My Beloved

Bakura took in a deep breath as he looked at the stranger before him. He was dressed in a white robe with a purple sash across his chest. Around his arm, a gold band was wrapped. His blond hair flew around in the cold night air. Bakura looked around for his bread anxiously.
“Where is my bread?” Bakura pulled out a tiny knife. “I stole it fair and square, now give it to me this instant!”
Marik returned to the fireside. “I didn’t eat your bread. I wrapped your food with my own. We don’t need bread covered in sand, do we?”
Bakura stood up angrily. “That bread was for me alone! You have no right digging your claws into it! Give it to me now, or so help me, Ra, I will add you to my list of victims!”
Marik narrowed his eyes. “Is that any way to talk to someone who just saved your life?”
Bakura growled. “Hand it over!”
Marik rolled his eyes and dug his hands into his small bag of food. He brought out the bread and threw it at the white haired boy. “Here. Safe and sound.” Marik pulled out a small bag of meat which he threw on the fire. Bakura looked at the raw, bloody slab of meat and practically drooled.
“You….you got meat?”
Marik snapped. “Of course I do! Now run along with your bread if it is so important to you.”
Bakura stared wide-eyed at the blood dripping off the raw meat. “How can you afford meat? Did you steal that, too?”
“No, my village gave it to me before I left.”
Bakura wiped the corners of his mouth and looked down at the loaf of bread in his hand. It had been months since he had tasted meat. It had been days since he had eaten. He broke off a piece of the bread and handed it to Marik.
“If you share your meat with me, I will share some of my bread with you.”
Marik looked at the thin, pale figure. The boy looked as if he hardly had the energy to survive much longer without food. “Fine. Even though I already had bread, I don’t see why an exchange would be unreasonable. Bread is bread.”
Bakura hugged the bread. “Bread is life…Bread is food. I was almost a trophy for Captain Anubis. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to escape him.”
“Captain Anubis? Oh, you come from Cairo, I see…the city of the pharaoh.”
Bakura shook his head as he looked into the fire. “No, I don’t come from the city of the pharaoh. I come from the city of the damned.” Bakura sat down by the fire, his brown eyes entranced by the sparks. “Poverty spreads……the police abuse their power…and the pharaoh does nothing. That is why I stole this bread. I haven’t eaten in days. I am so hungry.”
Marik poked at the meat with the skewer. “I come from a village about a day’s travel from here. I’m on my way to do peace negotiations with another town.”
Bakura sunk his teeth into the bread ravenously. Crumbs flew into the fire from the ferocity with which he ate.
“What is your name, stranger?”
Bakura wiped his mouth. “Bakura Itemri. You?”
“Marik Ishtar.”
“You’re lucky not to live in that Ra forsaken city! I had enough of that city! The only drawback to leaving is that the closest town is a good journey away and I like to be familiar with my surroundings. It’s easy to escape if you know the area.”
“A thief by trade, huh? I married a nice girl about a year ago. We are expecting a child any day now. It will be our firstborn.”
“That’s good news.”
“What about you?”
Bakura stopped and looked up at Marik biting his lip. Marik brought the meat off of the fire and handed a portion to Bakura. “Well, I never umm……I ….I go to a brothel nearby where I live, but I really don’t like women.”
“You don’t like women?? Then why go to a brothel with women?”
Bakura slammed his fist on the sand. “Where else am I to get my sex? Any sex will do.”
Marik shook his head. “There’s more to life than sex, Itemri. Love is more important.”
“Not for me. Food is more important right now. Love doesn’t feed my belly, love just makes me spend the money I stole fair and square.”
“If love is a pricetag, Itemri, then I feel sorry for you.”
Bakura rolled his eyes. “I agreed to share my bread with you. You’re lucky, Ishtar. I could have stole your meat and left you food for the jackals and the scorpions. Then you would never see your son or your wife.”
Marik ripped a piece of meat from his slab. “I’m sure Captain Anubis would love to have you “mysteriously” show up on his doorstep. My wife and I could use the reward money for your scrawny hide.”
“You wish, Ishtar. You wouldn’t even get the chance!”
Marik growled. “If you wish to continue eating my food, keep your mouth shut.”
Bakura narrowed his eyes at the ultimatum. He had to eat, but this stranger was threatening him. “Where are you going, Ishtar? Maybe I can be of some use to you.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“You have meat. I have bread. I will help you in whatever pointless mission you have, but you must share your food with me.” Bakura grinned. Helping this stranger was a better deal than continuing to dodge Anubis and the Egyptian army, especially in his weak condition.
“You wish to go to Saqquara with me?”
“Why not? Your horse will get tired carrying you plus all of your supplies. If you know what is good for you, Marik, you will let me tag along. Besides, I know my way through this desert better than anyone.”
Marik looked at Bakura suspiciously. “I don’t know…..”
“Look, you said your wife is expecting a child any day. Without my help, you will miss the birth of your child. You don’t want to do that, do you?”
Marik looked down and closed his eyes. He couldn’t miss the birth of his first child. ‘Amunet…,’ he thought. ‘How I miss you! I miss you so very much. I can’t wait to hold my child, our creation.’
“Fine. You help me to Saqquara and get me back home safely and I will share my rations with you.”
Bakura rubbed his chin and pushed his hair out of his face. “Saqquara, huh? Hey! I know a place where we can spend the night in Saqquara. It’s a nice, clean place.”
“You know a good Inn?”
Bakura chuckled and winked. “I never said it was an Inn, did I?”
Marik grew pale. “I can’t go into one of those places! I’m married!”
