The Dry Lands ✔️ [TSS#1][BXB]

IV

N

o sooner were foreign hands gripping me when the horse finally came to a stop, pulling me down by my forearm making me almost fall before the hands tightened above my binded hands and yanked me towards them. I yelped as my feet almost gave way when I touched the ground.

"Vnimatelen!" The boy's voice hissed from above me back on the horse making my head spin as I tried to focus my vision through the dark cloth but it was to no avail. My head jerked from side to side as I was being led somewhere. Limping slightly.

There was a snort from beside me before the hand around my arm tightened. I clenched my teeth at the action not liking this man, even though I could not see him.

"Pobarsai." He sounded as though he was directing this at me for some reason as he yanked me roughly forward again causing me to yelp. This didn't sit well with the other boy that I had rode with as he immediately got down from the horse we were on and started to speak quickly in his own language to the man holding me prisoner. Sounding displeased about something.

They continued to argue for several minutes before I was being thrown at the boy. Literally. The man flung me at him as if he were disgusted by me all of a sudden and making me almost fall over. I gasped.

I could feel hands catching me. The same hands that belonged to the boy that poked and prodded at my ears from before. I knew it was him because of his soft touch unlike the other man's that was harsh. The boy helped me into a straight position, one of his hands squeezing my shoulders before moving down to the middle of my back. I shivered at his touch before he is saying something to me and I'm walking forward.

I walked for what felt like hours but in reality was only a few minutes. The air filled with the sound of the boy's and my footsteps and my racing heart. I didn't know where I was going but I knew when the atmosphere had changed drastically from silence to what seemed like uproar from a crowd of people around me. I was shoved forward through people in distress.

They were elves, I knew that much by how they were shouting profanities and curses as well as pleas to stop whatever they-The Dry Landers were doing. Some even crying as they shouted. This made my stomach drop at the thoughts of what awaited me. What were they doing that made the elves fear them so?

I let out a strangled noise as I was being forced to my knees suddenly. Hissing at the pain shooting in from my legs before the sack that was over my head, taking away my vision was suddenly lifted. My eyes blinking repeatedly as I winced at the sudden light filling my vision, I shook with fear. It took me a moment to realise where I was as I looked around me, I was in the market square of Versai. Elves gathering a few metres away as they screamed at the Dry Landers around me. Shoving forward only to be shoved back warningly by Dry Lander men with swords and axes.

I looked to the side, my hair catching in my eyes as I found other elves kneeling in the same position as me; tied hands as they knelt forward. A Dry Lander behind them looking on emotionless as the elves heads bowed forward in silent fright. Some had tear stains from where they had been crying and a few looked as though they were still crying out of fear. All together, I'd say there was ten of us lined up beside each other a few foot apart.

The sound of heavy boots rang through the sound of my heartbeat and I looked at the end of one of the kneeling elves to see a man not older than 24, his hair and skin matching the rest of the Dry Landers however his eyes were a dark chocolate brown. Almost black and menacing as he looked down seriously at the elf closest to him in the line.

I watched as he grabbed the elf's chin harshly and tilted it upwards for the man to get a proper look at the elf's features. He looked at the crying and shaking elf in his clutches for several moments before stepping back, looking up at the Dry Lander standing over the elf and shaking his head before moving onto the next elf in the line. Repeating the process again. Not one did he nod his head to.