**********

 

3. Slave's Path

 

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(Early Summer, 1176)

 

`How could he...?' thought Abana ibn Tawab. `How could he...? How could he do this?'

He shivered from cold and fear as his mind raced through events trying to explain away what happened but no matter how many times, his recollections always came back to the truth – his own father sold him. He knew Tawab did not care for him, that he always desired a stronger son to bear his name... but to think that his father hated him this much? `Why?' Because he was not strong? Could he not become strong one day? `Why did you do this?' Because he was softly voiced and preferred cooking and cleaning to the idles of goat-herding? Had he not always found time for both? `Why did you do this to me, father? Why? Why? Why?'

What was it he said?

`I will not apologize, but... try to understand I am not doing this because I want to.'

How could Abana ever understand that?

The boy sobbed and felt for all the world like being sucked into whatever abysmal chasm begat the ghouls. Tears gushed from his eyes until they burnt. He heaved and sobbed and cried until the stink of urine enflamed his nostrils. He looked down and saw a puddle of his own making spread out from beneath his tunic and sandals.

"Filthy boy!" It was another slave that said it from across the floor – a Kushwari man some good years older than him. "Control yourself! Stop crying!"

Abana, eyes enflamed, bit his lip. Why had the gods seen fit to lay him so low? What had he done in this life that was so ignoble that he deserved a fate such as this? Was he not highborn? Was he not the grandson of a paladin? Was he not-

The boy's mind raced until he heard something tear to his left. It was too dark in that dwelling to see much but, in the shadows, he saw a dark-skinned woman (a denizen of the distant southern lands of Jafara) shred a piece of her own skirt and turn to him with a small but resolute smile. Her chains rattled as she placed the torn cloth into his hands and pointed at the puddle beneath him.

"Do... not do," said the woman in a broken Tehraqi tongue. "Slavers beat you. Do more? Beat us. Do not do. Be strong. Strong."

Strength was the one thing Abana always lacked. He was not strong like Tawab or his grandbaba Fouzan. He had no stomach for butchery or swordsmanship or violence. What even was strength in a dung hole such as this? What was strength if it could be claimed by someone as frail as him?

But the Jafari woman's broad smile was relentless as she continued to point at the puddle. Go on, as if to say. Be strong. From the look of her she had been in captivity for months – but somewhere inside there was still heart enough for a smile and a helping hand. Was that strength? If it was... maybe it started small. Maybe the best thing Abana could do... was to take the cloth, dry his tears, wipe up his mess, stuff the soaked rag into a gap between the flagstones and take a deep breath.

The woman nodded. "Good."

They were kept in the darkness like that for many hours. He heard many voices in the background, male and female, all crying or whispering or cursing, but it was too dark to put faces to them. The air was rancid and rife with the scents of blood and sweat and excrement. The cold was bad, but the lack of water was far worse, so much so that there was a judder of relief amongst the slaves as they overheard the door's iron bolt slide out of its latch and swing open.

Abana winced at the sudden burst of light but willed himself to look as a Tehraqi man walked into the dungeon with a flaming torch in hand. He bore a tall frame packed with well-honed muscle beneath a tunic and a fur-trimmed half-cloak pinned by a ram's head broach – the heraldic symbol of the al-Shapur merchant tribe. His head was bald shaven and tattooed with ancient sigils Abana could not decipher and a bloodstained whip dangled from a node upon his belt. Cruelty radiated from him like an aura. Behind this man followed five or six of his henchmen, each one carrying water gourds and sacks full of chopped bread. The slaves scrambled in their chains to draw close as they were roughly fed and watered by their captors.

"I am Hakkan," said the torchbearer. "And you? It does not matter who you think you are... what matters is knowing what you are. You are property. You are cattle. You are pigs. You are meat. You are both the bread your masters will eat and the hand that will serve it. You will belong to whomever I decide to sell you to and until such time... you belong to me."

