A Hard man, in a Hard age...

As the sun began to drop beneath the horizon, he let out a slow sigh. It was a weary sound, one that, despite its softness, still seemed to pierce through the absolute silence. This, and the soft whinny of the horse beneath him, would, to a silent observer be the only evidence of life atop this high plateau.

Lars Viljoen was a hard man, a man bred of this wild untamed land. His weather beaten face seemingly carved from the granite of the surrounding mountains, his long unkempt hair as unruly as the veld of the savannah below.

Lars adjusted his position in the saddle slightly, gazing forward intensely , piercing blue eyes scanning the horizon before him. In the distance the Drakensberg mountains reached up to the heavens , in the gloaming resembling the jagged teeth of their mythical reptilian namesake. Aside from the mountains all else that he could see was the seemingly infinite rolling plains of the Orange Free State and all he knew was that somewhere out there, his quarry moved.

His mind drifted back to the events of the past few days, to a time which seemed to be of a different age. He’d found an element of peace in trying to coax life from the inhospitable ground. He no longer cared about the wars between the English and the Boers, their petty squabbles over mining rights, disguised beneath a cloak of so called nationalism, it was all a farce with the innocents being persecuted by the power brokers. A story as old as mankind itself and one which will no doubt repeat itself well into the distant future.

Lars leaned back slightly and removed some tobacco from a weathered Kudu hide pouch attached to his belt. He began to slowly roll a cigarette, a time honoured ritual passed to him by his father and his fathers father.

They were outside their rights, he had served his time. They had given him their meaningless title. A General, a General in command of just boys. Leading them to their death in the name of Afrikanerdom. He had grown weary of their blood on his hands, and he had just walked away. He had served his time, and he had served it well.

Striking a match across his jacket he lit the cigarette and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs. Tendrils of smoke curled straight up into the twilight, testament to stillness surrounding him. He took enjoyment from the taste and smell of the acrid tobacco, one of life’s underrated pleasures, he idly thought.

Suddenly, he gazed forward intently, in the distance he detected the faint glimmer of what looked like a small fire. He smiled grimly, a smile devoid of humour but full of malice, an expression which could strike fear into the most hardened of men.

A slight sound behind him, ‘Any luck Lars? We have been riding hard man , we must be close now.’

This was the guttural voice of old Piet Laingford, or Oom Piet as he was more commonly known. Piets voice was a product of cheap whiskey and even cheaper tobacco, both compliments of many years spent panning for gold in the Witwatersrand. Aside from his voice, his more apparent feature was his immense bulk, not an overweight bulk, but one of solid sinewy muscle. As he moved his body seemed to ripple with a life of its own. Although his short hair was almost white, his brutal power belied any sign of aging.

‘Ja, I think we have them, they have made camp about 8 miles or so to the North, don’t let the men get settled, we are riding again tonight.”, Lars replied grimly.’They have walked this earth for too long already, before the sun rises again, we will introduce them to their maker.”

‘We move in a half hour, get the men ready Sergeant’, Lars instructed quietly.

Piet seemed about to object and then thought the better of it,” Sure thing General, right away sir.’

As the final rays of sun fell behind the mountains Lars mused, “Tonight justice would be served, it would be delivered by his hand, and metered in the guise of patriotism. It would be wholesale slaughter yet he would be lauded as a national hero. Such is the path of a soldier, all he was, all he ever will be and come the end of days, would be how he would be judged.”

With a flick of the reign, he turned his weary horses head