FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

_ Chapter 4 _

egyptian desert 1554 B.C.

Tigersight awoke several days later, excruciating pain tore through every single muscle. Each moment and every breathe causing him agony of the worse kind, un-able to tell his surroundings, Tigersight barely caught a glimpse of a man's foot out of the corner of his eye. His vision was bleary from the pain.

Tigersight heard a single voice, "Hey Boss; I think this guy is awake..."

The Second voice Tigersight heard more cruel and unforgiving "Then knock him back out you idiot!

Tigersight assumed it was the man who spoke first that hit him, and it wasn't that painful blow to the head that, eliminated his consciousness, no it took a little bit of time for all thoughts to slip form his mind. Minutes or seconds, Tigersight had no comprehension of how long he was still able to complete half thoughts, but it wasn't long before he became so dizzy he had no thoughts, and he slipped out of reality...

Tigersight wasn't sure of how many times this same moment repeated, nor could he tell if it was a recurring dream that he had as he slept... he began wishing his life was a dream and he would wake back up with no memory, of that horrible night; it would be just another day, he would go to train with master Edgeclaw. "Edgeclaw" Tigersight thought, the pain that began from thinking his name was worse than any pain he could feel physically. This was a mental pain; knowing that Edgeclaw a man he had known for most of his life and respected, as if he was a brother. Dead.

Tigersight Awoke, this time he was awoken violently. His muscles still ached but the pain wasn't nearly as bad as it had been in the beginning. Still the thought of Edgeclaw and of his tribesmen burned in his soul... a pain that would never go away. Nobody was left; He was the only one that had survived.

"Hey, we're almost to the town, so get a good look around... you'll never leave this place again!" said a man with a scraggly brown beard that was no more than a centimeter long, wearing a tunic and brown sandal like shoes he had a whip at his side attached to a bronze colored belt. With a Quick look around he realized everybody besides him was dressed in the exact same outfit, there were no women either... His thoughts were interrupted by another man's voice; it was more of a yell that actual speech and although it wasn't really directed at anybody, Tigersight could tell it was for his benefit only.

"Welcome to Epharis, Egypt, Next stop the Palace of the Great Pharaoh Timealious the Seventh." Just as the man finished speaking the caravan hit a rock in the road, which made the whole caravan jump. It was the landing that caused Tigersight's thoughts to return to the pain that he felt through most of the journey. However this was shockingly less pain than he had felt before entering the city, but still a large amount at any rate.

Tigersight couldn't help but look around at his new surroundings. Everywhere there were red clay buildings of every size, and people most of them were wearing a tunic outfit, but not to many of them looked like the men in the caravan with him, most of the men were wearing tunics that had no top, and some of the women had some that didn't even cover there stomach's.

Just then Tigersight's attention was pulled away from the strange people and the city's look when the caravan stopped suddenly. The man that had awoken him earlier grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the caravan. The second Tigersight was no longer in the shade of the animal hide top, he realized two things. Number one the sun was beating down on his skin, and number two it was hot. The unbearable kind of hot, which made you think, that you were on fire. He also noticed it was dry and without any moisture, he couldn't even form spit in his mouth it was so hot.

"Come here you," A stronger man took his other arm and close to dragged Tigersight to his knee's "Listen up, you're a slave now that means the pharaoh owns your very breath... you will show the utmost respect to everybody in his palace or I get to use this whip on you. Get It!" The man pulled Tigersight to his feet. "We'll be walking from this point on."

Tigersight Follow after the man, not out of obedience or out of fear, simply out of curiosity as to what a palace was. The man led him through a bunch of different streets. It seemed as if all the buildings got nicer the farther they walked. Eventually the came up to a very large wall; taller than most of the trees back at his home, even before most of it had burned to the ground.

The man he had been following signaled to the two men standing at either side of the door. They both walked over to where he and Tigersight were standing.

"We're headed to see Pharaoh." The man he was following said.

"Tinasious, You're getting soft, normally you would have taught this guy a lesson, before making it this far."

"Ha! If anything can be said about me, it's defiantly not soft, I thought I would share his punishment with you two, considering you're stuck at the gate all day."

"Well, that's so nice of you!"

"Don't press your luck!" the man Tigersight had been following took his whip off of his belt and pointed at both of the other men.

Tigersight was not prepared for the next moment as the whip hit his back causing a strip of pain that was singular but strong enough for him to fall to his knees, he had still been in pain from before, and now he had been reminded of that pain. It only took two more slashes from the whip for Tigersight to cry out in pain, each one after that was torture. And yet the man called "Tinasious" didn't stop whipping him.

