BAWOOM! The sound of the horn caused me to wake up so quickly I hit my head on the bed above me. Without a moment of hesitation, dozens of small creatures with long thin tails, small ears, and weasel-like bodies jumped from their bunks and swarmed out of the room. These were my people, the Nequese. I grabbed my sling and spear from beside my bed and ran after the rest of my kin, rubbing the top of my head as I followed. We gathered in the mouth of our cave and the pack elder, shrunk from age to a mere foot tall but imposing in presence nonetheless. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3nJEsdjGkL
“My dear children” he spoke softly to the crowd, “It is with both pride and sadness that I announce that your generation has come of age and shall now serve the pack by joining the hordes of Lord Arbrax, who generously protects our homes.” 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1WB04uoN6x
I felt a pit in my stomach, the days of my childhood were gone, now it was time to face the harsh reality of the life of a Nequese. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4YDI0H5Q1f
“Pah, generous my tail! If you can call not killing us generosity!” said Crobb, one of my closest friends, in a tone that was much louder than he thought it was. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx4qFAthVLs
“Shhh” I whispered, “You’ll get us in trouble!” Crobb rolled his eyes at me. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡljNHX1qnxY
“You know I’m right Mak” he replied. It was not that I disagreed with him, but I’d rather not make a scene; but alas, it was too late.
One of the older Nequese who was standing by, Saevak, walked up to us, his eyes glaring down upon us, as he was at least two and a half feet tall. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw2xk53lVA5
“You ungrateful little snot!” he barked at us, “Do you have any idea how good we have it!” 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnFlT3BKjyB
I shut my eyes tight and stayed as still as possible, not wanting to irritate him further. Crobb, quite conversely, had no such sense of self-preservation. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvH6W3qaNBt
“Good? We are slaves!” he shouted back with a smug look on his face. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnC6uRaOMoI
Crobb thought he was very smart; he was not.681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvdcTQFWkz
In a quick motion, Saevak thrust the butt end of his spear into Crobb’s gut with a Thud! 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAw110bRj95
“Agh!” Crobb yelled while falling back right past me. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9HKZY2x4ax
I tried to grab him before he hit the ground, but I knew if I moved then I’d get hit too. Fortunately, Dralp caught him. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ1fIecCXJO
“Alright, alright, I think he’s had enough, don’t you?” Dralp said in a calm but stern voice. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu6zwPzJuIx
Another close friend of mine, I knew the situation would be better in his hands. It looked like Crobb was about to continue, but one look from Dralp shut him up. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrOq6KqOxa2
Saevak grunted, “I guess I’m satisfied” he turned away but continued before leaving, “But if I hear him bad-mouth Lord Arbrax again, he’s a dead rat!”
We were marched out in rows to a nearby clearing where a horde of raiders was waiting. At the front of the horde stood a tall red half-dragon, Arbrax the Furious. The reptilian raider slowly walked around us as if inspecting livestock for purchase. A Nequese near the front of the pack let out a quiet sneeze, and Arbrax snapped his head towards him. I saw a blur of red rush towards the offending soldier, I closed my eyes, but I didn’t dare move to cover my ears. CRACK! The sound echoed through the crowd. The tyrant calmly and slowly walked away from the mangled corpse, while dusting himself off with his right claw. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI7VL3Su8A6
“Now then…” he carried on as if nothing had happened. “You worthless lot have gained the highest honour one of your kind could hope to achieve,” he said in a tone that made his demeaning words sound like an honour. “You will begin your service to my hordes and I by aiding in the destruction of the village of Trodthrew.” Arbrax paced mesmerizingly back in forth in front of the crowd as he spoke. “I want every scrap of gold, silver, copper, or anything else not bolted dow-” he stopped in his tracks for a moment and scratched his maw. “On second thought, if it’s bolted down then unbolt it!” he shouted with a grin on his face and a hand in the air. The hordes behind him began cheering in agreement, and we followed suit, many of us looking at our fallen pack member as we did.
