“Time to die.”
“Fuck, what?” James glanced over at his diminutive friend, then grinned with sharp teeth.
“I don't know, just wanted to say that.”
The air was thick and pumped with moisture that clung to their burnt skin and tightened their rags about them. Charles peered through his wrapping, lucid eyes flicked back and forth across the shadowy dunes. James' hoarse reared and he cursed the beast.
“Shut it up!” spat Charles.
James pulled it's cracked leather reins hard left, then down. The sable animal settled itself with difficulty. Within the recesses of Charles' hood, a thin trickle of smoke seethed from a flickering ember.
“Put that out man!”
Charles hacked and the crusty stick disappeared over the edge of the hill and into a black pit. James tightened his grip upon his reins and pulled his hood over his face more to guard against the chill. The lone light still shone defiantly in the blue haze of the night, not even the star guides were out. James peeled away a part of his wrapping on his wrist and checked a scratched watch clasped round his thick, long arm. He sighed deeply. The pair remained sentinel upon the ridge, rifts of sand shifted round their steed's ankles and hissed about their heads. Motionless except for the rustle of their garb. James' mind became hazy, and began to slip into a lull, the whining sand and oppressive night...
“James!”
He jolted at the harsh call. “What the hell?” He rubbed his sore shoulder.
“Look.” Charles jabbed a curved set of talons at the swirling darkness ahead. The fire had evaporated, without a word the two kicked their steeds hard in their bulging haunches and burst down the side of the hill. The solid animals paid to heed to the flaying wind, and they remained stalwart as they kicked up blue rolling waves of the liquid earth. James could only estimate how long they had been riding for, he knew his autorifle scope went out at least a hundred yards, and there was no way he could have pulled off a shot from their previous vantage point. He glanced back over his shoulder, the hill was gone, swallowed with in the growing black. Charles' horse screamed and reared high.
“Son of a—!“ A crack snapped the filthy air and tore into the beast's taut flesh, making it double over. Charles deftly vaulted off of the animal and ducked behind its fallen hulk.
“Shit.” James jumped off and hid behind his own horse just as a shot was fired over his head. He took his autorifle off of his back and aimed it over his horse.
“Where are they?” Another crack and Jame's horse sprawled dead in the sand, he dived as well.
“Fuck if I know!” Charles' yell came off insanely loud, the wind had died almost entirely. They worked at steadying their trembling hearts, deep breathing and mobile meditation. James cocked his rifle breach and checked for three shells, then locked it shut. Charles' peeked over his horses' corpse, his shiny talons clicked against the sawed off stock of his rifle.
“Anything?”
“No.”
Charles pressed his talon against the sand; measuring, monitoring. James' heart ripped at his chest. No matter his technique, he could not ease himself, nor the nagging terribleness at the base of his skull.
There was an explosive rustle of sand and James felt the sting of icy metal pressed against his sweaty throat.
“Move and I gut you, drop it.” A rumbling voice hissed
James let his autorifle plunk down into the sand and remained motionless. A diminutive, robed figure stood crouched over Charles who was on his knees with arms behind his back. The figure binding Charles spoke in a higher pitch than his companion. Some jumble of Hadan or another shit tongue of a language. James felt metal wrap him wrists and elbows and pinch his flesh. His hood was ripped away to expose his rusty shock of hair, the chill of the night pricked at his skin. He turned his head to see his captor, but was swiftly struck across his jaw and was forced to look ahead. The deeper voiced man spoke again, in a different tongue this time, and the smaller one jolted and seemed to stare intently into James' eyes. Then in an oddly deeper voice the man waved an order and a dull thud smashed James' skull.
…
A gray black enveloped James' vision. His arms seemed bound tightly behind his back and a strange numbness had come over his entire body. He was drifting in space, ethereal winds battered him into a haphazard sleep. His eyes burst wide open, although they have have been so the whole time. He now noticed the specks of light that punctured the darkness, the way they shimmered and moved in front of him, just out of reach. The odors of spices and deep sweat filtered through the holes into his nostrils. As his consciousness strengthened, he could pick out the babble of men and braying of beasts. The events of last night flashed before his eyes, he shut them tight.
Who betrayed us
James could now feel the breaking ache in his spine, the burning manacles wrenching his arms immobile. He jolted back and forth with the undulations of whatever beast he was perched on.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, who is this? I'm not a slaver get 'em da fuck outta here!”
A rumbling voice mumbled.
“What? Well, get him in there.”
James let his body go lank, unseen hands grabbed him and tore his down from his ride. James stumbled blindly upon his amorphous legs. His nerves raged and struck out at his and he called cried out at the pain. The boiling sand beneath charred at his exposed feet, but the wind was only behind him now and soon it completely ceased. His feet kissed coarse fabric. Without a word he was shoved hard to the ground and he grunted for air. He coughed weakly and remained very still.
They know I'm awake
wherever he was, he was inside. Incense and oils hung dormant in the air. There was something else, something he had smelled last night but had ignored it:women. An uproarious gabble of laughter and yelling came from very nearby, it subsided and drew closer to him.
“You think so? I'd say kill them all!”
“Now my son, don't fight before you can hold a sword.”
A new wave of laughter erupted and after much coaxing, quieted and died.
“Ah, but of course how could I forget you?” The voice was very close now, James was roughly pulled to his feet, the hood pulled off of his head and the warm light of elegant red carpeting filled his eyes. He stared blankly at the pudgy figure in front of him. Robed in the red of the room and wearing an inane grin on his round face, Karl Tyle looked as fat and as stupid as the last time that James had seen him.
“How have you been these years James? What don't want to talk, I can make you.”
A swift jab planted in James' gut made his gag and double over on the ground. He gasped for osxygen.
“Ah, Karl what a charmer you are, how many wives have you had to kill because they knew you were the fucker that you've always been eh?”
Another sharp blow. James' head swam.
“Father?”
James looked up to see a young woman in traditional silk wrappings at the threshold of another room, she was lighter skinned than was usual, with shortly cropped hair and a shapely, yet hard figure. James made a red grin, “Hey Dalia.”
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