The Hounds of Helghan (2)
Mael never knew his mother. She left before he was old enough to walk. What he had to remember her by were cruel, callous reminders from Coran.
"Dad would pay your mum to sleep with him," he would say. "That's all she was there for. She ran away with the money that came with having you, and Dad's been pissed at you ever since."
"You're lying," Mael wanted to say, but what did he know? Made sense that he became his father's living punching bag after his mother ditched him.
Coran would brag about his own mother, who served as a soldier in the Helghast army. "My mum didn't run away," he'd say. "When she gets promoted and makes enough money, Dad and I will get out of this shithole and move to Pyrrhus, and you won't be coming."
Coran's mother came every month by dropship as part of the monthly military inspection of the factories and mines in Suljeva. Of course, she also used that time to catch up with her partner and son. Mael would be told by both his father and half-brother to stay out of sight when she was around.
He paid the price of his disobedience once, when he was six. Only once he caught a glimpse of Coran's mother, whose face he couldn't make out due to the respirator attached to her dark, bulky infantry uniform. When she entered the house, and Mael snuck out of his room to peek at her, she made no acknowledgement of his existence. After the visit, however, his father beat him so hard that he saw stars with every blink for the next three days. Since then, whenever she dropped by with her unit, Mael would curl up under the blankets of his bed. The sight of him must remind Coran's mother that another woman had been in his father's life. Small wonder that she would find him unwelcome.
His father and older brother were the happiest around her. Not that Mael knew what that looked like, because he had to hide whenever she came around. Times like this made him hate his mother for running away and leaving him like a coward.
Coran made it no secret of the gift he received for his thirteenth birthday. "I'm going to Pyrrhus to join the Visari Youth," he gloated to Mael. "In five years I'll come back a soldier fighting for the glory of Helghan. Try not to piss in your pants when you see me then!"
Visari Youth, named after the newly proclaimed Autarch, was a training program for boys ages thirteen to seventeen, with the aim of transitioning those boys to military service. Mael shuddered at the thought of Coran coming back to Suljeva toting around a gun.
He thought that he would breathe easier with Coran gone. Instead, life took a turn for the worse. He received even more tirades and beatings from his father. When Mael and Coran did chores around the house, to clean up after the messes their father would leave, at least Coran was there to put their father in a good mood with casual chat and dirty jokes. Without Coran, Mael had to shoulder twice the amount of work, and get all the blame if he slipped up.
Even worse, shortly after Coran turned seventeen, he returned home from failing to pass the academy entrance exams. Their father's foul temper was bad enough already, but Coran channeled the bitterness of his failure through tormenting Mael. Coran may have failed to be granted proper military training, but he still remembered what he had learned from basic self-defense. He took it all out on his younger brother. Every night Mael would climb into bed sore, aching, and bruised.
He turned twelve a week after Coran came home, and he decided on his twelfth birthday that he had had enough. His mother was smart for running away, he realized. He would be a fool to stay. With the rate that his father and brother were going, surely they would kill him from beating and tussling gone too far. He had to act now before it was too late. He didn't have to think long and hard about where to go.
Coran's mother and her fellow soldiers came to Suljeva often enough for Mael to figure out the ins and outs of the inspection routine. On the last day, the dropship would touch down from another part of town at the crack of dawn, when many of the locals were still asleep, and the ship remained open for military personnel to pack up their inspection equipment. That would be his one-way ticket out of Suljeva.
Mael woke up early and made sure to pack only what he needed. His father's drink money was locked up tight, tucked away in a kitchen cabinet, and he didn't know the code to the safe. But he knew that Coran liked to use paper money as bookmarks between the pages of his dirty magazines. Coran's loud snores masked Mael's stealthy, bold thievery as he crept in and out his brother's bedroom with wads of cash. He threw on a jacket to protect his skinny frame from the cold, and filled the rest of his knapsack with packets of dried food.
Lastly, before folding up his birth certificate, Mael used a pen to fill in the 9 in his birth year to make it an 8, to make a twelve year-old boy him seem like he was old enough to join the Visari Youth. He wasn't sure if that amateur move would work, but he did it anyway and hoped that whoever had to check it wouldn't care.
