Kabandha Troubles

Kabandha was a small village in Iraq, a sister village to Modambi and far from the capital of good ol' Iraq. To be honest, Kabandha was truly the worst place to build a town. Built around a small oasis in the middle of the desert, it was said the oasis had healing properties and it did with the awakening of the magic throughout the Earth.

It still didn't make it immune from bandit attacks and lately the village had hired a young mercenary from Modambi by the name of Sayyid. Sayyid was a hit with the villages children but not with the local bandit clans. A gun could scare away a few dozen without one.

It all changed today. A warlord had risen to power among the bandit clans, uniting a people that wanted to kill each-other this insult and that. That warlord was called Imman. The bandit warlord was the worst Iraq had to offer. Where Osama and Gadaffi had brought US attention, Imman had not and was carving a bloody scar across the desert.

Kabandha was next.

KABANDHA. CIRCA 2013

Sayyid stood infront of a mirror in a messy hotel room, rubbing shaving cream over his jaw when there was a loud knock on his door and a loud rambling tone of one of the village elders saying some nonsense about the water pipe being dislodged. The mercenary dropped the razor into the sink, gave a despairing look at his grubby beard and washed the cream off his face.

When Sayyid exited the hotel; which had proudly displayed a broken neon sign in some arabic language which had at one time read; 'BEST PRICES IN TOWN'. It just said ' BEST PRICE' now. Sayyid stretched and yawned, and begun walking in the direction that the elder had pointed him.

It didn't take long for his shadow to join him, a young boy by the name of Michael. Micheal had begun following his new friend about town since he had arrived from their sister city. The young boy was pulling at Sayyid's side and blurting something in arabic.

Sayyid pulled off his combat helmet, scuffing the boy's hair and putting the aforementioned helmet on his head. “What are you doing around here this early, Mitcheal, haven't you got goats to feed?” Sayyid asked, looking down at his miniature guide who'd pulled the goggles off the helmet and onto his eyes.

“Mom said I could come with you to fix the water, what's wrong with the water, Sayyid? Mark said we're all gonna die of thirst.” Mitcheal said. The later part of that sentence had to be the work of the boy's older brother. “Mark is a lying camel, you know better than to trust him.” Sayyid replied. “Yeah... but” Mitch answered.

“Butt's are for pooping, go get me a toolbox.” Sayyid said, grinning as the little boy rushed off.

It didn't take long for the adults crowding around the broken pipe to start assaulting him with arabic and broken local dialogue. Sayyid could only make out certain words; such as that the pipe had stopped working hours ago and that it wasn't on this side of the village.

“Bandits?” Sayyid hopelessly asked and only got a few nods in reply. Kabandha's elders were as useless as tits on a camel. “I'll go follow the pipe up the desert and see what the problem is.” Sayyid said, yawning. The mercenary doubted that it would be anything but someone's truck running over the pipe.


The Ol' Pipeline

Sayyid followed the pipe in a dusty old SUV that would've been green a few years ago but the desert had stained it a tan, sand color with only a few green spots to spare in the glimmering desert sun. A twenty dozen owners had signed the dashboard and there was a pistol in it. Those were the only few important features of the vehicle and it certainly was no buggy.

Sayyid found the problem; A hastily built machine atop the pipe sucking the desert's lifeblood out of the pipeline. 'It was clearly bandits, probably serving that new upstart' thought Sayyid. A few gallons of water would supply them for days out here in Iraq.

Sayyid jumped out and walked over to the machine, wishing he'd had the patience to stay until his shadow had brought him the toolbox. “Fuck.” Sayyid said; another mercenary had taught him the word and he loved it.

Sayyid went to walk back to the SUV, but he never quite made it. Instead he saw a red flash, and heard a grunt and soon he was choking on sand. Then... Nothing.

In the distance; Micheal was screaming.

Things never worked out the way they were supposed to, it seems. In times of crisis you would assume that a catastrophe would strike then the good guys would swoop in to make everything better. Wounds would be healed, destruction would be carted away so that new things could be built upon the ashes and the bad guys would be caught. Right?

Sadly, that was not the case. The real world didn’t play out so well since fate seemed to have a horrible sense of humor and more often than not it seemed that the casualties and chaos outnumbered the good deeds and justice that tried to prevail.

A small city of white tents had sprung up outside of an obliterated village whose name had already left Edei’s mind by now. The tall brunette wove her way from tent to tent, seeking any information that she could from the few survivors but most were unconscious at best. A plume of grayish-black smoke still rose from the remains of the village, even now, and the scent of death and decay was carried upon the light desert breeze, causing the lithe woman’s nose to wrinkle in distaste.

They had come too late to save everyone, after all and the creatures that dined on carrion had feasted well before the arrival of the caravan of aid trucks. Edei herself had followed the caravan, knowing that it had traced the scar of destruction left by the warlord Imman. She was always one step behind. Left to decipher riddles and clues left from whoever happened to escape his wrathful gaze. His path through the country seemed erratic at best but she knew that there was a method to his madness. One man did not become the leader of a dozen of more bandit gangs without having an ace up his sleeve.

Peeling open the flap one of the medical tents, Edei stepped inside with her vivid blue gaze searching the small confined space. Three makeshift hospital beds were set along the back wall with a single nurse flitting between each one as she tended to her wounded- two men and a thin, emaciated looking child with burns covering a majority of his upper left chest and the entirety of his arm.

The nurse looked up, dragging her gaze over Edei before placing her into the category of mercenary instead of medical professional. With a quick shooing motion, the nurse tried to dismiss her from the tent but Edei held firm, shaking her head and holding up a hand to show she meant no harm.

“I need information.” Her statement was short, succinct and when the nurse bristled Edei continued on in a gentler voice. “I need to make sure that this….” Her finger lifted, gesturing to the three unconscious victims of the blast, “Doesn’t happen again. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want justice?”

Not that Edei really had a thing for justice but her employer had apparently lost something valuable to the warlord and stealing it back was going to be a bitch and a half if she couldn’t even find the damn man.

That gave the nurse pause and she fidgeted briefly, checking their vitals again before shaking her head as a sigh blew from her parched lips. “I don’t want this again… No. But they are still recovering. If any awaken and wish to speak to you… I will let you know.”

It was all she could ask for. Edei inclined her chin to the nurse and turned to head throughout the tent city to see if she had better luck elsewhere.