The Cinders of Dezu

22nd: The Fuja (3)

Julian was in the air doing his best to hover around the area where he'd come from. He'd seen the tree fall below him as he escaped into the sky. He kept debating if it was a good idea to go back or if he should save himself for now and regroup. The image of the fearsome face that had woken him out of sleep was still seared in his mind. He could still see it like an after image when he closed his eyes tight. What was it? Those sharp teeth were the stuff of nightmares. And the head was so big! Had it eaten Cairo? Was he a bad friend? It had all happened so fast!

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something. Something approaching in the sky toward him. He turned to see an image that was complicated to parcel out at the speed it was coming at it him. He started to fall backwards still facing it. Was it a blue horse? With something on its back... smoke streaming through the air... and hair flying in the wind. It was a girl behind something else. Something very large and furry riding the glowing horse. It was Talia! She was waving!

His momentum slowed and he allowed the strange ensemble of disparate elements to approach. As it got closer he could make out the look of the rider. It looked like a much smaller version of what had woken him up. Smaller than ginormous, anyway. It was spinning something over its head. A rope. He was too focused on that to see Talia's reaction as the strange rider sent the thing hurling towards him.

Julian spun around to fly away. This didn't seem right! But it was too late. The rope wrapped around him with heavy weights at either end. His arms strapped to his sides, tight! The weighted balls whirled around him and he felt himself begin to fall, obeying the laws of normal gravity.

A clawed hand wrenched him up by the bola tied around him. He looked up to see the strange, furry, armor-clad warrior, smiling. The bispin snarled at him. Talia looked into his bewildered face only for a moment. Then she looked away. Through her wind swept hair, Julian had seen shame in her eyes.

The bispin trotted gracefully to the ground in front of Cairo. Though it hadn't been long, he had been terrified, having been left alone with the two large Fuja just staring at him the whole time. The smaller more talkative one hadn't even said anything. He just glared and slowly turned his head from side to side, like he was inspecting him. Julian was dropped to the floor in ropes on the other side of the bispin so Cairo only saw him once he'd hit the ground.

"Jules!" he said.

Talia slid off the back of the bispin without a word. Julian scowled at her with his cheek in the dirt. Then he shot a glance at Cairo as he struggled with his bonds. Cairo stepped forward to help him when he felt something grip his arm from behind. He only partially turned around before he felt the sensation of something clamp around his neck with a rattle.

"No!" spoke the voice of the general, "Non-lethal capture only. We cannot kill them by mistake."

Cairo was whipped around by the arm to face a large Fuja, about a foot taller than him. The creature put both his hands around his neck and unlatched the strange rattling collar. Cairo got to see it as it was lifted from him and saw the strange dagger like teeth it had. It was put away and in a brief moment, the Fuja produced a second round collar, this one a bit smaller than the one that went around his neck. It looked like a tambourine without a drumhead,  but instead of brass jingles it had sharpened stones fixed to the inside. The Fuja parted it and knelt down. The cuff snapped to his ankle with another rattle.

Cairo looked down at it. It hurt! Or was at least very uncomfortable. The points were sharp and all pressed into his tendons just above his ankle in a tight circle. But they weren't quite sharp enough to break through his skin.

He looked up just in time to see more Fuja coming seemingly from nowhere, snapping both Talia and Julian with braces in the same place. Julian was being lifted from the ground as they did. After it was done they unraveled him from the bola and he just stood there looking at it and then looking around. Dai spoke again.

"You, Vincarsee, are prisoners of The Daybreak Army. Your bounty has been set by King Orion of Dezu. You will be escorted to the king for final judgement."

A Fuja approached with black, chained cuffs and strapped them to Cairo. They did the same to the other two as Cairo spoke up.

"What are the crimes? What did we do?!"

Cosh laughed. Dai looked to Cairo.

"You have been charged with the willful endangerment of the people of the Dezu. For this crime you shall be brought in."

"The Nom people, specifically," said Cosh.

Dai looked over at him with irritation.

"But how? Why? When did we do that?!" said Cairo.

Cosh smirked and raised an eyebrow.

"He's an idiot," he said to Dai and then to Cairo, "You're an idiot. Your crime is that you simply exist."

Cairo felt himself being lifted up and thrown backwards. His back hit flat metal bars with a thud as he landed on wooden slats making up the floor of a cage. Before he knew what was happening the barred door was being latched in front of him. Two more thuds and Cairo looked to his left and right to see two other cages. In one slumped Talia and in the other Julian grunted on impact and grabbed hold of his spike cuffed ankle.

"Aah! Geez!"

Cosh approached the metal bars and Cairo finally got a real sense of his size! He loomed over the cage before he knelt down with his hand on the cage door.

"I usually don't like to tell Vincarsee this last bit, just in case they want to fight back first and find out for themselves," he said, "but those are Kline stone cuffs. Do you know what Kline stone is?"