"Zake, Brother, just wait," Sam calls out, running after Jake who was living the royal palace along with other knights.
Hearing his brother's cute voice, Jake quickly turns with a smile on his face, watching Sam. The young boy wearing his fancy attire consisting of a small golden rope with Aestrosa's symbols with a small wooden sword in his hand.
"Hey! Brother, wait for me, you promised to take me with you to fight evil enemies like the yats oh no, not again, I mean the rats and yes also I will fight spidens...spide..."
"You mean spiders?" Jake chuckles, correcting his younger brother.
"Yes! I mean spiders! Evil! I'm coming for you and with this powerful sword, I will finish them all!"
Jake and his fellow Knights laughed, "oh yes! We need a warrior like you to defeat our enemies!" a Knight says.
"OH NO! SPIDER BEHIND YOU!" another Knight shouts jestingly.
"NOO! WHERE?!" Sam screams as he whips around searching while holding his sword.
Jake quickly goes after Sam, tickling him, "yes spiders hahaha."
Sam screams once more, following up with laughing and hugging from Jake. "No no stop it Zake!" the boy laughs hysterically.
"Yeah Jake, oh excuse me, Prince, I mean Zake, stop tickling our Prince or you will get punished," one of them chortles.
Holding up Sam, Jake turns to his fellow commanders, Sam says "no, that is fine, I will never punish my dear brother Zake and yes his name is Zake and not Jake" then he gives a kiss to Jake while Jake adding to what Sam saying "Yeah! I'm your honorable knight Zake haha."
Then he puts down Sam then he told him "Look, my little prince, my friends and I, are going to do some job at the borders of the kingdom of Novarx and we will back as quick as possible so don't worry we will train later to search for those rats and defeat all spiders lurking in the castle okay?"
Sam grabs Jake's hand and asks him "Please Zake, take me with you to this No-no-ahh Nov-va-what? it is hard to spell. You know, I mean that place, you are going to, please brother I will help you defeat your enemies."
Jake gets down on his knees touching the prince's Blonde straight hair and says "My dear young prince, my little brother, I promise you I will take you someday to Novarx, Yes a hard name to spell. However, we are not going to fight nothing there we are just going to do trade business you know that kinda boring trades I told you about before...and it will be more boring this one since it has to be in the south of the kingdom..."
Sam interrupts Jake, quickly saying "Oh no, you are going to the desert on the south? Oh, no brother! There are those black monsters there."
Jake turned his face to his commanders with confusion saying "What? Who told him..." Then he back to ask Sam "What are you talking about? Who told you about the black monsters? Hey, Sam, haha I told you there are no real monsters there, they are all just kids stories... Also, we are going there to trade with our friends from Novarx so need to worry."
After chatting with the prince, Jake and the other knights left the castle, traveling towards Southern Norvax.
"Few miles and we reach the meeting point." One of the dozens of knights telling the other that they about reach the southern side of Novarx after nearly a day of riding their horses moving from city to another city to rest and take food for their long journey...
"Zake, my brother Zake, come save me here is a spider" A knight mocking Jake after he notices a spider running nearby them while resting after they reach in the southern wall of Novarx.
"Yeah... Damn, look at this fucking view, see there is sand everywhere, Chris" Jake responds while starring at the desert from above the nearly 50 feet giant wall of the kingdom, looking to small sand sand tornados going on simultaneously in many places, he can feel sands in his mouth, all he can see is desert from that view, sees even the sky touches the end of desert...
Chris who impressed with views, with a smile he says "Welcome to the south, bro, this is a view you look at I presume for the first time in hell on earth as some call it. As you see there is nothing behind that fucking desert only more desert and those piece of shitty, sand-walkers."
Jake laughing for a few seconds after he heard the word "Sand-Walkers" then he asks, "Sand-Walkers? What? Haha you mean those black freaks I heard about whom live behind or inside or whatever they are in this huge desert!"
"Yes! those fucking savages! They are fucking monsters! Fuck them! They are the reason why we are here in this fucking place... And fuck this god-damned wall just look at this damn sun's heat I'm dying with my fucking sweat, I even got sands all over my cock! And I'm worried if I go to pee and a spider jump on it or maybe snake bite my ass too! This agony man!"
"Calm down Thomas" Chris trying to cool down the anger from their mate Thomas who was getting close to Chris and Jake with an angry face and spitting in every step he takes.
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"Fuck this, So let me get this straight, fucking monsters attacked one of our merchants, they send us to investigate! What are we? Fucking monster-hunters? And why the fuck those merchants were going inside this fucking huge endless miles of sands? Huh?"
Chris quickly answers "No! They said one of the merchants get lost from the rest while taking the road toward here and his torn up head ended up here and lost all of his supplies, so we are here to find out what happened?" then he adds to that by saying
"Was it really the sand-walkers, I call them this because who else like those black monsters who can walk fine in that horrible desert to attack him. Or maybe someone else, or something else, I don't know... Anyway we have to find that lost supplies"
"Sand what? The fuck-walkers? Hey, are you looking at anyone to dare to take a fucking walk into the deep-shit desert? " Thomas points his head middle finger toward the desert as he yells again then he spits some sands got into his mouth "Fuck!" after spits again he says "Fucking hell I will not go down there searching who killed that fool! Why they even give him that much of supplies."
