When I came to, my vision was blurred and as far as I could see, it was desert. Just sand as far as the eye can see. The sky looked a sickly grey-blue, and looking at the sky, I saw three suns, and one planetoid object that looked like a moon far off. The heat of the suns bore down on me, I felt like I was melting, and my throat was parched. My head pounded, from the accident or the hangover, I couldn’t tell you. So I decided, I needed to walk somewhere. Where specifically? I don’t know.
I had just crossed one dune sea, not long after I tore my shirt off to put it over my head, having gotten the idea from Lawrence of Arabia (one of my father’s favorite movies) when off in the distance I saw something.
“This place is too hot!” I complained, though to whom I didn’t know.
I soon had reason to really complain when the soles of one of my shoes snapped beneath me after maybe four hours of walking. “DAMMIT!”
Tossing it away, I soon got rid of the other. Now, you should be wondering whether or not my feet started to turn raw or something, but that was the thing; I never took any real notice. It seemed like the desert, sands and constant walking wore my used shoes down but not my actual feet.
Not really paying any mind to this stuff until later, I squinted my eyes and stared all around as I staggered and walked through an endless dune sea of sand. Suddenly remembering why I never cared for the sand-talk from Episode 2 or the Tatooine scenes from Star Wars that always seemed ripped off from Dune.
At some point, just as I was about to give up there was after the millionth sand-hill a village that arose in the distance!
At first it was nothing, and then as it grew larger I realized it was just a cactus. Frustrated I turned away determined to treat it as a sign that I should move in the other direction. Cursing as I went, I wondered what I had done to deserve this. I was the good son, I helped around the house, I did what I could to help mom out, and father too. Hell I slaved over for my sisters and even ran errands for them when they asked, and covered when they were out with boys yet here I was in some desert.
Walking in one direction, it seemed like it was a waste of time. Just desert, and more desert. But it was better to go in one direction, and try to find some place if I can. And that was when I saw something different from sand. I rushed over as fast as I could, and as I squinted, I saw something that looked like a settlement. The houses looked to be made of thatch and bramble, so that I immediately felt a little scorn for them. I wondered if they had even a toilet to spare between them. The question was soon discarded the longer I studied them as I noticed the spears lowering and a curtain of smoke rising from a great many of the houses the nearer I drew to them.
But as I approached it, it seemed to have some form of commotion. It seemed far off, and it looked like an entire village was covered in spears, as they prodded the people aboard some of their ships. The ships themselves were black and glistened in the sunlight. They also hovered a little off the ground, with what seemed to be blue flames bursting and spurting out from under them. I didn’t know it, but this was my first sight of the large ten feet long and wide Tarnships of Karajak.
“What the hell?” I asked myself.
It was strange but the longer I stared as I craned my ears to hear better, being somewhat confused by the situation I stood there dumbly unsure of what to do. They were clearly attacking that village, and not knowing what to do or which side to take I have to admit I just stood there with a dumb look on my face.
Being six-foot two, blond and with lighter skin than the locals I must have stood out. Well that and the dark jacket I wore with its arms tied about my waist (my father had insisted I wear it for the interviews and follow-ups) likely stood out also in the desert landscape so that it was no wonder I was soon spotted.
The first to spot me was a large dark-haired muscular warrior with the black armor with the yellow star emblem of Karajak on it. Pointing me out, some of those raiding the village was to begin to make for the nearby dunes, moving quickly to encircle me. Still untrained in the ways of the Karajak’s Sand-Scouts I wasn’t able to keep track of them, as the rest of them continued to herd the villagers aboard their ships.
The thing about Sand-Scouts is that they’re trained to navigate their way about deserts and have pale cloaks the same color as sand. This lent them the perfect camo-gear of sorts for navigating their way around their prey without being noticed. This was in part how they had gotten the drop on the village, and had managed to surround the nomads that lived within it, without them being the wiser (until it was too late that is).
By this time I had made up my mind to turn away, distracted by those being loaded, I hadn’t noticed the guy who had spotted me, so that I decided to start backing away.
It was too late.
Before I knew it I had turned away only to find two spears thrust out from beneath the sand, startled I fell back nearly falling on my ass. Several of them chirped and howled something to each other, only to motion for more of them.
Their captain hurried on over, not bothering to hide himself as there was neither a need nor the interest in doing so. And why should he? I was too terrified to do much more than ask him a million questions. “Wait! Hold, what’s going on here? What is this place? Where is this place? Why are there three suns?”
Each of them were dark haired, with tanned skin so that they could have passed for darker Mexicans. Their captain in particular was almost my height, with a darker colored beard and an air of superiority that immediately reminded me of my father. The difference was this guy had I could already tell a much bigger mean-streak.
He uttered something I didn’t understand.
“What? Do you speak English? Deustch? Or what about Spanish? Espanole? Or is it Espanola?” I stumbled confused and panicked as I attempted to make sense of his words. Truthfully, I could speak four languages and a little Japanese when I had gone through an anime phase (before I got bored).
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Seeing as I couldn’t understand him, seeing this he just shook his head and motioning to some of his fellow warriors he had them encircle me. The message was clear when the eight or so warriors pointing their spears at me, signaled towards the half a dozen Tarnships.
Scared and uncertain of myself, I took one step towards them, only for their captain or whatever his rank was to grab the shirt wrapped around my head. “HEY!” Tearing it off, he tossed it aside while wrinkling his nose at me.
He uttered something else that I didn’t understand, before he gave me a shove. This was the last straw, so I tried to brush him off and turn around only to find six spears thrust almost through my skull.
When next he spoke I got the message; get on the ship or die.
