her bleeding and shredded hands.

“Don’t Maliha,” whispered Xiuri, fear in her wide eyes as tears pooled along her lashes. Her face twisting as she scoured the area for any watching person. Maliha was oblivious to Xiuri’s frantic calls as she tended to her throbbing hands. The blister on her palm had been snagged on a rough piece of wood, pulling the puffy skin open. Yellowish water seeped from her swollen right hand, the area around it red with agitation.

“One moment” she gentled softly, encouraging Xiuri to keep working even as she stopped. Xiuri seemed reluctant to move without Maliha and so she stood by rocking back and forth on her heels as she looked around frantically. Plucking at random pieces of wheat in a half-hearted attempt to keep working.

The burning in her hand was not as painful as the branding on her arm or the salve they had applied had been. Nor was it as painful as the forced piercing of her nose. The pain on her hand was a sharp throbbing and it only became worse as the sickle rubbed against her splintering and festering skin longer. The sizeable callus burned unmercifully, giving her no respite.

Maliha ripped a strip of material from her already tattered dress and wrapped it around the palm of her hand, creating a cushioned protection. Tying the material into a knot, she picked up the sickle again and rotated her arm in a practice motion to see how her hand held out. The pain was still noticeable as the sickle dug into the wound, but the material stopped any rubbing and friction.

Just as she was preparing to get back to work a shadow fell over them, an ashen pallor falling over Xiuri as her lip wobbled and her shoulders hunched in as if she was trying to curl her body to half its size.

“Why have you stopped working,” the voice strong with authority.

Maliha turned to see the sour face of a female she had yet to meet, her russet hair piled in intricate braids as a thick gold medallion clung around her neck. She had deep bronze skin and thin shapely lips that were twisted in anger.

Her smooth skin folded in on itself as her faced scrunched up in derision. Her shoulders straightening and making her thin body appear taller. Her small nose was creased making the dusting of freckles that splayed across her face form into a cluster. She could be pretty. Not in the way that Maliha knew, not in the way of her sister Nia but she still had that natural beauty. Maliha could see the potential but the woman’s screwed up face meant that any beauty she possessed was distorted.

Her dark brown eyes narrowed, her wrist flipping and bribing Maliha’s attention to the long whip she clasped in her hand. The handle pointing at Maliha as she solely addressed her with a scowl in her face. In the peripheral of her view, Maliha saw Xiuri duck her head down and curl up into herself, her body twisting away from the crazed woman. Her body shrinking in its curled state, as if she we’re trying to disappear altogether. The woman with russet hair seems to derive pleasure in the fear she stirred in Xiuri, her whip lashing into the air as it split weeds by Xiuri’s quivering feet.

“My hand is blistered” grated Maliha waving her bandaged arm in the air to illustrate her words, least this woman thought she was lying. The pus had begun to leak through the make shift dressing, the wound throbbing painfully.

Maliha was of course to work from sunrise to sunset but in that time, she was allocated three separate breaks where she could rest or eat. Working from sunrise until the sunset was an exceedingly long day. She spent 12hours in the blistering heat doing manual labour that her body was unaccustomed to. A small five-minute break to fix her hand did not harm anyone or lessen the number of crops she cut. Not when the cloth around her hand allowed her to work more efficiently.

The woman seemed satisfied with Maliha’s answer but her hunger for exerted by her authority had not abated, she wanted to prove her position. Maliha could tell by the look in her brown orbs, orbs that gleaned at the cowering sight of Xiuri.

“And what is your reason?” She growled stepping closer, her body angling towards Xiuri. Her lips quirking in glee.

Her fingers crooked as she motioned Xiuri to move but the woman was incapable, fear rocking through her as she stammered and wobbled. Her body shaking with terror.

“I asked you a question!” Spat the russet haired female, her eyes beading as she steeped towards Xiuri, the whip clenching in her hand. Big globs of tears were rolling down her eyes now and Maliha could take no more.

“I asked h-”

“Did I ask you?” She screeched interrupting Maliha as her whip flicked along her feet.

The sharp snap to why tors forcing her to jump back a few steps, leaving Xiuri to face her alone...

“I am speaking to her,” she growled long talons curling as she pointed towards Xiuri “Why have you stopped”

Her screeching voice caught the attention of other workers, their hands slowing as they peeked over their shoulders to see the confrontation. Her face was red with unwarranted anger.

Xiuri squeaked in fear, tears rolling down her eyes as tried to curl into Maliha.

“How dare you disregard my words, are you mute. Get here now” her fingers crooked as she motioned Xiuri over, but she couldn’t move. Fear had her paralysed, her body shivering and tears rolling down her face as she tried to disappear behind Maliha. Her body curling in on itself as she tucked herself against the other woman’s body.

“I am only trying to explain that-” Maliha’s words were cut off by the burning feel of her skin splitting open, a horrendous wail screeching from her lips as she gripped her red and raw arm. She collapsed to the floor gripping her bleeding arm, the healed skin in the brand forced open but sharp snap of the whip.

“You work on my lands, so know your place” Spittle flew from the woman’s mouth as she shouted at Maliha, feet kicking up dust and dirt into Maliha’s face. A vein in her temple ticking as her eyes bulged from her head. The bun on her head bobbled about as she shook her head and waved her hand for emphasis.

The workers had stopped pretending as if they were working and had dropped their tools, their eyes wide with shock and astonishment. No wheat was being harvested for as long as the red-haired female stood there. They hadn’t formed a crowd, but their “work” started to move closer and closer to where their argument was. As did their “missing tools” and “errant children.”

“Now” she growled, her eyes narrowing as she faced towards a whimpering and cowering Xiuri, “Why did you stop working and make your reply quick before I double your lashes” but Xiuri’s teeth only clattered as she sobbed into her hands.

“Fine” she spat, stretching her whip before she dropped it back to the floor and pulled it back. Her arm raised high, the whip dragging off the floor as she raised it.

The thin hide of the whip whistled through the air as it cocked back causing Maliha to stagger to her feet as she tried to reach Xiuri before the whip crashed back down.

Her eyes clenched tight as she braced herself for the feeling of her tearing flesh, heart thudding in abject horror. As the scent of copper filled the air and burned her vision with red, she felt the whip lacerating into her skin, splitting her open. The heavy thump and the whooshing of air as it came down too many times for her to remember.

Her body shrivelled, blackness clinging on the fringes of her mind as tears cascaded down her face.

Pain, all she felt was wave after wave of gut wrenching pain. Her body shaking as the whip rained down on her skin, each tear of her flesh ripped through her soul until she felt her soul transcending above her body. The world was a dark void, no sound, no feeling. Nothing.

She was numb. So numb that she didn’t feel when the whip stopped beating down on her withered body.

“That’s enough, Tanzim.”

The rough angry voice had her soul snapping back into place. Her blurry eyes squirmed open to the sight of Abazz grasping the end of the whip, blood dripping from his palm as he clenched it tightly.

Jaw clenched and murder in his eyes