We set off to Trodthrew without another word to us from Arbrax, no time to pack anything but our slings, spears, and a few rations. We travelled at the back, at no point did the raiders even look back at us. When we stopped for the night, we sat in our own group a good distance from the others. A few raiders took turns keeping watch over us.681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzw8AaLp2D1
“You can’t trust those vermin, they’ll run the first chance they get. Makes for fun target practice though!” the raiders would say. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8FGjHpSiIp
They distrust and despise us, yet they force us to help them. That night Dralp and Crob found me and talked, Crob said681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm45cLG18qL
“This is stupid, they hate and us and treat us like dirt, but we have to help them!” stomping angrily as he spoke. 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZpTlSPlCS2
Dralp sighed heavily and spoke quietly, “Crob, sadly this is just how the world is, we steal from the humans so that the raiders will shelter us from the Pestak, nothing we can do.” 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ZuQYlKfyg
Crob spat as he heard the word, “Pestak, the monsters, they think they are so high and mighty, that’s the only good thing about working with these numbskulls, we get to hurt them back!” 681Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jg57NPjZI
This went back and forth for a little while, it was something we had discussed in length. Crob was full of anger at the state of the world and wanted revenge on those who had hurt our people. Dralp, on the other hand, while not content with the situation, accepted that this was just how things are. Crob did most of the talking, with Dralp responding in short sentences. I rarely got a word in, partly because of Crob, but also because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it myself.
We got to Trodthrew and Arbrax gave some speech about the greatness of his group and how we are one step closer to being the most feared raiders this side of whatever. I wasn’t really listening, I was rehearsing the kind of lines in my head for if they yelled at us for being useless. As we came to the top of a hill just outside the soon-to-be-destroyed village I got a good look at it. A small fence traced its border and there were dozens of wooden homes, most crudely made with a couple of bigger more well-built ones closer to the center. A large well stood in the middle of the village and a number of humans could be seen around it. “Humans… yeck!” I heard Crob mutter from behind me. “From what I hear, they make up most Pestak, maybe this trip isn’t so bad after all.” I didn’t have long to consider his words before one of the raiders blew the battle horn and we were all charging down the hill.
I struggled not to get trampled as we ran towards the village. Dralp ran beside me with Crob taking the lead as we rushed into the valley below, dodging and weaving between the much larger raiders around us. Our task, as described to us, was simple: find anything remotely valuable and bring it to the cart that the raiders brought. We were to kill anything that gets in our way. We were behind a little compared to the rest of the group, so most of the houses on the edge of the village were already being sacked. Before we could think about how to approach the situation, a raider screamed at us from behind, “You three rats! Stop gawking at the scenery and get to stealing!” he motioned towards a house that he was about to enter. We instinctively followed him into the building, it looked like the inhabitants left as they were eating as utensils and half-eaten food lay strewn about the table. Dralp started putting a handful of forks into a bad when the raider bashed him in the face with the blunt end of his spear. “Haven’t you ever robbed someone before!?”, he shouted a Dralp flew backward into the wall. I tried to speak but despite my lips moving, no words left my mouth. “No sir, this is our first raid”, Dralp said while holding one hand to his left eye. “HAH! That’s no excuse! Steal’ns in your nature! What else are you good for!” he said as he shook his head. “I’m in a good mood today, so I will give ya another chance, ol’ Krun here is headin to the basement, that’s where the good stuffs hiding.” he said with an evil grin. Crob was shaking in anger, he started to move his hand towards his dagger, but Dralp gave him a warning glare. As Krun turned around I went over to help Dralp up and noticed that his left eye was seriously hurt, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine”, he whispered.
