Chapter 2

The worst experience for Samasan was having a yellow slug crawl across his open eye. It wasn't until the grass dried out in the mid-day sun that the slugs moved away. Samasan and the woman were still paralized for another hour after the slugs crawled off. The first person to talk was the woman.

"mmm-Ilgahar zah."

"I don't understand." Samasan's words came out slurred after a couple minutes.

"Ilgahar zah." The woman emphasized her words in a low growly tone.

Samasan became confused, and then a loud rush of air came. The woman laying on the ground became shrouded in a thick fog. Samasan began to wiggle his fingers and toes, while staying silent. Another rush of air came. More fog filled the area. A large roar broke the silence. The fog swirled. As it dissipated, a large dragon crossed over where they were lying. The woman had wide eyes, while Samasan couldn't comprehend such a large flying lizard.

After the surges of wind softened, the woman slowly arose while keeping an eye on Samasan, who couldn't move much. He stared at the woman as she pulled out her short-sword and pointed it towards him. She approached him cautiously, and pulled the blanket off. Her eyes fixated on Samasan as she packed up her items, and tied them snug. She loaded the rucksack on her back, and started to walk away.

"Don't go." Samasan pleaded while struggling to sit up.

The woman turned around to look at him.

"I need your help."

"Ilgahar oma?"

"Please, I don't know how to talk your language...Help. Assistance. Uh. Aid?"

The woman looked confused by Samasan's words, and rubbed her face with annoyance. She took out her sword, pointed at him, and slowly walked towards him. Samasan flinched. The tip of her blade poked against his gut. She knelt down and examined him with suspicion.

"Take what you want. Don't hurt me."

Coins spilled onto the ground. She picked up the brown marble from before, looking at it closely. The woman shoved it in his face.

"I don't know. I just found it."

The woman pulled the sword away, and Samasan let out a sigh of relief. She grabbed him by the arm, and jerked Samasan up. He braced himself on his knees.

"Thank you. I don't know where I'm at and-"

"Zah."

"Is that the name of-"

"Zah!"

The woman seemed to be losing her patience, and grabed the hilt of her sword. Samasan shut his mouth. He picked up the coins off the ground, and held out the palm of his hand. Offering them in a silent plea for help. The woman grabbed the coins out of his hand, and tossed them with the brown marble taken earlier into her coin purse. She began to walk away.

Samasan stared in confusion. The woman stopped, held her hand up in the air, then made a fist. He didn't understand the gesture, but took a step towards her. She looked back for a moment, and started walking. Samasan followed close behind her. They walked on the dirt road in the direction he came from yesterday. Samasan began to worry about that village.

"uh..."

"Zah."

Her pace was easy to match. It was fairly slow, and she was walking strangely. She had leather soled boots on, and walked toe to heel. Samasan didn't understand why she was doing this. The woman was always on guard. Silently looking around, and above herself. After seeing the large dragon, Samasan understood some of her reasoning.

The village from before came into view. As he and the woman got closer, the villagers in the field ran towards them yelling, "rolga!" She looked back at him to see his worried look. Samasan averted his eyes.

"Jah!" The woman had crossed her arms over her chest in front of the approaching group.

"Jah?" They stopped running.

Samasan looked on as the woman held up the brown marble. A female field worker approached in curiousity. When she saw the marble's color, she turned back and shouted with joy.

"Jah!"

The group started cheering. Samasan looked at the woman holding up the marble as she smiled. He felt confused. They walked together back to the village. They chanted, 'Jah!' The children ran out while clashing their sticks together. Everyone was in a joyous mood. Samasan was infected by the energy. An elderly lady watched as they crowded into the village center. She was surprised to see Samasan's face. Many words were exchanged. He was confused, but heard "Jutwaso" being said a few times to the woman he helped.

The elder woman spoke to the children. They ran into a thatch roofed building, and came out with baskets of bread rolls and clay bowls of water. Everyone ate soggy bread.

Jutwaso gave Samasan bread and water.

"Thank you," he took them graciously.

When Samasan drank the murky water, he coughed. It wasn't the same water from yesterday. It was a bitter fruit drink. Obviously fermented. It made the bread taste slightly better. The emptied bowls were piled into the baskets, and everyone walked into the largest building. Samasan followed them into the circular building. It was 15 meters in diameter, with a pond of ruby red water in the center. Samasan stood with everyone in circle around the pond. The elder woman started singing while holding a bowl of moon wheat grains.