It was Abana's turn to be fed. One of Hakkan's men took him by the jaw (as if to yank open his mouth and force the water down his throat like he did to the other slaves) but stopped when he got a closer look at the boy. His broad gold teeth pulled an appreciative smile – he liked what he saw. What Abana saw in him was an emotion that he did not yet understand but was destined to evoke in many other men in years to come – lust. The gold-toothed man let Abana drink gently, then fed him a hank of bread before moving on to the Jafari woman.

"You will NOT disobey," said Hakkan. "You will NOT run away. If you dare to – I will catch you and I will punish you. Compliance will always be met with a fair hand. Defiance will not. Learn these lessons well..."

Once the bread sacks and water gourds were all empty, two of Hakkan's men uncuffed five male captives and ordered them to stand in a line as a third man snapped iron collars around their necks. Each of the slave collars were yoked to the next one along by an iron chain 2 cubits long. The slavers did this for every five men until it was Abana's turn. One of them yanked him up by his wrist and shoved him in line.

"No," said the gold-toothed man. "Look at him. Such a pretty little chicken. Keep him with the women, he'll fetch a higher price without calloused feet. It is going to be a long march to Qazyr."

 

**********

 

(Late Winter, 1179)

 

The wagon made four more stops around the sandstone tenements of Butcher's Square before all six Kushwari dancers had been collected. Abana of Hafiz sat at the rear of the cabin upon one of the cushioned seats left for them by Governor Ganu's men and surveyed the all too familiar atmosphere amongst them – sombre. All five women were veiled but visibly beautiful in as much as Abana could see. Somewhere in each of their pasts a decerning Tehraqi eye had chosen well – to all their misfortunes. No one knew each other, no one looked anyone else in the eye and the silence was visceral. No sobbing or mournful wails, just cold resignation. As dancers none of them were unfamiliar with the unabashed cattle trade of human flesh... perhaps some had even been primed to make a pilgrimage of their own to Tehraq one day and perform in the harlequin district.

Or so he thought.

As the wagon rolled on Abana widened a tear in the tarp hood to peer outside and spy their location. Out in the distance he spotted the rushing black waters of the Kazara River, speckled with amber flecks of torchlight reflected from the sprawling tenements upon both its muddy banks. The wagon was almost halfway across the bridge when one of the dancers broke.

It was a sob. A powerful one, as though wrenched from the pit of her belly, one that belted out into a scream that jittered the other dancers. The girl smothered her face in her knees as she cried out mournfully, whimpering for her mother and father, begging to be returned home to them.

"Be quiet!" Seethed another dancer. "They will hear you!"

The girl did not listen.

She kept crying and crying until a sudden stench wafted through the air and a yellowy puddle spread out from the now soaked cushion beneath her. Frowning and tutting, the other dancers pulled away from her as Abana felt a twinge of sympathy.

`Strong', he recalled. `Be strong'.

And strength always started small.

Abana took out a large muslin cloth folded up in his sack (originally intended for him to lay out his cosmetics) and ambled over to the dancer's side.

"Little one," he said. "What is your name?"

The dancer's eyes were blood red through the haze of her tears. Abana pitied her. There was no way she was any older than thirteen.

"H-Hima...," she said. "My name is Hima..."

"I know that you are scared, Hima. All of us are. But right now, our lives are not our own. We are at the mercy of the men outside. If you do things like this, they will beat you. Keep on doing it, and they will beat us. Or? We can be strong. We can be strong and bide our time... and one day we will be free. Alright?"

The girl merely looked at him, unable to articulate what she was feeling. It did not matter to him. The other dancers then looked on in disbelief as Abana carefully mopped up the urine around the girl's ankles and replace her befouled cushion with his own. That was when the wagon stopped. Trepidation reverberated amongst the dancers at the sudden sounds of dismount and whickering and shuffling sandals in the pebbly streets. The curtain doors at the rear flapped open and a hulking, spear armed Wahdi (grinning with lust) ordered them out. One by one Abana and the other dancers climbed out of the wagon and formed a line before the towering sandstone walls of Umayyah-khamat, the imperious residence of Governor Ganu.

