The camp fires were just beginning to die as the swollen star began to rise in the East, another day had begun. The slave master's bones ached, the marrow inside was like rotten ice as the memory of some biological function was faintly remembered. His heart beat a single, weak pulse. Muscles like ancient stones rolled across each other, overlapping, sticking together, as his form assembled into some new shape. The slaves watched him silently, their hungry eyes having witnessed this reconfiguration every morning since they had been captured. With a snapping of his spine he stood, rags he'd worn the day before were now unsupported and slid off him. He stood naked in the desert and turned toward the slaves.
"Rise." he whispered. They began to walk.
The march was slow and unsteady. The ones that fell were left. The oldest slaves had been first, then the children. Some of the mothers had wanted to stay behind with them but the slave master did not tolerate such things. They needed to reach the citadel. The slaves walked beneath the slate sky and thought back to the life in the village, of loved ones that had been lost and wondering how much longer they must walk. There was no escape as there was nowhere to go. A few days back a young couple had made a run for it and the slave master just watched them leave, his face betraying no emotion as he looked through dead eyes at the man and woman. That was perhaps the worst thing about the enslavement, that they could leave any time. They didn't see the couple again and the march went on.
The slave master stopped and allowed them each a drink from the urn he carried in his pack. None of them saw any signs of water yet the strange man never seemed to run out or take a drink for himself. Instead he busied himself casting bones onto the dirt, though none knew for what purpose. By the afternoon they could make out the citadel if they knew to look for it. A black spire in the East rose from the ground like a doorway through the sky. When the slave master's eyes rested on it some of his internal structures began to churn in anticipation. They would be there by tomorrow. The miserable group then came upon the first of the corpses, sun-bleached carcasses that lay in the dirt. At first they could be mistaken for rocks, though upon closer look they could see that these were creatures. Some were almost human, with the desert wind whistling through their eyeless skulls as if they were whispering some secrets only the dead knew. Others were biological agonies, skeleton and muscles put together inside a nightmare and spat out on the godless plain. The slaves and the master walked through this open graveyard silently, none daring to speak of the atrocities that lay around them.
They sat whilst the master played his violin. There was no tune, he just sat there and drew the bow across the strings randomly whilst the slaves unpacked the last of the fire wood. One of the slaves watched him play, the last feelings of resistance stirring in his chest like the faint kick of an unborn infant. They had all tried to fight at first. They had heard about the things in the desert and knew they were strong and hardy but they had tried anyway. The biggest warriors in the village were broken before the slave master like how a child kills an insect. Though the master was more insect that man. He played his violin as the fires were lit, they were made from the wood that had once been their homes. The slave listened to the screeching of the strings and looked around at the people from his village before standing up. The slaves watched him walk across the little camp towards the figure, though the master seemed more occupied with the violin than anything else. The slave grabbed the violin from his hands and smashed it against the floor, stamping a bare foot through the ancient instrument. The slave master sat cross-legged, holding the bow like a rapier blade.
"Why?" he said. The slave gave a war cry and began to punch and kick at the sitting thing, who slowly began to unfold himself as he stood, unperturbed by the blows. He took the man's head in both hands and began to squeeze. The scream was punctuated by the cracking of bone and it was quiet once more. The slaves huddled as close as they could to the fires and waited for something like sleep.
The slaves woke, something had changed. Off in the distance they could see the fires of the citadel flickering like quasars, they matched the feeble camp fires that were struggling to feed themselves on the last of the house wood. The slave master wasn't where he usually was, sitting in the centre of them all, watching. He had gone. The slaves whispered amongst themselves, wondering what had happened when they heard running in the night around them, the drumming of feet onto earth. The slave master condensed from the blackness.
"Get up." he said. The slaves obeyed. The slave master was animated, his neck twisting this way and that as he looked into the darkness. They could hear more footsteps. "Stay near." he whispered, lighting a torch from the camp fires and then setting off towards the citadel. Most of the slaves followed immediately, though some stayed put, waiting in the darkness. If death was to come at least it may be better than what the slave master had in store for them. The slave master ignored them as he steadily made his way through the night, holding the torch aloft to guide the slaves behind him.
Occasionally the fire light would catch the outline of a dead body, though no details could be made. The slaves kept focusing on the flame ahead of them lighting the head and shoulders of the slave master as if he was a mountain range lit by a strange, red star. They looked at each others faces with this light and could see terror contorting each of them into something more primal. Footsteps ran in the night. And all of a sudden they met the hunters. Seven men stood in front of them. They looked human, dressed in grey uniforms and carrying the long muskets of soldiers long since dead. All of them had whiskers and cold, black eyes encrusted into dirty faces like ebony gargoyles.
"Give us the slaves." said one. His lips and nose had been torn off once, it seemed as if his face was held together by a bit of stitching.
"No." said the slave master. He lifted his torch up to better illuminate the surroundings. More men were dotted around them.
"We'll kill you." said the man. The slave master was about to say something else but two slaves had ran forward, clutching him around each knee. With a fist like a hammer he swung down and cracked one about the head and was about to do the other when a rifle shot flashed in the darkness. The bullet zipped through the slave master's arm. "We'll kill you." said the man again. Now all of the slaves stood around the master, unsure what was going to happen.
"Have them." rasped the slave master. He nudged one forward and they slowly began to drift away from the raggedy man. Now he stood alone, the torch light playing against his face so that it always looked to be shifting. There was a clicking of metal and a rustle of clothing then a volley of shots fired from the muskets the men were carrying. The iron bullets ripped through flesh, shattered ribs, sprayed matter out from exit wounds the size of plates. The slave master fell to his knees and another shot inverted his head. The slaves looked down at the body of the one who had brought them across the desert and felt nothing. The men with the guns turned to the slaves.
"Follow us." said one. They walked off into the darkness as the torch spluttered out, the only light left in the wasteland emanated from the distant citadel. The things inside continued to wait.
