Like before on the cross, the girl let out a silent scream as I healed her wounds as I did with myself. I regret that I had nothing to dull the pain, for I knew first hand that it was truly unbearable. After I wrapped her bandages up, I gave her a drink of water. I sat in front of her as she quietly drank. My mind drew a blank as to how to communicate with her. She appeared to be from across the sea for she was not of my people. I had only seen her people in the docks of Roharim when they traded, bringing forth valuable goods such as spices and the finest silk I had ever seen. Her skin -albeit a little sunburnt- was a royal pale color. Her hair was jet black, Long and braided. Her brown eyes were slanted in a way that made her appear as if she were a clever, mischievous fox.
I had no idea if she could even speak my language, so I improvised. I pressed my fingers upon my chest and spoke slowly and clearly to her.
“Hadrian. I am Hadrian.”
She nodded. She could understand me. She began to move her hands around me. I stepped back, thinking she may be attempting to cast a spell, but no, that was far from the case. These gestures seemed to be some form of communication, though I had no concept of their meaning. I tried writing in the dirt, yet she couldn’t understand my language in written form. I was puzzled as to how we could break this barrier. At first, we tried simple gestures. If she was hungry, I had her rub her belly and point to her mouth. If she was thirsty, she would pretend to hold a glass of water and drink it.
Communication was the hardest aspect when dealing with her, yet despite the difficulties, I was content. The companionship I had boosted my morale, and I’m sure the same would be said of her. At least I was far better company than the men who were nailing her to the cross, that much is certain. I had fashioned some robes for her out of the cloth left over from her assailants. The backpack carried rations, waterskins and a map of the area. It was a detailed map of the Blasted Lands. It showed me the names of many areas. From what the map stated, I was close to crossing “The Blood River.”
The titular river was long, winding and twisting around flowing from the east and towards the west where it would meet the sea. Eastward there was a settlement called “Akari.” Beyond the name of the title and the crude drawing of a small city, I offered no information about the city, yet this was the nearest settlement. I was surprised. I heard that the Blasted Lands were inhospitable. Yet I shouldn’t be shocked. The human spirit is indeed a strange, illusive thing. No matter how hopeless a situation seems to be, men will always find a way to defy the impossible, and do what needs to be done in order to prosper.
More importantly, at that moment, Akari was a place where I could get resources. Yet, before I could even think about making the journey, my companion needed to be able to take it. I was not about to leave her here to fend for herself.
At the moment, my companion was the higher concern. Afterall, there is safety in numbers. Never-the-less I would keep a mental note of Akari for my later investigation. For now,I had to focus on finding an easier way to speak to my companion. I couldn’t even figure out her name at the time. A language barrier was terrible, but combined with her being a mute made things extremely difficult.
When she was well enough to travel with me in hunts, I would try to get her to understand my actions. Drawing pictures was the best solution, though I was not the best artist when it came to my skills. It was about three months after our first encounter when we finally made a breakthrough. I decided to teach her my alphabet —unsure as to if it would even work— as a means to break the barrier. Our tireless studies finally bore fruit when she drew her name in the alphabet. Cao Tzu. At long last, we had finally learned each other's names. A momentous victory to be sure.
In exchange, she would teach me her sign language. Cao Tzu revealed her intellect by not only her ability to learn from me, but to be an effective teacher in her own right. Whatever made communication an actual possibility. Slowly I taught her my language, and she taught me her silent speech. Counting the days on a tally score in the cave, I determined that it had been eight months since we arrived in the Blasted Lands. In that time, I was able to learn the basics of her gestures, and she understood the words I spoke.
We hunted together and expanded our cave area. We constructed crude buildings. She was quiet about her past, yet she informed me that one of her skills was architecture. All she would tell me about those days was that she was commissioned to build her king a luxurious tower. This told me enough about her past. She was skilled enough to be noticed by royalty. We used her skills to our advantage, for we were able to build a small storehouse and a forge.
I had a mind to work on my smithing and craft myself some better armor. Of course, the one thing I lacked was metal to forge anything. At first I considered melting down the spare swords collected from Tzu’s captors. Ultimately we decided against it. You can never have enough swords out here. However, that did mean that metal would be extremely scarce. I thought about digging in the cave in search of metal, yet if I did I felt as if the entire ceiling would collapse on us.