Bakura shrugged. “Just because we have to stay there doesn’t mean you have to do anything, Ishtar. They have rooms for people like you. Granted, they are not half as nice as the more….occupied rooms.”
“I can’t cheat on my wife like that, Itemri.”
“Be a victim of your conscience all you like. That’s fine for you, but for me, I’d rather live dangerously.”
Marik rolled his eyes. “You do live dangerously, dealing with dirty girls.”
“Hey, my girl is not dirty! I only deal with clean girls, if guys are not available.”
Marik shot Bakura a glance. “You…..like guys?”
“We’re not getting on that topic again, Ishtar, remember? Besides, don’t worry about me wanting you. I like to stay within my species.”
Marik let out a little growl. If he wanted to get to Saqquara and back in time for the birth of his baby, he had to take the torments of this stranger. Marik bit his lip thinking of Amunet.
“Interesting. And what species of the desert is your type? Snake? I can see you liking snakes. What about the scorpion? What about the scarab? Or would the dung beetle be more your type?”
Bakura smirked. “I don’t know, but I noticed your horse was walking with a little bit of a limp. You sure he recovered from you riding him…or was it him riding you??”
Marik growled and pounced on Bakura grabbing his shirt. He gave Bakura a punch in the face and his eyes turned dark with fury. “I would watch yourself, thief!!”
“Or what, Ishtar? You say ‘thief’ as if it was a bad thing! It keeps me fed and clothed!”
Marik released Bakura and went to his horse. He picked up a blanket and threw it on the ground. Bakura watched as Marik curled up in the blanket by the fire yawning.
“What about me?” Bakura asked.
“What about you? This is MY sleeping blanket! Get your own, thief.”
Bakura growled and removed his shirt. He bunched it up and laid down in the sand. He put his head on the shirt and slowly closed his eyes.
************************************
Marik and Bakura rode to Saqquara. Marik bought enough grain to last for a month, some bread, water, and medicinal herbs.
“Pick up pain-killer herbs, Bakura. My wife will need a good handful during delivery.”
Marik picked up a wooden toy for his baby. He packed all of his supplies on the horses and they rode all day back to Marik’s settlement.
******************
They rode towards their settlement and found a pack of jackals scatter at their approach. They were feeding on something. Marik slowed his horse down and his breath stopped.
Bakura stopped his horse and turned pale…the jackals were feeding on an infant!
Marik jumped off of his horse and approached the infant, his knees weak.
“What is this?” Marik kneeled before the corpse and looked at the male baby….the umbilical cord still attached…but where was the mother?
Marik’s purple eyes glistened with tears and his heart stopped. “Please, Ra. Let this not be true..”
“Ishtar? Is that yours?”
“How the hell should I know, Itemri? I have to get home!”
Marik ran back to his horse, which he forced into a fast gallop. They soon saw the smoldering remains of a settlement. Not far from it, Marik saw a body in the sand. Marik jumped off the horse and found his wife….dead.
Marik dropped to his knees before his wife. A large gash appeared where her baby had been forced from her body. Could his son be that infant he saw earlier that was food for the jackals? The hot sand below her had been tainted red with a wound in her lower back. Her body was burned on her arms and part of her face was charred black. Her face wore a mask of horror as the blood from her abdomen began to crust.
Marik took his wife into his arms and rest his head on her blackened chest. He let out a wail of sorrow. His hands and his body trembled. He nuzzled his face into her.
“Amunet! Amunet! Please speak to me!”
The corpse looked up at him, its face fastened into the form of a scream.
“Amunet…..beloved? Beloved? Gone………Itemri….My wife…..my child…..dead. MY WIFE IS DEAD! MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE IS DEAD!”
Marik began to sob as his tears covered her body. “My baby is dead. My son…..my son is dead! I never got to hold him in my arms before he died! I didn’t even get to hold my beloved Amunet!” More sobs wracked his body. “My son was devoured by a pack of wolves! I demand to know who did this to my boy and my wife!” Marik looked down at Amunet’s corpse.
“I’ll be back, my darling. I want answers!”
Marik jumped on his horse and rode for the smoldering settlement. Bakura looked around at the bodies littering the sand, now colored dark crimson with the dried blood.
Marik jumped off the horse and found everyone massacred. Men laid in a pool of their own dried blood. The women stared up at the sky, lifeless. The children clutched one another for comfort, that is, those with limbs still attached.
Marik stood still looking at the carnage around him. In the body of one of the children, he found a strange arrow. He removed it from the child’s corpse and looked at the inscription. It had the pharaoh’s seal.
The pharaoh’s army did this…….why?
Bakura saw Marik drop the arrow and return to his horse. “Where are you going?”
“I have to get the body of my baby boy. I must bury it before…….before……I just have to bury my infant son, Itemri.”
Marik rode off and returned to his wife without the baby. Marik’s tears filled in his eyes. “The jackals carried my infant son’s body away….I can only bury my wife.”
Marik dismounted his horse and stayed beside her body until nightfall when he buried it. Bakura helped Marik bury the body.
“Itemri, give me your knife.”
Bakura hesitantly gave him the knife.
Marik put the blade against the palm of his hand. With a single stroke, the blade dug into his skin, burning his flesh and splitting it. He clenched his hand and held the hand over his wife’s grave. His blood dripped on the ground.
“I will love you forever, Amunet. As my blood finds its way to you, we will forever be together…my beloved.” Marik’s head fell forwards onto the ground. “My beloved….my baby boy….lost forever.”
Bakura stood by Marik all night.
“I vow to get revenge, Amunet. I will avenge you and our son.” Another drop of blood christened the sand. “I promise.”