15th Bell - 16th Day of Winter, 515AV - Six days West of Sunberth
"Gods, I can still petching see it from here."
Konrad looked around and, oddly enough, wasn't surprised by what he saw. Syna had risen and fallen half a dozen times, they'd covered scores of miles, he was sure, until all trace of civilization had faded from sight. No cobbles or bricks, no stink of human waste or dried blood or sizzling meat. No... closeness. No crowds and endless babble from thousands of souls, all packed together and fighting for standing room.
Sunberth was long gone, but looking back, he could still see her waste belching into the air.
Slag Heap, he thought, sniffling for the hundredth time as his runny nose started to leak again onto his lips. Knew it was big, but gods...
Like oil across water, the pillar of greasy black smoke was still puffing and rising into the sky, fueled by the scrap and shit of an entire city. It never ceased burning, and Konrad knew it well. He smiled in something close to nostalgia: more than once he'd had to make "something" vanish in that eternal inferno. Somestimes you couldn't just leave the body in the gutter; sometimes they had to disappear.
And why let the biggest furnace around go t'waste?
"I swear I can still smell it," the cart-driver said next to him, apparently intent on talking his fucking ear off, even when every conversation was one-sided. "Can you? I mean, you live somewhere for that long, I guess y'don't notice it anymore, y'know? But, when it's gone..."
Konrad tried to block out the tedious cunt but the bastard planted a seed regardless. Point of fact, he had noticed the... absence, if he could call it that. His whole life he'd been aware of the stench of Sunberth, and yet immune to it. A stank had to be pretty damn overpowering for him to notice - dead bodies? pah, that was a fragrant bouquet down some streets - and after three decades he'd just assumed that was how the world smelled.
Not to mention looked. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd been beyond the Slag Heap, the rough walls of the city. Even gazing upon the hills and woodland seemed like too much; they were dark and natural places, which to a city boy was decided unnatural. Not made by man therefore not controlled by him, not submissive to the vicious laws of the street and blade that Sunberth was built on, that Konrad lived by.
Now look at me, he thought with a snort. Ridin' in the middle of petching nowhere, on the way to a swamp, halfway across the fuckin' world.
"Money's good, though."
"Hmm? You say something?"
"Naw."
He looked back over his shoulder, hoping to dodge any other questions. Behind them, half their cargo sloshed and splashed in barrels almost as tall as he was. That cart and a half-dozen behind, all filled with brandy, port, cognac, beer, and not the shite that you got served in the grog shops that you could thin paint with. No, this was the good stuff, the expensive stuff and so, naturally, the rich men who made it weren't wasting it on Sunberth Scum.
Oh, no. This was heading to the "civilized" cities of Zeltiva and Kenash, where proper appreciation would be paid.
Not to mention a lot more gold, Konrad thought, checking the ropes securing the nearest barrel before pulling the cloth covering back into place. Then he turned back round and cast a bored eye on the rest of the caravan's cargo, traveling ahead of him.
The cargo stared back.
Misery and hopelessness of all ages looked blankly out at a world that was no longer real to them. It was not a place of hope or adventure, or even enjoyment. Days bled together, meaningless to those forever shackled and branded and bonded to others. Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, separated by sex and worked under lash until all they were was forgotten. Until their clothes wore down to tatters and the layer of dirt they bore never left them, and the light retreated from their faces.
Leaving nothing but clay and glass where should have been life and fire. Six wagons, tall with metal and wooden bars, rocking back and forth, furs and leathers nailed onto the sides to keep out the chill and snow. Livestock had to be protected from the elements, after all. Fangor, the caravan master, had strict instructions that if any more than one-in-five of the slaves died before Kenash, the loss would come out of his fee.
No better motivation to a man than threatening his purse, Konrad thought with a low chuckle. A mother and child blinked woodenly at his face, barely even showing fear, or recognition, or concern. A cart to Kenash, a stockade in Sunberth... what difference did it make? Out of boredom Konrad let his eyes trail down the woman's skinny form, her clothes with more holes than wool. Her ribs jutted out like she'd been issued a skin two sizes too small, and the sight of it always made him feel-
"When're we stoppin' t'eat, anyway?"
Ah, another thing he'd grown to hate: having to ask those endless questions. He wasn't a caravan guard, the most experience he'd had was a few booze runs for Tall Johnny when he'd been younger. But that was for a night, and in a city. This would more than a season just to get where they were going, let alone going back, and most of it would be in the wilderness. Not a grog shop or stew pit to be found.
