There was little rain that year and severe drought continued for days.
Wars between nations have been going on for years. In this world, water has become the most important resource and wealth. Powerful nations raise armies and pump out deep, cold underground rivers for their own people to drink. Weak tribes are like duckweed drifting in the wind, following the rare oases and rain in the desert. If the water source is exhausted or they are attacked, a tribe will quickly disappear in the vast sea of sand.
This oasis is very large. It has a small lake as flat as a mirror, with aquatic plants and precious trees growing by the lake. Naturally, it is like a rare pearl in the desert, attracting four different tribes.
They silently divided the oasis, each huddled in their own territory, and tried their best to absorb the nutrients here. They knew in their hearts that such a good opportunity might not come once in a hundred years.
They were right.
An oasis in the sea of sand is like fat meat in the mouth of an animal. One evening, a child from a tribe told his mother that he saw a man riding a black horse in the direction of sunset. The man seemed to look at him, turned around and reined in his horse and left.
That night, a group of black cavalry rushed in.
There was no negotiation, let alone forgiveness. The oasis was fat meat, and these tribes were fleas parasitic on the fat meat. The riders shouted and laughed wildly, cutting through the sky. They raised their knives and chopped, and heads fell one after another. Some people were so scared that they crawled on all fours and were spared by the butcher's knife. It was dark, and the torchlight could not illuminate clearly, so the riders mistook him for a lone animal.
The sticky sound of flesh being torn apart and screams were heard continuously, and the sound of horses' hooves was like thunder. When the disaster was imminent, no one from the four tribes dared to fight against the black riders, and they just fled in all directions. When one person fell under the rider's knife, he desperately begged for mercy and gave out the whereabouts of another person; when a family was surrounded and killed, even if they did not speak the same language, they would point to the tent where the other family was hiding, trying to gain an opportunity to show their loyalty.
A dozen black riders just laughed loudly. All were equal under the butcher's knife. The four tribes had no less than 500 people in total. They first slaughtered all the young and strong men. The blades were already blunt, and even the patterns on the handles were filled with human bone residue and fat.
Stand still!
They shouted threats to the remaining women, old and young, and gestured to them not to move. Then, leaving their horses behind, they took out their whetstones and ran to the lake to wash and sharpen their knives without even turning back.
"Don't you want anyone to watch?" asked one of the riders. He was so excited about killing that his chest was still heaving. When he spoke, his mouth was full of white steam from excitement.
"Don't let people watch them!" Another one answered him, "They are not people, they are all sheep! They are more obedient than sheep, and more humble than sheep!"
When the riders had sharpened their blades and returned to their original positions, under the light of the torches, all they could hear was the snorting of their horses and the sound of them eating the blood-stained grass.
What the rider said was absolutely right. The survivors of the four tribes were still standing there motionless. There was no life in their eyes, only fear and numbness that penetrated deep into their bones.
The black rider gave an amused chuckle and raised his hand, raising his blade—