Hello ppl!! I'm sooo sorry that it's been so long. Its just so much stuff has been happening and its not all good. Here are some of my excuses why i took so long.
1) My mother had undergo a major operation.
2) One of my friends died.
3) One of my aunties died a week later.
4) I'm failing yr12
5) I'm nearly having a nervous breakdown because of yr 12
6) I celebrated my 17th a bit too strenously
7) I was having family problems at home.
Thats just some of my excuses. My main one would have to be the all time cursed WRITERS BLOCK. I'm afriad after all this time i didn't even finish the story. I just wrote a couple of pages more. I figured i better upload something or else everyone will forget that this story ever existed.
So please, please, please forgive me for the long wait and all the slow updates to come. I'm trying my best to get it done quickly but you would have NO IDEA how stressful yr12 is at the moment.....
I hope you like this next chapter. Tell me what you think? Or does everyone hate me now?
****A black robed man stood on the dune overlooking the Med-Jai camp and sneered at the life stirring below.
Med-Jai. They all deserved to die painful, slow, torturous deaths.
One of the people below looked sleepily up at him and smiled slowly, their white teeth starkly contrasting against the dark, tanned skin. The almost ant-sized figure lifted up his arm and waved lazily at the black-robed figure standing upon the dune.
Shahin instantly dropped his sneer of contempt and forcefully pasted an expression of goodwill on, the hate distantly visible underneath the flimsy mask. He also smiled, his smile missing any goodwill, the teeth clenched together in anger. He waved jerkily to the leader of the Med-Jai. To Hashim, the father of Ardeth, who he was currently helping hunt down.
Hashim gave another wave for good measure then strode off, his robe billowing out behind him as he hurried off to the morning council.
As soon as the leader's back was turned, Shahin dropped his arm as if it was lead and his eyes glared holes into the back of the leader's head.
One day, very soon, he was going to be the one that would put the cocky, friendly, murderous Med-Jai leader to death. Hopefully, that day was very, very soon.
A shrieking cry split the air and Shahin spun around away from the retreating Hashim's back and out back of the endless desert. A beautiful falcon wheeled overhead and dropped gracefully to land upon Shahin's waiting fist.
The man drew his in breath in excitement as he unrolled the message that was attached to the falcon's leg. It was simple and to the point. It said:
Ardeth Bay captured. Return to camp.
But the part that made Shahin grin madly with glee was the fact the message was written in blood.
****Jawhar stared with hate filled eyes at the black figure that was draped over the pommel of his horse. Why his horse? Why did he have to be so near to that, that…that, thing? Just having the unconscious Med-Jai near him made the Sami-Nhir teenager itch with repulsion. They should've just put a bullet into the black-robed teenager's head.
They had left the dead horse where Ruwaid had felled it and had left quickly, speedily and efficiently erasing their tracks as they rode. After ascertaining that they boy was still alive, they had bodily picked him up and dumped him onto Jawhar's horse and rode off.
Jawhar hadn't verbally expressed his anger of having been chosen for the task, but his body posture and eyes said enough. There was nothing that the teenager could wish for more then for the Med-Jai youngster to suddenly drop dead.
Ruwaid wheeled his horse around and silently observed his son plodding along, his back held as straight as an iron poker and his eyes glinting with anger and disgust. He noticed with amusement that his son didn't let any part of his body touch the Med-Jai on his horse and then he noticed with growing apprehension that the teenager was still bleeding and was leaving a trail large enough for any half-wit to follow. The Med-Jai need not send out their best men, they could've sent out their village idiot and it still would have successfully tracked down the missing leader's son.
It would not do, to leave a trail so easily readable.
"Jawhar!" He called out to his son and saw with an unreadable expression that as soon as his son turned to face him, the expression of hate and disgust wiped themselves off and was replaced with a blank, dull, subservant look.
"Yes father?"
"The Med-Jai is leaving a trail. Stop it."
"Father!" Jawhar started whining but quickly stopped as his father's eyes turned hard, "What do you wish me to do?"
"I don't care. Use your brain. Just stop him from bleeding!" Ruwaid replied curtly and turned around before his son could argue.
But argue, Jawhar did, "WHAT do you want me to do??"
Anger tinted the older man's voice and he tersely answered, "Hold him upright. Lean him against you. Just stop him from bleeding."
"WHAT?!?!? I'm not touching that, that, piece of FILTH!!" Jawhar spat out. "Why didn't YOU just SHOOT HIM?!?! This is stupid father!! STUPID!! He doesn't deserve to live!! He should be dead! DEAD!! Do you hold sympathy with these scum?? Don't you remember what they did to us? Don't you remember the village massacre?? Don't you remember Emira?? Don't you remember Zora?? Why did you bother to spare his life??? It is a folly! He should've died in the stampede!! You should've shot him! THIS IS STUPID!"
Ruwaid spun his horse back around and strode swiftly back to his sons side, his eyes were glinting with anger and his face was a mask of fury. He hissed in his son's face, "How dare you. How DARE you! How dare you question me and my motives!"