 

**********

 

(Early Summer, 1176)

 

It began in the mountains. There was no telling how far the dungeon he awoke in was from Hafiz, but it sat in the heart of an old silver mine nestled within the blustery cliffs of the Pushan Mountains, which overlooked the Great Kushwari Valley from the southwest. Hakkan marched the slaves out of the silver mine in chained lines of five or six (with two of his guards assigned to each line). An ancient lift (powered by little more than a wheel, a pulley and some tremendous human effort) ferried them up to the cave's mouth at the surface where the slaver's caravan awaited them.

In sum there were over fifty captives – forty men and fifteen women. Most were ethnically Kushwari, a few were Tehraqi by birth and a handful were of Jafari origins. Those men enchained were walked down the mountain path in single file whilst the women were herded into two of the caravan's five wagons (the other three were for supplies). The caravan and its goods were protected by twenty armed cutthroats bearing whips and sharpened scythe swords. Hakkan's guards dressed lightly for the excursion in half-plate armour, cowhide loincloths and leather strapped sandals. They staved off the mountain cold with heavy cloaks collared by goat's fur. Eight of them were on horseback, including the caravan leader Hakkan and his deputy, the gold-toothed man.

Once the slaves had all been gathered Hakkan sent his procession into motion with a crack of his whip.

Their destination (as the captives would eventually learn) was the slave market of Qazyr, a small but bustling merchant's outpost on the threshold of the wider Tehraqi domain – and it would not to be a short trip. The mountain path alone cut across eight parasangs of sloping, rocky territory besieged with heavy winds channelled through its narrow stone corridors. That morning the winds were particularly harsh as a storm approached the caravan from behind. Within three parasangs of the march that storm had darkened the skies as its black thunderheads caught up to them and hammered the footpaths with torrential rainfall. The guardsmen beat their whips for the slaves to keep pace, but as the constant rain belted the mountains, dislodged silt coursed down its slopes and turned the pathway into sludge. With the horses too frightened by the thunder to proceed, Hakkan ordered the caravan to take shelter in a cliffside cavern.

As it was large enough to bring the horses inside, the slaves were ordered to make camp for the night. They set up the tents and rolled out the pallets, made cook fires to boil water for stew (skinning captured hares and chopping up potatoes and onions). Most of the orders were doled out by a woollen-jawed slaver by the name of One-Eyed Wadja, seasoned caravaner fluent in both the Kushwari and Tehraqi tongues. He wore a necklace of bleached fingerbones broken from the hand of a runaway slave.

The slavers ate first, then the slaves.

As usual they did not feed themselves. As they sat in their chains under close guard a few of the slavers came by with wooden ladles, one for stew and the other for water, to feed them. As usual one of them was the gold-toothed man... and as usual the gold-toothed man came to Abana ibn Tawab with a secretive grin.

The boy was repulsed by him. His golden smile did little to hide the cruelty behind it. His arms and legs were riddled with bulbous scar tissue and his odorous stink was overpowering. He was kind enough to give Abana an extra spoonful of stew (which he did appreciate) but the younger man still disliked him.

"Do you speak Tehraqi?" He asked.

Abana nodded yes.

"My name is Mehmoud," he said. "What is yours?"

The Kushwari boy shuddered to utter it. Calling himself `ibn Tawab' felt like a sorrowful joke. In the High East only the highborns bore patronyms and yet here he was laid even lower than a goatherd. Who or what was he now?

"Flea," he said dourly. "I'm just a flea, lord."

Mehmoud snickered. "I am not a lord. And you are too handsome for a flea. Choose a better name."

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a slave cleaning the iron cooking pot. Next into his bare feet sat a pile of greasy hare bones he had picked from it. The taste of it still lingered in his mouth.

"Rabbit," One who is caught and killed and to be served for the slaughter. "My name is Rabbit."

"A better name indeed. Well, `Rabbit'. Hakkan and I need a cupbearer for our tent. You will do this, no?"

