Out on the vast and moonless moors, the grasses bent gently with the passing wind

The greydeer pawed at the ground. If you looked closely you might see, that they were trying to dig something up.

The greydeer were wary, flighty things. Every now and then, they'd stop and, heads suddenly up, stand stock-still, listening for danger. Still, for all their animal caution, they did not see it coming.

The short spear flew unnaturally true. Not flying in a high arc but a straight brutal line that cut through the air to take the deer in its silver eye. It was dead before it toppled, lifeless.

The rest fled in an abrupt dash, racing desperately fast across scraggly grass and rocky ground.

But two figures gave chase

Tesaii ran.. like the wind. So fast, it was no metaphor. She flew across the moors after the deer, effortless and powerful, her thin wiry legs pushing away from the earth with secret power.

Sabar ran with her.

He couldn't fully believe it himself, this power that flowed through him. He could feel it inside, like a dull whiskey fire in his stomach, burning through his legs. His every step carried him twice, thrice as far, and thrice as fast.

In an instant he was catching up to the fleeing deer. Then, in another, he was upon it, his arms closing around its narrow neck. He coiled his arms around its neck, tackling to the ground. His arms burned with that power that came frighteningly easy to him, and with gentle wet click he could feel its neck break under him.

For a second he lay there, the dead thing still warm beneath him, before shakily standing up.

Tesaii stood, watching him.

"You're taking to it well. Most don't, their first time"

She tossed him her hip-knife, "Get to work"

Sabar silently caught the knife, and went to work. The deer's skin gave way easily to the sharpened bone of the knife.

Tesaii watched him work, a pensive expression in her eyes.

"You are a strange one... You survive on this beach three days, on your own.. And you haven't gone insane

I mean, you were sloppy and filthy and lucky but.. but you're not too queasy about getting blood on your hands"

She threw her hands up, "But you hunt like a fawn and before me, you were about as lethal as a duck. What do I make of you"

Sabar finished cutting open the carcass as he'd been told, and shrugged. A part of him wanted to explain, but another told him to hold back. Tesaii had not been very forthcoming about her life before this place. She hadn't wanted to talk about it and he didn't want to ask. That was dangerous ground.

"Trust no one. If anyone on either side of the river knows who and what you are.. you will die"

So he'd been cagey. And Tesaii didn't probe.

Sabar reached into the chest and cut out its heart. It was messy, bloody, sticky work. The blood was still hot, growing sticky and syrupy when it touched air. But he kept at it till it was done.

"And I have to eat this?"

Tessaii shrugged, "Do as you like"

Sabar forced himself, fighting the urge to gag, and bit down. He tried to ignore the metallic foreign taste of raw blood and swallowed. He could feel his body drinking it in, this strange power. That whiskey-warm fire in his him come to steady hum of power. the next bite went down easier.

Sabar sat back when he was done, feeling obscenely sated. He could almost feel sparks dancing on the tips of his fingers.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

He tried to hand the bone-knife back, but Tesaii held up her hands, "You keep that, I'll make myself another one"

Sabar, sighed. She'd taught him, in her own cryptic way. And kept him alive, for some time now, for all that this place seemed more a mystery than when he landed on that beach. But the fire in him was up and igniting to And what had been bubbling inside him finally came out. "How?"

"How? How to carve a knife?"

"How does cutting this.. deer-things heart out with this - magic knife and eating its heart give you this strange power? What are the rules of this place? What is this place? What even are these deer with freaky shark teeth? Where am I? What is this? Is this hell? Am I dead?", Sabar frustration broke the damn it'd been piling up against.

"Ah. That how"

"Yeah - that how"

Tesaii gave a humorless smile, "I could say - I don't know. And I don't, not really"

She gave a tired sigh, "I've been here a while.. a long while. Once I had a life before this place.. and then one day I slept, and woke here. There's no scientists here. No theologians, no physicists and no philosophers. Well, I mean there might be, but I haven't met one yet"

She shrugged, "So I'll tell you that this isn't where you came from. It's another place. It's a place where the rules are bit more.. fuzzy. And it's a place where power comes to.. accumulate. There are no other rules here, really"

"So", and she turned to look him in the eye, "You either gain it, any way you can, or you become food"

Sabar met her eye square. This he understood, in some long but never forgotten part of himself.