The trip was filled with me and the other prisoners looking at each other. It was the first time I’ve seen people like them, and not knowing the language of the captors was frustrating, as I didn’t know what was happening, and all I knew is that I was not allowed to speak, unless I wanted six spears aimed at me. The fellow prisoners mostly huddled together, even though it was a little cramped. Each of them had downcasts expressions so that I was left feeling a lot more pity for them than for myself.
History taught that none of them were to enjoy a nice fate when we arrived wherever it was that we were going. I couldn’t quite bring myself to feel sorry for myself though, as I began to feel something akin to fury against those who had put us in chains.
We travelled for what must have been five hours, because when we finally came to a stop we were no longer in the middle of nowhere. The boonies we had been in, soon gave way to towering mountains and a large black structure that stood high as one of them.
Exactly what it was happened to be a mystery to me.
It happened that while I was preoccupied with studying the great tower, and the black Tarnships that stood before it there was a great booming sound that had caught the attention of and had inspired a great deal of irritation in my captors.
I took the opportunity to observe my surroundings, to find a potential exit, when no one would be looking, as I have no interest in staying here, as I have no interest in being whatever they wish of me. It would also be a little difficult to escape when I have two others that are in the same predicament as me, resulting in me needing to negotiate with them, in a language I was completely unaware of.
“Umm, hey. My name is Karl. Karl.” I repeated my name pointing at myself. The two others looked at each other confused, but didn’t speak.
They soon decided they didn’t care. I probably wouldn’t have in their shows (if they were wearing any). The closest one of the two was to reach over and pull me by the hair, which made me scream at him not that he listened. He knew he had power over me, and didn’t care about my opinion.
Shoved forward towards the other vehicles alongside the other prisoners, I might have resisted had I not been confused by how quickly everything was going on. Full of fury, I was pressed along and cursing them glared at them until one of them growled something at me.
‘I’ve got to escape this place,’ I thought to myself as one of the dark haired, tanned figures that had come welcomed us before the dark tower studied me closely. He examined my hair, my eyes and even my arms with a great deal of interest.
It was like he recognized me, yet didn’t. Like he had seen someone like me before and yet hadn’t done so in years. It was the strangest experience of my life up until then (which considering all that had happened of late, was saying something).
He said something to another one of the men, only to exclaim something when he got to my hands. Motioning for several of his fellow slavers he pointed at the ring on my middle finger of right-hand with an expression of amazement.
“What is it? My Quath Ring?” I asked of them startled.
“Quath?” the slaver asked struck, he then turned to the original captors to ask several questions of them, at which time they shook their heads in the negative. He then turned back to me to ask something only to give up and ask, “Quath?” again.
Thinking that I was making progress I then chose to step closer to them, removing the ring from their line of sight as I did so if inadvertently.
It was as they took a closer look at the ring, jerking my hand about by the wrist much to my growing anger that one of them suddenly cried out. Annoyed at him, and his sudden cries the head of the slavers snapped at him.
Just before his brains splattered everywhere as a spear tore through the top half of his skull. Most of those around me screamed and began to run away. Only a small handful of those who guarded us made any serious attempt to fend off the newcomers.
Following their line of sight it took me a moment to fully take in what I was looking at. Tall and muscular the distant figures coming down from the mountain-passes were to barrel their way down the side of the mountain like a bat out of hell.
Each of them let loose great yells that resounded throughout the area, their arms flailing in the air as they celebrated the onrush of battle. A warlike people they couldn’t help but become excited at the prospect of killing and slaughtering those before them, and capturing the defenseless.
Ducking to one side of the black tower, I was to watch as the greens hunted after those who had dragged me thus far.
When they had finished, and the rearguard of the greens had caught up to those in the frontline, the former started to gather the prisoners and slaves, spears held high and dark green and dark eyes glaring even more viciously than the previous race of slavers had.
Amazed to find myself staring at creatures that stood just a few shorter than I did, and with humanoid features comparable to my own, I had to pinch myself to keep from becoming convinced I was dreaming.
It was when one of them made to reach for the chain that was tied to the manacles that the earlier slavers had attached to my wrists that I jerked awake from the reverie I had found myself stupidly trapped in.
“Hey, can anyone tell me where we are? I think you’ve got me mistaken for someone else.” I asked the guards, only to end up with two spears in my face, leaving me nervous. This is when their leader grabbed me by my jaw, trying to see my teeth, but I shoved his hand away.
“Hey! Hands off!” This got me a disapproving look, although this prompted even more of a discussion between the two, and it really was frustrating, as it was like they were talking about me as if I was in another room. But with the language barrier, I might as well be in another room.
It was then that I realized with a curse that these weren’t my liberators or those of the people who surrounded me. They were simply new captors of ours.
They I could tell spoke a different language from those who had just fled aboard the remainder ships. Quite what it was I didn’t know, I only knew that it was guttural and lacking in all quality as a tongue.
One of the green-skins muttered something and pointing towards one of their great three-horned creatures with the large caravans attached to them said something.
Getting the message, I stumbled forward towards whatever unknown fate now awaited me. Infuriated by this shoddy treatment, I was however to as soon as I had clambered aboard the caravan and decided not to go along with their plans ambushed by the sudden offer of a large wineskin.
Recognizing it at once from a school-trip to a museum I had gone on as a kid, and from a dozen movies I was immediately filled with gratitude just as others around me were. It was however not to prove drinking water like I expected or even wine or milk but some other concoction. Whatever it was the moment after I swallowed it I felt my head spin and crash onto the hard metal surface of the dark metallic caravan with the white-roof I was in. My vision became blurry and then all was blackness, as I asked myself not for the first time; how could things possibly get worse than this? And when would the nightmare end?