Rabbit nodded. "...Yes. Sir."

 

*

 

His sleep that night was restless and unsatisfying. Nightmares awoke him twice – visions of homes set ablaze and ghouls looming over him in the moonlight. Women's screams. Chains and their foul iron stink. Crying and tears. So much crying, so many tears...

He and the other slaves were roused at first light to break camp. Once the wagons were fully loaded the caravan proceeded down the mountain path. Although its sludge-ridden road remained treacherous, the clouds had broken, and the rain had stopped. Much to Hakkan's pleasure this meant resuming the pace he hoped to set a day earlier. He drove the male slaves on at twice the speed to make up the time lost in the storm and by noon they emerged at the foothills on the southwestern side of the Pushan Mountains. From there, so many hundreds of cubits in the air, Rabbit bore witness to the most breath-taking sight he had ever seen in his young life – the panorama of the true High East unfurling into the horizon beneath a bright crimson sun. Beyond the rocky outcroppings a sea of desert sand lay before him in all its splendour... and within it he spotted the sparse course the caravan was destined to take – a serpentine highway running from village to village, oasis to oasis, outpost to outpost. It was a beautiful sight. But neither he nor any of the other slaves were permitted much time to enjoy it.

The slopes there were dangerously steep and much harder to traverse in the wake of the storm. By One-Eyed Wadja's suggestion Hakkan slowed the caravan's pace until it safely made its way to the sandy flatlands beneath the mountains.

They were no longer in Kushwar.

Rabbit (sitting listlessly amongst the female slaves in the frontmost wagon) gazed back at the mountain peaks as the caravan carried him away. Two things occurred to him then. One? He spent countless nights staring at those very same peaks from the north-eastern side and he had daydreamed many-a-time about the mysterious lands of Tehraq that lurked beyond. For the first time in his life he had crossed those mountains. Two? There was no going back. Though its Ban was deferential to the Tehraqi kings, Kushwar was its own domain with its own language, customs, and histories. He was now a foreign boy on foreign soil under the worst possible circumstances.

Kushwar was home – but no longer his home.

Crossing the mountains had taken most of the day and with nightfall only a short few hours away, the slave caravan reached its first settlement since it departed – an unwalled mountain village called Tangrys, home to the collective estates of a few hundred local farmers and herders. The headman's household flew two flags, the winged lion of the Tehraqi Kings and the bannered spear of the Ban of Kushwar – a gesture to honour both regions – though there was no question it paid financial tribute to Tehraq alone.

The caravan came into Tangrys at dusk. Those few townsfolk still on the streets looked upon the passing slaves with disgust and pity. In his shame Rabbit could not look them in the eye. In his boyhood he too once gaped at a procession of slaves at Hafiz market. He was no better.

Hakkan was friendly with the local headman. He allowed the slaver to make camp within the walls of his estate – his guards erected their tents, his slaves kept in the stables with the livestock. The only exception was Rabbit and the three youngest of the female slaves, who were ordered to attend Hakkan, his two captains Mehmoud and One-Eyed Wadja, and the headman himself in his private dwellings. Rabbit served them wine with an embossed silver ewer as the slavers engorged themselves on a suitably delicious meal of flatbread stuffed with minced beef and carrots.

Mehmoud had his eye on Rabbit the entire night.

"Keep your wits about you," said the Headman to Hakkan. By the tone of his voice they were old friends (or so Rabbit judged). "Have you heard the rumours?"

"What rumours? Enlighten me."

"They say that the king has levied a slave tax on all caravans passing through his desert stronghold of Qasr Ghazna. Twenty silverlings per head."

"Pinching bastard!" spat Mehmoud. "How have the merchant's guild allowed this?"

"I doubt they have any say," speculated One-Eyed Wadja. "I'd bet the moon that Tehraq's coffers were empty after the king's campaign against that Jafari bitch queen – which makes matters harder for us."

Mehmoud frowned. "How so, Wadja? What raises the need for slaves greater than war?"

