Through Desert Sand and Forest Storm

We traveled for three more days before we reached our destination. Heto city, the only city in the entire desert. I wondered for a moment about the name, remembering that most cities in Equestria had horse puns for names. Probably just one of the princesses had a thing for puns back when they were first making the country.

When we set out, I wasn't put back with the slaves. Whether it was out of respect for me, or because the other slaves were terrified of me I didn't know, and I didn't ask. I was still mostly depressed about my killing spree. I was getting over it, just slowly.

I've learned since then about the other humans brought to Equestria by the Game. Most of them had something different about them, something that drove them to fight, that justified their actions when they killed. I didn't. My past wasn't the best, but it wasn't bad. I had some bad experiences, but I got over them, and none of them were bad enough to make me want to, just as an example, take over a country, like some of the other Pawns.

That said, I understood a few things that made it easier for me. I did, in fact, save lives. About a third of the slaves had been killed by the raiders, but, according to Rise, all of them would've died if I hadn't been there. It was a common tactic of large raider groups apparently, demoralizes their victims. Also, the gators in the guard claimed that the “Holy Rage” as they put it was a sign of being blessed by their gods. It was a test, and if you felt remorse for the lives taken in the rage, you passed. The father of one of the gators had been given the rage in order to defend his family, and passed, so that gator talked with me a bit more, knowing from experience the grief the rage could bring.

What helped the most, however, was Salheen, the slave mare who'd been chained to me. She'd only come by to talk to me once, but she'd thanked me for saving her life, and apologized for fearing me. Her former master had beaten her when he got angry, and I reminded her of that. I thanked her for dealing with her fear long enough to talk to me. She just smiled and left. It doesn't make much sense, especially considering she's still scared of me, but still.

Heto was a trading city, located around a small, swamp-like oasis where two rivers joined on their way to the ocean. Boating up and down the rivers was the main source of transportation between the ocean and the more landlocked cities further inland, although land caravans across the desert were still pretty common, as neither of the rivers went north for several hundred miles.

There were two walls around the city, one around the outer slums, a place which ranged in quality from actual slums to more middle class areas, and the one around the inner city, where everyone was rich, fat, and way too full of themselves. These facts were supplied to me by Cotton, Rise, and, surprisingly, Cloud. It was only the second time I'd heard him speak. Sky Lily lived in that area. I wondered, not for the first time, what she was like. The slavers hadn't been very forthcoming about it, not that I'd asked a whole lot. I mostly figured I'd decide when I met her, rather than letting other people color my opinions ahead of time.

It was just before noon when we got to the outer wall, if you could call it that. More of a giant barricade made of rubble than a wall. As we passed through the gate, I asked Rise about it.

“Well,” he said, “it was made a few decades back when some Zebra chieftain got it into his head that he could take over this town, and make himself it's ruler. Got himself a pretty dang big army too, full of Zebras, Rhinos, even a couple herds of Camels. After their first attack got pushed away, the people living here in the outer city tore down a whole bunch of buildings and just threw up this wall. It exhausted about half of the unicorns in the city, most of the friendly Rhinos too, but it held the second and third attacks back. After that, it became somewhat of a tradition that if anything gets torn down, or if you have any leftover building material after a project, to just add it too the wall.”

“That sounds. . . unstable.” I commented.

“Normally, yeah, but there were still a few Bloodmancer Rhinos in the city then, and they helped build the wall. As long as the builder's family lines stay intact, so will the wall.”

“What's a Bloodmancer?” I asked.

“And here I thought you were smart,” he chuckled, “Bloodmancers are the most powerful wizards in the world, although were never very many of them, and no one knows if there are any left. If they cast a spell, it affected not only their target, but everyone related to the target. Bloodlines, you see, hence the name Bloodmancer. They cast a blessing on a pony, his children are blessed, as are all of their children, and so on, and so on. Same with curses.”

“Huh. How'd they do that?”

“What, do I look like one of 'em to you?” Rise laughed, “if I knew that, I'd be makin a fortune teaching unicorns, not risking my life with the raiders out in the desert. Oh, look, we're here.”

'Here' was the slaver's home base, a fenced off park a mile wide with five buildings clustered in the center. Three of the buildings were holding cells, large square buildings with a courtyard in the center. They were two stories tall, with one gated entrance into the courtyard. The fourth building was the mess hall, just a big open room with kitchens off to one side. The fifth and final building was the office tower. I didn't know what else was in the tower, but the top of it looked like a crow's nest for a watch-guard. Or possibly a sniper's nest, if they had anything like that here.

The slaves were divided into two groups, mares and stallions, and led to their cells. Well, led to their buildings at least. They pushed all the male slaves, myself included, through the gate into the courtyard, closed the gate, and left. There were several guards in the courtyard, however, and one of them, a red stallion with a dark brown mane, approached us.

