Chiunwa chibili nachipana, bhunyasi ndibhwo bhubhonanga siibhi.
(When two bulls fight, it's the grass that suffers the most.)
- Sourced from "100 Rules For Rulers To Read & Revere" by Aesandria Yaeradus Aemlilonus Rhexbhurg, called Aesandria The Cunning, Queen Consort to the Subaephyr Pharas IX. Queen Aesandria is (in)famous for covering up her husband's death and ruling secretly in his name from 86 RE to 93 RE.
Allara prayed then scooped the watery gray-brown slop onto the hard black bread and waited for it to soak through. Waiting was the hardest part. Her hungry stomach growled impatiently but she knew she needed to wait. The black rye bread was hard enough to choke a grown man and scratch his throat raw on its way down, a lesson Allara had learned the hard way.
The slop was supposed to be a stew. Unsalted lentils overboiled into a thin paste that resembled dirty water far more than anything edible but she was too hungry to care. There wasn't enough slop to properly soften the bread but something was better than nothing.
Once all the slop had soaked through the bread, Allara finally ate. The food was so bland it bordered on tasteless. She imagined mud tasted better but she wolfed down the semi-soaked loaf like it was a savory lamb chop anyway. The meal was over too quickly. Allara didn't feel any less hungry than she had been before she ate. Disappointed looks on the faces of the hundreds of slaves around her told a similar story.
Allara unscrewed the cap of her half-gallon waterskin and gulped it all down. Drinking so much water in a single sitting would have her urinating every ten minutes but it was a small price to pay for the feeling of a full stomach.
"When I die, I'll come back to haunt that Carman. Cheap bastard will starve us," Allara's brother Bogdyr complained.
"Shh," Allara hushed. "Say that loud enough and he might just oblige you and kill you tonight."
"WHEN I D…" Bogdyr shouted.
"Shut up!" Allara hissed.
Bogdyr gave her one of his cheeky smiles. She didn't know how he could smile but Allara had long given up trying to understand her baby brother. He was 17 now, a head taller than her, and just as wild as he had been when they were children. The last ten years had broken her but Bogdyr didn't seem to have suffered in the least. It was almost as if he was immune to misery. "The Beast has chosen his victim," Bogdyr said.
That was Allara's cue to stand up but first, she confirmed it. Near the exit, Sir Zemil Rormilus Kantbhurg, The Beast of The Roost, had a beefy arm around some hapless girl. Allara said a quick prayer for the poor thing but doubted it would do much. Sir Zemil was a nephew of Lord Carman, the castellan, and captain of the guard at Siiruch's Roost. He had set himself the goal of "fucking every bitch in this place."
Every day for the past month, he had been choosing one woman every evening. Every day, Allara feared it would be her but she said a prayer of thanks that it wasn't today. She had no desire to lose her virtue to a man whose neck was thicker than his head. Allara had resolved to open her veins before letting The Beast inside her. She just hadn't told Bogdyr yet. Only the gods knew what he might do.
Allara and Bogdyr exited the castle yard with hundreds of other slaves. They parted at the bridge and headed to their separate dormitories. Allara washed her spare tunic and after expending all her strength wringing it, hung it to dry on a rope by the wall just beside her straw mattress.
There were drying lines outside but clothing theft was so common at The Roost nobody bothered reporting it anymore. You had to watch your clothes dry or someone would take them. A "good" thief would swap your clean garments for their dirty ones but most thieves just unhung whatever they found on the lines as long as nobody was looking.
Allara only had two sets of clothes. She couldn't risk being stuck with one and she couldn't stay up all night watching one tunic dry. So she hung her tunic by the wall and lay down to sleep.
It wasn't quite dark yet but she was exhausted from working without a break since sunrise. Her fingers cramped and her back hurt. While dry grass in a sack didn't make the most comfortable of beddings, Allara sighed when she stretched herself out on it as if it was the softest of featherbeds.
Despite wringing as much water as possible out of her tunic, it wasn't long before it started dripping beside her. It would make for a miserable night but Allara had known nothing but misery in the 10 years following her father's hanging. She didn't care too much tonight for Allara had no plans to wake up come morning. She would end that misery once and for all. But first, she had to relive it. So she closed her eyes and did just that.
After Stefan Vindeler's execution, Allara, Big Bogdyr, and Little Bogdyr returned home to find Dasiuk had claimed all of their father's possessions for himself.
"Maevite scum!" Big Bogdyr cursed and charged. It was hardly a fair fight. Dasiuk may have been older but her 16-year-old cousin was taller by a foot.
Big Bogdyr knocked Dasiuk off his feet and was soon pummeling him with his fists. Dasiuk had one advantage though: he was armed. Allara had no idea how it happened. One moment Dasiuk was on the floor trying to shield his face from Big Bogdyr's blows. In the next, he had a dagger in one hand and was repeatedly stabbing poor Big Bogdyr.
Allara's favorite cousin never stood a chance. He screamed, grunted, sputtered, and eventually grew quiet as the dagger darted in and out of his chest. Dasiuk kept stabbing. Big Bogdyr's blood drenched the slave like rain. Allara and Little Bogdyr just watched in horror, too terrified to move.
