Chapter 11: 1.8 – Brave New World, horrible neighbors.

Jade had expected a lot of things when climbing the stairs under the stares of tribesmen. The creepy stairway and the creepier people watching them only made her guesses wilder. The building noise of voices and drums above didn’t help.

A mass sacrifice she considered and then discarded. There should have been more prisoners in that case, and they would not have gone to such lengths to drag both here. Vampires were another strong candidate. With all the lines of blood dripping from their mouth. But the sun was up. Unless those were some sun-resistant, sparkling vampires… She looked around again, just to make sure, none of the people sparkled. No vampires either then.

She also wanted to say alien's shenanigans, but… in this situation, she and Chloe were the aliens or the entire planet's inhabitants? Maybe both? Jade stopped thinking about that.

The sorceress had a lot more possibilities to consider, but her time and the stairs ran out.

A huge archway indicated the stair end. It led up to an ancient construction made of a dull gold metal, the light of the sun reflecting on parts of the metal not covered by vegetation. Past the archway, a terrace bigger than any of the arenas she’d fought in before.

The whole terrace was squared-shaped. In the middle, another small flight of stairs led to an elevated temple decorated with more poles and skulls. Jade could also see from here, two more archways on the left and right. She assumed they also had another two sets of stairs. 

It made her think of the ancient ziggurats from the earth, with no side stairs and with two more main stairs, and no outer shell before the steps leading to the temple. The skull decoration continued about the place, with higher poles placed around the terrace.

Jade could also see a few wooden huts and some tents scattered about, but they were not enough for the horde of people on the terrace.

Despite the early hour, she could see the frenetic activity from the tribe. She saw, in one corner, a group of women dancing around a now burnt-out fire. It was a simple thing, consisting of matching steps while singing, with every so often one step hitting the ground with enough force to send a thunk sound.

On another corner, she saw a circle of people, yelling, and hooting. When the crowd parted, she could see two people grappling and trying to dislodge each other. Groups of older women teaching children how to weave threads, a gaggle of children running around, yelling, laughing, and being children. 

Two bigger huts, at each side of the temple in the middle, had a big open cookfire with some animal, something akin to a boar, if Jade had to guess, set to roast on a spit. She could also see they had huge ceramic pots, in which people dipped a bowl to gather what she assumed was water or some other liquid.

Directly across them, a group of seven approached. A severe-looking older man stood at the group's back, with a hard and unreadable face. A woman that looked in her mid-thirties, which Jade assumed was the mother, had her face deformed in a snarl of rage. The younger, children and teenagers, two boys and three girls. The younger seemed to cry while the older simmered in anger. All around, now that Jade was looking at their faces, she saw the same features of the girl she’d killed.

It took little after that to identify this as the family of the deceased girl.

The mother approached, yelling at Jade in a language she didn’t understand. The woman screamed and pointed and spat at her, but Jade didn’t react, she did not know what the woman was doing.

The woman grew angrier and angrier as Jade did nothing. The severe man said some words directed and the mother, but the woman enraged, didn’t listen. She stepped forward, faster than Jade would have thought possible, grabbing the sorceress’s hair and yanking it to one side, while slapping Jade’s hurt jaw with the other hand.

The sorceress’s response was immediate as it was instinctual. She moved her legs to provide stability, closed her fist, and punched forward with all her strength. 

A dull sound heralded silence all around. When her vision cleared, the sorceress saw the other woman on the ground, a few meters away, looking confused, some strands of Jade’s hair still in her hand. In front of her, Chloe had caught Jade’s punch in one hand, while threatening the man, holding a dart to his neck with the other. The man had drawn a dagger and had stepped towards Jade before Chloe interrupted both.

“Don’t make things worse, yeah?” Chloe asked under her breath.

The commotion drew the attention of others, and not long after, a group of warriors dragged the family away, the mother still yelling and Jade’s guessed, cursing them. The old man still had the same murderous look in his eyes. Some bystanders also glared at Jade, but no one else tried to attack her. 

The newcomers, warriors from the tribe Jade guessed, took the pair away to near one of the elevated walls from the temple in the center, to a few cages made of stone and wood. They pushed them inside, and the door closed behind them. The warriors also took away the various pouches they carried, as well as Wonder Light’s spear and blowgun.

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She looked around, the other cages were empty save one, which had another person as well. The man was sitting looking at the ground, shoulders hunched, a picture of someone who had given up. He also had adornments in the same familiar fashion as the ones around, but the details and colors were different, probably marking him as from another tribe.

The first thing Jade tried was to break the wooden sticks from the cage, but no matter how much she pushed, pulled, or pressured, the wood didn’t even bend, never mind break. She thought about what else she could do in this situation, but the adrenaline from the moment of violence from earlier faded, and Jade felt drained, tired, hungry, and sleepy.

She sat down and idly looked at the other woman, who did the same. Wonder Light tested the cage, then looked around, and tested the cage some more, before finally sitting down at Jade’s side.

Not one to miss the opportunity, she laid her head against the other woman’s arm and closed her eyes. She could hear the heroine saying something, but Jade was tired and sleep seemed too good to pass.

The stone that hit her in the head, cared not for her sleep.

“Ow,” Jade complained, her hands reaching up her head where the rock hit her, to come back coated in fresh blood. Outside the cage, the children ran away laughing and yelling.

Looking at the fleeing pests, the sorceress wanted to yell as well, but that wouldn’t solve anything. She looked at Chloe, but the other woman was staring up ahead and seemed distracted.

They waited, and the hours passed.

Whenever Jade or Chloe seemed to fall asleep someone, usually the children would throw things at them until they were awake. Not sure how many hours later, a matronly woman brought them water to drink, and a small piece of fruit for each.

The water tasted stale, dirty, and salty, and it was the best thing Jade had ever drunk before, and It wasn’t nearly enough. The fruit helped, but it also wasn’t enough. It didn’t take long though for the thirst to return, and Jade understood the petty torture.

They never gave them enough to satiate their hunger or to quench their thirst, and the water, they’d salt it, so even if momentarily it held back their thirst it meant nothing because the salt made the parched feeling worse than it should have been.

But what choice did they have? Refuse to drink and eat and die of starvation and thirst? Chloe tried several times to talk to their captors, but none understood English, or care about their suffering.

As the day progressed, and Jade tried once more to break free from the cage, the dog beasts came and attacked every time Jade tried to get closer to the edge. They’d also taken the role of caretakers, attacking and snarling every time she or Chloe fell asleep.

All around, the festival continued, people would pass and point at them, then leave smiling and having fun.

When the night arrived, the dogs went away, replaced by the birds once more. They’d caw and make horrifying noises but didn’t enter the cages to attack them. No one else brought them any food or water, and leaning against the other woman, even with all the noise around, she slept.

It was the morning of the following day when another rock woke them up from their sleep. Jade felt sick, her stomach churned and her head hurt. Even opening her eyes was torture. The kids cared nothing for that, running away laughing once they had awoken them.

Jade wanted to curse and yell, but she settled for sobbing quietly until she fell asleep again.