His house was close to where the dropship would land. He crouched at the threshold of his bedroom, waiting for the opportune moment. Minutes later, the dropship announced its arrival with a noisy whine. Without one last look back at the house he had known all his life, Mael seized the chance to open and close the front door, which usually creaked loud enough to get the attention of his family. Once outside, he sucked in relief with the morning chill purified by his respirator. He shouldered his knapsack and stuck to long shadows thrown across the sand.
Over the years, Mael found his talent in creating the illusion that he was invisible. The sun wouldn't be up for the next few hours. The shadows, in the mean time, were his friends. Mael blended in against walls, corners, factory machinery, stacks of crates and mining tools. Slowly but steadily he inched toward the dropship. Its ramp yawned open to let soldiers clump in and out with their equipment. Helghast soldiers were easy to spot and hear from a distance. Their glowing red goggles and crackling radios gave them away. Mael easily avoided their sight when he could see and hear them coming well before they would spot him.
He couldn't pick out Coran's mother among the soldiers he had seen. Not that he cared. Once he was sure that no soldiers were around, Mael broke away from his cover to dash into the dropship. He ducked behind a rack of firearms and stayed huddled there. His heart tattooed a drum against his chest and ears, but no one coming aboard seemed to take notice of him.
As expected, the dropship headed straight for Pyrrhus. Though Mael couldn't see anything from his hiding place, whoever was piloting the ship announced its arrival at the city. The dropship landed and opened up again, and Mael counted the intervals of soldiers moving back and forth to unload the equipment. Seventy to ninety seconds of silence. He settled on the average of the two for the moment he broke away from the dropship.
He shouldn't be surprised that he had landed right in the middle of the military district. At least, that was what it looked like to him. If he was in the middle, or at the outskirts of it, he had no clue. Born a desert rat, Mael was floored by the size and splendor of the urbanscape. Slate gray buildings towered over his head, and the Helghast triad hung and rippled from every blood-red banner. Mael shook himself out of his awed stupor and ducked into an alley so he wouldn't be caught near the dropship.
"You there, boy."
A snapped exclamation made him jump. He whirled around to see a soldier march up to him. Infantry, like Coran's mother.
"What are you doing here? You're not in uniform."
Mael tried not to shake in his shoes. "I'm lost, sir. Where could I go to join the Visari Youth?"
The soldier snorted. "You look short for thirteen."
Mael set his jaw, straightened his back, and squared his shoulders. "I'm old enough, sir. I have papers. Please tell me where to go."
"It's some ways from here, boy. On the other side of the district, in fact. You'll have to take a shuttle to get there. You got money to pay for it?"
Mael nodded. He was glad that he had chalked up enough courage to swipe cash from his brother, when before he never would have done that to risk his wrath. The soldier escorted him to the loading dock, and from there he boarded the tram. Unlike the soldier who had singled him out at the alley and remarked on his small stature, no one onboard spared him a second glance. His company consisted either of boys with their parents, probably bound for Visari Youth like he was, or full-fledged soldiers decked in their uniforms.
Coran once gloated about the food and lodging he had received from his time with the Visari Youth. Compared to the lot he was born with in the impoverished town of Suljeva, Mael figured that even military-grade amenities seemed like a luxury.
The shuttle dropped him off at what looked like the grounds of a boarding school. Other boys were dropped off along with him, though he was the only one not accompanied by parents. A thunderstorm loomed overhead, crackling and snapping without rain. Some of the boys jumped at the sound, but not Mael. Thunder and lightning didn't scare him. It couldn't reach down to slap him in the face, like his father.
Parents ignored their sons' embarrassed protests as they adjusted collars and patted down fine suits. Mael looked down at his own clothes, which had been matted and buffeted by sand from his hometown. He tried to brush away as much sand as he could, but he only ended up smearing it across his jacket and pants. Oh well.
The families were being directed inside by one of the staff, and Mael clenched his teeth as he followed them. He would join the Visari Youth, and unlike Coran, he would not fail. If he was to ensure never coming home again, he couldn't afford to fail.