"But father!! You are—" The boy didn't get further before a blow snapped his head sideways and he slowly raised his hand up to his cheek, where a red handprint was beginning to form.
"Don't you EVER question me again. Do you hear me? If you do, I swear, I'll flog you to an inch of you life." Ruwaid growled and left quickly, not seeing the tears in his son's eyes and the pain evident in his facial features.
The Sami-Nhir teenager slowly dropped his hand and head and very slowly pulled the Med-Jai up against him. As he did, a feeling of hate filled him. It was this Med-Jai's entire fault. Everything. If it wasn't for him, his family wouldn't have been slaughtered, his father wouldn't be so angry all the time and he wouldn't have hit him. He seriously considered pulling out his knife and shoving it in between the teenager's ribs but it was only the fear of the reprimand from his father that stopped him from committing such an act.
With a jerk, he pulled the Med-Jai upright and with a sash, tied the teenager to him, his fury and contempt obvious in every action he performed.
The Med-Jai was going to pay for everything when he woke up.
****Hashim grinned at the black figure on the top of the dune and waved. The figure waved jerkily back before swiftly turning around to greet the incoming falcon.
Although Shahin could look intimidating, he was a good man. Or so Hashim thought.
He looked back once more, to where his wife was leaning anxiously upon the doorway of their house. Her hand shading her eyes, her head turned out towards the desert, her black, glossy hair flowing loose and her arms wrapped uneasily around her tense body. She hadn't moved from the same spot since he had left her.
Something deep within was bothering her.
Hashin shrugged and shook his head. Ardeth was fine.
After all, nothing had happened to the Med-Jai in decades. Why should it start now?
But, even so, something deep within him, tugged and stirred up the silt in his mind, making him doubt his own words and giving him anxious twinges.
He would be glad when his son returned home.
****Ardeth groaned and cracked open his eyes partially. Something seemed to be glued to them but with extreme effort he managed to wedge them open. The world didn't look right, half black and the rest of it was blurry and misting in and out of his vision.
Then the pain struck him.
His shoulder and back was screaming and kicking for attention, something was definitely wrong with his body. He groaned again and moved slightly to lessen the pain.
The thoughts were coming back now, distant and hazy. Creeping in under the door like a whimpering child, afraid of the reprimands to follow. The memories were confused and his brain was sodden and slow. Hooves, arrows, bodies. A mash of bodies and the sound of drums.
Drums? Ardeth blinked. That didn't seem right. The sound of drumming. He closed his eyes and moaned again as the memories rushed back and righted themselves in his mind. He remembered everything. The sound of drumming was the hooves that he was under, when he was under the horses.
They had killed his horse. Who were they though? Where was he??
Ardeth's eyes flew open as he realised that he wasn't lying on the sand. He hadn't been left for dead, he was with someone. He could feel their body heat seeping through his clothes and although his head was sagging onto his chest, he was against someone. His body started trembling violently and he moaned again as the vibrations made his shoulder ache.
Ardeth was cold. His body had just grown extremely cold, despite the heat that his body was emitting. Trembles racked his gangly frame and he closed his eyes, his head sinking back onto his chest and his body falling back onto the person behind him, his form frantically searching out the body heat of the other. Arms suddenly encircled him, pinning him to the form behind him and giving him an odd sense of security. Just like the way his father used to hold him when he had had nightmares; his father had held him and whispered sweet nothings into his ear to soothe and calm him. But this was different. Those arms were full of love, these seemed to be full of hate…..hate and brooding anger.
Ardeth shuddered violently and the pain made him gasp and throw his head to side and fling his arms out in a desperate attempt to escape from the burning sensation in his back. It felt like he was on fire.
There was an angry exclamation above him and the bumping feeling that was under him stopped abruptly, making him go forward slightly then fall back against the person behind him. A warm hand gripped him by the neck and tipped his head up, the fingers searching around his neck for his pulse. Whoever it was found it, and noticed with apparent irritation that it was racing although weak and erratic.
He was breathing quickly and shallow, his chest heaving with the effort, the breathing raspy in his throat. His throat was dry and hurt with every breath. His chest also hurt with every breath, almost as if his ribs were rasping together every time he lungs expanded. The world was fading again. Not that it had ever cleared up to begin with. He sunk back into the form behind him, the warmth finally getting through to his chilled body and numbing his mind.
No! He had to stay awake! He had to find out what was going on! He had to find out why the men had attacked him, he had to find out why they had killed his horse.
Why? What had he done?
His body protested strongly and although the teenager's will was strong it's mind and especially its body was just not strong enough to support him.
With a wispy sigh, barely audible, the teenage Med-Jai fell unconscious once again.
****Jawhar was still seething about the argument with his father, and was thinking of several different ways to make the Med-Jai teenager die slowly, when the boy in question moved slightly in front of him.
