Chapter 40 - It speaks well of your character

“She’ll be safe?” I insisted the next morning. Kril seemed exasperated with me: we were meant to be discussing the concept of stirrups. He had a basic grasp of the idea but without an example and speaking to the smith all it meant to him was frustration. My crude drawings of a proper saddle and stirrup setup made clear how useful they’d be and he was getting increasingly annoyed at my inability to focus on what he considered to be important.

“Of course she will, boy! She’s Khan’s bloody daughter you dolt! Just because you’re going to hump her doesn’t mean she’s immediately going to get killed! Hakubin would be broken on a wheel by his own troops if he even tried!”

“There’s plenty of more subtle ways. Poison, a contrived accident, paying someone to do the deed! I can think of half a dozen ways to kill you right here and get away with it!” I snapped back.

“I trust you won’t follow through on that!” he cackled. “Boy, it speaks well of your character that you’re so worried for her safety. You think we’re primitive and savage- no don’t interrupt!” I’d opened my mouth to deny it. “I can tell your original people shared more with the shit-sitters than they do with us but women are sacred! Even if Hakubin chose to make war on us, the women would be spared.” Why the hell was I so worried? It didn't feel natural. She was beautiful and bright but... where was my cool distance? My comfortable disassociation had vanished for some reason.

“To be fucking trophies!” I barked back.

“Indeed. But not dead. She is safe here and when we split the herd it will be only us and she will be truly safe. As much as any of us ever are!” His cackle didn’t reassure me but I could see his point. What the hell had come over me? She was beautiful in a way but I had spent years with nothing more than casual relationships. How deep into my head was the god-mark reaching? Was Aresk trying to ensure he got his war and his nomad hordes riding south to raze the townsfolk by forcing me to love a specific woman?

“Fine,” I ground out between clenched teeth. I wasn’t a bloody teenager and I needed to get a grip on myself.

“You’ll lead the raid with the Fangs as your seconds. Now get your head out of fuck-dreams and go do what needs doing. If we can’t get the ivory back then burn the place down and gather the Souls.” His words were harsh. They were honourable people but comments like that only reinforced my perception of them as savages.

“I’ll do what I can,” I replied, praying we could resolve this by burning some fields and reclaiming our loot. Targeted murder was fine, as long as the victim deserved it. Indiscriminate slaughter was not. It was somewhat refreshing to find myself to be the least psychopathic person in a conversation.

“Good lad. Now bugger off!” Kril said. “I’ve got enough mana to grow some more Rubeo leaf and that stuff is valuable. As he turned I put a hand on his shoulder and held him in place. I offered him six stones with the other hand.

“One cast of Rapid Growth on each,” I said as I handed them over. Another bout of cackling ensued as he pushed me out of his tent.

“Let’s go brother,” said Kos from where he’d been waiting. How much had he overheard? Would he be offended by my attitude towards keeping Fayala safe?

A silence that felt uncomfortable to me but didn’t seem to trouble Kos settled over us as we moved towards the palisade. We found a dozen chariots hitched up with a pair of spare ponies tied to the back of each of them. Thirty riders were walking their horses back and forth just outside of the barrier. Jandak waved as he spotted us.

“Time to ride to war!” he called happily.

“Did you leave something in Gethanel? An old man perhaps?” said one of the guards snidely. Jandak strode over and punched him so hard in the gut he folded the man in two despite the padding and leather armour.

“Hatrikandos was an elder under traders truce,” he snarled as the other man gasped for breath. “You might want to remember your manners, Jet!” Without another word to the man he strode over and jumped into a chariot. “Let’s go!” he called happily, all anger forgotten, as his driver cracked his reins and the vehicle rolled out onto the steppes. Kos and I rushed over to the last pair of chariots and leapt on just as they started moving.