In the end, we did find a use for our forge setup in absence of metal. We crafted pottery to contain drinking water. We never knew when a drought might come, so it was better to prepare and have a storage of clean drinking water than nothing at all. It also allowed us to farm fish for later use. If not for the pottery, I would have felt like an absolute fool. Yet I believed I would find metal at some point, so it was better to have the smithy crafted then and not later.
Then one day, I had a chance to use the forge for its intended purpose, though at a small risk to our health. The two of us tracked down an antelope-like animal made for the harsh environment that the Blasted Lands were. It blended into the arid grasslands west of the river. Its body was delicate and graceful. It was able to perfectly balance itself on high rocks, climbing up the steep mountain sides with the greatest of ease. Even on some cliff faces that would appear impossible to climb, —especially for something like a frail deer— it was able to scale the steep rocky angles with the greatest of ease.
These “arid antelope” as I called them defied logic, yet here they were. I spent the better part of four hours hunting one, and there he was, climbing the mountain side. I picked up my spear. As I had done countless times, I sharpened the spear tip fashioned from my crucifixion nail. I stepped back and aimed, waiting for the right moment to strike. I held my breath as the antelope darted up the cliff side. I wondered if I would be able to hit this creature or if it would just simply continue its ascent up until it vanished. Luckily it stopped. I had my one chance to bring the beast down and took it. I hurled my spear as hard as my body allowed.
With one loud shriek it screamed and slipped, falling off and hitting the ground. It was dead instantly. I recovered what was left of my now broken spear; the force of the fall broke it in several pieces. Thankfully the spear nail was still intact. I recovered the nail, cleaned it off on the beast's pelt and placed it in a bag tied to my hip. I was ready to hoist the antelope on my shoulder when I heard a sharp whistle.
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To better communicate with Cao Tzu, we made a whistle out of bone so she could call me when she was far away. I saw her waving at me on top of a large hill. Behind her appeared to be a black cloud, yet I would soon recognize this to be smoke. I hoisted the beast upon my shoulder and climbed up to her. She pointed out a camp that had been ransacked. From that distance I couldn’t see what might have destroyed the tent or even who these people were. We looked at each other and decided to venture down into the valley below and pick the camp clean. They weren’t going to need their goods anymore.
I took the antelope with me down the steep hill down towards the camp; I was not about to let the vultures or any other scavengers take my kill. After walking for a good number of minutes, we arrived at the encampment. This appeared to be some sort of military encampment. There were a number of factors that proved this: there were no children in this place, so these people did not live here; most of them were heavily armed and armored; there was a clear sign of military structure due to the formation of the tents, and the placement of the banners that dotted the area surrendering the camp. The camp also had what appeared to be some type of flotsam wall that surrounded the perimeter.
The walls were heavily damaged by something extremely large bursting through. Splinters of wood dotted the north side of the camp, encompassing the interior of the camp. Similar splinters dotted the outside of the south western side of the camp as if something large had burst through and punched its way out again. It was as if some force of nature had burst its way into the camp unexpectedly.
Many of the tents were left in ruin. They were either burnt, smashed beyond repair or a combination of the two. The area was littered with the bodies of these warriors. Some were burnt beyond recognition while others were mutilated by sharp blades —although later examination would show that these blades were more like the fangs of some great beast— and crushed under a tremendous weight of some uncaring (or angry) thing.
Much like the men who had sought to execute Cao Tzu, I could not recognize the uniform of these people. Gathering the most intact bits of armor, I was able to find that the armor was ornate in nature. Their visage resembled that of human skulls, though not exactly a one for one comparison. The lower ranks had armor that was made out of animal hide and leather, though it was tanned and in very good condition. Those that seemed to be in higher ranked and were more valued had better armor. It was a good strategy, not too unlike the Legion. This armor was more in line with steel. Of course, I was tempted with acquiring some of my own armor, yet that would have to wait.
The colors of the armor were a muted violet with accents of gold. The armor hid much of their faces and skin color. No doubt that this was done on purpose to show exude fear. These people had a reputation somewhere in the Blasted lands and I was woefully ignorant of it. Yet the strangest of all armors was that of some of the people within this place. I found these people within the largest tent in the camp. Tents such as this within the legion were used for the commander, yet this appeared to be some type of church. To what God I did not know, yet the visage of the idol that laid within was haunting.