Jake adds to that by saying "Yeah! Why the hell they let him carry that much supplies! I'm not sure if I want to go down there, to be honest, I mean look to this heat"
After that, Jake and others went inside to meet the commander who watches that side of the wall to speak more about the accident.
While they wait for the commander inside his chamber, Jake cleaning off the sands from his shoes while saying "Damn, all these sands I got in my shoes and I only was on the wall."
"You aren't a man for this place, Jake just admit it! You are the prince half-brother, you are the honorable knight Jake or let say Zake haha you should be with the king not here. You were never here before right?"
"Yes I think this was part of the punishment by the king himself, after I was so stupid to mention Pelarin to him and how that fucking bastard, the emperor Trevos burned it to the ground"
Moments later, the commanders walk into the chamber saying "Oh sorry, I let you both wait here, I had to make sure my guests are in a good place away from the walls. You know little sand can hurt their eyes."
As start laughing while explaining how the other Aestrosa'knights told him, they have to go rest away from the wall then he mentions Thomas request to get a bath and two women and couple of fresh wine to refresh himself.
"... Yes haha I know that Thomas he can be so rude when he got so much dust... Haha I mean the anger to his brain" Chris commenting about Thomas behaviors.
Later when Jake asked Diego, the commander of the wall, about the black monsters, do they exist, what their story, and can they be the real responsible for the lost merchant...
Diego, face expression changed quickly when he hears the question made by Jake while Chris make suggestions that are hard to believe someone can live there
"You guys shouldn't be here... You don't know anything about what you are talking about."
Then Diego explains to them the real stories about the black monsters of the desert by telling them how he meets these creatures the first time inside the desert.
"We were 10 soldiers as I remember it like it happened today, we were given an order by the former commander, to patrol some areas of the desert after he heard about many lost men were traveling towards us from southern part, who passed the desert never comes out of it as they say...one day we went to search for one of royal families coming from Solakyos kingdom passing the desert... He got Lost we never found him, but we found something else, something I will never ever forget."
Took a few seconds for Diego to remember the events he is about to tell while trying not to cry in front of Jake and Chris.
" Yes! I'm sorry, Well we were searching and searching and then all the sudden a huge storm comes out of nowhere we got confused at first, this wasn't normal sand storm because it has some weird smell to it when we get through that storm we felt we hearing whispers, I never heard anything like that... I'm not sure how but the sky turned to black all sudden our horses were acting strangely like they want to escape... But we continued walking inside the deadly storm.
Until it got clear and the smell gets stronger it was a smell of death like dead rotten corpses and then I...I..."
Diego couldn't resist holding his tears. The fear in his voice "They come for us... They weren't human, they were black people coming out from the thick sands like they were hiding under it...their faces were so strange. I still remember their red eyes and weird white painting in their bodies, their strange-looking hair, strange-looking clothes, and piercing parts of their body with animals bones. And yes they are sand-walkers as you call them, Chris, they were on their barefoot walking fine on those burning sands I never seen such creatures can do so, one of them even have a lion head."
"Lion's head? What? A human body with a lion head?" Jake asks...
"I don't know, something like that I think maybe he was wearing some sort of skin of lion or maybe he was a lion himself... Their screams were so dreadful, oh my god I still remember this screams hunting me until this day...I swear I never heard or seen something so awful like that. They were like chanting something I noticed the hitting their mouths with their hands while making strange voices and some even dancing...I wasn't sure I'm dreaming or not then they attack us they were savages I never saw humans have that natural power that is why I don't think they even humans."
"Really terrifying experience you had but how you managed to escape?" Chris asked...
(Back to remember the event Diego has in his encounter with black monsters)
"Run... Run... Ughhh" a spear hitting the running soldier head.
"Nooo!! Retreat!! All retreat... Ughh" as two black monsters ripping off a soldier with their daggers
"I must escape from this..." Diego runs quickly as he can. Fleeing after he threw his shield and sword and cowardly run away from the gruesome fight the soldiers have with the sand-walkers.
"I got to report this... Oh my god please save me" As he runs and falling then rolling up before he saw a city in the horizon, as comes closer to this city, he noticed the buildings and the wall of it similar to his hometown, even though he knew his city is in another side of the kingdom with the remaining hope he has he walks towards it scream "Mom! Dad! I'm back, please! Help me I'm so thirsty! It is burning me... please wait! Wait! Noo, don't go! Wait" as walks while the city moving away...
Before, he finally realized this was just illusions of the desert... With thirst and killing heat he finally on his knees praying for the gods. Then when he was closing his eyes for one final time while falling out, accepting his fate, then he hears
"Wait... Is... That..."
"Then I opened my eyes and I found myself back to the wall, it was a miracle how I survived that I was lucky to fall near a road while a man passing by and notice me, he gave me some water and took me back here. I told my commander about it, but he refused the truth... And we never found the remaining 9 soldiers..."
Then he asks one final question to Jake and Chris
"After hearing this from a real man comes back from the death itself, you think I will risk my men again to go to the middle of nowhere searching for a merchant? No way in hell!."