It was still dark when Kisa opened her eyes. Not one window offered even a hint of light from outside. She could barely see the other figures that filled the cart, but by the looks of it, it seemed that the strangers who captured her took other people from different clans as well. < To sell to slavery, probably >, she shivered at the idea.
From what she could tell, two days had passed since she last saw the light of day. Food had been awful and comfort did not exist in the small, gloomy and cramped compartment. Not even a faint whisper could be heard from those inside, an occasional sob, maybe, but other than that, nothing else.
Everything was still. Even in the outside, it was eerily quiet. The only sound Kisa could hear was her breathing. She lay motionless in that spot for many minutes, figuring it was nighttime and the abductors had retreated for the night. Her heaving chest struggled to take in fresh air but the stench of sweat and feces made its way instead. Seconds had dragged by so slowly and Kisa was almost about to get back her uncomfortable slumber when the silence was shattered by a cacophony of enraged cries nearby, followed be a chaotic uproar: the clashing of steel against steel, the sound of darts whistling though the air and all other echoes of battle. Kisa, startled by the events, pressed her ear against the walls, straining to hear anything significant, aside from the inevitable sounds of combat.
Suddenly, an explosion slammed against the side of the cart, knocking Kisa backwards and jarring the doors gaping open, revealing a patch of large trees amidst an ominous forest, illuminated only by the light of the moon. In an instant, Kisa was faced with a decision, to flee into what could only be danger and possibly freedom or stay in whatever safety her crude prison provided.
Taking a chance, she dashed out of the filthy compartment, leading herself straight in the middle of the battleground. As only shadows could be seen moving around, she became perplexed and disoriented. A figure loomed up in front of her wielding a scythe, a hoarse cry came from it first as a slash came second right down to her neck. Instinct kicked in and she ducked as the blade passed overhead and ripped open the side of the cage, letting frantic prisoners run wild screaming even as they were cut down in the ensuing battle. But before the one with the scythe was about to slash her from the back, one of her captors streaked up behind him and sliced off his head with a long, jagged sword. The decapitated body kneeled down while his dark blood spewed up from the severed neck into an arching fountain, drenching Kisa and all those around. Facedown in the dirt and soaked with blood, she lifted her head and looked from side to side, panic in her mind. < I have to get out of here! > A black tent was visible to her right and she got up and ran to it just as an explosion flared from her left, illuminating figures in black fighting against strangely long-limbed forms.
Kisa tumbled in and, realizing that the very tent she was in was that of the head of her captors’, scrolls and maps crisscrossed the tables there while a lamp gave a steady light from a table on a corner of the tent. She sharply looked around for her weapon. It was on top of one of the tables, the only thing that was lighted up by the lamp flickering beside it, so, as it caught her eye, she hastily picked it up and scrambled out of the tent and into the black forest.
The chaos of the occurring battle still echoed among the trees even though Kisa had been running blindly through the woods for a few minutes already. She stumbled against roots and stumps of dead trees, crushing dried leaves as she made her way across the forest. The pale moon’s light gave her very little luminosity, her eyes straining to see against the shadows of this strangely dead forest. She kept running...she had to. She had to get as far away from those who captured her as she possibly could. She couldn’t risk them capturing her again and she ran on till dawn came.