When Dasiuk finally stopped, he was coated in crimson from neck to shins. Big Bogdyr's head and chest were red ruins. Dasiuk rose and lunged at them. Little Bogdyr darted out of Dasiuk's reach. Allara screamed impotently but remained rooted to the spot.
A white shadow streamed out of the house. Dasiuk screamed as his dagger clattered to the ground. It was Fluffy. The hairy dog bit down on Dasiuk's arm. Dasiuk pummeled Fluffy's head with his other fist but the dog stayed put. Allara finally recovered her senses. "Fluffy, come," she called. The dog let go and the three of them ran off while Dasiuk hurled obscenities and threats, "The emperor will give me your heads, you pampered little shits!"
Fluffy, Little Bogdyr, and Allara ran and ran. They had no particular destination in mind. They just wanted to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Dasiuk. They found themselves at the city gates but these were sealed shut. By decree of King Smandan, no one was allowed out of Salandport.
So back to the city they went. Stefan Vindeler had been a popular man. Allara figured one of his friends might take them in. How wrong she was. For the first time in her life, somebody other than Little Bogdyr slammed a door in Allara's face.
When the first person turned them away, Allara thought it was a mistake. A misunderstanding. Rillard Seaman was one of her father's best friends. He captained Aemeia's Delight. His wife knitted with Melilla. Allara and Little Bogdyr played with their children. But he tossed a few coins at them and slammed his door in their faces without uttering a single word as if they were annoying beggars.
Then a second door was slammed in their faces and then a third and a fourth. Nobody wanted a dead traitor's orphans. Some people didn't even bother opening their doors. They'd peep through a window and ignore their knocking.
One man even let his guard dogs loose on them. By sundown, Allara's feet were sore from traipsing all around Salandport. Her heart was shattered into a thousand little pieces. They had gone to ten houses and decided not to go to any more. What was the point? People who had spent hours in their house and laughed with her parents now treated them like lepers.
They had gotten some bread and coin out of the whole ordeal but no one would take them in. So they became street urchins, sleeping wherever they could. The bread was gone in two days. The coin lasted ten days before a bigger urchin relieved them of their purse. They were alone, with nothing.
Most urchins either stole or begged. Allara and Bogdyr found either option too degrading. It was mostly Bogdyr who did. Allara would have been content to lie down and die.
It was Bogdyr who found nice corners and shop verandahs for them to sleep in. It was Bogdyr who gathered charcoal dust from charcoal sellers and mixed it with horse and ox dung to create cooking briquettes. It was Bogdyr who found a discarded bronze helmet and converted it into a cooking pot. It was he who went out with Fluffy to hunt birds, rats, and cats for that cooking pot. At first, Allara was reluctant to eat rats and cats but hunger had a way of expelling such notions from a person's mind.
Sometimes they would run into people who knew them while scavenging in the markets or setting up a sleeping mat on a shop verandah at night. These people never spared them a second look. Allara doubted if they even recognized them. They may have been raised to disdain stealing and begging but they didn't look too different from other urchins. They were skinny and filthy, and their clothes had fallen to tatters. They had no qualms about rifling through garbage for edible leftovers.
Even as Allara and Bogdyr adapted to life as street urchins in the same city they had once called home, life went on around them. The war continued but they never bothered too much with it. What did it matter? Nevertheless, it was impossible to ignore. The Navigator conquered some more islands and Salandport panicked a little more.
Towards the end of the first month of spring, a massive Maevite fleet arrived in Salandport. It was an armada like none Allara had ever seen. Countless ships stretched out into the distant horizon and disgorged thousands of troops, horses, and even war elephants. The emperor himself had come to Salandria. That night, Allara and Bogdyr slept hungry. Her brother had been robbed of the two rats Fluffy had caught by a bigger urchin on his way "home". It was the way of the streets.
The days blended into each other. Allara and Bogdyr were always worrying about their next meal. They were considered soft and were frequently targeted by other urchins. It wasn't until Bogdyr started knifing anyone who got too close to him that they were allowed a little breathing room. They would have been lost without Fluffy. The two of them couldn't scavenge enough food for a meal between them. Without Fluffy's prowess at hunting rats, they would have starved.
Life went on outside. Half a month after the Maevite fleet arrived, Young Smandan's heralds proclaimed victory in the war. They had ambushed The Navigator's fleet in the Salandrian straits, a three-mile-wide channel of ocean between the island Salandria and her northern neighbor, Maigin.
They had destroyed and sunk half of The Navigator's fleet, killing the adventurer prince himself in the process. A small contingent of Baenarites had survived the naval battle and taken refuge in the northern Salandrian city of Wayan's Harbor, the same city the rest of Allara's family lived in. Young Smandan and Emperor Karikar swore to flatten Wayan's Harbor for harboring the soldiers.
"The Navigator is dead," heralds proclaimed throughout Salandport. "He sailed all over the world but he couldn't navigate his way out of the Straits of Salandria."