It was the body of a multi armed woman. Eight arms adorned her like some type of spider waiting for prey to walk into her tangled web. It was clearly a woman, naked as the day she was born. Anatomically correct as well. Around her waist were the skulls and shrunken heads of her enemies. Groveling at her feet were dried husks of men and women that were dwarfed by her size. Several arms were empty, holding either a palm upwards or downwards. Yet in several of her hands she held some items: one arm cradled an infant that suckled on her breast; one hand on the opposite side held a dagger raised high in the air; one arm held a human heart, and lastly, one held a chain made into a whip. One colorful detail about this Goddess was what she wore as a necklace. She wore what appeared to be human ears, Fingers and a third specifically male body part that made my skin crawl. Lastly, her face was adorned in the skull of a great cat, not unlike the type I had slain upon my arrival. It bore a golden third eye in the middle of its forehead and its teeth were real bone with golden rings forged around them. The crown she wore had real peacock feathers, complete with those unblinking all seeing eyes.
I was mortified when I first laid my eyes on this statue. Cao Tzu and I shared the feeling that this was some dark God that was worshiped by degenerate, evil people. I felt sick to my stomach. I had seen the evil of mankind in the war, yet never saw something so grotesque and twisted as this black marble statue that stared at me with hatred. If I could I would have destroyed the statue and been done with it right then and there, yet alas, I did not have the time to do so. Whatever it was that Ile’ Sathak graciously called forth to slay these sick creatures might have quickly returned, and saw that I was as delectable as these people.
I searched around the camp to find something that could be useful. Luckily, we found something that would prove to be a great asset. A wagon. I would need to pull the wagon, for all of the horses in this camp were dead, but that would be little issue. With the wagon we would be able to take whatever we wanted from this place; their metal that we could use to forge ourselves better armor and weapons; cloth and leather were valuable and went into the cart; Lumber would be ideal for us; their corpses had several bags of gold that would later prove extremely useful for us. It was a good haul. I may have felt like a thieving vulture, but my belly would be full and I would have the means to travel beyond the Blood River before the year was out. Cao Tzu was happy that she found such a treasure, and she would deserve every honor she got from that discovery had she been within the legion.
Once the wagon was loaded up, I took the charge and would be the one to pull the wagon. I hoisted the wooden handles and would pull, taking one look at the encampments banners. The banners had the same colors as the armor of the soldiers. A faded violet color that was visibly striking. The image on the banner was that of a cat with a third eye in the middle of its forehead and adorned with a feather crown. I sneered at it. I didn’t know it at the time, But this was my first brush with what would be my most hated enemy. Even more than Legatus Tempest, The ruler who these men worshiped as a God would be the one person I despised the most. A woman who was so vile and twisted, she made the average Roharim viper seem to be as tame and docile as a lamb.
Her name would be one that I would spit at the very mention of to this very day: Lakashara. But, I am getting ahead of myself. At that point in time, the name had not yet violated my ear drums and my mind was clean from her influence. Yet even then I knew that these people were not to be trusted. As I pulled the cart , I nearly tripped. I stepped in what I first thought was a ditch. I looked down and saw what it truly was. A large footprint that ended in five thick fingers with sharp talon marks scraping the ground. Then I saw the remains of a trail of footprints. There was a large drag mark on the ground that laid between the feet. Whatever this thing was, it had a large tail that it dragged on the ground. I shook my head and continued on my journey. I knew very well that I would be seeing that creature soon. Everything in the Blasted Lands was designed to kill me after all.
We took our loot back to the cave and immediately began to work. Cao Tzu began to make preparations on our next building project while I made plans of my own: I now had the steel I needed to craft myself a better set of armor; I had fabric and leather that I could use to bind and decorate the armor; There were several plants that I could most likely use to dye the armor in whatever way I pleased. I had to keep an eye out for the one that was the closest to a “legion red.”
Most importantly, It was time to give myself a new weapon. I would forge myself something that would be familiar to me. I had the metal and the will to do so. I could at long last make myself prepared. For as that year ended and a new one would shortly begin, all of the Blasted Lands would soon be made aware of my presence. I would soon cross the other side of the Blood River not as a survivor trying to live off scraps, oh no. I would arrive as a conqueror.