Chapter 10 - Forgotten Scars

The ride back takes a lot more time. There's no drum beat to push our riding beasts into a frenzy, and the heavy wahnz bodies slow us down even more. Yet, despite all of this, we reach the giant stone cave before the sun sets.

Not a word is spoken, and I can feel a cold dread taking hold of me.

My rested mind opens the fear gates. Unanswered questions start filling my mind as doubt slowly creeps in. So far my fake wizard act kept me alive, but, what happens if she deems me to be.... unworthy of the task, whatever that may be? Will she get rid of me just as she did with the rest of the captives? Will I be tied down again and sent to one of those slave markets.... or worse? What fate awaits me if I fail to deliver?

She said the sands don't favor the weak. No, she didn't say that. She said that here... the weak die...

My thoughts send shivers down my spine, yet there is hope, somehow, I think. If she wanted, I could already be dead by now. Yes, that's all I can say, this is my coping thought, my ray of hope.

Not feeling that much positive, I must admit...

We enter the cold cavern mouth, leaving the unbearable hot desert air behind. I wait my turn to get out of the saddle and stretch my legs, amazed by the army of servants and slaves pouring out from the tunnels, rushing toward our riding beasts.

Straps and belts get released, ropes and leather bits untangled. Heavy harnesses come off first, then the light ones, and finally, the saddles are dragged away. The hunted wahnz get processed, cut into pieces, sliced, packed, and bundled up. Fur gets skinned, too, right there before my eyes.

The hunters don't wait for the servants. They bow before their queen and make their way deep inside. She nods back, rushing ahead through the stone tunnel toward her upper den. I follow in complete silence, dragging my heavy axe along, unsure of what's going to happen next.

Stone corridors open up, some of them I can even recognize. They look a bit less threatening to me now. The guards take my weapon away, smiling. I let go, thinking no one walks around armed on the upper floors. No one but her.

We reach her den, I know the corridor, the stairs, the door. My heart is pumping. I hesitate to get in, but what other option do I have? I'm bound to her, so one way or another, I must go wherever she goes, right?

The den is just as I remember it. Beasts, staring, dead. Furs, table, bed. And her...

I sit down and wait as she casually throws her furs on the ground walking bare naked before my avoiding eyes.

"We drink, we eat, we talk!" I finally hear her voice and dare to look back at her.

We talk? That word makes my fears calm down. I expected worse. Not sure what, but worse. Just... far worse.

The door opens, and her servant girls hurry in smiling, filling the table with meats and large gaeng pitchers. I sit down without much of an appetite, feeling responsible for my own failures, whatever they may be.

I wish I knew so I can excuse myself, but no matter how much I try, I can't seem to find a fault of my own. I'm just weak, born this way, a man of another place and time, fit for another place, far away from this savage world.

"Drink!" she commands, raising her pitcher.

I grab mine, not daring to look at her. The liquid is cold and bitter! Wait! This is not that poisonous gaeng! This is sag! Damn, the girls thought of me! I gulp it down in one go, then shatter the pitcher to the floor, imitating her once more without daring to face her eyes. The sag reinvigorates my body. It feels so damn good, I'll make sure to thank them tomorrow. If I survive the night, of course.

"Another one!" she calls out, raising her second drink.

Well, sure, I think, drinking from another pitcher close to me. Still sag. Sweet, bitter, refreshing, I can drink this all night!

"It's not your fault," she growls. "I was just as weak as you."

I look at her, stunned. Her words don't make any sense to me.

Was she ever weak? How could Rai'Ze, the desert beast lioness, the mighty chieftain of all the burning sand clans, the one that could chase down a mighty sand giant and split an alpha wahnz head in two, be as weak as me?!

"I was thirteen moons when I crossed worlds," she speaks, raising a third pitcher from under the table. "Got found by the raiders of Tahreg, sold to Harghem, sold to Ighar, sold to the pits," she continues, wiping her mouth with her hand, grabbing a huge chunk of roasted meat from the plate.

That's my signal! I waste no time and reach for a piece, too. I sink my teeth into the tender meat and start devouring it at once. As soon as the taste reaches my tongue, I realize how famished I really am. I swallow, take a deep breath and continue chewing. Delicious.

It was a long day. The damn bracelet almost ripped my arm, then burned it down for good measure. I've ridden out next to the beast, chased after a giant saln'har herd across the sands and hunted my first wahnz, no, two of them, and had a face-off with an Alpha!

Not to mention the heat, the sand, and the burning dust. No wonder I'm gobbling down piece after piece like one of those awful sand wolves. Damn, it feels good to eat!

"I was too wild for the good slaves, too feisty to keep around as a pet. Not that pretty either." She smiles, almost laughing at the thought, her fangs showing.

"The pits?" I dare to ask, sinking my teeth into a particularly tasty drumstick of sorts.

"Fighting pits, Ar'thagk, the Horde has them. They love blood too much." She waves her hand in disgust. "Animals, khe'a'rh. All of them!"

I look at her in disbelief. Can someone be more savage than her and her people? I shrivel at the thought.

"They watch others kill for fun, make a show out of it," she continues, kind enough to explain. "And they're not the only ones! The Tahenk does the same, yet somehow, we're the savages in their eyes!" She smirks, throwing a chewed-down bone on the table and grabbing another one.

"I was to be killed by beasts, ash'ek, sand vermin, but I took the first down, and the second. They sent me down to the cages. Kept me for fun. Got me out each time there was a feast, killed more of us, fed the beasts, sent the rest down back."

I try imagining what this must have been like for her. A young girl, captured by these savage barbarians and thrown into a bloody arena and left to fight for her life against strange and vicious creatures she'd never seen in her life.

