The horrors of the coastal slave camp were still flickering when Ebrashi made his way back towards the jungle’s core. He didn’t know this until he had come to the place where he’d fallen. The path was gone and the tumultuous jungle undergrowth seemed to surge and teem with a life all its own. The golden eyes became suddenly defiant and he marched off the trail and into the wild unknown. Ebrashi did not realize that those uta mushrooms were all over this area. The clusters are easy enough to spot in the daytime but it was getting deep into the night and the herdsman was not really looking at his feet. Each step released more spores into the air which were quickly sucked into his nostrils and lungs with the humid air.
Ebrashi climbed through stalks and ferns, used vines for leverage and stability and seemed to be doing an alright job of confining himself to being truly lost in the dense jungle behind his tent and south of Lars’ sawmill. It felt like it had been hours and he was wondering why he was not back on the beach. Where was his tent? Why don’t any of these trees look familiar? The young man was breathing so hard that his shoulders were rising and falling rapidly so as to prevent him from taking any kind of meaningful deep breath. The burning sensation in his chest gave him a reason to take a break so he did. Ebrashi bent over and placed his hands on his knees. The sweat ran down his head and against his eyes so he closed them.
Once more, he was ripped from the present and thrown into the past. This time, it was the same camp but weeks later.
In the heat of the desert sun, the dry sandy air mixed strangely with the saltiness coming from the not too distant ocean. The Benshira captives from Ebrashi’s tribe were not familiar with the coarse moisture and it bothered some of them by making things itchy. The young man felt the abrasiveness to the contrasting elements on his own skin but it was the least of his worries today.
The slave camp where they’d been for the better part of a season was buzzing with activity. It seemed like there was going to be some kind of ship arriving soon which would ferry a large portion of souls and goods to a destination where the payoff would make the entire enterprise worth the inhumane cost.
One of the taskmasters was moving along the large crate built into the side of the rocks which sprouted up from the sands. Ebrashi, like the others, did not make eye contact. Sometimes, that helped to prevent one from being selected but today didn’t seem to matter. Bodies were being pulled from all over and the usual sounds of work were being replaced by shouting, cheering, wailing, and weeping.
“You!” The dark-skinned man spat. He was muscular, covered in tattoos of a savage nature, and wore very little clothing. In fact, he likely held more weapons on his belt than articles of clothing on his whole body. His strong arm was extended into the cage’s space with a thick finger aimed at Ebrashi’s pale hair. “Get here.” The finger shifted from pointing at Ebrashi to indicating where he was supposed to stand which was right next to the cage’s gate.
Sheepishly, the lad held his gaze down as he shuffled his feet through the small crowd of folks who shared in his confinement. Once he was close, the gate was opened, the heavy metal click of the massive lock and skeleton key made Erbashi wince. He was trembling slightly.
The taskmaster grabbed his charge by the hair and yanked Ebrashi from the cage out onto his hands and knees in the sand. “Today, we find out if you’re a man or a bitch.” The venom in his tongue was painful but the foreign accent butchering Shiber was almost as bad.
Moments later, Ebrashi was tossed into a pit that had been dug deep into the ground. There was a ramp of sand and mud on one side that was heavily guarded but the rest of the ring was lined with slavers and other free peoples all gathered with money in their hands and vitriol in their stares.
Ebrashi was not alone, he realized in standing up. There were six slaves in the pit. Most looked as he did - confused and scared. One man, a Drykas from the look of his markings, stood tall and held the air of a warrior. He had a wooden club that was held in a white-knuckle grip. Ebrashi shrank back against the wall of the pit then his golden eyes went wide as more weapons were tossed into the ring; a sword, a spear, a javelin, an axe, and a shield. Several of the other slaves rushed to grab armaments but not the young herdsman. He remained still.
As the flurry of motions took place, the man with the club moved like a ghost in the blur. One timid but large man had made a dash for the spear but he was lifted from the ground in an arc of blood as the club cleared his jaw from face. Ebrashi felt his trembling intensify as tears stung the corners of his eyes. One by one, men were killed by the club-bearer. It was automatic how cleanly he swung his tool. Each landed blow added more grissle to the head giving the weapon an almost sentient kind of malice. When there were only three men left in the pit, Erbashi sank down in a crouch and refused to watch the final death of his tribesmen. He buried himself away from the gore and wept into his arm as the footfalls of his executioner moved closer.
The roar of the crowd had grown with each passing kill but now they had changed to boos and shouts of ‘coward’. Ebrashi was paralyzed in his fear. He had never thought, nor had the occasion to have a nightmare where such a death would be his end. As the shadow stood over him, the world spun to a halt and the herdsman braced for the last thing he’d ever feel.
Shockingly, it never came. Guards took the Drykas away and Ebrashi was hauled off to his cage. He was smacked and kicked all along the way but he was alive. Through tears, he tried to make sense of what happened but it was the role of a slave to simply not know and accept his situation. As he fell to emotional exhaustion that night, all Ebrashi could see were the faces of the men who died and his tears fell even as he slipped into a dark black hole of unconsciousness.
“Nooo!” Ebrashi lashed out at the world around him. He didn’t want to go back to that place. He tried to run but there was nowhere to go. His head pounded with such force that it shook his vision like tremors on the side of a volcano. Everything hurt but also felt strangely hollow. The golden eyes scanned the jungle. There just had to be a way out! The Benshiran man knew that if he looked long enough and hard enough, he would find a way.
“Ivak…” The name was little more than a dry crack in the cacophony of the night. Ebrashi was ashamed of his weak attempt to call his patron. “How can I help these people when I can’t help myself?”
“You can’t.” A voice, familiar and even, called out from the dark -in Shiber!
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