“Alright, listen up everybody!” he yelled. “Get in a line, and I'll assign you a room. Rules are, be in your room by sundown, and no leaving this building without permission, which you won't get. Any questions? Good, because they won't get answered. WHY AREN'T YOU IN A LINE YET?”

Well, yes sir drill sergeant sir. I got in a line with the rest of the slaves, wondering why the slavers left this guy in charge here. Out in the desert they'd seemed a bit. . .nicer. . . than this, as painful as it was to call anyone who made a living selling people “nice.”

Rise flew into the courtyard, landing near the drill sergeant guard. “Don't go too hard on 'em,” he said, “got hit by raiders in the desert, so we have a few wounded. Make sure they get the good rooms. Also, no pegasi, yet, so no need to pull out the hobbles. The next batch isn't scheduled for tomorrow. Any problems to report to the boss?”

“None while you were gone. And how'd some raiders get past the boss and his twin anyway?” Sunny had a twin? And he'd been in the group? Well, that was interesting.

“There was at least a hundred of them, and they had some sorta crazy warcry, stunned us all. Well, except Cloud, and that slave gator over there,” he pointed at me, “give him the best you got. We'd woulda lost at least twice as many slaves if it weren't for him. Probably closer to total loss, actually.”

The guard looked at me, noting the bandage that was still on my side. “Alright. I'll go easy, for now. They do need to be trained sooner or later, though.”

Rise chuckled. “The gator's goin to Sky Lily, he don't need any training. As for the rest, you can train 'em after that deal's done.”

The guard sighed, and said something I couldn't make out, before looking back at Rise. “Very well. What's his name? Hell, why don't you give me Sky's whole order.”

“His name's not on the order, we picked him up on the way,” Rise paused, “. . .just call him SJ for now. The Boss'll know who you mean.”

The guard gave Rise an odd look, but shrugged and turned back to the slaves. “ALL RIGHT EVERYBODY!” he bellowed, “IF YOU'RE WOUNDED, STEP FORWARD!” All the wounded slaves did so, as much as they could with the chains, anyway, and a few other guards began putting faintly glowing metal bands around each ones left foreleg. I looked at the one they put on me, wondering if it was enchanted to keep us in the compound.

“Any of the slaves have medical training? My whole group's made of rookies, don't have anything but combat training,” the guard asked Rise.

“One mare. Want me to send her over or get one of our guys?”

“Don't care, and I don't need 'em right away. Just figured I'd make sure someone's on call in case something happens with the injuries.”

“Shine'll be over later. Boss might show up too, has his eye on SJ.” Rise pulled a piece of paper out of his armor, looked at it for a few seconds, then put it back. “That looks like everything. Like I said, go easy. They deserve a little break.”

“Real slaves don't get breaks,” the guard countered.

“Too true. Too damn true,” Rise muttered, before lifting off. “I'll be back with the order in a few. Got other stuff to do first.”

“Getting drunk doesn't count as work!” the guard yelled as Rise flew over the building. The pegasus just laughed back.

Sighing, the guard turned back to us. He started walking along the line, directing slaves to what room they were supposed to go to. He didn't give them anything to remember it though.

I was near the last of the line, not that it meant much in a line as short as this one. “SJ,” he said, “room 1-B.”

I looked around, surprised that the rooms were lettered in English. It only took me a second to find my room, which was on the ground floor, directly opposite the gate.

The room behind the door was small, just large enough for the four beds inside it. Two of the beds were occupied, and there was a small, barred window. “This is the best room?” I asked, cringing a bit when I realized I'd said it aloud instead of simply thinking it.

“Dang straight!” one of the ponies in the room, a blindingly yellow earth pony, said in response. “Our window can open, and they didn't stack any beds. Best things a slave could hope for!” Wow, being a slave just got a lot more depressing.

The other pony, a dark blue pegasus with oddly shaped manacles around his wings, looked up at me and shrugged, “They said it was the best, not that it was good. Get used to it.”

I was walking to the farthest bed from the door, intending to take a nap or something, but the yellow pony grabbed me and pulled me to the window, just above his bed. “Wanna play the alphabet game?” What?

“Uhhhhh. . . I don't know that game. . .” I responded.

“It's simple! We look out the window, and try to find something that's name is spelled with whatever letter of the alphabet we're on. We start with A, and go all the way through Z. Ready? Kay let's play!” I hadn't realized it was possible for slaves to be hyperactive, although this place kept treating it's slaves differently than I expected it to.

“Okaaaay. . . let's start with A then.” I looked out the window. Sand, lots and lots of sand. “Sand for A.”

He smiled and started looking out the window as well. All we could see was sand, so nothing for B. Actually, scratch that, something for B.

“B, buckets of sand,” I said. My companion chuckled.

“C, crapload of sand.” He didn't chuckle quite as much this time.