The riders formed up on our flanks and we rattled across the plains. The wind was fresh and the ride was exhilarating. Periodically one of my captains would leap down from the cantering chariots and run alongside for a few minutes, laughing as the riders stared on in shock at them easily keeping pace. We changed horses after a few hours and went slowly for a while as the new ponies warmed up and the previous pair got their breath back.

It took us most of the day but as the sun was setting we found ourselves looking down on Gethanel from a low rise to the north of the settlement. Smoke still rose from part of it, perhaps two dozen houses had burned down around the lord’s hall atop the slight rise at the centre of the town. They must pack them in their homes like sardines. We stopped briefly to tie up our spare mounts in a small copse of trees nearby.

“Form on me!” I yelled as I tapped Hermitlas, my driver, on the shoulder and pointed towards the gate to the town. The other chariots fell back slightly. “Jandak! Take a squadron and half the riders across the river!” He waved and three chariots peeled off followed by perhaps a dozen riders. They sped up and headed for the shallow ford to the west of the town.

As we clattered to a halt at what I deemed to be about the best range a crossbow could manage, I leapt down and strode forward. The riders spread out either side of me but as instructed they didn’t go any closer to the walls. I wasn’t planning on losing any troops today, whatever was waiting for us inside.

“You broke the traders' truce and we’ve come to recover our losses!” I called out. Shapes moved behind the gates, shadowy glimpses that I caught through the gaps in the wood. “Return our goods and repay us for the insult!” For once Kril had remembered to coach me on the correct etiquette for the situation. We were here to fuck shit up and take names, not play nicely. My code was becoming an itchy memory as the realisation that none of the people in this world could really meet my definition of innocent, bar some of the children, settled into my bones.

“Fuck off savages! The walls are closed! If you come closer we’ll shoot you!” called a voice that failed to hide the terror he was feeling.

“Open the gates or we’ll open them for you!” I answered, slipping a smooth stone from a pouch at my belt and hefting the weight in my right hand.

“I’d like to see you try!” came back from behind the gate. Jandak and his group were over the river now. I waited in silence as they spread out into the fields and started throwing firewall stones out around them. Dumb. They’d need to cross somewhere else as the conflagration spread behind them. I made a note to remind him to drive deep into enemy territory and then burn it as he retreated rather than setting fire to his own escape route on his way in. Newbie mistake, Jandak!

“Your fields will burn! Look to the south! Return what was stolen and send out fifty slaves or we’ll burn your shit heap to the ground!” I didn’t get a response this time so I waited a minute for them to realise their fields were indeed burning. I was contemplating tossing the rock in my hand at the gates and just burning them out when there was movement. One of the gates swung outwards and a single person walked out.

“You don’t have any dead marching with you!” A boy’s voice called. The shape looked too tall to be a boy to me.

“No! We don’t practice that kind of dark magic!” I answered loudly.

“My brother did. You’re the one who killed him?” The figure kept walking closer.

“Yes,” I could speak normally now.

“Your goods are unharmed. We’ll pull them out for you. What will you do with our people if we offer them?” He was in his late teens, smooth skin and a hairless face.

“That is not your concern but they will not be mistreated. They’ll have to work but they’ll be fed and kept warm,” I answered.

“Why? Because they’re valuable?” he asked in his piping voice.

“Because we aren’t monsters. You broke the truce.”

“None still live who broke it and the unliving all collapsed a few days ago. We’re no threat to you. We wish for peace with the nomads. Please take your goods and leave my people in peace. We will fight if we must.” The kid had balls, walking out here all on his own. I felt a grudging respect for him but the tribe's rules were clear.

“Fifty workers. I swear they will not be harmed and in five years they’ll be returned with some goods and wealth. Do you have any smiths in town?” I was breaking tradition here but fuck slavery. I’d rather have volunteer miners when the time came but the tribes knew bugger all about digging up rocks. Hopefully these townsfolk would have more experience at grubbing into the soil. I needed them.

“We have three smiths,” he replied reluctantly.

“Who is the best?” I demanded excitedly.