Tinasious continued to crack the whip against Tigersight's skin each time leaving a more gruesome image than the last, until blood began to trickle out of each wound. This lasted for several minutes until Tigersight began to curl into a ball, and even after the man stopped the pain wretched its way through Tigersight's body. Then through the pain, he slowly realized that the other two men who had been standing at the gate were laughing. This thought quickly ended Tigersight's pain, and he was able to stand up as if he had never even been touched. No shaking, no sign that he had been attacked, or had even felt the pain at all. Nothing.

"Look, I've been a guard, to the Pharaoh for almost twenty years. Don't you even think about crossing me, and don't you even think about running away. I'd know that look even if it was ten miles away behind a rock the size of the palace in the dark." Tinasious glared at Tigersight. Tigersight nodded.

As soon as the man had conformation that Tigersight understood his, he slapped him on the back, and told the two other "guards" to open the gate and Tinasious personally walked Tigersight to the palace.

When Tigersight had entered the gate, he became speechless, never had he seen such a large building, nor one that was grander... made completely of a smooth white stone, the whole building screamed elegance. The area surrounding the building was like an entirely different world compared to the part of the city he had just walked through, Tigersight could barely believe he was standing not even a hundred feet from, all of the falling destroyed buildings. All of the houses or public buildings were grand all in its own right, and every single one stood as a work of art each one of the nicest quality, with exotic plants and golden trinkets found at least once on every surface, the detail that had been taken to make them, seemed amazing. Everything about this place made anybody, who was not accustom to it, feel insignificant and unworthy of being anywhere near it.

"What is that big building over there for?" Tigersight asked before he could stop himself.

Tinasious looked at him, and raised an eyebrow, "That is the Palace, the Pharaoh lives there." Tinasious said this as if Tigersight should have already known.

All around the immaculate center building, no not a building but a palace; was a smaller wall, which looked like it was meant for looks only, not like the other one he had already walked through that seemed to want to keep any casual eye from looking at it, let alone stray away from what they were actually doing. Suddenly Tinasious grabbed Tigersight's arm and pulled him in a different direction then walking straight for the palace.

"Wait a minute I thought we were going to that palace thing?"

"First off never order me to do anything, I own you as much as the pharaoh does, if not more because I hold this whip and the pharaoh doesn't babysit me all day. So I can do whatever I want, regardless of what Pharaoh says. Secondly, that's the back of the palace, there is no entrance on that side of it unless you'd rather me plow you into the wall until you're as flat as the desert beetle on the bottom of my shoe.

On the other side of that large wall had been shacks, and huts that were barely standing. On this side, a shocking difference of who and how the people were treated. It was obvious the people he met here, would think anybody from outside of the wall; was not even worth more than the dirt they had paved over when they separated the city.

This thought disgusted Tigersight, and then it slowly dawned on him. The people inside this wall looked all the same color as the man he was following. The people inside this wall were from this place, this city; everybody on the outside was like him. Without a home, they had been taken from their homes the same way he had. Their people had also become extinct so that the people inside this wall could have the good life. What was worse, he was being lead to the most selfish of all of them; The Pharaoh.

"What kind of place is this?" Tigersight whispered mostly to himself. This remark however had not missed Tinasious's ears.

"These are the Inner Gates, the Palace being at the center. Each person living in the

Inner gates, should be considered essentially royalty, except their not, Pharaoh is the only royalty."

"So which is it are they royalty or not?"

"Treat them as if they are. They mean more than you. If one of them dies, consider it as if twenty of you died." Tinasious finished, and began ignoring Tigersight again.

Tigersight continued walking; he began to notice the closer they got to the palace, the more he saw the people from what he guessed was called the outer gates, doing some of the most minuscule tasks, such as bringing the fancier looking people water, or reading them a document they easily could have read themselves. Tigersight even saw a man sitting in a chair ordering three people in rags, to move so he had better shade from the blazing sun.

All at once Tigersight's gaze fell on a girl about the same height as him, with fair skin, not too much lighter than his own, deep tan skin. She had beautiful, jet black hair that flowed elegantly down her back just barely above the curve of her knees. She had a sweet smile that gave her face a happy glow and a look of humor in her eyes. Tigersight stopped in his tracks and looked over at the girl. She was carrying what looked like a heavy, but fantastic looking vase that looked like it was made out of the same stuff that surrounded a square lake she was walking near.

