2 frail looking men setting in the vast dead desert, They looked hungry, tired, and thirsty, they were wearing clothes fit for someone who is trying to hide, but from whom? or from what? on both of their wests they had dull rusty swords without sheaths, the night was dark and the moon was bright, there was no campfire, yet the worry across their faces couldn't dare to vanish with the cold winds crossing the sands
To break the silence the one who seemed the oldest and most mature spoke" I heard the mountain men have spoked of another trade with the Kazar kingdom across the sea" with sad eyes painted on his face
"Those cursed slaves, they are Merly delaying their doom, if they wish to kneel that low for a spit of mercy, let them be" the other one replayed as his face was filled with anger
"Don't you think we should- "the first one said before the other cut him saying
"What?! Beg them for mercy? For shelter? I shall see my face eaten by maggots before I kiss their grounds"
"And what will we do huh? if we don't find a group, we will soon join the dead We can't even find the black sheep men to join them in their pillaging act" said the older man filled with frustration
"Look the mountain men are the closest and the only certain group we know of their location, maybe if we ask the leader for forgiveness, he might give us a chance of shelter" continued the old man
"You know well that he would love to see the numbers go down, food is scarce, and the earth wishes not to paint itself green no more, and on top of that The Kazar Kingdom control all the supplies towards us" said the younger one as his anger grew bigger and bigger
Right then and their both of them went alert as the sand begin to rustle, fear swallowed the colour from their eyes, they knew that was no sound of mankind
As the older one faced his back for a moment to check his head fell to his knees as the rest of his body followed, scared and powerless the younger one started sprinting, hands tightened around the grip of his sword
"I hate this, what did I ever do wrong to get banished twice, and on top of that I need to bear such agonizing death" he said voice cracking eyes wide teeth's screaming, right before he fell
He was too scared to stand up, all he saw is a human like black figure in the dark, with wide white eyes getting closer right before it snaped his neck.
In the shores an expensive looking ship was setting sail on the beach of wish right across existed the vast desert, 4 ships in total, the first one that docked a shore stepped a man who seemed to be in his 20s, alongside him stepped down 3 escort knights of his as he stepped down, he was greeted by a group of people their numbers around the 30s
Out of the crowd stepped a young man masked with clothes of desert colours
"Welcome to the dead lands, you must be lord?" asked the young man
"I am lord Torden, first son of the lord of house Waster" replied with a friendly smile on his face
"Oh, you must be the heir then, I'm honoured to meet such a-"said the young man before he noticed the annoyance on the face of Torden
Traying to fix the mood he spoke again saying "Lets stop the small talk my lord, we will be your escort and guide towards the village where we will give you the promised trades"
"I'm glad we got to the point" Said lord Torden as he forced a smile onto his mouth "Of course as agreed the food and weaponry supply well set a sail to the sea until we come back safe?"
"Oh no, I already know don't worry, thus why we brought you a carriage my lord" as from the crowd horses brought up front a carriage
As Torden smirked at one of his knights, showing how proud he is of himself getting such treatment, he climbed up the carriage with his escort knights as the both the ships and the carriage set sail their different paths
Right before the carriage started its march Torden asked of the young man
"And perhaps how long could the walk take for us to reach our trade?"
The young man smiled lightly and said "3 days walk if luck comes to worse my lord" right before he closed the door for them
As the day passed, and time for lunch has long since went by, one of the escort knights in the carriage noticed that only he and his knights had food to eat, the food they brought with them, he tried handing over some for a child out the window, but the look of disgust from the parent as they took their child away shock him as he got his head back into the carriage
"I don't think they like us that much" said One of the knights
"Obviously, if you were thrown to be eaten by wild animals, you wouldn't like the ones who exiled you would you?" said Torden as if making fun of how obvious the situation is
"They despise us, hate us, if we hadn't any food, our lives wouldn't have mattered them a penny" said Torden as he is looking out the window at the walking crowd
"Well, I did not exile someone the why treat me like this," said the knight
"Well, you did not care to stand up for any exiled either did you "said lord Torden in a mocking tone replying what the knight said, just to continue with, "wearing a mask of ignorance is the same as handing the killer a knife"
The knights did not replay for he couldn't fight back the facts or that a lord said them
As the sun started digging its grave beneath the sands, while the people sat down making their rest comfortable for food
While the people ate far enough from the foreigner traders The young boy from earlier brought his and sat alongside the knights and lord
"I hop my Lord would let me set alongside him for a moment," said the young man
"Oh, make yourself comfortable young man, by the way, I noticed you're the leader around here can I perhaps know of your name, easier for communication, "said Lord Torden
"Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you that, my name is Ron, I don't have a surname though" replied the young man, as he continued apologizing saying, "And I sincerely apologise for the behaviour of my comrades, they tend to have a hard bone towards new faces"
"I'm used enough for such looks so don't worry about it, so the place of the trade is your centre base or...?" said Lord Torden curiosity on his facial expressions
"Sadly, not my lore, we are heading towards a decoy camp, a ghost village of many we use as track erasers for valuable trades like these," said Ron filling into Torden's curiosity even more
"And why thus? Is it perhaps that you too have bandits of your own?" asked Torden as the night got darker and darker
"Smart guess but that's not all my lord, although they steal out of hunger, they mostly pillage because of anger buried under their skin" replied Ron looking at the campfire
Right behind Torden he heard a sound of a small boy
"Mom I'm hungry, "said the boy
"Don't worry just rest, in tow days you will have more meals" replied the mother as she put her child to sleep
Torden wanted to go up to the mother and give her some of his food, But Ron stopped him
"There is no hop in such act," said Ron
"And will you just leave the child die right them" replied Torden with sharp tongue looking straight into the eyes of Ron
"You can't feed all the children here, that's if the mother was to accept your generosity, the hate is rooted deep into the people's Viens, and that act of love will just bring upon internal conflict" said Ron with calm voice not moving his gaze away of Torden's eyes
As Torden sat back down and Ron Stood up and said "I guess that's enough chatting for the day, we have a long walk tomorrow morning so gentlemen you should get a good night sleep"
By the morning everybody started packing up for the march, just then a screaming sound out of one of the tents pierced everyone's ears
As Torden hurried up with his knights towards the sound he saw the boy from last night moving in agony, his eyes filled with madness as fought back the masked men trying to tie him down, right behind them his mother was being held as she begged for her boy to be spared
Chains brought the boy to his knees as he whispered in Brocken voice, hungry, hungry some times going silent, sometimes whispering again, while the men brought away from the camp
Torden went up to Ron and saw him ordering some men back to the camp
"What is wrong with him?" Torden asked this time not out of fear, but out of worry
"He got infected, we need to clean fast before it goes any farther" Replied Ron as the men put down the boy in the middle of the desert
People formed a circle around him as the mother was being stopped from running up to him, as the men Ron ordered went back, they gave him a sword and a bottle, it was a clean sword, not like the other rusty ones everyone had, it looked expensive as if not being used for battle
Torden understood what was going on right then, so he stood back into the crowd, and watched
Ron stepped up and unsheathed his sword, The mother screams went louder as she begged
"Pls send me with my boy away, just please don't-" Without hesitation the sword struck down the childe's neck, the mother fell silent, as maggots left the body from both her childe's head and body, just for Ron to pour what ever was in the bottle onto the body and burn it away
The day went silent, the marsh was quitter than usual, at night when Ron came to eat next to Lord Torden and his escort knight none dared a talk, left with deep into their own thoughts