The bowl was passed around the circle. Everyone took a few seeds, and ate them. The children went around with sticks, and handed them to the adults, except for Samasan and Jutwaso. The sticks were 1 centimeter in thickness, 70 centimeters long, and twine wrapped around one end for holding. After they were distributed, the children rinsed their hands in the red pond, then ran out of the building. The elder woman used a dagger to cut away the dirty bandages Samasan had applied to Jutwaso.

Her arms were covered in dried blood. Jutwaso's leather armor and clothes were completely removed. Samasan felt uncomfortable, and then he was shoved towards her and the elder. The elder woman started untying his wooden sandles.

"I'm not really here for-" Samasan started to protest.

Samasan's pants were removed, and he awkwardly covered himself. The elder woman held up a stick, and struck the naked woman.

"Jah!" The elder shouted as the stick cracked.

"Jah!" The woman cried.

The elder walked towards Samasan.

"This really isn't something I do."

"Jah!"

The stick cracked against Samasans body. He screamed loudly in pain, and then it began to burn.

"Jah."

Samasan could barely get the word out as tears streamed down his face, but it was over now. Then the elderly woman stepped back, and another person stepped forward.

"Please. No-AH!"

"Jah!"

"Jah," Samasan whimpered.

Everyone took turns striking Samasan and Jutwaso. When Samasan couldn't speak, the person would beat him until he would say 'jah.' Welts covered their body, and some were bleeding. They both wept. The beating was bad, but the burning was worse. Samasan knew these sticks had to be made from that same tree he burned his hand on. When the beatings stopped, the elder woman filled a bowl with the ruby-red liquid. She poured the water over Jutwaso's head, and Samasan's.

Each of the villagers filled the bowl, and poured the water on them. It cooled the burns and soothed the stinging. After they were drenched, the elder woman handed a bowl of the ruby-red liquid to Jutwaso. She drank part of it, and then it was handed to Samasan.

"What would happen if I refused." He thought.

Samasan Da Silva was already beaten to hell. There was no way of knowing how everyone would react to a refusal. He took the bowl, and sipped. The elder woman pushed the bowl up, and forced Samasan to drink. He coughed and choked, but managed to drink most of it. The taste was like water that could not be swallowed. No matter how much Samasan drank, it never reached his stomach, but it was still refreshing. He could feel the pain draining out of his body.

They were redressed into their clothes, and led outside. The children banged their sticks on the ground while chanting, "Jah. Jah. Jah." Samasan's vision got blurry, then total blackness followed. Time passed for eternity. When Samasan woke, he was lying on a pile of straw on a dirt floor. The woman, and a family of five were also sleeping in the same house. Samasan sat up quietly. He wanted to escape this nightmare, and slowly brushed the straw off.

He didn't notice any pain from before. There were no welts or bruises anywhere.

"What the hell?" Samasan thought.

An adult grumbled awake. They stared at him for a moment, before going back to sleep. Samasan felt strange. His guts churned loudly. Samasan looked around quickly. The house was just a room with a small fire pit, and a barred window with a thin cloth hanging over it. There wasn't time for overthinking. Samasan shook Jutwaso, who he had met on the road. She sat up with a tired look.

Samasan's insides called out, loud enough to hear. He ran to the door to open it.

"Come on. Come on." He struggled to whisper.

There was no ordinary handle or knob on the door.

"For fuck's sake."

The door was tied shut with a rope. Samasan fumbled with the knot in the dark. He pulled, twisted, and tangled his fingers in frustration. Jutwaso walked over. She held the knot, and pulled on the hanging ends. The rope came undone, and Samasan dashed outside. He tripped over himself as he ran around the building for privacy. When he came back, Jutwaso was standing there with her sword out. Samasan flinched. She swung the sword towards his face, and held it there.

"Please no." he begged.

Jutwaso waved the short-sword in Samasan's face, then grabbed his arm, and placed the weapon in his hand. She didn't show the same amount of shame. Samasan turned his back to her, and looked towards the wattle fence running around the village. He felt something familiar, and looked down.

"Hey, buddy."

There was an eyeless-cat. When it heard Samasan talk, it rubbed against him. When Samasan reached out his hand to pet it, the cat started meowing loudly.

"Somebody's hungry. What the..."