"You fool," spat Hakkan. "War is the enemy of trade. It disrupts the market and makes buyers nervous. But never mind. We will not caravan in Qasr Ghazna. We will bypass it."

The Headman frowned at the notion. "With largely Kushwari stock?"

"State your meaning," said Mehmoud.

"My meaning is obvious. The Kushwari are a mountain people, pale-skinned and acclimated to the cold. Why do you think those black-skinned Jafaris sell for a higher price at market? Kushwaris are not suited to desert travel, my friends. Bypassing Qasr Ghazna means going without fresh water for at least three days. How many of your slaves will survive that?"

The Headman extended his empty cup for another refill of wine. Rabbit did not notice – not until One-Eyed Wadja growled lowly and cracked his whip.

"Boy!" He spat. "Your better requires refreshment."

Frightened, Rabbit quickly poured the Headman a full cup of wine. Then (rather than wait to be told) the boy refilled Hakkan and Wadja's cups as well. When he bent over to refill Mehmoud's cup, the lusty slaver slipped a hand up the boy's buttocks. Rabbit winced.

"Good boy," he said.

Hakkan frowned at him. "Mehmoud. Keep your hands to yourself before I cut them off. I want these slaves delivered to Qazyr untainted. Understood?"

"Understood," the gold-toothed man grinned. "I was never taught much etiquette, I must admit..."

Rabbit spent the rest of the night serving wine and sweetened dates after their supper. As a reward for his labours Hakkan allowed him the leftovers of their mince and bread (though it was cold by such time). Rabbit ate well of it. He was even allowed to sleep indoors (although this was more Mehmoud's doing) but only in the slave quarters with the manor's other servants.

As before... his dreams were troubled.

Hakkan's slave caravan resumed its journey at first light. They broke camp, assumed their formations, and marched out of Tangrys with an additional horse and cart to carry an extra supply of water – a gift from its headman. He received only one gift in exchange – the Jafari slave woman that Rabbit met in the silver mine dungeon. He did not know her name. She would never learn his.

The march to Qazyr proceeded regardless.

 

**********

 

(Late Winter, 1179)

 

In ancient times the lands now known as the High East were ruled by a powerful dynasty known as the Abyyabids. Their empire successfully unified over 600 tribes across 100,000 parasangs of territory and reigned for over a thousand years before its eventual collapse through war, desertification and plague. The ancient capital, Yahvat Yahva, was depopulated and eventually abandoned. The empire's sixty-six provinces broke apart and battled each other over dwindling resources. The known world forsook the old gods and descended into an era of chaos that persisted for centuries until the rise of a single warlord flying the black banner of the winged lion in the name of a new god known as Mnenomon – his name was Gurkhan the Great.

Through a complex series of conquests, treaties, marriages and annexations he successfully reunified most of the High Eastern tribes within a mere 35 years. He crowned himself king on his own death bed to ensure that his rule passed to his chosen successor, his progeny, the soon to be King Gurkhan II.

And as was the father, so too was the son. A true devotee of the teachings of Mnenomon, Gurkhan II spread his word by the sword to very frontiers of the High East; from the Black Coast of the south to the Pushan Mountains of the north, and from the Nyssinian borderlands in the west to the eastern frontiers of the gargantuan desert the Tehraqis called the Bloodsands. Obsessed with not only fulfilling his father's work but cementing it in the annuals of history, Gurkhan II re-mapped the landscape by amalgamating the Abyyabid Empire's sixty-six provinces into twelve dominions. Each city, town and village had a headman, each dominion's headmen formed a council which reported to its governor, and all twelve governors reported to the king, who maintained their loyalty by creating grand residential palaces for them within the heart of Tehraq and decreeing that they spend a quarter of the year there. Umayyah-khamat, the residence of Governor Ganu, was one such palace.

Though it was the first time that Abana of Hafiz had experienced the dizzying opulence of its winding halls, vaulted ceilings and porticoed gardens; Umayyah-khamat carried with in the same grandiose emptiness that all the other governor palaces did. `Wealth without wisdom or point', Lady Yahya once said to the dancer, `it will astound you at first... but once you realize how they fair on the other side of the river... it will nauseate you'.

