The sun beat down relentlessly on the boy’s back. Several whippings had left his shirt little more than rags which did little to protect him from slowly burning up, the slow throbbing warmth of sunburn providing an aching counterpart to the sharp sting of the cracked wounds left by the slaver’s whip. Life as a slave had been unpleasant ever since his village had been raided a month ago, the fighters slaughtered and the terrified survivors added to the train of captured women and children, reduced to little more than another form of valuable to be hoarded.

The last few days had been living hell. Before that, some effort had gone into keeping the slaves alive, making sure that they were fed and watered, and occasionally giving the slowest ones a short break by tossing them on the camels like lumpy bags of grain. Now they employed the whip constantly, urging the captives to greater and greater speeds. Those who couldn’t keep up, either from exhaustion, age, or sickness were cut loose and left to die. Kairen had never ventured into The Shifting Sands before this, but some older slaves had and word slowly passed up and down the chain lines. A sand storm was brewing. Worse, the sheer number of captives was straining the Navigator’s ability to find a way out of the Sands, forcing the slaver captain into doing some brutal calculus.

The boy and every other slave knew that sheer greed was the only thing keeping them alive. The instant the slavers lost hope in making it out with their loot, the slaves lives were forfeit. The whip was employed as a matter of course, but it was hardly needed. Everyone knew just what was on the line, and the hourglass was running out.

A commotion up at the front of the caravan caused a slight slowdown as everyone did their best to angle themselves so they could see what was happening. In a brutal manner, the slavers were cutting their losses. Unable to guarantee their arrival at a city with all their captives, they were doing what they could to make it there with most of them, the ones that would bring in the most profit while still giving them the best odds of survival. Those they had deemed dead weight were given a horrible fate. Armed with a wicked axe, the captain didn’t take the time to fumble around with keys to the sets of manacles. One swipe cut them free of the line, leaving their hands locked in place, while a second cut crippled them.

It was a sadistic decision by those who placed no value on the lives of others. With no hands and injured legs the odds of making it to safety once left behind were nigh impossible. However, being left alive gave the caravan a slim chance of the brewing storm changing focus. Down the lines the butchers went, completely ignoring the pleading wails as they culled the weakest and oldest.

The mood among the surviving captives was much grimmer after that. To be caught up in the sandstorm was a horrible fate, where death was a certainty and it was only a question whether the sand would flay or suffocate someone to death first. Compared to that, an uncertain future as a slave was vastly preferable. Every act of coldblooded murder slowly tipped those scales, as their willingness to aid their captors plummeted. Slowly but surely the caravan’s speed dropped.

Twice more the slave captain went down the lines, wielding his executioner’s axe. Neither measure seemed sufficient however, and a stammering Navigator could be seen having a quiet conversation with the leader. No one could hear what passed between the two, but it wasn’t hard to guess if the leader was happy or not when he hewed the Navigator’s hand off. The slave captain looked like he wanted to do far worse, but actually killing the Navigator would leave everyone stranded in The Shifting Sands. Instead he turned his rage towards the prisoners, in what would be the most thorough culling yet. The boy had been lucky the previous times, but this time his luck ran out.

Perhaps he still had a spark of defiance in his eyes. Perhaps his father had achieved a small degree of success fighting off the slavers before being overrun. Perhaps he was simply too far down the line and the leader needed to remove more people. Whatever the cause, the boy was soon left writhing on the ground, missing his hands and with his left leg hamstrung. Blinking tears out of his eyes he watched as the slavers slowly vanished into the heat haze of the distance, leaving him and his unlucky companions to their fate.

A few had already perished, their weakened condition unable to endure the wounds inflicted. Most simply lay where they fell, crying in pain and fear. Those who still had a measure of strength had taken towards crawling towards other people, seeking a measure of comfort from physical contact in their last moments. Already the boy could feel the beginning of the sandstorm, as the wind carried stray pieces of sand to lightly pepper his face and arms. He knew his end was here, but he had too much energy and fear to simply wait for death to take him. Using his elbow, he slowly levered himself upright. Lightheaded from blood loss, he tucked his stumps of arms into his armpits to try and stop the bleeding while he limped forwards. He could barely see through the haze of pain, and rings of blackness threatened to swallow his vision with every step he took, but he kept moving forwards. The storm arrived with a vengeance, the wind knocking him down with ease and the thick sheets of sand blinding the rest of his vision. With eyes clutched against the storm, the boy began to crawl forwards, unwilling to stop moving even if all he was doing was crawling in circles.

Eventually he collapsed, too tired to go any further. Half suffocated with sand, half dead from blood loss, and with his skin little more than a rough patch of red, the boy tried to take one more breath before failing, his eyes staring blindly forwards as darkness took him.