16th of Atash-mah to 12th of Arum-mah, 641 S.C.

An excerpt taken from the journal of Amir al-Farid

16^th Atash-mah – Sami was right, guard duty is definitely the life for me. I was worried at first when he told me what happened to the last people who worked the caravans but so far, it’s been a breeze. Due to the losses during the siege, businesses are paying hand over fist to anyone who’s even willing to hold a sword and Mihnaz is more generous than most. It can get a bit boring but it beats the backbreaking manual labour that my brother’s doing. I just have to stand around, collect my free meal, and get paid. Hitting the hay now before my early shift tomorrow.

17^th Atash-mah – Stupid Youcef. He was supposed to warn me if someone was coming, and now my nose is broken and he’s all messed up. Apparently we’ve been waiting for a CO to turn up and train us and here I was thinking we could stand around all day. He caught us sleeping, Youcef and me, sleeping on our watch, and he kicked my spear out from under me. Then he put Youcef in the training ring against Bash. Bashir is 6 feet of pure muscle and everyone knows he can actually handle a weapon, unlike the rest of us. It was a massacre; Youcef was lucky to be alive by the end. My time in the ring didn’t go much better. My eyes haven’t stopped watering since my nose was set this morning and now I think I might have a few cracked ribs to go with it. None of the men are happy. I haven’t seen Mihnaz since yesterday and I can’t help but think she wouldn’t be happy with this.

24^th Atash-mah – The week of hell is finally over and the CO is gone. Mihnaz took care of that but you could tell if she hadn’t arrived when she did, the lads would’ve taken it upon themselves, especially Sami; he was furious. Removing our rations for the day was the last straw and the men were clearly at the end of their rope. We all knew hunger during the siege and it was far too soon to be revisiting that memory again. We’ve been given a 3 day rest from our training and Mihnaz has promised to find us someone better suited as our CO. She even gave us wine for the evening by way of apology. It was clearly the cheaper stuff but the men enjoyed it all the same. We’re going to be leaving in a few weeks and Mihnaz told us our training will need to be stepped up a notch. While she won’t tolerate abuse, she said it will only get harder. I guess this isn’t such an easy job after all. Still, I’m glad I’m not our next CO; the men are looking to put somebody’s head on a pike.

8^th Sucht-mah – The past 2 weeks have been easy. I’m even getting a few good hits in in training. I haven’t seen Mihnaz for a few days and I think she was hoping to have left by now. She seems very busy; either sorting out the departure or looking for our new CO. Apparently he’ll be arriving tomorrow and I know none of the men are happy about it. Even that old pushover Youcef looks like he’d love nothing more than to step straight into the ring and gut whoever walks through the gate.

10^th Sucht-mah – The last 2 days have been the worst 2 days of my life by far. There we were, all 9 of us on parade, standing defiantly in a line, when all of a sudden, some sort of 7 foot man-dragon walks through the gates. I was dumbfounded and as I looked around me everyone’s expressions dropped and there was a cocktail of fear and fury in the eyes of all the men. Even Bash realised that this is not a man he could intimidate or bully. I didn’t really take in the short speech being given by, what I later found out to be a T’chin, except that his name was Pang. Something about being all we can be. We were left alone for an hour after that to spar and take it all in but I caught him watching us, the Dragonborn, through an upstairs window. He stood there, impassive while the men fought, leaving only once we’d finished for lunch. None of us were sure what to expect and after lunch we once again stood on parade in the beating sun. After 10 minutes, He strolled out carrying 3 heavy looking backpacks with small holes in and overflowing with sand. He left and repeated this twice more. He then made each of us take a sack and took us on a lap of the city and informed us that if we didn’t make it back with half the sand still in the bag, we would repeat this the next morning, and the next morning and the next until we could do it. It was the hardest, most gruelling exercise I’ve ever done and none of us made it back with so much as a handful of sand between us. I’m too exhausted to be angry but I doubt the other lads share my leniency. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. The worst part is Mihnaz seems to be fine with it all.