If not for my recent experiences, I couldn't even dream of thinking of such a scenario, and yet, right now, I completely believe her every word. I can even imagine those dreadful places. Horrible fight pits, soaked in blood, surrounded by raging, bloodthirsty savages wishing for more.

My mouth gets dry, and I reach for my sour milk.

"Each yullun day, they got me out, washed me, dressed me, sent me to the market. Sit there for three days. No one wants me, too ugly. Got back in the cage, back to the pit with the ash'ek and the theelk and the small ryl'kath, food for the beasts."

Too ugly?! In what world, I wonder? True, she's a beast, a wild creature, no doubt about it. Made out of muscles from head to toe, thick veins running across them, and all that. Built to kill, chiseled by the sands, hardened by the sun. And yet, despite that, she's nothing less than amazing.

Her face is proud, her eyes are burning strong, fierce, and dominant. Full and alluring, her lips form a seductive smirk, a confidence betraying her unwavering resolve. Wild long hair flows over her back, blazing under the desert winds whenever she's riding her mighty beast.

Her body? I've seen enough to know. There's nothing she lacks, nothing more to be desired. Her ample chest sits proudly above her muscular abdomen. Imposing breasts, too big to ignore, too beautiful to look away from, a true snare for all daring eyes. Wide hips, thick and strong thighs, shaped, cut to perfect proportions, give her tall frame a raw and majestic form.

She's one damn good-looking beast, no doubt about it.

And yet her words speak the truth.

The Ar'thagk horde must have seen many like her. Majestic sand creatures, standing tall, unwilling to obey their masters, always causing trouble. No, she wasn't ugly, far from it. It was something else, a fault they could never accept for their slaves. She was defiant! Her head never bowed down, her spirit too strong, unbroken still. A chained beast, yet a beast nonetheless.

The rich brutes had no need for such a creature. What use was she to them when countless daughters of defeated tribes packed the stalls? They could always buy the slender ones, the scared, the frightened, the weak. These women wouldn't give them any trouble. How could they? They were all broken, barely any soul left inside them.

And there was more. If fortune smiled upon the day, the slave market might even reveal something the untamed sands could never provide.

Stolen from their stone-walled cities, captured and traded across the lands, precious Tahenk women, so beautiful, so refined, so different. Or the Yne'sh! Exotic and rare, like a flower in the sands! And just for once, a single Enerra may lay chained down for them to see and dream about for the rest of their miserable lives.

Now those were the prizes they could spend a fortune on!

Rai'ze? She was none of them. She was a different breed. Rare, true, exotic in her way, but not the kind of exotic they were looking for. Her eyes were always burning, fangs showing, feisty, untamed, defiant. What sort of slave acts like this? They looked at her, shook their heads, and moved away. Some even pitying her, mercifully throwing a few coins at her chained feet. She won't survive for long, poor thing.

The other women tried talking her down, making her smile, taming her spirit, and giving her a chance. They washed her, painted and brushed her scars away, braided her wild hair, placed dried flowers around her neck, even shortened her rags, kept them at a bare minimum. But their efforts were pointless. She was one of those with pride running through their blood, and they could do nothing about it. Her fate was sealed.

No one wanted her, and that was why she was back again, in the pits, to fight and die.

And so she did.

For almost an entire year of her life, she faced the sand vermin. Poisonous, parasite-filled critters, miserable desert killers every bit as deadly as the biggest and most ferocious predator. She fought them barehanded, charging ahead, claws and teeth ripping through one at a time. Victorious, she survived, cheered by a few that noticed her, spit on by those whose wagers were once more lost. This girl refuses to die, she's not good for business, they mumbled.

And yet, with each battle, her body grew weaker. No matter how strong her resolve, poison, and filth started creeping in. Her wounds kept bleeding, barely closing during some long breaks. A feverish pain kept her company, night after night, sapping away her energy. She got used to it, too tired to understand, too beaten to worry about it. Her days were numbered, yet that number seemed never to count anymore.

She died, slowly, for their entertainment.

The slave market women noticed first. Her bleeding wounds, deeper than before, her burning body, her pallid skin. They'd seen it before, and it was never a good sign. By now, they'd already gotten used to the little savage one and became fond of her defiance. It pleased them to see her back alive, knowing she survived for another whole yullun. Her survival gave them hope, avenged their own miserable fate, and allowed them to believe, at least for a while longer.

Seeing her slowly dying before their eyes changed all that. They could not accept it. She, she won't die! At least not now, not after she survived for so long!

They asked for favors, spent whatever little coins they begged, and found her a healer. Old, blind, the man inspected her body, looked at her wounds, and then began to clean her up. Water, ointments, pushed deep inside her festering flesh. She was infected, and the healer did his best to cure her. And for a while, it seemed she would get better.

Most of the wounds closed, and the bleeding stopped. Her fever dropped, only cold shivers still breaking her sleep from time to time. But she could rest better now. Another yullun passed, and she was back up on her market stall, yes, burning again, her defiant smile chasing the buyers away as usual. The women were pleased, took turns hugging her, they did it, she was saved.

But the healer's words left no hope for the future. Her blood was dripping slowly. His blindness fooled him, he wrongly believed she could be cured, that her wounds were on the surface and, with a bit of care and select treatment, she would get back on her feet in no time. Now he was sure, and while everyone else celebrated her return to health, he counted her heartbeats draining blood away, feeling for each drop.

The girl was dying.

Parasites got in, made a nest inside her blood, and started to multiply. She was to be eaten from the inside. He knew what fate awaited her, and he could do nothing about it. Not even in his glory days, he could not heal such a disease without rare and expensive medicine, far more expensive than even the lives of all the slaves in the market.

He was too old to shed tears, he had lived through many before. He just grunted angrily at the women to stop celebrating, shook his head, and left.

By the next yullun, the girl will be no more.