Black Sea Horan: Lost
Rose came tumbling out of the transport flash, stumbled, and splashed headlong into a muddy puddle. Stunned, gasping, she raised her head out of the muck and blinked. Rain was pouring down all around; she could barely see a melting mud wall a few feet away. Between the inches-deep, watery muck, and the rain falling heavily on her back, she was already drenched through in the seconds since her clumsy arrival.
Where the hell am I? She pushed up out of the mud and peered around, shivering. She managed to stand up, and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth – it wasn't freezing, but it was definitely too cool to be standing around in wet clothing. As she did so, though, the heavy time jumper on her wrist attracted her attention again, and she quickly pushed the button combo to lock the keypad.
She seemed to be on the outskirts of a tiny village of primitive-looking, round mud-and-wood huts. Without warning, a scream suddenly rang out from the far side of the nearest hovel, then shouts, bangs, and more screams. What the hell is going on? Jared, what have you landed me in? She started to stumble timidly around the side of the hut – it was slow going; the ankle-deep viscous mud clung to her feet and wouldn't let them go. She pulled her left foot up again – and left her "sensible shop-girl" flat behind. Leaning over to try to pull it out of the muck, she lost her balance and fell on her ass – leaving the right flat, as well.
Halfway to hysterical laughter, she managed to pull both shoes out of the sucking mud and simply held on to them as she struggled to her feet again and started towards the ruckus. A few feet further, and suddenly the ruckus was behind her, too. She whirled around just in time to see a horse and rider loom out of the downpour and start to run her down. She never saw the sword hilt descending to send her spiraling back down into the muck and blackness.
^..^
A sharp tug on her arm jerked her back to groggy consciousness. She realized it was her left arm, the one that was wearing the time jumper, just as the fingers fumbling at her wrist managed to undo the clasp and pull it free. She tried to lunge and grab it back, but the blow on her head was still making the world spin, and all she managed to do was roll to her side and collapse again, arms outstretched.
She turned her head to look up, blinking in the rain, and saw an ugly man squatted beside her, inspecting the strange device and grinning through broken, yellow teeth under a scraggly mustache. "No, please..." she moaned, and reached a hand to touch his arm. "That's mine," she continued inanely. "Please give it back."
He peered at her and slithered something off in an utterly incomprehensible language, laughing. When she clutched at his sleeve, he shook her off and stood up, still grinning. Rose struggled to her knees – feet did not seem feasible, with her head still spinning – and tried again, begging.
Irritated now, he raised a hand to backhand her, but was suddenly interrupted by yet another man, splashing over on his horse. This one sat tall in his saddle, wearing arrogance like a cloak, disregarding the rain and the mud like so many gnats. He gave some sharp query, which Mustache attempted to shrug off, but then the leader – Rose somehow decided he was in command – spied the time jumper and pointed to it, slithering off yet more gibberish.
Mustache gave Rose a sidelong sour look, and meekly handed the jumper up to the leader, pointing to her to show where he'd found it. Rose realized knees weren't exactly the most promising position from which to negotiate, and pushed herself up to her unsteady feet to try again.
"Please, that's mine," she began, holding her hand out towards the jumper with a beseeching look. "Please, Captain," dubbing the leader with what seemed an appropriate title, "may I have it back?"
The Captain looked straight at her then, astonished – and threw his head back, roaring with laughter. He tossed off a last command to Mustache, sweeping her with one hand vaguely to one side, and then pulled his horse around to gallop off, splashing them both with more mud.
Mustache grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly along, almost dragging her between the huts and shoving her to the ground in the middle of a group of bedraggled people huddled there. She landed hard on hands and knees, barely keeping her face out of the muck again, then managed to sit back and look around.
There were about thirty people there, of all ages. A dozen men, watched by a few more on horseback, all armed with long knives and primitive-looking firearms, were pulling them roughly this way and that. Rose suddenly realized they were being sorted by sex, and then put into a double line. It wasn't until they came along and tied her hands together, then put them into a loop in a long, thick, very rough rope strung all along the line of prisoners, that the magnitude of her situation dawned on her.
She had absolutely no idea where or when she was.
She'd lost the time jumper, her only ticket home.
And she'd fallen into the hands of slavers.