Endless Adventure

Oasis - Sylvaine 8

Artika fell to her knees hard, but she still pressed her lips on the sand to kiss it. The rough texture emphasized her parched, dry lips, but worship must be given to where it was due. Three hundred sixty-five days in the deepest, darkest part of Harrow’s Cave had driven her almost insane that she’d welcome the heat and the pain. She was now nineteen, a virgin offering with scraggly blond hair. Her eyes were green with flecks of gold, almost reptilian some said, but she was merely a human of the Reptilis line. Even worse, she was now a princess in dusty, rugged clothes.

The human guards threw her down. She knew what it meant. She had been chosen to do the oasis run and could die or be set free in three days. Three days. That was all she had, but it could be everything.

“Ubi sunt reptilia deorum?” she cried into the sky, demanding the presence of the reptilian gods. Of course, they weren’t real and all she had was her human body to fight an inhuman battle. Nobody came to save her during her year of imprisonment.

The sun made her squint, but she welcomed its blasts on her pale skin. She had been starving for its rays. Her mind drifted to her father, mother, and two young brothers. She remembered how their throats were slit to feed the soil ten years ago. Despite the overwhelming feeling burning in her chest, she wouldn’t cry.

Artika heard that the oasis run deaths were brutal, but that in itself was an escape. She would take being murdered for the queen’s pleasure and her men’s celebration over being trapped in darkness for the rest of her life. Of course, her mind was ready and her body primed despite the lack of sunlight and the meager food rations. The plump, pampered princess that she was emerged into a hard-bodied, steely-minded young woman. She was training her body inside the cave, and she would give the oasis run everything she got.

When Queen Salome’s army of orcs and brainwashed humans arrived on Grevkin’s soil, they tore away young people from their families. They had been pillaging other towns before and needed more places to drain water from. The orcs were thirsty little bastards. Their very footsteps seemed to consume all the water in Grevkin. The lush landscape quickly turned into dry desert in just a few years’ time, and soon everyone was hungry and thirsty all the damn time. The enslaved Grevkin people barely got a ration and whenever they did, it meant they worked hard for it. It could be through hard labor, or being taken to bed by one of the queen’s human soldiers, or worse by one of her orc fighters. The soldiers didn’t discriminate among men, women, young, or old, either. They lusted for anything they had power over. In a way, Artika’s family had escaped the worst of the queen’s reign.

Artika heard that every time a losing warrior was killed, the oasis bloomed anew and there was rainfall for days that made the area around the stone castle glow and reinvigorate with life. Plants grew. Animals fed. The queen’s minions took most of the benefits. After a month of abundance, Grevkin would dry up again.

So, every year a minimum of four and a maximum of six offerings were made to fight to the death. It was mostly a race, but they could kill each other along the way with weapons provided for them. The dead bodies were hauled by the queen’s men for her consumption. Those who managed to survive and reach the treasure in the oasis had to fight each other. Only one must live.

These were young men and women ages sixteen to twenty-five they felt could threaten the queen’s rule. Each one had a drop of royal blood, whether it was from the Avis line or the Reptilis line. Artika belonged to the latter, and the only thing that kept her company for the past year of seclusion and imprisonment was her pet lizard, Zurki.

Artika was grateful that none of the guards touched her. The queen wanted to keep her slaves pure for some reason. It didn’t mean that there weren’t no nights when the girl trembled in fear whenever a guard got too close. One of them even had a hand up her thigh at one point, but she had stabbed him right through his palm. He didn’t dare report it because it would mean he’d suffer even more under the cruel queen. He wouldn’t just suffer a torn hand. He would have been flayed and torn from limb to limb for disobedience.

**

Queen Salome was known for her beauty and wisdom, but power and hate corrupted her. Fury burned in her after her ambitious father married her off to the half-Orc Lizuri, but there was always something evil that lurked within. When she got the chance, she cut her husband’s head off and took over. She was more bloodthirsty than he could ever be, and she was fully human.

In her thirteenth year of rule, she noticed that she was getting older. The sun had been harsh on her skin. Together with her constant anger, the heat made her grow older faster than she expected. At only forty, the lines on her face had been more defined and her skin felt like leather.

“Dry like the desert. Leather like the reptiles. Predatory like the birds,” an old crone muttered. She was half-blind and bent and shouldn’t be any danger to Salome, but she still sparked her hatred.

A few minutes after uttering her observation, the old woman was dead. Salome’s men took her remaining good eye, which Salome ate with relish. As the woman’s blood trickled on her skin, it seemed to nourish the queen. The desert sands and leather surface of her pores seemed to freshen, as Salome emerged with healthy, sun-kissed skin like in her youth. Even her long dark hair cascaded down her waist.