It was all Abana could do to suppress those feelings as he was readied for his coming performance by four young slave girls that Governor Ganu was `kind' enough to provide. They were a young and motley group – twin girls of Jamaran origin named Niela and Niesa; a Xianese girl called Xu, and a paleskin called Arwyn (whose name Abana found difficult to pronounce). None had yet broken blood and all were hand-picked by Ganu in another token display of abundance. Variety in one's slave stock was the height of fashion amongst Tehraqi nobles.

But they were not mere window-dressing. As palace attendants the four slave girls were extremely well trained in the application of cosmetics – Arwyn carefully applied two kinds of ochre (red to the cheeks and blue to the lips) as Xu did the same with a smatter of kohl to his eyes, even as Niela and Niesa worked in tandem to draw the most exquisite and elaborate decorations of henna Abana had ever seen. The designs were Lady Yahya's and the girls were completely ignorant of the hidden sigils (and their darker magical properties) nestled within the swirls of the pattern-work, but they copied her sketches to the letter.

The girls were artisans at their craft before they were even women – but none of them extolled any joy in their ministrations.

The girls were young but bore with them the same dejected countenance as any seasoned slave. They did not look you in the eye and they did not speak until spoken to. Not one mote of childish innocence was left in them. They were not yet women, but they certainly weren't children. Their masters had effectively beaten that precious gift out of them.

Abana was not blind to the distinctions in their treatment either. Ganu's household left treats for him as well as slaves – dates, grapes, cheese and even an ewer of wine. He suspected Ganu's plans for the Kushwari dancers (after performing for King Qattullah) would result in marriage rather than chains.

Xu handed him his castanets. Arwyn clipped on his two leather anklets (with three tiny bells attached to either one). Niela wrapped the black veil around his face so only his darkened eyes and rouged nose were visible. Finally, Niesa slipped the sable shroud around his body.

Once Abana was ready the four slave girls excused themselves from the chambers. A few moments passed and then a new figure emerged – a shaved and perfumed Jamaran eunuch, well dressed in a bright turquoise tunic with silver trimmings. His smile was more welcoming than those of other slaves. His craft was etiquette and reception, no doubt.

The black eunuch gave a bow. "May I escort you to the lord governor's hall?"

Abana nodded yes and followed him through one of Umayyah-khamat's many tortuous and overly adorned hallways until they arrived at the lacquered doors of Ganu's hall. Two Wahdi spearmen stood guard. At the eunuch's ushering they opened the doors and allowed Abana in.

It was even larger than he thought it would be. A vaulted semi-circular chamber 100 paces wide and 80 paces long. Golden sheets and lavish tapestries festooned the walls and intricately woven rugs dressed the floor. Lanterns and burning censers swung from ropes lashed to the ceiling above and flowered the air with incense, air already sweetened to the nose with wine and roasted fowl.

Sitting the other side of the room and encircled by over a dozen of his retainers was the master of Umayyah-khamat and governor of the Wajjashid Dominion, Lord Ganu.

Abana eyed him wearily. He'd heard tales of Ganu. The bastard son of a Tehraqi noble and a Jamaran slave; he had risen from the ignobility of his birth to one of the highest stations of the land by his fierce devotion to the Tehraqi kings and his savage battle prowess. Ganu was a tall man and powerfully built, arms like branches and thighs as thick as tree trunks. In his youth he was one of the late King Gurkhan II's most feared paladins – and one of the few granted a governorship after Qattullah disbanded the order.

"Welcome," said Ganu. His voice was as deep and as smooth as oil. "You are the one who calls himself the Dancer of Hafiz, yes? Show us how the Kushwari dance, little dove."

Governor Ganu snapped his fingers. The three slave musicians sat opposite Abana (one with a flute, one with a drum and one with a zither) began to play a song. It was a crude one – and purposefully difficult to dance to. It did not matter. The Dancer of Hafiz shrugged off his shroud, pulled off his veil, placed one step forward, and leapt into motion.