When do they eat? When do they stop? When do the slaves eat? How is the caravan ordered? What's his job, besides the obvious? Will they have enough food? Water? Have they got to hunt their own? How do you even hunt?!
All questions Konrad didn't know and he hated the ignorance, but hated more the fact that it gave the driver with the scraggly mustache reason after reason to open his fucking mouth-
"Eh? Oh, won't be for a while yet, I think. Couple more bells, at least, when it starts to get dark. Then we'll bed 'em down and set up some fires, have a big meal at the end of the day."
"Nothing for lunch?"
"Nah. Takes too long, unless you wanna make something the night before that you could scaarf down at noon, y'know what I mean? Now, run I went on a few years ago, they 'ad a stewpot bubblin' all day on onea' the other carts, an' come midday, they went around while they were movin' and fed ya. But I dunno if Fangor'll do that. Bit miserly, you ask me. Reminds me of..."
And so on, and so on, and Konrad turned away again. He didn't mind the information, tried to squirrel it away in his mind as much as he could, but once Stash got started, he never shut the petch up. So he turned back to the caravan, letting the words wash over him like the icy wind.
Carts and wagons and mounted men were rolling and clip-clopping in a fat serpent a few hundred yards long, as far as he could tell. It wasn't just the cargo, human or otherwise, but supplies and tents piled high onto the middle wagons. The means for them to survive, in the best protected part of the procession. If he inhaled deeply, he could almost...
No. He couldn't. Instead he smelled frost and ice clinging to his nostrils. The dead pine in the forests to his right, the salt from the sea on his left and the mud below him. Again: the absence struck him more than the substance. But then the absence just made his stomach growl and he decided-
"Oi?! Come back 'ere!"
Never something you want to hear from a slaver caravan in full crawl down the road. Konrad twisted his head round and saw a trio of scrawny figures leap down from the side, so skinny they barely dented the frozen mud as they hit the road-
-and started running like only men tasting freedom could.
"Kon?!" Venger adjusted his look and found Three Eyes aiming a crossbow at them. He'd got at the mustering point early, the sly bastard, a snagged one of those evil-looking mechanisms, along with a quiver of bolts that laughed at all but the strongest plate. "Got business!"
Konrad didn't know much about slaving, but he knew they weren't worth shyke when they were dead.
"Don't shoot, ya fuckin' idiot!" He said, jumping down out of instinct. He knew there were men on mounts already pounding towards them, a couple far closer than him... but it felt good to be doing something, at least. "Come on and get off yer arse, f'fuck's sake!"
Three Eyes and another couple of guards did just that, one of them carrying another crossbow, though fuck knew why he thought they'd be using it. Swords were out though, even Konrad filling his hand, and they were going to get some sodding exercise out here if nothing else. The horsemen were galloping closer, the caravan was skidding to a halt, cart by cart, Fangor's roar already ringing over the sound of it-
"Bugger!"
The horsemen reared back as the trio scrambled under a bramble thicket, heedless to the thorns that flayed open their backs as they went. Konrad didn't even see them slow down, so maddened were they with their new liberty. The horses trotted and circled, unwilling to ravage their hides with rank after rank of sharp, piercing thorns. The riders were shushing them but not trying to go around, or even dismount. Konrad snarled up at the nearest as he passed.
"Geddown and help, you twat!"
"Fuck you, cart scum! I'm a man o'the horse, youse can deal with this shite!"
Konrad made a very clear and careful mental note as he memorized the man's face, then pelted on. The rustling and snapping twigs were getting further away and soon the slaves would be gone... and probably starve to death. But they weren't thinking, not clearly. All they knew was that being out the cage was better than being in it, and The Row hadn't broke them so thoroughly that they no longer even dreamed of escaping.
"Fuck's sake," Konrad snarled again, beginning to hack his way through the brambles curling nearly up to his shoulders. There were glimpses and flashes of movement through them, voices, croaking and squeaking. Three Eyes was close by, hacking with a machete while the other two brought up the rear. "Gonna have to do this by-FUCK!"
He drew back his hand and blood oozed out from a fresh cut, an especially nasty thorn taking a bite out of him. Already it was starting to steam in the frigid air, dripping smoking globs of crimson. Konrad cursed half the gods he knew of and kept hacking, plunging deeper after their quarry-
Telling himself this was fuck-all like Three Eyes said it would be.