Samasan's body started glowing brightly. Suddenly Jutwaso kicked the cat over the woven stick fence as it yelled loudly, and grabbed his arm. Jutwaso pulled on Samasan painfully hard, and screamed something as they ran back into the house. Everyone in the house was awake. Samasan noticed one of the people dousing the fire out with water. Two of the people pushed Samasan down on the floor. A blanket had been thrown over Samasan, and then everyone piled their bodies on top of his.

"All this over a house-cat?" Samasan was confused at this commotion, then remembered he was glowing.

A loud crash was heard outside. Everyone around Samasan started shaking. The sound of large footsteps prowled outside. More and more cats started meowing loudly near by. Something was scratching at the wood door. Their shaking got worse. A deep sound quaked through the earth. It rattled everyone to their bones.

"Purring?" Samasan thought.

Samasan was familiar with large cats. Tigers, lions, panthers, and more, but they were kittens purring compared to this noise. He finally understood the fear in the room, and caught on to it. These weren't domesticated cats, they were wild. Samasan realized he had been marked by a scout. It was strange for an eyeless-cat to make someone shine like a lightbulb, because it can't see.

"A cohabitive pack relationship?" his mind wondered.

The cat that Samasan had met was too small to hunt large prey, but by causing him to shine brightly in the night, he had become a beacon for another animal to hunt. The animal causing the ground to rumble was wandering around outside. The purring and meowing suddenly stopped, but the people on top of him were still shaking. It wasn't until Samasan stopped glowing that they started to calm down a bit. They moved off of him, and he sat up. It had been quiet for a long time. Everyone was looking around at each other in silence.

A baby's cry wailed out, and the meowing errupted. The scratching on the doors became more frequent. Tears silently fell down the faces of the people around Samasan. The baby stopped crying, and after a long while the meowing also stopped. Morning came slowly. It wasn't until the day became bright, that anyone left their houses. Samasan followed the people he was with outside. Villagers were repairing part of the wattle fence that had been knocked down.

Everyone was moving around quietly, when a woman came out of her home. The air became still. She was carrying a limp baby that was flopping in her arms as she walked. No one dared to look her in the eye. The children of the village crowded around her. The mother started screaming when the children tried to take the child from her. They had to pry the baby out of her hands. The woman collapsed on the ground, wailing and slapping her hands on the dirt. The children marched out of the village.

They walked to the edge of the fields, where a forest started. Samasan watched while most everyone else continued working normally. He could see that a small fire had been built by the children. The woman began screaming louder. A man from the village locked the woman's arms, as another covered her mouth with his hand. She fought and kicked wildly as some of the women of the village crowded around her. A foot flew out, and she was kicked. Then another, and another, until a flurry of feet crashed down on her.

The group dispersed, and the woman was just lying there. Samasan started to walk towards the mother in concern, but Jutwaso grabbed him.

"Thara." she spoke firmly.

Samasan sighed, and stopped pulling away. He stood and watched the chilren in the distance. Samasan was given a large basket to carry on his back, and taken out to the field. It was close enough to get a better view of what the children were doing. Eventually the children began stomping the fire out. The kids walked back to the village by themselves. Around the time of lunch, Samasan followed the other field workers back to the village square. They dumped out their baskets of weeds on a pile by the field.

When Samasan got to the square, the children walked out bare-foot from the large circular building. They were carrying baskets of bread rolls, and bowls of water as they left wet foot prints on the dirt. Everyone was sitting in the dirt while eating and drinking. The woman that was kicked earlier was also eating. She is covered in bruises, and looking towards the building with the ruby pond. Samasan noticed that everyone else is giving her harsh looks. After lunch, everyone is working on their own tasks.

The children are ripping husk hairs off of moon wheat grains. Women are carrying clay pots towards the forest, and the men are turning moon wheat into flour. They mix the flour with water, and set the loafs of dough on the bare ground. Samasan leaves the village with the men and children. They all go into the forest as the women are leaving it. Their hair is wet, and they are carrying jugs of water. The forest is surprisingly well maintained and easy to move around in. Children are given small knives, and lifted into the trees by the men. They cut off the small straight branches, and hand them to the men.

These trees were harvested from often. There were no rotting logs, or dense ground vegetation. The trees were spread far appart. After the wood was collected, the children climbed down and traded their knifes for bundles of wood. Samasan didn't have a knife for himself, and was carrying branches with the children instead. When they got back to the village, the wood was divided up.

Most of the wood was delivered to a large outdoor mud oven, and the rest was divided between the houses. Some of it was used to finish repairing the wattle fence. The men were baking bread, and the woman and children went into the fields to pick more weeds. Samasan felt awkward, because he didn't know what he could do. As he wandered around the village, the men were giving Samasan the side-eye. He needed to get away, and walked out onto the dirt road. Two men followed Samasan uncomfortably close, as he walked.

