**********
3. Slave's Path
**********
(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).