“I look twenty again,” she muttered with satisfaction when she saw her reflection on a shard of glass.

That was two decades ago. Now at sixty, she had solidified a tradition of competition among the blue bloods of Grevkin, the fifth kingdom she had invaded. Her soldiers pulled out young men and women from their homes, some shrieking but most resigned. They served for her youth and pleasure.

Each year, they sought a treasure found in the Dream Oasis, also the fifth of its kind. The place was almost like a dream for the captives because it took miles of journeying by desert sands on foot to get there from the cave prisons. A healthy man could travel 20 miles a day with sufficient breaks. The competitors would have to run 50 miles in two days if they wanted to win. On the third day, they could complete their win by making sure everyone else was dead.

In the middle of it all was a treasure, with its surroundings booby-trapped to kill anyone who attempted to get hold of it. Only Salome and a special Warrior knew where the traps were and how to dismantle them. Almost every year, Salome had a new Warrior except when Garek came along. The young man was from the Avis line, guided by his eagle Ruri. His pale-yellow eyes contrasted with his tanned skin, and his curls looked like gold with dark streaks. As soon as Salome saw the boy with the sculpted body and angelic face, she knew that he would win or that she would help him win. He fought to find the treasure fair and square when he was only eighteen, four years ago. He won four years in a row, killing the competition each time to get hold of the secret treasure.

**

Each time Garek handed the treasure to Salome, there was hope in his youthful eyes. Each time, Salome broke that hope. Instead of releasing him, she was driven by lust and took the young man as her slave lover. He resisted at first. After the third whipping, he realized that his efforts were for nothing and that serving the queen would benefit his family. His father, mother, and younger sister Grella didn’t have to suffer the blows and poverty that the rest of the enslaved community had to. Grella was already fifteen, but Salome promised she would never have to fight and that one day she would live like a princess.

“They chose your opponent, Garek,” the queen declared, her hands gripping her arm rests from excitement. Objectively, she was beautiful even though a few cracks were showing. He had to slam down his guilt deep within him whenever he had to kill his defeated opponents. She would feast on the losing party, eat his or her flesh and she often bathed in their blood, too.

“Will I be free this time?” he asked, his voice hard. He no longer feared speaking to her, but he also knew the consequences of disobedience.

“You’re free, Garek. You sleep on satin sheets and eat the best meals. You’re going to beat this group and bring me something to eat. Don’t you like it when my skin is taut again, my curves young?”

Garek tried not to spit out his answer. Freedom wasn’t just about comfort and luxury. It was also about choosing who he slept with. It was choosing where he went at what time and for how long.

“Who are in this group? Reptilis? Avis?”

“I know you hate fighting against your own line but there will be two, Gaul and Gersham. They have threatened your right to be heir to Avis.”

“Then, I guess it would be easier to kill them,” Garek muttered, trying not to let his sarcasm reach his queen’s ears fully.

“Of course. My pleasure to give you your right to help yourself up the rungs. Then, there will be three from the Reptilis, Ava, Artika, and Andar.”

“Two women?” he asked. He knew that gender never mattered in these fights. He never actively aimed for the women, but he knew some of the other men would gladly do the killing for him.

“Yes. Artika, the princess of the Reptilis and Ava her cousin. Andar is a distant relative of theirs.”

Garek remembered a plump little princess, a few years younger than he was. He wondered how she could survive this. She barely had to lift a finger in their palace, now buried under the desert sands. Even their treasures had been looted one by one. The silver and gold now decorated Salome’s stone castle just as Garek’s family gold overflowed in the queen’s chests.

Remembering who he was and what he should be spiked the anger in Garek’s heart. Yet, his family remained captive under the queen’s rule. If he had ever hoped to escape with his and his family’s life, he would have to kill the queen.

But how?

She didn’t exactly have magic, but something kept her alive and youthful. As another year ended, though, the lines on her face had become more pronounced. Something seemed to slither underneath the skin of her cheeks.

Worms? Garek almost gagged. He was looking at the woman he hated the most in the world, the one he had to f**k almost every night.

“Artika is too soft for this fight,” he said.

“Then, that’s one less opponent for you, my love.”

He stiffened every time she called him that. She didn’t love anyone. She only loved the pleasure he could give her, the innocence he lost under her power. Gone was the hopeful boy who wanted to lead his people. It was now replaced by a man who was still young but had the old and worn mind of some three or more times his age. Perhaps he had always been meant for Queen Salome, but it didn’t mean that he liked it. It was time to fight to escape or die trying.