The heralds followed this proclamation with insults targeted at the King of Kings and his last surviving brother, "Daegan The Degenerate sits in Pharasandria, stroking his diseased cock. It's the only relief he can get. He has run out of brothers to send against us. The Navigator feeds the fish beneath the waves while Baeon The Bard flees like a little girl forced to marry an old man, flashing his ass at everyone, begging for a real man to fuck him."
A more significant announcement would come three days after the battle, "The Degenerate's boy is trapped with a small force in Wayan's Harbor, soon to be vanquished by the all-conquering King Smandan. The colonizer and his bloodline will be wiped out and we shall be free again."
Even as people in Salandport speculated about the thousand-year-old House Of The Smith dying out, Allara and Bogdyr were more concerned with their own survival. Allara did spare some thought for her grandfather, her uncles, and her cousins in Wayan's Harbor. She wondered where her uncle Gyrdyrn was.
He had evacuated most of the family but Allara's grandfather and her uncle Wylbyr had refused to run. The Vindelers were the last and their escape had been botched. Allara wondered if her uncle was still waiting in that cove, if he had left, or fallen into the hands of Young Smandan. She didn't dwell on it too much. She had to eat.
As spring turned to summer, Allara and Bogdyr feasted on fish guts soup and stale bread to reports of Emperor Karikar and young Smandan reconquering the islands that had fallen to The Navigator. Wayan's Harbor and other fortresses on the northern islands held out.
Then reports trickled south that "The Degenerate's boy" in Wayan's Harbor wasn't Pharas, the Crown Prince and the King of King's only known son, but rather a 17-year-old knight named Caedmyr Warr, an illegitimate son of either King Daegan or The Navigator. Reports contradicted each other on the youth's paternity but they all agreed he was a bastard, not a prince. Sir Caedmyr One-Ear, he was called.
This, coupled with reports of Daegan XIII assembling a second army to avenge his brother had Salandport in a panic again despite the positive progress of the war. Every time one of their own was killed, Rhexbhurgs killed 10,000 in retribution. One son of Aemlilon is worth 10,000 commoners, was the adage. Salandria was no stranger to Rhexbhurg retribution.
All speculations on the escaping Rhexbhurg vengeance had been predicated on the King of Kings having only one son, Prince Pharas, who was supposed to be trapped in Salandria. The existence of Caedmyr One-Ear had many questioning just how many royal bastards were out there.
While Caedmyr Warr's paternity was disputed, his heritage wasn't. All bastards sired by a man of the warrior class may have borne the surname Warr but what set Caedmyr One-Ear apart was his given name. Commoners weren't allowed to bear the names of kings, no matter how highborn. To the golden-blooded Rhexbhurgs, anyone with red blood in his veins was a commoner, a category that included every living person on earth that wasn't a member of their house.
Allara may have been excited by the prospect of Young Smandan getting slaughtered but hunger was a more pressing need. Surviving without being harmed by other urchins was her primary goal. Her life was structured around this.
She would wake up and prowl the markets for charcoal dust and any stray grains. She would mill any grain she found into flour with a stone. She also made dung briquettes with charcoal dust and scavenged for anything edible all day. Bogdyr hunted with Fluffy and by evening they'd have something to cook before scouting a sleeping spot.
They never slept in the same place more than two nights in a row. Shopkeepers didn't like urchins in their verandas. They also had to sleep in shifts. Bogdyr's violent streak had kept them safe for a while but now there were quite a few urchins out there seeking to avenge themselves on him for his stabbings.
The outside world didn't ignore Allara even though she did her best to ignore it. Just when her life had settled into a nice schedule, things took a turn for the worst. King Daegan's new army dealt crushing defeats to Young Smandan and Emperor Karikar, forcing them to retreat to Salandria. He broke the siege of Wayan's Harbor and chased them all the way back to Salandport.
Young Smandan and Karikar II shut themselves in the city with their soldiers while Daegan XIII besieged it from outside. Life in Salandport got hard very fast. With two armies within the walls, the population of the city had doubled. The food markets closed and suddenly there was nothing to scavenge.
Fishermen couldn't go out with a besieging army surrounding the city. The fish guts that Allara and Bogdyr could always rely on for making soup on lean days vanished. All they had were Fluffy's rats but as the days turned into lichums and those turned into a month, even rats became scarce. Every urchin was hunting rats and the stronger ones just stole what everyone else managed to catch. One even tried to butcher Fluffy.
By the time the siege dragged into the last month of summer, Allara and Bogdyr were lucky to eat once every three days. Fluffy lost all her fur. She grew weak from starvation and took to sleeping all day like an old dog. All the stray animals had been hunted to extinction.
Allara had heard of sieges lasting years. She doubted she and Bogdyr would live out 298 RE. Salandport was already cooling as autumn approached. They had to huddle together for warmth on most nights. If it got as cold as it had the previous year, the cold would kill them at the onset of winter if starvation didn't get them first.
Things were no better for the city's other residents. King Daegan's trebuchets launched stones and tufts of flaming grass into the city at all hours of day and night. There was always some house burning. Putting out all the fires was nearly impossible. The King of Kings had cut the aqueducts and dammed Salandport's only river.