He started and looked down at the black curled locks as the head slowly raised up of it's own accord and it's owner carefully opened it's dark eyes. The boy moaned and Jawhar felt a stab of hate and angry rush through him; how he wished that the boy would just drop dead.
At first he didn't say anything and didn't do anything to acknowledge the presence of the boy precariously tied to him, but then the boy moaned again and started violently shaking. He was shaking so badly that he thought the boy was going to start going into convulsions or spasms. With a sudden feeling of panic, he closed his arms around the boy, lest he shake himself off the steed, and trample himself to death.
The arms appeared to be a signal, for as soon as Jawhar had securely placed the guards around the boy's body he had gone into a seemingly spasm, but not before it appeared that he had almost sunk into the embrace.
The boy tried to get out of his arms and the protesting body shuddered violently. Jawhar gave an angry curse and suddenly stopped the horse, forgetting about the boy tied to him; the Med-Jai's momentum almost pulling him off the back of the horse before he remembered to brace himself. He pulled the boy's head up and checked its pulse. Racing but there. Weak and erratic but there. That's all that mattered.
The boy was still trembling but it didn't seem so marked and the boy had once again sunk back onto his chest, but he was cold. Extremely cold for someone out in the blazing hot sun - in the desert. Jawhar could feel the coldness seeping through his robes despite the sun and the heat all around him. Something was not right.
Maybe the boy would die. Jawhar rejoiced silently and hoped it so.
The teenager snuggled deeper into Jawhar's chest and it took all of the teenage Sami-Nhir's self-control not to push the Med-Jai teenager away. Still, he looked down at the boy with a face full of contempt and revulsion. In response, the boy's head sagged back down on his chest and his head rolled around like one once again unconscious.
But he was still cold. And no matter how much Jawhar wished he would die, he feared his father's anger at losing the teenager. Even though he should rejoice with its passing.
"Father!" Jawhar called out and watched with hooded eyes as his father turned his steed around to regard his son.
"Yes, Jawhar?" His father's voice was cold and clipped.
"The Med-Jai, he awoke for a moment but fell back unconscious."
"So? Can you not deal with a near-dead Med-Jai, my son?" The words were greeted with scornful laughter from the other men and Jawhar flushed as the words reached him.
"Of course I can father. It's just that when he woke, he appeared to go into some type of spasm and even now, he won't stop trembling. Also, he is cold. Extremely cold father. As cold as Zora, before she succumbed to Allah."
At his son's words, Ruwaid's facial expression went from scorn and slight mirth to disbelief, concern and anger.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier? Are you an imbecile? Are you even my SON?!?! And don't EVER mention Zora again." The leader's voice cracked like a whiplash and Jawhar cringed under it.
"I am truly sorry father but I did not notice until he woke up. But I fear----" Here he hesitated, knowing that the words that he would utter would only make his father more angry, but honesty and loyalty made him say the suicidal words: "--- I fear, that we will lose him father, before the day is out."
"NO!" In a second, his father was beside him, anxiously feeling the teenager's pulse and touching the bad wound on his shoulder. "I cannot lose this one! This one means so much, you do not understand, how much weight rests on this one's shoulders, my son. We cannot lose him."
He noticed the trembling and marked drop in body temperature. He bit his lip and cursed as another shiver racked the Med-Jai's body and murmured something unintelligently. The boy's eyes flickered beneath his closed lids and sweat beaded his brow, making his black hair stick in curled locks to his forehead.
Quickly, he pulled out his water canteen, and wet down a rag, which he used to brush over the teenager's head and place on his lips. The boy didn't respond and Ruwaid desperately tried to dribble some water down the boy's throat.
Thankfully, Ardeth took some water in but not near enough to sustain him. After about five minutes of unsuccessfully trying to force the boy to take in water, the leader of the Sami-Nhir gave up and gave the rag and water to his son.
"If he wakes up again, make sure to give him some water. Force him, if need be. We must not lose him. Do you understand Jawhar?" The man's eyes searched his sons, trying to see if his son had come to the understanding that was so clear to him. He was meet with clouded, puzzled eyes.
Jawhar didn't understand. Surely, the Med-Jai were evil and should be destroyed, slaughtered even. But he replied, "Yes father. I understand." Despite the fact that they had given the boy water, the trembling was growing even more severe and they could hear him rasping with each breath he took. "Father, about the trembling?" he questioned.
"Here." The leader took out a heavy cloak, normally used while protecting ones self from a heavy sandstorm, and gave it to Jawhar. "Put it on him. It should warm him up."
He didn't wait to see if his son would do what he was told, but wheeled his mount around and flung back over his shoulder, "Call me if it gets any worse."
Jawhar nodded briefly in consent and busied himself with putting the boy into the cloak and tying him more efficiently to him, so that the teenager could absorb most of his body heat.
Despite all this, Jawhar still believed that with the way the boy was going, he was going to die before the sun had set.
****Expect another update next Friday. I've got a schedule done up. Every Friday without fail, you people out there will get an update. I promise.
Keep reviewing! You people are angels, i swear it!