"Gods, I can still petching see it from here."
Konrad looked around and, oddly enough, wasn't surprised by what he saw. Syna had risen and fallen half a dozen times, they'd covered scores of miles, he was sure, until all trace of civilization had faded from sight. No cobbles or bricks, no stink of human waste or dried blood or sizzling meat. No... closeness. No crowds and endless babble from thousands of souls, all packed together and fighting for standing room.
Sunberth was long gone, but looking back, he could still see her waste belching into the air.
Slag Heap, he thought, sniffling for the hundredth time as his runny nose started to leak again onto his lips. Knew it was big, but gods...
Like oil across water, the pillar of greasy black smoke was still puffing and rising into the sky, fueled by the scrap and shit of an entire city. It never ceased burning, and Konrad knew it well. He smiled in something close to nostalgia: more than once he'd had to make "something" vanish in that eternal inferno. Somestimes you couldn't just leave the body in the gutter; sometimes they had to disappear.
And why let the biggest furnace around go t'waste?
"I swear I can still smell it," the cart-driver said next to him, apparently intent on talking his fucking ear off, even when every conversation was one-sided. "Can you? I mean, you live somewhere for that long, I guess y'don't notice it anymore, y'know? But, when it's gone..."
Konrad tried to block out the tedious cunt but the bastard planted a seed regardless. Point of fact, he had noticed the... absence, if he could call it that. His whole life he'd been aware of the stench of Sunberth, and yet immune to it. A stank had to be pretty damn overpowering for him to notice - dead bodies? pah, that was a fragrant bouquet down some streets - and after three decades he'd just assumed that was how the world smelled.
Not to mention looked. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd been beyond the Slag Heap, the rough walls of the city. Even gazing upon the hills and woodland seemed like too much; they were dark and natural places, which to a city boy was decided unnatural. Not made by man therefore not controlled by him, not submissive to the vicious laws of the street and blade that Sunberth was built on, that Konrad lived by.
Now look at me, he thought with a snort. Ridin' in the middle of petching nowhere, on the way to a swamp, halfway across the fuckin' world.
"Money's good, though."
"Hmm? You say something?"
"Naw."
He looked back over his shoulder, hoping to dodge any other questions. Behind them, half their cargo sloshed and splashed in barrels almost as tall as he was. That cart and a half-dozen behind, all filled with brandy, port, cognac, beer, and not the shite that you got served in the grog shops that you could thin paint with. No, this was the good stuff, the expensive stuff and so, naturally, the rich men who made it weren't wasting it on Sunberth Scum.
Oh, no. This was heading to the "civilized" cities of Zeltiva and Kenash, where proper appreciation would be paid.
Not to mention a lot more gold, Konrad thought, checking the ropes securing the nearest barrel before pulling the cloth covering back into place. Then he turned back round and cast a bored eye on the rest of the caravan's cargo, traveling ahead of him.
The cargo stared back.
Misery and hopelessness of all ages looked blankly out at a world that was no longer real to them. It was not a place of hope or adventure, or even enjoyment. Days bled together, meaningless to those forever shackled and branded and bonded to others. Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, separated by sex and worked under lash until all they were was forgotten. Until their clothes wore down to tatters and the layer of dirt they bore never left them, and the light retreated from their faces.
Leaving nothing but clay and glass where should have been life and fire. Six wagons, tall with metal and wooden bars, rocking back and forth, furs and leathers nailed onto the sides to keep out the chill and snow. Livestock had to be protected from the elements, after all. Fangor, the caravan master, had strict instructions that if any more than one-in-five of the slaves died before Kenash, the loss would come out of his fee.
No better motivation to a man than threatening his purse, Konrad thought with a low chuckle. A mother and child blinked woodenly at his face, barely even showing fear, or recognition, or concern. A cart to Kenash, a stockade in Sunberth... what difference did it make? Out of boredom Konrad let his eyes trail down the woman's skinny form, her clothes with more holes than wool. Her ribs jutted out like she'd been issued a skin two sizes too small, and the sight of it always made him feel-
"When're we stoppin' t'eat, anyway?"
Ah, another thing he'd grown to hate: having to ask those endless questions. He wasn't a caravan guard, the most experience he'd had was a few booze runs for Tall Johnny when he'd been younger. But that was for a night, and in a city. This would more than a season just to get where they were going, let alone going back, and most of it would be in the wilderness. Not a grog shop or stew pit to be found.