All Salandportians had to rely on was the slightly salty well water. It wasn't as salty as seawater but it wasn't good for drinking either. But it was the only water left. Everybody was thirsty all the time. The only other source of fresh water was the rain but late summer was wheat ripening season. It didn't rain much. Whenever it did, every surface of the city would be covered with buckets to collect the rainwater.
Young Smandan and Emperor Karikar also took to hanging people for the most minor of infractions. This was a boon to some of the urchins. Condemned men were left hanging from gallows at every corner of the city and some urchins used them as a source of meat, cutting strips of flesh off their legs and hands.
Allara would sooner slit her wrists but she was tempted. Severely tempted. It wasn't long before the soldiers wisened up to this, moved all the gallows to the main square, and kept them under guard. Any urchin who approached was quartered and left to rot. Starvation reigned.
It was during this time that Fluffy died. She wasn't Fluffy anymore. All her fur had fallen out, leaving only isolated tufts of prickly hair. The starvation and thirst finally finished her off.
Allara and Bogdyr weren't doing any better. They hadn't eaten anything in five days. Their last meal had been a pair of boots. They had pulled them off the feet of a Maevite soldier felled by a falling stone. They had soaked the boots for two days, boiled them for the better part of the third day, and chewed on them for a day more. The leather had still been tough but filling while it lasted. They hadn't been lucky enough to find another pair of boots.
Allara spent a lot of time cuddling Fluffy's corpse before Bogdyr urged her to butcher the animal before the meat went bad. She couldn't bear looking as Bogdyr opened the dog's abdomen and started skinning it. Fluffy was more bone than meat at this point but it was something at least. Before chopping up Fluffy and tossing her in the cooking pot, they cremated her heart. Allara said a small prayer for it as smoke rose, sending the soul trapped within back to the gods.
Then they boiled Fluffy's meat and ate it. It wasn't the first dog Allara was eating but it tasted different, somehow. It tasted disgusting. Dog meat was supposed to taste like pork. Or maybe it was just her guilt. Allara swallowed her guilt and the meat along with it.
Fluffy was just about enough for one meal. A lot of her flesh had been consumed by hunger. They saved the skin and bones for soup but a bigger urchin happened to pass by at that very moment and relieved them of both.
With no more hope of finding any food, Allara and Bogdyr sat down and waited for death. Perhaps one of those flying stones will fall on me and end my misery, Allara thought as she settled down to sleep that night. The siege ended the very next day.
King Daegan was struck by a crossbow bolt shot from the walls while inspecting one of his siege towers. The King of Kings collapsed and was immediately carried away by his bodyguards.
Seeing the Subaephyr being carried off the battlefield convinced Karikar II and Smandan Salandbhurg that the gods were on their side. It was Young Smandan's birthday after all. The sky was cloudy and the clouds rumbly and dark, pregnant with rain. It was going to rain soon, an auspicious omen on a man's birthday, according to Maevite priests. Karikar II and Young Smandan ordered their men to charge.
Salandbhurg soldiers sang birthday songs for their king as they charged. The official account said that King Daegan's army retreated in good order to their fortified camp outside the walls as the enemy charged and the king was left behind by mistake.
There was a second, whispered account. Allara had heard it from some soldiers on the evening of the battle and never heard it anywhere else again. The account said that Prince Pharas had led the rout by clambering onto his horse and fleeing the battlefield, calling for his mother. The army had followed the crown prince under the assumption that the king was dead.
What the official account and the whispered one agreed on was that only 12 men were left to face the charging enemy army: Daegan XIII, his ten Purple Shields, and Caedmyr One-Ear.
Daegan XIII was unconscious and presumed dead. The Purple Shields were the vaunted royal guard of the Subaephyr, warrior priests of Aemlilon whose lives were tied to that of his earthbound son. If he died, they died. Nobody knew why Caedmyr One-Ear stayed behind.
The eleven men formed a circle around the prone King of Kings. Retreating Baenarites watched this suicidal last stand from behind their defensive trenches. Eleven Bhaandini against 50,000 Salandrians and Maevites. The singers say these eleven killed a hundred men, others say a thousand.
One by one, the warrior-priests died until only Caedmyr One-Ear was left, killing men right and left with a sword in one hand and a mace in the other. Impressed by the bastard's tenacity, Young Smandan and Karikar II ordered their men to step aside. They challenged the youth to single combat and both fell in turn to The Degenerate's boy, as they had branded him.
A thousand angry Maevites surrounded the emperorslayer. He fought furiously but he was outnumbered and overpowered. He fell. It was at this moment that the gods decided to intervene.
A bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and instantly fried all the Maevites. When Caedmyr One-Ear rose and held aloft the fiery double-headed eagle banner of The House of The Smith, surrounded by thousands of burnt and blackened corpses, terrified Maevites fled in all directions.
Allara didn't see any of that. She read it in a book years later. She was unsuccessfully chasing a pigeon for dinner at the same time that the battle was raging outside the walls.