“At what? Old Hipule is the most experienced. Gathdred was his apprentice and Klip is a recent arrival from Jergath to the south.”

“I’ll take Klip. Bring his equipment as well.” As an outsider to Gethanel hopefully it would be an easier pill to swallow. As seemingly agreeable as this young man was, I appreciated it was a fragile peace at best, slaughtering the town might be good for Souls but I wasn't a monster yet.

“Very well. Smiths are sacred to us. If he's mistreated we will rebel.” The boy's voice had gone cold. “Myself and forty nine others will join you. Perhaps your friends would like to stop burning our fields and killing our animals?”

“Send a rider to pull them back,” I said to one side. A mounted warrior shot off to ford the river away from the fires. “The slaves must be hard workers, experienced at digging and preferably craftsmen of some sort. Where are our goods?”

“What do I call you, barbarian?” the boy demanded.

“I am Mond.”

“You’re like him, aren’t you? The King of Urkash?” Smart little bastard.

“Kind of.”

“He’ll come back soon. He promised he would sense any betrayal and return. I’m going to bring my family and some hard workers with us.” Us? Already? “I saw what the power did to Getha. I want none of that. Will you give us an hour to say goodbye? Will you betray us if we leave the gate open? Can I trust the truce is back in place?”

“Sure kid. What’s your name?” I asked.

“My name is Tanil, lord barbarian. What goods are we permitted to bring?” At this point I was out of my depth and called over Mune to negotiate the details. It was agreed that they’d bring some animals and three wagons with food and goods. No weapons were allowed but I chimed in and insisted the crossbows and any iron weapons be handed over. Tanil was reluctant but as he was preparing to argue back Jandak re-joined us, soot covered and grinning like the pyromaniac I suspected he was.

The sight of him shut the boy up. An hour later our wagon of goods rolled out of the town followed by three more wagons that were much more lightly built. Mune leapt up and inspected our trade wagon, leaping gracefully to the high platform with ease. A dozen women were part of the slaves, wives I supposed, and the rest were strong young men.

“The women are off limits,” I growled to my troops. The Areskyn might have a lot of respect for their own women but I doubted it extended to shit-sitter slaves. I was pleasantly surprised. They gave me shocked looks.

“None of us would hear the end of it from our wives. If we were on a Great Raid, lasting through the seasons, they would look away but if any of us get frisky we’ll get our eyes gouged out when we get home!” chuckled Jandak as he explained the disgusted looks my order had received.

“Will this satisfy Kahn and Atas?” I asked as we set off more at a more sedate pace back towards Areskit.

“Oh yes! There’s no cause for vendetta with the ones left behind either.” I found that unlikely but maybe this kind of honour based exchange of people and goods was more normal here than I could ever remember being mentioned back home in the history books.

We rode through the night, cycling the horses and aurox on the wagons. We let the slaves take shifts riding on the wagons to rest as we went. It was noon when we saw Areskit again and the king's forces were arrayed outside the gate to greet us.

Perhaps a hundred riders and three times that many infantry moved forward in a ragged and ungainly formation. The cavalry kept to the wings in two large groups as they advanced on us while the loose formation of warriors in the centre formed a rough line and stopped a hundred feet from where we waited. Hakubin rode a pony in the centre of the infantry with half a dozen mounted guards to either side of him. Just one time I'd like to get back to base without having to fight or kill someone. One time wasn't too much to ask for, surely?

“What now?” I asked Jandak quietly. He shrugged from the next chariot along.

“Want to see how good the chariots and magic stones work? It was fun burning those fields!” He gave me a toothy grin.

“We shouldn’t waste our strength. No need for a civil war if we can part on friendly terms after the cull. Why's he out here like this?”

“I reckon he wants a tithe but he can go fuck his horse. This was an honour raid and no business of his. He’s probably just trying to play the big man like usual. We should talk to him.“ It seemed the wisest choice. Where the hell were Kril and the others we’d left behind yesterday? Where was Fayala?