Prologue

n the last hours of the night, a group of recognizably foreign men was chased into the jungle. A large angry mob of savages, their eyes lit with rage, a clear evidence of the success of the inflammatory speeches their elders were famous for. Torches were lit, arms were taken up and chants were chanted. The victims were oblivious to their crimes but the aggressors seemed to be aware of their every single sin. The jungle was pitch black with no tracks or paths in sight. It was a night of full moon yet it looked as if the jungle had swallowed the moon whole. Even the innocent dark trees looked hostile in this scenery. The victims did not even kill a fly in the stranger territory nor did they had any quarrel with any native yet they were being chased with a clear intention to kill on sight.

The leader of the runners had learned the language of the natives but couldn't see any window to reason with them. The woods witnessed the subtle crisp sound of the dry leaves being crushed by the escapees followed by the swarm of rioters radiating all sorts of pandemonium. The runners felt a hint of hope as long as they were in the darkness of the jungle but soon, they stepped out of the dark. They were a confused. It took a moment for them to register that the forest ran alongside a vast open corn field which was brightly lit by the moon light. They wouldn't last out there, they decided. The leader of the runners urged them to turn back into the woods and the group gladly complied. Making most of any sort of advantage the darkness or obscurity the vegetation provided, the victims had survived for the moment and followed their leader but the villagers caught up to them in a flash. The survivors started to dwindle in numbers. The leader of the victims urged them to run as it were the last run of their lives which, in the back of his mind, he knew was not too far from the truth. The leader was running with all his might and was soon out of breath. He couldn't hear his own thoughts because of his rabid heartbeat. He kept shouting at his group members to motivate them. He struggled to finish his sentences because of his out of control panting. He heard the cold hisses of arrows missing his back by mere inches followed by thuds of them hitting the trees in front of him. Not everyone in the group was this lucky. When they looked back all they could see were waves of torches, sculptures held high like flags or banners and countless hands with axes and pitchforks. The leader noticed that his group had dwindled in number. Some arrows had found their targets. That made him freeze with fright. He had his mind running to formulate any plan to escape from the brutal assailants but the blatant use of arrows greatly shrunk his options. This scared the survivors too but also gave them some adrenaline. The positive aspect did not last long. The leader heard bone chilling screams of his colleague who was caught by the mob. The scream was soon muffled. More screams were followed and, in a few minutes, only three men including the leader remained.

Too exhausted to even stand up, they agreed to embrace whatever God had planned for them and laid low in the tall bushes. The survivors started to pray silently. In a few moments their fear had vanished. They wanted to retaliate but that is not what they had come for. They lacked everything that one needs in order to fight except morale. It would have been suicide. The leader felt the barks of the dogs and slogans grow louder and come closer to them. He looked to his fellows and saw it in their eyes that they did not need to hear this news from him. The leader was taken off-guard by the sheer calmness he saw in their eyes. For once, it was them who injected some calmness into the leader. He tried to follow suit, shut his eyes and started to recite whatever came first to his mind. He regretted arriving on this land unarmed, if he hadn't, his people wouldn't have been this helpless against the assailants.

He kept on reciting verse after verse of whatever he could think of while burying his face deep into his palms. His tears started flowing and the noises grew nearer. There was obviously no point in trying to stay quiet. The aggressors had proved to be one step ahead of them since the very beginning. Now it was just a matter of time. The escapees couldn't help but recite louder and louder as they could feel their end draw near. He felt the noises surround him.

Just when they expected to be ambushed it all went quiet. So quiet that they could hear the crickets and bugs that they didn't even know were around them a minute ago. A choir of swords unsheathing was heard and the runners knew their luck had finally run out. A whoosh of a sword from the darkness, followed by its perfect landing on the rear right side of a runner's neck, confirmed his end. Warm sprinkles of the victim's blood were spattered on the leader's face as he froze and found his body unable to make a sound. He stared in terror as the life left his friend's body. Just as he was trying to comprehend what had just happened right in front of him, he was hit on the back of his head with a club which interrupted his streak of consciousness.