Baenarites surged into Salandport, slaughtering everyone and everything in their path for half a day. Allara and Bogdyr were huddling behind a wall when one of the Baenarites found them. They were filthy, stinky, and dressed in rags. The soldier had a leathery face with stark features. Deep-set eyes, a woodlike forehead, jutting cheekbones, and a thin line that passed for a mouth, all twisted in rage. It was the cruelest face Allara had ever seen.
He wore patched mail and a shiny but dented half helm. Bits and pieces of mismatched steel covered his shins, forearms, and neck. The faded and frayed striped black and red cloak hanging from his shoulders identified him as a Baenarite. "Maevite mongrels!" he cursed and swung his sword.
Bogdyr ducked but Allara froze, screaming, hugging herself, and bracing for a death that never came. All she heard was a clang of steel on steel. She opened my eyes. Someone had blocked the blow with another sword.
It was a young man not much older than her late cousin Big Bogdyr. He only had half a left ear and eyes of the deepest purple. Allara had never seen anyone with purple eyes before but she knew there was only one group of people with such eyes: Rhexbhurgs.
The young man's sword was crimson from tip to hilt and his surcoat was torn and so completely soaked with blood that Allara couldn't tell its original color.
"They're children," the youth said to the Baenarite. The soldier nodded and sheathed his sword. The young man sliced off his surcoat and it fell to the ground with a wet plop. He had fine full plate armor covering him from neck to toe and a helmet cradled under one arm.
Sichumradi, Allara identified the metal immediately from its crimson-gold color, swirling patterns, and the dull glow of light it emitted. Sichumradi (lightning silver) was made by trapping lightning and using it to harden a silver-gold alloy. It was the hardest and most expensive metal on earth, originally forged by Aemlilon's dwarf priests on Mount Mautr to pierce dragon scales. The whorls and folds of the metal scattered light in a thousand directions.
It managed to retain the glimmer of newness while remaining dented and scratched in a thousand places. All the dents and scratches looked pretty recent to Allara's untrained eye. She found it curious because her father had told her that sichumradi never dented, rusted, dulled, or broke. It was so expensive that even the Salandbhurgs owned only a single sword made of sichumradi. Yet here was a youth with a full set of armor made from the stuff. The songs said it took five lightning bolts to forge a single sword. Allara shuddered to think of how much went into a suit of armor.
The one-eared youth had 20 others with him, all as young as he was. Their armor was more pristine but it was made of common steel. There was no question that the young man in the dented sichumradi armor was the one in charge. Allara knew who he was without needing to be told. It could only be him: Caedmyr One-Ear.
"Come," he said to Allara and Bogdyr. "Carry this for me." He handed Allara his helmet. It was lighter than Allara expected. They followed quietly. Small droplets of blood rolled off Sir Caedmyr's armor and spattered on the ground as he walked. His was a regal unhurried stride.
They passed through Allara's old neighborhood. Two men would go into each house to check for survivors. One of his companions, an exceptionally tall youth with a surprisingly child-like face, found bread in one of the houses and gave it to her and Bogdyr.
They wolfed it down as if expecting someone to snatch it away at any moment while the Baenarites watched in amusement. The baby-faced youth gave them his waterskin and was even more amused by the rate at which they drank. Their little party soon grew to over 100 as they added more and more survivors from every house they passed.
At Allara's old house, they found Dasiuk in the doorway with his intestines dangling out. Allara thought she would feel happy but she felt nothing. Two doors down, they heard terrible screams. It was Arnoul's house. Arnoul had been one of her friends. They often played and took lessons together. Arnoul's father had turned them away and Allara still felt a lingering resentment but the screams sounded like his.
When two of Caedmyr One-Ear's companions kicked in the door, they found a Baenarite raping Arnoul. When he saw his compatriots, he bolted. Three men cursed and chased after him. Arnoul raised himself off the floor. He was bleeding from his arse. Allara turned away.
"How old are you, boy?" Sie Caedmyr asked Arnoul.
"Nine," Arnoul answered shakily. Caedmyr One-Ear's face contorted in disgust.
The tall youth with a childlike face and two companions dragged back Arnoul's rapist, kicking and screaming. They dumped him at Sir Caedmyr's feet where he continued to beg and plead.
Caedmyr One-Ear ignored him and gave the three captors a questioning look. "Garin Sandokarus Chandler. Seventh Regiment, 2nd Thousand, 4th Quarter. Recruit. Three months," the baby-faced giant answered. Another of Sir Caedmyr's companions recorded this on a scroll. The baby-faced giant stripped the kneeling man of his soldier's cloak. "You don't deserve this."
"M'lord, mercy… He is only a Ma…" the soldier pleaded but Caedmyr One-Ear cut him short, sending his head rolling with a single swing of his sword. As Allara watched the blood spurting from the man's stump of a neck, she thought of fountains.
Their little party continued marching, collecting more survivors. They stopped at the main square where Baenarites were beheading Salandbhurg and Maevite soldiers.
"Women, children, go up to the Temple of Aemeia. Men, gather outside the walls," Caedmyr One-Ear instructed.
"My lord, please don't kill us," one of the men, a potter named Sifyrn, begged. " We did nothing. It was all Young Smandan."
