Mistlyn

Chapter 1a: Captured pt. 1

I glanced up at the scaly man. He was watching me with his smoky eyes, lips curled back into a sneer. Pieces of animal flesh were stuck in between his teeth.

I let out a small growl as I turned my head and bit his one finger, scales thick and gray. He laughed and grabbed onto my shoulder tighter. He had his other hand clamped around my jaw, holding me from behind. His scaly hands felt like sandpaper against my face.

"Little Human girl," he said, "You're going to help me."

"No I won't," I struggled against his hold.

"A spirited one," he chuckled, his voice grating on my ears. "Good life force in you. I'm glad I caught you."

My eyes roved around the village. Smoke was pouring out of a number of homes. Homes that had lasted the decade since the last Hardone raid. I had been three at the time, but I still remember the screaming. But there weren't fires then.

"Let me go," I screamed, looking around to see if any other of my villagers survived. I kept expecting to see my father running towards me, shirt sweaty, with streaks of dirt, after working out in his field all day. But no one came.

A girl screamed.

I choked on a gasp, my heart sinking when I saw who had just been captured by another Hardone.

"What's wrong?" the lizard-like man asked me in a mocking tone, "Why did you stop fighting me? Something catch your attention?"

The other Hardone, a large female, judging by her long feathery hair, cloaked in armor that reminded me of a silver dress, threw the girl to the ground in front of the King.

"Need any more, King Rexon?"

My best friend Sahria glanced up at me, the Hardone woman's foot on Sahria's small back.

"No, that will be all. An Incubator and a Dancer is all I wanted."

"So which one will be the Incubator?"

The King laughed. "This one." He pushed me towards the female Hardone. "Take them," he signaled to some Hardone guards. "We're going back to the palace."

Two guards, with long spears in hand, their metal robes dragging near their ankles, grabbed us by the backs of our old dresses. The tips of my toes dragged along the stony ground as the guards took us away.

With a kick to the knee, the guard holding me yelped and let go of me a bit.

I dug my heels into the dirt ground, pebbles stabbing up into my foot. "You let me go right now," I kicked again.

The guard laughed, and dragged me along to a cart. Two komodo dragons were hitched up to the front of the barred cart. The animals hissed, turning their heads this way and that, long tongues flicking in and out of their wide mouths.

"No!" I yelled, as the guard lifted me off the ground.

"Little girl," he sighed, with a shake of his head as he shoved me into the cart, "I don't like having to be too rough. Even if you're a Human."

Sahria tumbled in behind me. With a click, the cart door was locked. The guard gave me a long hard look before letting out a second sigh and walking off.

I turned to look at Sahria. She was staring at me with wide eyes. I felt jittery, my legs weak beneath me as I curled up in a corner of the cart. We held on to each other, staring wildly at the Hardones around us. Their large tails dragged on the ground behind them as they moved around, kicking up dirt. Some peered into the cart, scaly lips curled into sneers.