The destination turned out to be in a middle of a desert. Not the desert Lee was familiar with – there were no yellow sand dunes and no scorching sun. This one was a never ending field of gray nothingness.
When the wagon stopped, before getting out, Lee looked around, but as far as he could see there was not even a cliff in sight. The depressing gray-colored flat ground stretched in the distance in all directions, and the only thing that disturbed the scene was three to four feet tall stone wall.
It clearly wasn't meant to prevent the young captives from escaping, but its existence also didn't make sense because it didn't encompass a particular territory, but went in a straight line from one side of the horizon to the other.
"Yes!"
"Thank you!"
"Finally!"
Lee's attention was drawn by the sudden cheers. The children who got off the wagon first were currently receiving some kind of bags that looked like waterskins. They were given out by two locals who had their bold heads and faces partially covered in bright scales.
If the kids saw them right after the arrival, everyone would be terrified, but the long awaited opportunity to finally have a drink trumped everything. Only now Lee realized that the last drop of water he had was back in the farm in Sunwell's outskirts, and suddenly felt dried up.
After jumping off the wagon, he also got one such bag.
Judging from the weight it felt like it could hold a bit more than a gallon of water, maybe one and a half. And it had a strap that allowed it to be carried on a shoulder. He was about to open it and drink, when the kids who sampled the contents one after another began to collectively vomit.
The two local men, snickered at the view, but didn't seem to be surprised. One of them said something to the children, but obviously no one could understand a thing. His voice was kind, though, and so was the expression.
He motioned with one hand as if trying to stop, or maybe slow the kids down, and then imitated drinking from the bag, showing that they had to drink only a bit at the time, then chew and then drink again. At least that was what Lee guessed.
One of the four guys who pushed the wagon interrupted the lesson. He exchanged few sentences with the two men, they gave him a heavy looking sack, and after the man checked the contents, the four left, pushing their empty wagon away. Apparently this was the final destination.
Lee counted around fifty kids and already wondered what they were supposed to do here, when the two scaled guys beckoned for the children to follow and walked away. No one wanted to be in this world, but they wanted to be left alone in the middle of nowhere even less, thus everyone went after the two.
They didn't walk further than a mile and arrived at something like a camp site. Only after coming up closer Lee noticed several huts that were of the same gray color as everything around here. From what it looked like this was supposed to be his new home, at least for the time being.
While the huts were clearly spacious, the roofs were low and even Lee was too tall to walk straight through the openings that functioned as doors. And those were the only source of light – there were no windows, not even small ones.
At the same time it meant it was as chilly inside as outside, and because there was no wind, technically there was no real reason to use the huts – whether one was sleeping outside or inside probably didn't matter.
Two more men, but these didn't have any scales, only reddish faces with unnaturally large eyes, lazily sat and chatted, and when the group arrived, together with their colleagues divided the kids in two groups. Each group was assigned one of the huts, with the exception of Lee – he was ordered to wait.
Of course, he wasn't particularly happy with the special treatment, but already guessed there might be something like this since he was clearly much older compared to the others.
The children went inside the huts and none came out. Lee could hear some whispering and sobbing, but it seemed they were fine, maybe only cold. He, on the other hand, sat outside and observed the four locals.
The guys were clearly waiting for something while conversing in hushed voices and sipping from similar bags they gave the children earlier, except bigger ones.
Lee was both hungry and thirsty, so he sampled the contents and it turned out to to be some kind of a porridge or a stew. It did have a foul smell, like made of something rotten, but at the same time was almost tasteless.
Similar to the others, he felt nauseated, bet decided to sit down and test if meditation could help against it. If he wanted to survive here, he had to find a way to live with the local cuisine, if one could describe the revolting substance as such.
Lee didn't notice that the four men occasionally glanced his way and had no clue they already placed bets, trying to guess how many mouthfuls could he endure before throwing up. But he did his best to disappoint them until he was actually full.
He was still thirsty, though.
At that moment Lee realized that from the moment they arrived he hadn't seen any kind of open water – no rivers nor lakes. There haven't even been water puddles anywhere, and no buckets or barrels holding water.
'This is bad!' Lee said to himself, trying to not think of the hygiene problems that will inevitably arise if there was a lack of water in this world.
"Lunax! Lunax!" The four men all of the sudden became agitated and shouted something in their language.
Lee curiously observed them, but was caught unprepared when from three other huts over a hundred children rushed out. Most of them were around his age, or at least of similar height. They looked incredibly skinny, though, and while there were once again several different races present, Lee was positive most of the kids were girls.
Lee's previous group also got ordered to come out, and following instructions, everyone dropped to their knees, including the guards. They began to kowtow in one direction, touching the ground with their foreheads over and over while chanting something.
The word Lunax was the one used most often, and Lee guessed it was probably the deity they were worshiping.
And the next moment he noticed what exactly was the object of worship – slightly above the horizon, in the direction everyone was kowtowing, a dark red moon had just risen. It looked way bigger than the sun that was currently far to the right, and gave a surreal, even ominous feeling.
***
'Damn it! I hate him!' Victoria hissed to herself, seeing Edward daring to take off his helmet.
It turned out the way he predicted – nothing bad happened. By now she long realized she should've listened to her so called fiancewhen they were hiding in the suburbs of Sunwell.
'Let's stay here for now, your highness!'
'Princess, most likely you're The Empress now!'
'You'll have to take care of your people after the purple portal disappears!'
Bastard! At the time she thought the pussy was scared, and looking for the glory that overshadowed her father's achievements, she rushed in the portal, intending to create an ambush, fight dozens of scourge and close it for good.
As it turned out, Edward was right. The idea was stupid. Of course, he didn't use those exact words. He simply didn't dare.
Maybe the world they arrived to was the Netherworld, but it didn't matter anymore. Not only the scourge closed the portal. There were so many of them that for the first time in her life Victoria was terrified. And when on the streets of the dark city she saw their faces, she was forced to realize all of them were monsters.
For some reason Edward wasn't scared, or maybe – pretended to not be. He took off the helmet as if testing something and no passerby payed attention to him. He motioned to their group to not say anything and pulled them over to a remote corner to discuss something when that happened.
Large, red moon rose above the horizon, and at the sight everyone in the city, all of the scourge, dropped to their knees and began to kowtow facing it. They chanted something that sounded like Lunax! over and over, and Edward rushed their group to follow their suit.
Never in her life Victoria had been so humiliated.
She wouldn't kneel in front of her father, the strongest man in the existence, to not speak of some object in the sky, no matter how surreal it looked. But her fiance was right, they had to keep up the pretense.
Somehow they had to find a way to survive in this damned place … and get water. They urgently needed to find something to drink.