They didn't say anything, and niether did he. Samasan found himself at the part of the forest where the children built the fire. One of the men went behind a tree to take care of business, while the other kept watch. Samasan also kept an eye out for danger, but he couldn't stop looking at the smashed bones.

"Why would they do this?"

This method of funeral rites seems heartless and cruel to Samasan. On the way back, Samasan saw more people in the fields. One of the other guys noticed his gaze, and also looked.

"Thara!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

People were setting the moon wheat field on fire. They looked like villagers that Samasan didn't recognize. Everyone that was in the village ran to the field. The children were ripping plants out of the ground to make a fire line, and the adults were stomping out fires. Samasan was also knocking out flames with his feet as he watched the invading villagers ransack the homes. Everyone from the village was screaming, "Thara!" at the invaders.

"What does that mean?" Samasan asked himself.

The fires took hours to put out, and when they got back to the village, it was deserted. The baked bread was stolen. The oven was smashed in. Two of the homes and the large circular building had their roofs collapse from being burned down. The clay bowls and pots were shattered on the ground. Samasan felt a tightness in his chest that burned.

"All these dangers, and we're attacking each other." Samasan shook his head in disbelief.

The day was finshed by everyone collecting the broken clay shards into a pile. Samasan slept in a crowded building with ten other people now. There was a deep anger in the pit of every empty stomach. The night was rough. As Samasan began to sleep, there was a knock on the door. The house slowly arose, and Jutwaso answered the door. Some words were exhanged, and everyone in the house including Samasan went outside.

They were given daggers, while Jutwaso held onto her short-sword. The people that woke them up, went into the house, and shut the door. Samasan was with a group of four others including Jutwaso. The other six people broke off into two groups of three. During the patrol there was a cry in the far distance. Samasan's group ran around to find people running through the fields while glowing. They were being chased by small shadows around them.

"Eyeless cats..." Samasan murmurred.

More and more people in the fields illuminated brightly. There were at least twenty people that Samasan could count. A large roar flew up. Its strength made Samasan too afraid to move. The others were also too frightened to move by the roar. A large creature crept out from the forest. It was 4.5 meters tall, and 13 meters long including the 3 meter long tail. The giant cat sprinted and pounced 30 meters through the air, and onto the glowing group of people. They screamed as they were crushed, and torn asunder.

The giant cat was eating the humans whole. It's fur was dark gray with black stripes, and it had giant green glowing eyes. After the giant cat had eaten fifteen people, it layed down on the ground to sleep, while the dozens of eyeless-cats began to eat the remaining corpses. Samasan vomited in disgust. The bodies were 300 meters away from the village, but the illuminated corpses made the night scene very visible. Ten minutes after the commotion began, the fear became controlable.

Everyone crept around the village, and knocked on each door slowly. There was commotion in every house. They were trying to extinguish their fires without water. They could only use sticks to dig up their dirt floors, and smother the flames. Most of the doors had been knocked on when Samasan saw a shadow hop over the fence.

"Shit."

The group heard him, and saw the eyeless-cat approaching. It was sniffing the ground while nearing Samasan. A person crept forward with her short-sword. She held it high, and swung it down. The cats mouth opened silently, like it was trying to meow as the head rolled across the ground. A quick ticking noise began as another woman ran to the body with a dagger in hand. She plunged it through the gut of the dead cat, and reached inside. Her hand pulled out a small marble. As it met the air there was a loud pop, and a silver coin fell to the ground.

Everyone cast their eyes towards the field with the other cats. Some of them were leaving towards the forest. The big one was still sleeping. The eyeless cat's corpse was cleanly skinned and gutted. The dagger and short-sword was wiped clean with the fur-skin. It was until three of the thirteen stars changed from dim-black to bright-white that all the cats left slowly. Samasan's group woke up a different house, and traded places with them. He didn't think he could sleep, but when his body hit the ground, it was lights out.

When Samasan awoke, everyone else had already left the house. He stepped out to see people moving about everywhere. There were people picking up the premature moon wheat that had been destroyed during the night by the invaders. A quarter of the fields had been cut down. The children were smashing the broken clay pottery into dust with rocks, and half of the people were travelling to and from the forest while carrying large chunks of wet clay.