When do they eat? When do they stop? When do the slaves eat? How is the caravan ordered? What's his job, besides the obvious? Will they have enough food? Water? Have they got to hunt their own? How do you even hunt?!
All questions Konrad didn't know and he hated the ignorance, but hated more the fact that it gave the driver with the scraggly mustache reason after reason to open his fucking mouth-
"Eh? Oh, won't be for a while yet, I think. Couple more bells, at least, when it starts to get dark. Then we'll bed 'em down and set up some fires, have a big meal at the end of the day."
"Nothing for lunch?"
"Nah. Takes too long, unless you wanna make something the night before that you could scaarf down at noon, y'know what I mean? Now, run I went on a few years ago, they 'ad a stewpot bubblin' all day on onea' the other carts, an' come midday, they went around while they were movin' and fed ya. But I dunno if Fangor'll do that. Bit miserly, you ask me. Reminds me of..."
And so on, and so on, and Konrad turned away again. He didn't mind the information, tried to squirrel it away in his mind as much as he could, but once Stash got started, he never shut the petch up. So he turned back to the caravan, letting the words wash over him like the icy wind.
Carts and wagons and mounted men were rolling and clip-clopping in a fat serpent a few hundred yards long, as far as he could tell. It wasn't just the cargo, human or otherwise, but supplies and tents piled high onto the middle wagons. The means for them to survive, in the best protected part of the procession. If he inhaled deeply, he could almost...
No. He couldn't. Instead he smelled frost and ice clinging to his nostrils. The dead pine in the forests to his right, the salt from the sea on his left and the mud below him. Again: the absence struck him more than the substance. But then the absence just made his stomach growl and he decided-
"Oi?! Come back 'ere!"
Never something you want to hear from a slaver caravan in full crawl down the road. Konrad twisted his head round and saw a trio of scrawny figures leap down from the side, so skinny they barely dented the frozen mud as they hit the road-
-and started running like only men tasting freedom could.
"Kon?!" Venger adjusted his look and found Three Eyes aiming a crossbow at them. He'd got at the mustering point early, the sly bastard, a snagged one of those evil-looking mechanisms, along with a quiver of bolts that laughed at all but the strongest plate. "Got business!"
Konrad didn't know much about slaving, but he knew they weren't worth shyke when they were dead.
"Don't shoot, ya fuckin' idiot!" He said, jumping down out of instinct. He knew there were men on mounts already pounding towards them, a couple far closer than him... but it felt good to be doing something, at least. "Come on and get off yer arse, f'fuck's sake!"
Three Eyes and another couple of guards did just that, one of them carrying another crossbow, though fuck knew why he thought they'd be using it. Swords were out though, even Konrad filling his hand, and they were going to get some sodding exercise out here if nothing else. The horsemen were galloping closer, the caravan was skidding to a halt, cart by cart, Fangor's roar already ringing over the sound of it-
"Bugger!"
The horsemen reared back as the trio scrambled under a bramble thicket, heedless to the thorns that flayed open their backs as they went. Konrad didn't even see them slow down, so maddened were they with their new liberty. The horses trotted and circled, unwilling to ravage their hides with rank after rank of sharp, piercing thorns. The riders were shushing them but not trying to go around, or even dismount. Konrad snarled up at the nearest as he passed.
"Geddown and help, you twat!"
"Fuck you, cart scum! I'm a man o'the horse, youse can deal with this shite!"
Konrad made a very clear and careful mental note as he memorized the man's face, then pelted on. The rustling and snapping twigs were getting further away and soon the slaves would be gone... and probably starve to death. But they weren't thinking, not clearly. All they knew was that being out the cage was better than being in it, and The Row hadn't broke them so thoroughly that they no longer even dreamed of escaping.
"Fuck's sake," Konrad snarled again, beginning to hack his way through the brambles curling nearly up to his shoulders. There were glimpses and flashes of movement through them, voices, croaking and squeaking. Three Eyes was close by, hacking with a machete while the other two brought up the rear. "Gonna have to do this by-FUCK!"
He drew back his hand and blood oozed out from a fresh cut, an especially nasty thorn taking a bite out of him. Already it was starting to steam in the frigid air, dripping smoking globs of crimson. Konrad cursed half the gods he knew of and kept hacking, plunging deeper after their quarry-
Telling himself this was fuck-all like Three Eyes said it would be.