 

**********

 

(Early Summer, 1176)

 

The headman of Tangrys was adamant Hakkan erred in choosing Kushwari male slaves for the hard drive to Qazyr and time did not drag its feet in proving him right.

Within six days they went from the relatively cool frontiers of the Pushan Mountains to a vast territory of windswept deserts that was the true High East. Its heat was oppressive. Rabbit had never felt anything of its like. This was not the snap of an ember at your fingers on a cold night by the hearth – it was a wall of heat that struck you like a bludgeon and refused to abate. Rabbit and the female slaves were spared the worst of it beneath the hemp sheets roofing the wagons... but it with nothing to do and nowhere to stretch they all felt dazed and lethargic.

It was far worse for the men.

Without shelter from the sun's bite it was a long, slow march east. Only the more experienced travellers (like Hakkan and his captains) and the male Jafari slaves kept a reasonable pace. The toll was hardest upon the Kushwari males. Rabbit's people were a mountain people – goatherds and shepherds, milk farmers, crafters and fletchers. They were not suited to these climes (as was the headman's apt warning). Sweat caked their faces like a sheen of oil. Their movements were slow and haggard; their sandaled feet did not step so much as shuffle them forward. Hakkan had his men whip someone of them to keep up the pace but no matter how many whippings the Kushwari men received he couldn't drive them along any faster.

This came to a head when one of the rearmost of the enchained Kushwaris, a blacksmith they called Lev, took two final steps before dropping to his knees and collapsing into the sand. The sudden weighty tug pulled down the four other slaves he was chained to until they fell with him. One-Eyed Wadja seethed, wheeling his horse around and galloping back to the rear to crack his whip at their ankles.

"Up, slaves!" He screamed. "Get up now! No stragglers! Move!"

Rabbit watched it all happen from the wagon door. Weakly, the first two of the enchained line stood up, but the middle two only partially so because Lev refused to move. "Disobedient cur..." grumbled Wadja as he climbed off his horse and belted the blacksmith's back so hard it tore open his tunic and spat a rope of blood into the sand. Yet still Lev did not move.

Curious, One-Eyed Wadja knelt over the slave and placed two fingers against his neck to check for a pulse. Hakkan rode to the caravan's rear to find out what was happening.

"What is it, Wadja?" He said.

The old boar sighed. "He's dead, my friend."

Hakkan frowned. "Worthless fucking Kushwaris. Fine then. Unchain him from the others and leave him for the jackals."

The key dangled from a golden chain beneath his fingerbone necklace. One-Eyed Wadja leaned over to unlock the iron collar from Lev's corpse then ordered the other slaves in the line to keep moving. The old slaver climbed back onto his bay mare.

"Hakkan," he said. "We have weak stock in our hands. That's the fourth slave we've lost in the last two days. These Kushwaris will not survive without more water – I am not pleased to say it, but... if we bypass Qasr Ghazna we will lose half the male herd before we ever bring them to market."

Rabbit saw the conflict (and the rage) in Hakkan's eyes. His gaze darted to Mehmoud who held the van from the saddle of his striped zebroid. "What a fool I was to listen to him – "poach some Kushwari for a quick turnover at market before the dry season ends..." I should've trusted my instincts..."

Prince Qattullah's desert castle was not far. One-Eyed Wadja's estimate had it at about a quarter of day's march ahead of them and as much as Hakkan wanted to avoid the slave tax, the excursion into Kushwar would be an abject failure if he lost half his herd to heatstroke.

"We make for Qasr Ghazna then," he uttered.

 

**********

 

* Hi, thanks for reading! Comments and constructive criticisms always welcome, please e-mail me at stephenwormwood@mail.com. If you enjoyed this, please read my other stories on Nifty = Wulf's Blut, The Harrowing of Chelsea Rice and The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi) and The Cornishman (gay, historical).