She glanced backward at Tigersight but kept on walking forward; she suddenly stumbled over a rock in the path and dropped the vase. The vase shattered into four large pieces and several small fragments, the girl jumped back a few steps away from the porcelain that was all over the ground near her feet. Two guards from nearby ran over to her side, at first Tigersight's thoughts were that they intended to help her. Soon remembering Tinasious's cruel words; this thought passed through his mind just as a semi-powerful man, ran up behind her and took his whip, and immediately began thrashing at her back.

In Tigersight's mind the noise seemed so loud that it echoed throughout the entire city, and even before Tigersight heard the actual whip hit her skin, he spun around, and jammed the guard, standing just to his left side; nose upward, and Tigersight heard the rewarding sound of a sickening snap, as the cartilage from his nose broke in several pieces. Tigersight then made his way at a quick run across the street and tackled the man that had whipped her. Tigersight then began punching him in his face until he resigned from the fight by letting him body go limp.

Tigersight then stood up a saw that he was surrounded by three people, two of them angry guards, one of them the guard that had his nose broken by Tigersight; the guard had a face that almost screamed "Alright finally some action!"

Tigersight also saw that the girl with the beautiful hair, she was kneeling on the ground right behind him; with tears in her eyes, from the pain that she had recently suffered, but other than those tears her face had a looked of hatred towards the guard that was now just beginning to stand up, his eye already began to show signs of the shiner that Tigersight had given him.

Tigersight knew the pain was coming, long before the whip actually hit him; this time he was prepared for it. The crack of the whip was the only way he actually knew he had been hit. He felt the pain and forced himself to embrace, and to ignore it. Letting only anger fill his mind and well up inside his chest, as it slowly began to cloud his vision. The only thing he could see was the guard that had just hit her. Tigersight attacked him first, punching him in the face again; the man lost his balance but he wouldn't give Tigersight that advantage over him a second time, the man adjusted his weight evenly and turned his stagger into and stronger fighting pose. However Tigersight was not interested in his fancy fighting tricks, and Tigersight then gave the guard a kick in the chest knocking his balance off even further than the first time and used his moment of weakness to his advantage as he rammed the man with the blade of his shoulder at an upward angle which lifted him off the ground, and sent him flying backwards; into a wall of a nearby weapons stall. The man flipped over and his head hit the shelf taking two of them down; and dropping several heavy weight items on top of him.

Tigersight then spun around looking for the other guard, Tigersight ran forward, to meet the adversary. The guard attempted to dodge, but Tigersight punched him hard in the stomach, so the man doubled over; and then Tigersight grabbed this guard by his hair and slammed him into the ground. Just as Tigersight was about to turn around to finish the fight with the last man standing up at this point; a whip wrapped around Tigersight's neck twice, and was used to pull him to the floor. Tigersight struggled to break free, but his rage slowly began to die as the pain from his wounds hit him. The lack of water that was causing his rough breathing didn't exactly help the situation either. Tigersight forced himself to fight on, but it was a losing battle, as his abilities were severally weakened and he couldn't fight back for long.

Tigersight realized that the guard that had gotten the whip around his neck was Tinasious. Tinasious then stole the whip from the guard that Tigersight had thrown into the stall, and Tinasious began whipping every free surface of Tigersight until blood began to pour from his wounds.

Once Tinasious seemed satisfied with beating Tigersight, he grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him to his feet. Tigersight looked for the girl, but soon remembered that she had run off soon after Tigersight had lost control and attacked the guard. When Tinasious saw that Tigersight was looking for her, he gave a small laugh.

"Don't worry about her, she'll get what is coming to her, and more for that little stunt you pulled just now." Tinasious slowly pronounced.

And with that Tinasious grabbed Tigersight by the arm and then took the whip from around Tigersight's neck and used it to bind his arms to his sides and used the second one to bind his feet to keep him from hurting anybody else and lead him forward to the palace.

Tigersight was mostly drug the rest of the way through the town, walking whenever he regained some of his strength. At several intervals the two guards that were now following them, would whip Tigersight for no real reason other than that they despised him, not only for attacking them but also for not bowing to them like everybody else in town.

"Just before they got to the palace gates. Tigersight heard Tinasious chuckle.

"Man, I cannot wait to see what pharaoh is going to do to you for that stunt you pulled. I haven't seen anybody mess up that bad since Marvurice..." Tinasious then put on a straight face as he walked up to the front gate. And lead Tigersight inside.

Tigersight soon found himself staring at the grandest building he had ever seen let alone heard of.