Near Harad, T.A. 3002.
“No, no. I won, so now you seek.”
The girl grins triumphantly as the boy puts on an overdramatic frown. She nudges him towards the old eucalyptus tree. He leans forward reluctantly, crossing his arms against the pale bark as he begins to count.
“100, 99, 98…”
The girl attempts to suppress a giddy laugh and runs off, almost stumbling over her own feet. She hops down the road, skipping over the patches of loose sand, as to not reveal her hiding place by leaving footprints. Finding a sufficiently large and dense shrub, she settles down behind it, hands and knees resting on the hot, rough ground. She catches her friend’s distant “20, 19, 18…” as her heart continues to race, the excited grin still having a hold on her face.
“3, 2, 1… Ready or not, here I come!”
She bites down on her bottom lip, and with twinkling eyes she peers through the shrubbery as best as she can. Her friend walks down the sandy road in her direction and she holds her breath, ducking down even further if possible. After a minute or so, with now her chest and cheek pressed against the ground, she hears nothing.
Then there is the sound of riders down the road, the dull thuds of horseshoes against the stony sand, a cacophony of clinging armour and loud voices, then a shouted command, then silence. She gathers some courage and lifts her head, peering through the branches yet again. It is a small squad, eight soldiers dressed in gold, red and black, atop hot-blooded bay steeds. They halt near the eucalyptus tree.
A pit grows in her stomach as she sees them talk to him, the boy whom she always considered so tough suddenly seems very small next to the harnessed warrior. He stretches a metal gloved arm out. Her friend winces and stumbles a few steps back.
She ducks down again when one of the soldiers seems to turn his helmet-covered face towards her shrub. A debilitating fear takes a hold of her and she closes her eyes, pressing her entire face onto the ground in the hope that will somehow make them go away.
The distant voices grow louder, the horses stir, then amidst shouts a command to ride. Before relief can hit her, a shot of adrenaline takes its place. She recognizes her friends voice, he screams. She forgets her own fear and jumps from her hiding place. They have him. She shouts abuse at the man who holds him in a death grip. In an impulse she grabs the nearest object available that vaguely resembles a weapon, which is a rock the size of her palm. The warrior laughs, the desperate, barefoot, dust-covered girl, throwing a teary-eyed fit while armed with a piece of rubble is a quite pathetic sight indeed. With his free hand he pushes her aside and she slams to the ground. She scrambles as the warrior orders departure, not considering her worth any time. With her last bit of adrenaline she lunges the rock at him, it bounces off his armour and anticlimactically lands in the dust. Then the squad rides off.