“D, damn that's a lot of sand.” more chuckles as he realized what I was doing.

We eventually got through the entire alphabet. The other pony, whose name was Daisy and yes, he was a stallion, poor guy, acted like a child the whole time. A happy child, but a kid nonetheless.

I must admit, it was kinda fun. I actually smiled, which I hadn't done since I got to this world. After we were done, he hugged me in thanks. I just hugged him back, and went to my bed, where I just lay for a few minutes before a guard came in to grab Daisy.

After they left, the pegasus rolled over to face me. “You didn't need to do that. He's happy no matter what happens. Doesn't know how to be sad.”

I stared at the ceiling for a moment before answering. “He reminded me of my brother. And what do you mean, doesn't know how to be sad?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Couple years ago, there was a Rhino, bought a whole buncha slaves and started casting weird mental spells on them. No one's quite sure what he was trying to do, since he kicked the bucket before he finished, but there was a whole lotta crazy in his basement. Daisy was one of 'em. They say he was just sitting in a cage, smiling for no reason at all. Guy's always happy, gets annoying sometimes, gets real fuckin creepy other times.”

Huh. Note to self, when I get to Equestria, never come back here, and never mention this place again. “Any idea what happened to the others?” I asked.

“Most of 'em were too crazy to sell, got sent to the 'Good Doctor.' Some had to be killed on the spot. The only other one who got out that I know of didn't seem to have anything wrong with him, just kinda quiet. Last I heard, he became an assassin. And don't ask about the Doc. Just don't.” He rolled back away from me, signaling the end of the conversation.

I closed my eyes, hoping to get to sleep, but was interrupted by another voice. “Well, you seem to have gotten yourself into some rather dire straights, haven't you?”

It was the bastard who'd brought me here, speaking in my head again. “Anything you could do to help out?” I mentally asked. I doubted it, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

“I can offer advice, but that's about it. I'm forbidden from actively interfering,” he answered.

“And what's your advice?”

“Make some friends.”

“Dropping someone off in the middle of nowhere and telling them to make friends. Oh, and I'm surrounded by crazy people. How original.”

He chuckled. “That's the thing with the classics. They got that way by being too useful to not use. And really, is it bad advice?”

“No, I suppose it isn't. Don't suppose you have any Elements of Harmony lying about, do you?”

“Nah, Celestia's keeping a very close eye on those, especially after the Discord incident.”

“I'll bet. Hey, while you're here, what can you tell me about this Knight I'm supposed to kill?” he seemed a lot nicer than last time I'd talked to him, so I figured I'd see what he could tell me.

The god paused, like he was thinking about what to say, before he answered. “As far as personalities go, I haven't seen enough of him to say for sure, but from what I have seen, his defining trait is rage.”

“Well, good to know I can piss him off easily, but that doesn't tell me a whole lot. Also doesn't tell me why I should kill him for you.” I braced myself. Earlier, he'd seemed like the kind of guy who got really angry if his “pawns” questioned him.

“What, giving you a chance to get to Equestria isn't enough?” he asked.

“Honestly? No. The show made it seem really peaceful, and the last thing I want to do is ruin that. Especially if it turns out that I didn't need to kill him in the first place.” Also, I just don't like killing shit, but that's a problem I'd take up with him later.

“True, very true,” he said, “as part of my powers, I've been given the ability to see visions of the future. Not the entire future, but bits and pieces of it. And while I haven't seen it yet, I am entirely certain that the war he will cause will envelop Equestria. I can tell you for a fact that, for a time at least, he'll be gathering simple townsponies to join his army.”

“Wait, hold up there. He's causing a war?”

“Yes. He has already voiced his intent to become the warlord of certain lands around Equestria. And I have seen at least one village that will be burned to the ground as a result of his actions.”

War. Innocent lives being dragged into battle and death. Stopping that seemed like a good enough reason to kill someone, as much as I personally didn't like it.

“Why's he causing the war?” I asked. On the same trail of logic, if he was causing a war to end some sort of tyranny or injustice, who was I to stand in the way?

“From what he's said, I can guess that it's simply to sate his bloodlust and put himself in a position of power. He wishes to rule the lands, and has both the power and the drive to make that dream a reality.”

“I see. What species is he? A pony, a diamond dog?” I had decided that I was going to stop him. Maybe not kill him, if I could help it, but stop his war at the very least.

The god smiled. I could feel it. “Neither. He's a species that, for a while, was practically unheard of on this world. A very destructive and chaotic species, full of violence and hate. A species that, currently is being brought here in droves for the amusement of higher beings. He, like you, is a human.”

What? I started to respond, but suddenly felt his consciousness pushing against me, laughing. I descended back into the darkness from when I came here, and felt it consume me. I faintly heard the pegasus in the room with me yelling, and then the world went completely dark once more.