As we walked towards the basement we heard a scream, we jumped down the ladder to find Krun covered in blood with his spear through the chest of a scrawny human man with dark hair. The man was spitting up blood and had a fearful look on his face, yet he still tried to move his limp arms in a futile attempt to harm his murderer. Krun smiled and tossed him to the side revealing a young woman with her back to the wall, “Pfft, was that all? Oh well.” Krun said before looking to the woman, “Alright, where’s the valuables?”. The woman didn’t move at all, she looked terrified, and yet determined. “All we own is in that chest,” she said as her eyes looked to the corner of the room. “Was that so hard?” Krun said nonchalantly as he walked towards the chest. But before he got to the chest he turned around “One more question? What’s behind you?” he said menacingly. The woman didn’t change her expression, she didn’t utter a word, but looked at the raider with fury in her eyes. “Now now now miss, your gonna die anyway, why don’t you let ol’ Krun see what your hiding? Let me guess, a child or something?” he then walked over to the woman and thrust his spear into her and tossed her aside. Behind her was a small trap door, just large enough for a child to get through. “Rats…” Krun exclaimed before turning to us “Speaking of, you three follow after the kid, it probably has some family valuables or something.” He ushered us through the door, it led to a small tunnel that led downwards, it reeked of filth and was slimy to the touch. “A sewer?” I thought to myself.
The tunnel eventually led to a stream, it seemed that several tunnels led into this one. “Which way did it go?” Crob yelled in frustration, “It could have gone into any of them!” Dralp interjected “What does it matter? We can go find some other loot.” Crob kicked a stone in front of him in defeat, “Whatever, dumb kid probably didn’t have anything good anyway.” Most Nequese hate humans and Crob had expressed his similar distaste before, but I had never seen it in action. I guess I was disappointed too, but it was just a kid wasn’t it who cares if it escaped. As we exited the sewer and walked up the side of the stream we got a view of the village. We were about 10 meters outside the fence and while we were only in the house and tunnel for a few minutes the whole village was already engulfed in flames. People were fleeing in all directions as they were being cut down by raiders. Other Nequese were running around with sacks full of loot, some were even fighting weaker looking humans and children. “Let’s get in there before we get in trouble!” Crob said, but before we took three steps a horrible sound came from the other side of the stream.
A horrible sound, an awful sound, a sound that had been described to me a hundred times by my kinsmen but I could not have possibly imagined it myself. A booming cacophony that was coming towards us at great speed, the clamoring of hooves and a roaring in the wind. “The Pestak” whisper Dralp. We turned around to see half a dozen adventurers, armed to the teeth, four of which were riding horses, one running at the same pace, and another soaring through the air causing debris to scatter around them. They were upon us in an instant, we were thrown into the wind around the mage then greeted on the ground by the swift one and a mountain of armour. “Better get rid of them quickly so they won’t hurt anyone else,” said the Swift-One. The Mountain agreed as he left his horse, Dralp was about to speak, but Crob rushed forward “Run for it!” he said as he tried to throw his small spear at the Mountain. The spear hit the mountain in the chest, but snapped against the armour, not even leaving the slightest of marks.
The Swift-One moved in, staff in hand aiming at Crob’s head. I had to do something, I would use my sling to distract him so Crob could try to get back into the sewer! But my body didn’t move, I tried to scream for help, but not even a breath escaped my mouth. I was frozen again. It seemed that Dralp had the same idea, but he completely missed with his shot, he was normally the best of us, but with his eye injury, he could not aim. The Swift-One slammed his staff into Crob’s head, it made a sound that put thunder to shame as Crob’s head burst open, showering Dralp and I in blood. He was gone, my friend was dead, and soon Dralp and I would be too. I wanted to get on my knees and cry or beg for mercy or do anything, but I just stood there, expressionless. Dralp raised his hands and opened his mouth “We surrender!”, but it was as if they could not hear him as the Mountain bore down upon his head with his hammer, driving him into the ground like a nail. I thought to myself, this must be a nightmare, I want to wake up and be back home, or somewhere, anywhere else! But I couldn’t even convince myself of that lie. Crob was gone, Dralp was gone, and I did nothing. I was surrounded, even if I could run like the coward I was, I couldn’t escape. The Swift-One would catch me or the Mountain would crush me, I was trapped. All these thoughts whirled around me and everything seemed to stop in time. The last thing I remember was vomiting as the swift one approached me, and then darkness.
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