Fable... Intro

It has been 18 hours since the battle at Jebel el Habash and I had all but given up hope that my men would come to my rescue. My captors continue to poke their sharpened spears into my cage, laughing as I dodge and delay my untimely demise for another few hours… Their language is foreign to my tongue and their actions barbaric. From what I have noticed, they are a well-assembled and disciplined group of marauders that have made it to our shores and have established the range of green mountains as their own, looting all caravans and villages crossing their usurped lands. The Caliph from his throne in Damascus dispatched an army of a thousand strong men lead by my father to suppress these savages. I have no recollection of the battle; I do know that I Mukhtar ibn Saif ibn Waleed Al Fares am the only living prisoner within their camp.

I have been stripped of all weapons and jewelry. All that remains is the ring bearing my family’s crest; A gift from a Christian goldsmith in Venice… Even if I could mastermind an escape from my prison, I will not go undetected for long; these savages are expert trackers and will not take long to follow my trail… The cloak of night will be my only opportunity to escape…

They are a fierce warrior race, and by the looks of their stolen armor and organization seem to have fought many adversaries, Christians, Muslims and their own. My memory of the battle does not exist, but it is impossible that they could have defeated our army; my count verifies that we outnumbered them tenfold. A master of the dark arts must be among them… My head still carries a pain as though Allah has sent a thunderstorm into my head… I must rest…

My eyes have totally adjusted to the dark, a trick my uncle taught me while hunting the desert at night… The merciless heat of the sun forces all animals to take shelter underground, forcing a waiting game between the predator and its prey… Guards continue to patrol the campsite anxiously waiting for something or someone to attack, their weapons ready… These barbarians are anxious about something and I fear it’s not my Arab brethren…

A guard walks towards my cage with his weapon in hand ready to spear my soon to be dead carcass… Instead he throws a piece of bread; I cannot remember the last time I ate something… the savage mutters… I do not speak his language but the meanings of his words are clear… Soon enough, my short life will come to an end… As the guard pulls away, I pull my fingertips at the crust of this old bread, my hunger has left my body weak…

“Be careful what you eat Arab, these savages poison everything… that is how they killed your army, they poisoned your water…” Turning back I notice something in a neighboring cage move, there is another captor with me… “Who said that? Who are you?” “I am a prisoner like yourself, these barbarians saw your armies advancing days ago and poisoned the wells on route… The poison left your troops in a trance, unable to defend themselves while these monsters slaughtered them all.” “Who are you? And what are you doing here?” “ My name is Manuel Diego Lopez Ferriero, I was a member of a Portuguese trading ship that captured these animals as slaves, two days into our voyage back, members of the crew started dying from an unknown disease. Bruises and strange marks began to appear on the crew, and once you were infected it would not take long before death came. The marks covered your body and then it attacked your spirit, killing off any human part of you. Some of the infected began killing each other like animals, while others threw themselves off board in fits of madness. I immediately went into hiding when the savages took control of the ship and they only discovered me when we crashed into the rocks off this coast. Be careful what you do stranger because these monsters eat the living, I have seen it with my own eyes, slicing off limbs like roasted meat – they are more demon than human.”

The guards reply to our conversation by jabbing their swords and spears into our cages… I begin my dance again to avoid the razor sharp blades, exhausted and clinging onto my last life… I cannot keep this up much longer I must escape… They finally give up after a barked order from another savage. As they walk away from our prisons, towards the fire, a fragrant smell begins to find it’s way to my nostrils. it’s soft and floral yet pungent, almost spiced… The scent is heavy, filling my head quickly, yet it is slowing down my movements, I cannot retain any proper thoughts… I turn to Manuel, but he has already drifted into a deep slumber. My eye lids cannot hold their own weight as I drift off to my drug induced sleep…


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