Hunt or be food.

"Or", She smiled, and Sabar felt a sliver of ice in his chest "if you can't bring yourself to, if you don't care to learn what little I have to teach, I can always eat you"

They both stared at each other for a long minute.

Then, at the same time, they heard the thundering of hoofbeats.

...

The riders came across the moor, cutting between them and their path back to the cave.

They rode ten strong by Sabar's reckoning. He realized suddenly that his eyes were better, sharper, than they'd ever been before.

He startled and started lurching into a run before Tesaii caught him by the arm pulling him up short, with a growl.

"No" She spoke low "we won't outrun the horses"

She only had a single spear now, after their hunt. She watched the riders approach, thundering towards them and waited. When she picked her moment she let her spear loose - but they were seemingly ready for her now. The lead rider turned his horse into the path of spear, raising a small round shield on his arm to catch the flying spear square. He gave a cry of pain, but stayed mounted.

Sabar tried to find a defensive posture. If there was a rock or a bush in his eyeliner he might have tried to use it as cover, but out on this open moor - there was nothing.

The horses thundered ever closer and closer.

Sabar braced himself and tried to tap into the strange fire of the grey-deer heart burning in his belly. He held the knife out and ready.

But at the very last the minute, the riders rode past, instead of into them, the thundering hooves kicking up stones and dust all around them. Tesaii turned to face them with a low snarl - but Sabar felt something coiling about his feet - and he was down, eating dirt, unable to see or understand what was happening. And then there was more rope pressed against his side - some kind of net. Then as he turned his face to see - all he saw was a rider coming towards his prone body, leaning down with a cudgel, about to hit him in the face. Then blackness.

...

It was a little bit of a surprise to wake up at all.

Sabar could feel the warmth of blossoming bruise on the side of his face, where he'd been hit. Habar's hands were tied and bound tight before him. The ropes jerked and pulled him, till he had to jump to his feet to keep from being dragged facedown in the dirt. He was trussed and tied, hitched to a rider's saddle.

"Nadir! sehei wa?"

Somehow, Sabar could tell, the rider was asking if he could walk. It didn't really feel like a question.

When he looked, he saw that the rider had a bound arm - he was the lead rider, the one with the shield, who had taken Tesaii's spear, and seemingly hurt for it.

Sabar nodded and lurched forward. Hopefully nodding meant yes, in this world too.

The rider frowned, but mounted his horse without comment. Then, as an afterthought, turned back, pointed to himself and spoke, "Seneia, seni gu". He thumped his chest.

Ah. His name was Senia. Sabar tried to say it, nodding, "Senia, Senia"

Umm. Sabar awkwardly bumped his nose with his bound hands and said "Sabar. I'm Sabar"

The rider nodded, then turned around and started riding, taking his beast on a gentle walking canter. The other rider formed up with him, matching his pace. "Afghani no watari Nadir", he called back

Keep up, he'd said. We won't slow.

Sabar tried to keep up, as they started to walk.

Suddenly, Sabar realized who hadn't seen any sign of - Tesaii.

"Careful now", the voice came from behind him just as Sabar had the thought. He turned to see Tesaii behind him.

"I like you", she smiled wry "Be careful"

Sabar realized she wasn't bound. She walked behind him, easily matching his steps. The riders seemed to be ignoring her, for all that she seemed to walk carefree right beside them.

"Get away!" Sabar whispered "You can get away, they don't see you"

"Ahako Nadir!" The rider he was hitched to, jerked the rope and made Sabar stumble

"Nadir bhootho se bath, pagla sala"

Stop slowing me down, the rider had said. And stop talking to yourself, dead man.