"No one is killing you. We need you to collect corpses," Caedmyr One-Ear said with a dismissive wave. Ten of his companions escorted the men to the city gates while Allara alongside the other women and children climbed the steps to the temple of the Mistress Of The Waters, a temple that had been a Salandbhurg garrison just a couple of hours ago.
Allara and Bogdyr, and the others helped the priestesses clean the temple, took a bath in the temple's sacred fountain, and were presented with new tunics. They weren't brand new but they were new to them. Most importantly, they were massive improvements on their rags. It was at the temple that Allara heard reports of the battle that had raged outside the walls.
That night, the mikhlins served them fresh hot bread and lentil stew. It was the best meal Allara and Bogdyr had had in six months. They licked their bowls clean.
The following morning, they were all herded outside the walls. The city had been completely pacified. The heads of Young Smandan and Emperor Karikar adorned the gates. Many worried about what the King of Kings would do with them. Condemn them to slavery? Kill them all? Deport them to the mainland?
Allara didn't care. She was alive and Bogdyr was alive. Nothing else mattered. She knew she would be safe from any massacre. That was a problem for the grown men to worry about.
Outside Allara saw the King of Kings for the first time. She had seen him on coins but never in person. He looked tall but she couldn't be certain with him seated. His hair and neatly trimmed beard were almost evenly split between black and silver strands. The Subaephyr's eyes were a pale lilac, his skin the color of polished copper. His robes were in the colors of the Rhexbhurg tricolor: gold, violet, and scarlet.
He was carried around in an ornate palanquin by clean-shaven slaves dressed in golden silk. These saves were all of the same height and build. A sling adorned the king's right arm. The Subaephyr had been ailing before the Salandrian revolt. A crossbow bolt to the collarbone couldn't have done his health any favors. 63-year-old Daegan The Good looked the part of a man half dead but his two sons flanked him, hale and healthy for all the world to see.
First, the king held a funeral service for his valiant protectors, the ten Purple Shields who had died to a man defending him. The pyre was built with broken-up furniture from Young Smandan's castle and Emperor Karikar's flagship.
The men were laid on top of the pyre, side by side, robed in white silk. A herald read out their names and listed their deeds. Priests performed funeral rites over them. The King of Kings finally lit the pyre with a torch. "May the gods feed them honey," he intoned as the wood caught fire.
"May the gods feed them honey," everyone answered back.
The king was carried to a second pyre bearing the bodies of all the other soldiers who had died during the Battle of Salandport. His casualties were extremely light. The same rites were performed and the king lit the pyre again.
The third pyre was five times as large as the first two combined, rising to half the height of the city walls. When Allara looked closely, she realized it wasn't a pyre at all, just a stack of corpses piled on top of each other. The same rites were carried out, then pitch was poured over the bodies and a captured Maevite nobleman lit the fire. "May the gods judge them justly," King Daegan intoned.
"May the gods judge them justly," everyone answered back.
The king was then carried up to a dais as the fires burned. There was an excited murmur from the crowd as his sons climbed up to join him. By now everyone had heard of the exploits of Caedmyr One-Ear the previous day. The Lightning Prince, the Baenarites had christened him.
"Thunderbolt! Thunderbolt! Thunderbolt!" some Baenarites started a chant as he made it up the steps.
Caedmyr One-Ear looked every inch a god in his ankle-length smoke-gray trousers, a doublet patterned in the crimson and black of a Baenarite's cloak, and the brilliant purple cloak hanging from his shoulders that only a royal could wear without special permission. His half-severed ear only served to add to his ferocity. The similarly-dressed Crown Prince looked just as impressive but somehow less compared to the Lightning Prince.
"I want to commend both my sons for their actions yesterday. Brave Pharas," the king began then turned to glower at his heir. "And the fearless Caedmyr, The Lightning Prince. A living breathing embodiment of the spirit of Khufumn Saekhfw'."
"Khufumn Saekhfw'!" the soldiers chanted in response.
Allara listened extra carefully when the Subaephyr turned to address Salandport civilians after commending several more of his soldiers.
"I know you are all loyal subjects of The Purple Hat and it was not your intention to rebel," Daegan The Good started his address. "The callow young man who brought all this suffering upon you has been adequately punished. His confederates have been dealt with as well. I will not punish the rest of you. I met the gods yesterday and they convinced me to be merciful. Go back to your homes, rebuild your lives, and sin no more."
Allara heard deep sighs of relief from the townsfolk at this announcement. She was glad too. She listened intently to the rest of the Subaephyr's address. Little of it applied to her. There were to be fines and increased taxes to cover the cost of the war but nothing too drastic.
The king reorganized the island's administration and announced the legitimization of his bastard son, giving Caedmyr Warr both his patronymic and surname. He declared the newly rechristened Caedmyr Daeganus Aemlilonus Rhexbhurg second in line to the throne after his brother Pharas. The Subaephyr also created the young hero as Prince of the Tides, a title recently vacated by The Navigator. The House of The Smith bequeathed it to its most warlike members, the most famous Prince of The Tides being Baenar The Beheader.