15^th Sucht-mah – Somehow, I’ve managed to survive a week of this. No one has managed to bring back the required sand yet, despite numerous tricks that have been tried but we’ve all started to think that we’re not supposed to. We’ve even started scooping it out ourselves to make it easier. The CO doesn’t seem to mind what we do provided we don’t actually upend our bag onto the floor and we keep an even pace so we stick together. He made each of us fight him today, 1 by 1. I don’t know if he was just planning on showing off but for such a “seasoned soldier” it sure took him along time to beat us all. Bashir lasted near on 2 minutes. At the end he just dismissed us and slinked away. Clearly he thinks we’re a bunch lost causes and he feels he should’ve done better, the arrogant swine. It felt good to have a go at hitting him and I nearly got through his parries a few times. Being around him for a few days does seem to remove the terror. While I wouldn’t say he was approachable, and I certainly wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, he’s definitely not as scary as he seems.

23^rd Sucht-mah – Another week and another 157 bruises have come and gone. Still, we’re leaving tomorrow and it will be nice to get underway although, I’ve not trekked through the desert before. Pang has driven us hard this week and the boys are just as unhappy as ever. Sometimes there are mutterings over dinner but fortunately no one has gone so far as to actually do anything yet. I saw Pang talking to Mihnaz today and he looked furious. I thought I’d seen him mad while barking orders at us, the “puny humans”, but this time he seemed genuinely angry. I guess it’s because he’s been roped in to coming with us. He probably thought he could pick up his pay and leave. Now he’s stuck on a dangerous voyage with a bunch of humans he doesn’t like, who would all like to see him have a little accident.

28^th Sucht-mah – The boys were getting riled up today, especially Bash. Me and Youcef stayed out of it but things are starting to take a turn for the worst. I don’t agree with Pang rationing the food and water because we have plenty, but I don’t think starting trouble in the middle of the desert is going to help. Racial slurs are being thrown around a lot and the guys on watch say they hear him muttering to himself sometimes as if he’s talking to someone else. This seems to fuel their prejudice even more. I don’t like Pang but he hasn’t steered us wrong yet even if his methods are brutal. I’m worried something is going to happen tomorrow.

1^st Arum-mah – Today, everything changed. As the half-meals were doled out, the tension was tangible. Every move was exaggerated and the suspense was killing me. Suddenly, Bash made a move for his sword, and you could feel the energy about to erupt when all of a sudden, he stopped, looked down, and studiously took in the bolt protruding from his chest. A battle cry rang out, and Pandemonium erupted. Enemies sprang over the rocks, darting this way and that. As I fumbled with my sword I saw Pang cleave through his first assailant and move onto his second without breaking stride. He was yelling and pointing like a man possessed, trying to get to Mihnaz, and I just stood there watching but not seeing, not knowing what to do. Just when I thought I’d never move again, a man appeared from my left. Sword clutched in both hands raised above his head, he stepped within reach and was cut straight across the mid riff by Bash; dropping his sword in time to catch his vacating entrails. As the body slumped to my feet, the sound suddenly become clear as if I’d emerged from water. Steel on steel, groans and screams, and the unmistakeable bellow of Pang. I spun around trying to take it all in at once, suddenly ready to fight, but it was almost over. Pang had formed the rest of the squad into an echelon, and sent them sweeping along the side of the caravan and cutting down whatever was in their path. The end result was 12 to zero in our favour. And I didn’t even strike a blow. Even Youcef got in on the action. Poor bash though; Pang and Mihnaz have been trying to help him since the fighting stopped but it’s not going well. He’s in for a long night.

2^nd Arum-mah – I couldn’t sleep last night. Even once the screams had died down. The adrenalin was still coursing through me, the battle still ringing in my ears. They had to burn the crossbow bolt out of him in the end. It was hard to listen to; only The Holy Divine knows how it felt. Bash doesn’t remember a thing. I got up early this morning after my restless slumber and caught Pang training which was a sight to see. He was making arcing motions with his sword through the air and leaving crescent moon shapes in the sand with his feet as he swept along. It was slow and exaggerated, graceful even; an unusual sight for someone of his size. Especially since the only type of swing I’ve seen him exhibit is more of a repetitive bludgeoning. He told me it was how a friend of his used to fight and it was very effective. I got the impression this friend isn’t around anymore and had only passed away recently. He continued to tell me about his other friends and how they would’ve made a far better teacher than him, especially a fiery women name Maissa. Apparently she wouldn’t have put up with anywhere near as much trouble as he has and one day with her would’ve had them begging him to come back. He also joked it’s lucky for the bandits that Raouf wasn’t here or they might have lost a few digits before they were allowed to die. I only realise now that I haven’t seen him genuinely smile before and it’s actually quite an odd look. Usually his smiles are a terrifying ordeal, generally foretelling some future hell I’m going to have to run through, but not this time. This time his whole face was smiling. A brotherly smile with a laugh that puts warmth in your belly.  There was a long silence after this and I was about to go and do my rounds and leave him in peace, when he turned to me and told me not to worry about my freezing up. I was surprised he even noticed but he didn't even  seem angry at all. He even told me that it happened to him the first time he was in a real fight too. Only, instead of having someone to back him up, he was simply smacked on the back of the head with a maul and spent the rest of the fight, and the subsequent 36 hours, unconscious.