Samasan walked out to the woods. He travelled deeper than before with the people. There were fallen trees, and dense weeds in this area. They stopped at a dry creek bed, and began to dig up the bed with sticks. The clay was buried fifteen centimeters below the sandy hard-soil. Samasan took over digging after another person stopped. His was starving for food, but this was more necessary. Samasan carried a ball of dark-brown clay that was forty centimeters across back to the village, and sat down with it. He dug off a large chunk of clay with his fingers, and began to play with it.

He was trying to make a simple bowl. Another man sat down with Samasan, and effortlessly made a large jug for water. Samasan smashed his mangled work in frustration. The man laughed, and took the clay that Samasan had been trying to form. His hands were fast and efficient. It took him two minutes to make a perfect looking bowl, while Samasan had been fuddling with it for over fifteen.

"I'm not made for this world!" he threw his hands up.

Samasan made more subsequent trips to the dry creek bed for clay. The people were talking more than yesterday, but he still didn't understand.

"Clay. Cl-a-ay."

Samasan tried to learn the native word for clay, but people gave him confused looks when he tried to speak to them. He did learn the word for stick, which was 'whih.' The vowl is pronouned with a slight whistle, making it sound like a stick being swung quickly through the air. He was also able to borrow a small knife by making a cutting motion across his palm, and pointing to the knife the person was holding. Samasan walked over to a tree, and tried to climb it.

"Hah. Damnit."

He finally jumped up, but dropped the knife. On the second successful attempt, Samasan stabbed the knife into the tree trunk, and then jumped up. He climbed half-way out on a large branch, and began cutting a large stick. It was thirty milimeters across, and a meter long and straight before other smaller branches branched off.

"Come on, you son of a bitch."

Samasan was hacking and shaking the branch to break it off. Some of the people stopped to watch him in amusement. In his haste, he dropped the knife out of the tree. Samasan stood up, and started kicking the branch.

"I. Hate. You-u-ooo..!"

He lost his footing, and fell. Samasan grabbed the closest thing. The same branch that he so hated had broke his fall. The branch snapped loudly. The thick layer of dead leafs also saved Samasan from injury.

"Uwahhhh...!" He let out a primal victory scream.

Samasan cut off the branching twigs, and bark, and started rounding down the ends. When he was working on dulling the second end, the person that he borrowed the knife from came over to grab the knife and stick.

"Hey!"

They started cutting the end of the stick into a sharp point, and made a jabbing spear motion towards him with it, before handing Samasan the stick.

"Thanks."

"Uru" The person left with the knife.

"What does that mean?" he wondered to himself.

Samasan went back to digging clay, until everyone stopped at the bottom star indenting on the ring. Everyone gathered in the village. The children were climbing in and out of the collapsed central building. They were carrying out handfuls of moon wheat grains mixed with broken pottery, ash, and charcoal. The grains were given to everyone. Even though Samasan picked out most of the broken pottery, and blew off as much ash as he could, the taste was undesireable. He had to chew slowly to safely avoid hard bits of pottery, and there was no water to wash it down. No one was enjoying their meal.

The next day Samasan collected more clay. He had also travelled to near by stream with the group to drink directly from it. There were no containers to transport it back to the village. Samasan had to decrease the clay size to thirty centimeters per trip, because he was also carrying his pointy stick. It couldn't be called a short-spear at best, but at worst it was a sturdy walking stick. Samasan stopped in the village to try pottery making again. He made a bowl shaped object, but as he was trying to even out the thickness, his thumb ripped through the bottom of the clay bowl.

The neatly formed clay from yesterday was drying in the sunlight. The collected moon wheat that was felled early was being beat on the side of the mud-brick house to collect the grains. People were taking the seeds back out to replant them by tilling the earth with sticks. Samasan picked up some of the greenish seeds off the ground, and bit into the grain.

*Wheeze*

Samasan knelt down on the ground as he tried to spit out the seeds. His tongue had become completely numb, and he couldn't feel his mouth either. He tried to pull out the seeds with his fingers, but they became too numb to move too. Samasan looked down to see drool dripping off his chin onto the ground.

"Uru." The people said to him.

It took over thirty minutes for the feeling to start returning, and it felt like his mouth and hands were coated in electricity for hours after. When Samasan went to collect more clay, he decided to take a short cut. The path wasn't as clear, but it seemed much shorter. As he walked, he came across a peculiar sight. A burnt out camp fire with two swords and three bows lying next to it. The dirt in the area was covered in a strange green liquid.