After this, the King of Kings dismissed his subjects. They all trooped back into the city, glad to be alive. Allara and Bogdyr went home but their house didn't feel like home anymore. Blood stained the floor and try as she might, Allara couldn't forget Big Bogdyr getting stabbed just outside the door.
The house had also been thoroughly looted. Little of value had been left behind. Mia and Shania were nowhere to be found. Allara hadn't seen them since Dasiuk murdered Hiram and took them away.
Allara took a change of clothes and some mismatched sandals. She checked the hidey-hole in her parents' bedchamber where she knew her father hid his money but there was only a solitary silver coin, probably overlooked when the rest were taken. It was enough for five loaves of bread so she took it and with Bogdyr in tow, marched north, leaving Salandport behind forever.
Five days of hiking through the hilly Landlubber Kingdom brought Allara and Bogdyr to their grandfather's vineyard on the outskirts of Wayan's Harbor but he wasn't there. His farmhouse had been torched. The vines were growing wild and it was clear that no one had tended them in months. There was no one around.
It was already dark so they sheltered in the shell of the farmhouse for the night. They would ask about their relatives come morning. One of their uncles lived a few miles away but Allara and Bogdyr were afraid of getting lost in the dark. Allara had been raised on tales of Khwhefian raiders from the sea abducting unaccompanied children and turning them into slaves.
They had one loaf of bread left. They found the secret entrance to the cellar where their grandfather aged his wine. It was all there. No one had found it. Allara's parents never allowed her and Bogdyr more than a cup of diluted wine but with no one to restrict them, they drank their fill and fell asleep.
When they woke up, they were in the belly of the slave ship. Allara's head hurt so badly she could barely see. It was like hammers were pounding against the inside of her skull.
Allara didn't know how long she stayed on the slave ship. One day they docked. Their captors were tall yellow-haired men with pale skin and light-colored eyes. Khwhefians, Allara recognized them immediately both from their look and a guttural tongue that sounded more like throat scratching than a real language.
They had landed in a great city. Namantown, Allara soon learned. The Khwhefians never even left the harbor. They sold Allara, Bogdyr, and six barrels of their grandfather's wine to a fat man with rings on all fingers. It still rankled Allara even to this day when she remembered that a single barrel of the wine with her grandfather's mark on it had cost more than she had.
Their new owner packed them on another ship and sailed them north with the rest of his cargo. They called on many a port and after 17 days, he palmed them off to another man and after another ten days at sea, they found themselves in a slave market in Yutica, a small farming town on the Khars Sea separated from Salandria by 1,000 miles of land and another 200 miles of ocean.
Allara and Bogdyr lucked out in being sold to Sir Vernon Simy, a man who treated them just marginally worse than he did his own children. Allara cleaned, ran errands, and performed countless other house chores. Bogdyr herded Sir Vernon's livestock and seemed content.
At times they even forgot they were slaves. Allara became a handmaiden to Sir Vernon's eldest daughter, Lady Varinia. In addition to her duties as a servant, she sewed and knitted with Lady Varinia, practiced the harp, recited poetry, and sat in on lessons with her. Allara and Varinia became friends after a fashion. Six years older than her, Varinia Simy became the elder sister Allara never had.
They stayed in Yutica for just under two years. Then it was time for the 17-year-old Lady Varinia to get married. When she left her father's house, she took Allara and Allara begged her to take Bogdyr with them north to the city of Confluencia. Lady Varinia got married to her fourth cousin, Stefan Brooksbhurg. Allara thought it was a good sign that the man shared a name with her father. It wasn't.
Stefan Brooksbhurg was a degenerate gambler and drunk who owed money all over Confluencia. He had squandered most of his inheritance by the time he married Lady Varinia and ran through his wife's dowry in just over a year. In the second year of her marriage, Lady Varinia died in childbirth and her grieving husband sunk further into his vices, even bartering her slaves to settle a bet.
Allara and Bogdyr were traded to Uptyrn Brooksbhurg, another distant cousin of their master. Lord Uptyrn was Castellan of Siiruch's Roost and Citymaster of Confluencia. Uptyrn Brooksbhurg registered them as the king's slaves and they settled down into their new home, an estate with 7,000 slaves.
Siiruch's Roost had once been the primary residence of kings but the capital had been moved 300 years ago and now The Roost was just another royal estate. King Daegan owned it but had never visited.
Life at The Roost hadn't been too terrible during the five years when Lord Uptyrn had been alive. That had changed drastically after Lord Uptryn went off to war in the north. He had died there and his deputy, Carman Kantbhurg, was elevated to castellan.
Lord Carman had instituted a raft of changes, none of which were good for the slaves. Food rations were reduced, the bread often had weevils, meals were no longer salted, work quotas were increased, and floggings intensified.
That would have been tolerable if he hadn't also filled the castle with his relatives. His sons-in-law, his nephews, and even distant relations all got positions at The Roost and proceeded to terrorize everyone with impunity. One of Lord Carman's nephews, Sir Zemil had started raping every woman that caught his fancy. He unironically called himself The Beast of The Roost and had vowed to "fuck every bitch in this place."
Like many of The Roost's women, Allara had shaved her hair and stopped applying any olive oil to her face or skin. Allara was quite angry at losing her hair but she couldn't afford to look even remotely attractive. That was a sure way of catching Zemil Kantbhurg's attention.