My insight into Pang’s life did not last much longer than this  as, even with our new feeling of closeness brought on by the recent battle, he seems to be a dragonborn of few words He spent the rest of the day wandering between the men, checking the camels and checking up on Bash. He seemed happier than usual, maybe because of the recent fight or maybe because of our talk, but he’s still not been himself since we left Shushan. I just thought it was because of looming threat of betrayal but I see now that that runs straight off of him. What he really wants is to be back with his friends. I wonder what else I've been wrong about.

10^th Arum-mah – Bash has been up and about the past few days. He still has an angry red mark on his chest but he wears it with pride. He boasts of the 3 men he killed while the bolt stuck out of his chest. Even Pang smiled along with him. The mood is a happy one as our march breaks into the muddy hill lands that lead to Behoustan and even the rain cannot dampen our spirits. We still cannot change our talk from reminiscing about our routing of the bandits. Since we’ve had no food related issues, Pang has increased our ration sizes and everyone has gone to sleep each night with full bellies and smiles on their faces.

12^th Arum-mah –  Probably my final entry as it hurts to write. It came from nowhere, the creature. The wagon holding Mihnaz and her goods lost a wheel and Pang gathered us around to defend it. He was on edge and the weather wasn’t helping. He kept scanning the hills looking for an ambush. The clouds were black, the thunder was booming, and the rain was hammering down. I don’t know who was hit first. There was just the most horrific screaming from my left, my right and behind me, all at once. Before I could even turn around a giant... wing...or claw slammed into me and knocked the wind from chest, throwing me to the ground. I landed in a heap hard on my back and slid through the mud. The screaming had stopped almost as soon as it started. I scooped the mud out of my eyes only to see Youcef lying next to me. Well, half of him at least. He had that thousand yard stare I’ve heard the men talk about and there was no life in his eyes. He’d died entirely unaware that he’d been separated from his lower half. He hadn’t even made a sound. There was chaos around me now and I could hear Pang. Not bellowing this time, just talking, to himself I think or more likely the creature. I watched him bang his sword and shield together to taunt the creature and then deftly duck under the next talon strike. Unfortunately Sami was on his right and he wasn’t so quick. He was shorn in half just like Youcef. I couldn’t see the creature at first, but it turned out to be a huge dragon. When I eventually managed to roll over a little, it was just in time to see bash’s sword slide down its massive green scales, a look of puzzlement on both bash’s and the dragon’s faces, and then a flash of white lightning. I reflexively turned away from the light, heard Bash’s death cry and felt a stab of pain shoot up my back. I could smell burnt flesh. I was paralyzed on my side now; half my face caked with blood and mud and agonizing pain lancing up my spine. The last thing I remember seeing was Pang standing directly between Mihnaz and the massive green dragon, shield raised and body loose like he was waiting to pounce. Only, the pounce never came. Just before I passed out I heard Pang’s battle cry, saw the flood of acid fly from the creature’s mouth, and engulf the area they were standing in within a 20 yard radius. I wish I could say I saw a defiant Pang flip 20 yards to the side, but I didn’t. Instead, I slumped into unconsciousness.

As I sit here with my broken back resting against what will serve as my grave, I cannot stop thinking about that moment permanently seared into my memory: the steely determination in Mihnaz’s eyes as she realised her fate and whispers whatever inspiring last words she can think of into Pang’s ear. Pang’s unfaltering shield arm raised more to cover Mihnaz than himself despite how futile it is to attempt to block the dragon’s attack. And his eyes. The same steely determination as Mihnaz, but there was something else there. Something not final. While he seems ready to give his life, it’s not what he expected. This is not where he expected to die and we are not the people he expected to die with; wanted to die with. And just before the end, as death was about to wash over him, his gaze dropped, his eyes betrayed him, and I saw something I never thought I’d see. Fear.