Lord Carman had only been castellan for seven months but close to 100 slaves had already taken their own lives. Allara herself had been toying with the idea. She made up her mind. Death was preferable to her hellish existence.
Perhaps she would be reborn in better circumstances. If the gods were merciful, they might even let her stay with them in Mwikulu instead of sending her to suffer back on earth. But she would have to wait until it was darker and quieter. She closed her eyes and waited.
Allara jerked awake with a thudding heart and sweat on her brow. She was grateful for the all-encompassing darkness. She had been dreaming about her father's hanging. Again.
Allara was shrouded in utter blackness. The air was punctuated with the soft breathing, snoring, and indecipherable sleep talk of hundreds of women. She couldn't see them in the dark but she could picture them all, their straw mattresses lined up in neat rows on the floor of the large hall that served as a dormitory.
Beds were too good for slaves so they slept on the floor and got about 20 square feet of space each, just enough for a straw mattress and a small wooden box for personal belongings. There were no dividers or any sort of privacy. Everybody could see everybody else. After nearly six years, Allara no longer cared.
Her neighbor and best friend Sylvia was breathing softly. Sylvia was a light sleeper and only two feet away. Allara stretched out a hand and gently touched her best friend's shoulder. Sylvia did not stir.
Jemima, the girl on the other side of Sylvia, was snoring. The spot had previously been occupied by Elena, another of Allara's best friends. Elena had caught the eye of a guardsman who bought her, freed her, and wed her, an impossible dream for the women of The Roost. Many were bedded by the guards, overseers, and scribes on the estate, but few were ever treated as little more than disposable bed warmers.
Now Elena's spot was taken by Jemima. Allara hated Jemima's snoring but she just added it to all the things she disliked but was powerless to change. The girl slept like the dead. You could braid her hair while she slept and she wouldn't react.
Allara withdrew her arm from Sylvia's shoulder and sat up on her straw mattress. She felt some sadness at not being able to say a proper goodbye to Sylvia and Bogdyr. They'll move on, she comforted herself.
She lifted the upper section of the straw-filled sack as slowly and as noiselessly as possible. Then she moved the stone she had placed underneath to act as a pillow. Beneath the stone was a hole in which she had secreted a wooden statuette of Aeduia, her most treasured possession. She slowly slid the rock back into place, lowered her straw mattress, and lay back down.
Idols weren't illegal but what she had hidden inside certainly was. It was death for a slave to bear arms but it was a very uncertain rule. Fieldhands used hoes, scythes, and axes all the time. Herdsmen like Bogdyr were even allowed to carry spears, bows, and slings when taking the livestock to graze in the surrounding hills. But the guards drew a line at bringing weapons near the castle precincts, dormitories, and other common areas. An errant slave could get twenty lashes of the whip for carrying around a stick in the yard. But Allara had no plans to get caught. Tonight was the night.
Allara silently unscrewed the head off Aeduia, all the time wondering whether secreting contraband inside a goddess was a sin. The Sitabh said nothing about it. "Holy Mother of Men, please forgive me. Please have mercy on my soul," she prayed just in case.
When the head came off completely, she tentatively reached inside, suppressing a yelp when she pricked her finger. You should have positioned it point-down, her inner voice rebuked her as she pulled out the paring knife.
Then she rebuked herself some more for worrying about a pricked finger when she was about to commit suicide. It reminded her of the tale of the man who went to buy a rope to hang himself only to get arrested for fighting the shopkeeper over receiving incorrect change.
She passed her index finger slowly over the flat of the blade. It was short, barely three inches long with a wickedly sharp edge and tip. A guard had left it on a bench after peeling an apple and Allara picked it up. She had hidden it and hadn't dared to look at it for days. She continued passing the finger over the blunt edge and felt the wooden handle.
She didn't think the blade of the paring knife was long enough to prick her heart but if she slit her wrists she would be dead long before anyone woke up. She was assuming it was some time in the middle of the night but had no idea what time it actually was. She often woke up just before the first cock crow but who knew? She didn't care much either way. Tonight was the night. She was going to meet the gods.
Allara said another prayer, held the paring knife in her right hand, and slid it across her left wrist. She expected pain but there was surprisingly little. She felt the wrist with a finger. It came back slightly wet but not thoroughly soaked. She hadn't cut deep enough. She braced her hand and positioned the knife for a deeper, more savage cut.
In the distance a cock crowed and startled Allara, jolting her into a sitting position. The paring knife went flying from her hand. Her heart stopped and she braced for the sound of it clattering on the floor.
Somewhere in the darkness to Allara's right, a woman screamed. "Aaahhh! Nanu wakhambhuna? Nanu? Nanu? Ewewe? Marietta? Ndakhwira! Aaahh!" (Aaahhh! Who stabbed me? Who? Who? Was it you? Marietta? I'll kill you! Aaah!)
A heartbeat later there was a panicked scream from a second woman, "Mai koye! Khakanjira! Uuuwi!" (Mother, please! She is killing me! Uuuwi