“My name is Ubeladuhbando Badaleesha. Ser Kolsko has done well to come that close to saying it right. I took several days of trying before I remembered the correct way myself. It had been so long since I spoke my own language, because it’s forbidden by the Narthani. Punishment is severe and swift, as it is for any transgression by a Narthani slave.”
Badaleesha untied his shirt and pulled it over his head. Men throughout the room sucked in their breath at the sight of the scars: long raised welts, probably from whips; thin scars, as if from narrow blades; puckered skin, as if from burns; and others whose origin could not be guessed. Hardly a square inch of skin remained unmarred. The action of removing the shirt had also revealed Ubeladuhbando missing one ear entirely and half of the other, and one hand had only a thumb and two fingers.
“I was seven years old when my people fought the Narthani. I remember how frightened everyone was when my father and one older brother left our farm. I remember all the weapons they carried with them. We never saw them again. We heard a great battle had been fought and our men died, to a man. I remember Narthani soldiers sweeping into our village, forcing everyone to gather in the central square. It was women, children, and old men. They screamed at us in their own language, which none of us could understand. Then they divided us into two groups. The children and some of the younger women were put into wagons, our feet tied to iron rings. The youngest children, those not walking yet, were tossed into the arms of the women and children like me. I held a girl of about eighteen months old.
“From where I sat, I faced the square that held the rest of the people. A Narthani officer yelled something, I didn’t know what, and the other Narthani drew swords and cut down everyone left in the square. Sometimes at night I can still hear the screams fading as the wagons pulled away. My last sight of the scene as my wagon turned a corner was a woman wearing a red and yellow dress and holding a baby being cut down. I couldn’t see her face, but my mother wore such a dress that day when she was dragged from our home carrying my two-month-old sister.
“We joined wagons from other villages, dozens, then hundreds in a line of wagons that stretched as far as I could see. For two sixdays, we were kept in wagons, barely enough food and water given to keep most of us alive, our excrement coating the wagon floor and eventually shoved out the end of the wagon by our feet. Many died and were dumped alongside the roads.
“They took us to Narthani slave markets and sold us into whatever our next fate was to be. In the next years, I worked dawn to dusk in a large cloth-weaving shop, untangling threads within huge looms. Many other boys like me were maimed or killed by being caught in a loom that suddenly released from whatever had bound its action. When I grew too much to slip within the loom parts, I was sold to a farmer who was harsh, though when I think back, those were my best years as a slave. We had plenty to eat, were not beaten for no reason, and when I was twenty, I was given a woman as a mate. She was ten years older and had had seven children already by three different slave men, two of whom had died and one sold for a reason no one knew. We were mated for four years, and she had two more children. When the old farm owner died, the son who inherited the farm didn’t want to be a farmer and sold it, along with all the slaves.
“The last time I saw my mate and children was when I returned from a field and saw them pulling away in the back of a wagon. When I ran after them, I was run down by the new master on his horse. My leg was broken, but they dragged me to a tree, tied me to it, and whipped me. The leg never healed properly, and I was sold for almost nothing to a horse breeder, who needed slaves to muck out stables and groom horses. You didn’t need to move fast for those tasks. When this master came to Caedellium, he brought me and many of his slaves with him. He took over a ranch in the eastern part of Preddi Province. We never learned what happened to the previous owner. Besides the slaves the master brought with him, there were several newly made Caedelli slaves. It was from them that I learned your language.
“The ranch was only a few miles from the sea, and another slave learned of a fishing village. One night during a storm, eight of us ran to the village. It was hard for me to keep up with the others, though it was a minor pain, compared to what I had already suffered over many years. At the village, we stole a small boat and rowed east. One Caedelli told us if we stayed directly east, we would reach Gwillamer. It took three days. Several times, Narthani sloops passed so close, we thought they would surely see us, but they passed on. One of us died, and we finally landed on a rocky shore. We were found by people from a Gwillamese village. I’ve been living and working in Gwillamer Province for two years.” He stopped for a moment. “Free for two years.”
The prematurely aged man looked to Yozef, who nodded his thanks. He picked up his shirt, pulled it back over his head, and limped down the aisle and out the door held open by Denes.
Yozef waited until Badaleesha was gone before addressing the clan leaders again. “The next person is Savronel Storlini. His experience with the Narthani is different than Badaleesha’s.”
Denes ushered in a tall man about thirty years old, with a sturdy form and a strong stride so different from Badaleesha’s. Balwis translated, because the man spoke no Caedelli. Storlini launched straight into recounting how the Narthani had swept aside several nations previously, separating Storlini’s people from the Narthani. The other nations had resisted and been crushed. When faced with an overwhelming Narthani army, Storlini’s people had surrendered without a fight.
The capitulation had saved them from immediate annihilation but failed by other measures. Storlini recounted how his grandfather and father had whispered at night to him that during the course of seventy years, the Narthani had systematically eliminated any trace of their past culture and language. Storlini was a horse handler and trainer and was formally a Narthani citizen, but he would never rise to any position higher than he had. The workings of Narthon dictated that those peoples absorbed had opportunities to rise in relation to how long it had been since their absorption.
Storlini had felt like a foreigner his entire life. The stories about his family’s original people conflicted with what he saw of the Narthon Empire. When an opportunity arose, he took a leap of faith that he might find a better life among the islanders than he foresaw remaining as a Narthani.
Storlini didn’t speak his family’s original language, it having been forbidden for the previous fifty years, nor did he know much about his family’s original people, except for a few stories passed on to him at home. The Narthani forbade any written records to serve as memory or rallying points for resistance. In another generation or two, even such small bits would be lost, and it would be as if his original people had never existed.
The third speaker was Balwis Preddi, Yozef’s retainer, translator, and bodyguard. He told them that he was eighteen when the Narthani crushed the belated Preddi resistance. Bitterness at the Preddi hetman dripped from his comments, as did anguish over the futility and cost of the rebellion. He described watching surviving men being shipped off as slaves, along with many of the women, including an older brother and sister and his cousins. His father and an older brother died in the fighting. He survived only because his father had ordered him to stay at home to watch over his mother and five younger siblings. When news of the disaster in Preddi City came, they feared for their lives and fled south with others in three wagons to a horse ranch owned by his mother’s distant cousin with a different last name. During the flight, they were accosted by a Narthani cavalry patrol. In the ensuing fight, they lost the wagon carrying two of his sisters, five and eight years old, being cared for by another woman. Balwis, his mother, and the three remaining siblings escaped and assumed new identities as members of the cousin’s family.
A year passed before they found out that the captured sisters had been converted to slaves and assigned to Narthani owners in northern Preddi Province. Another year passed while they hatched impractical retrieval plans, before the mother and Balwis gave up, and he declared
that he was escaping to free clan territory. He told his mother the only way he saw to rescue his sisters was if the Narthani were brought down, and he would do everything he could to contribute to that goal.
The cousin’s family had not participated in the distant fight against the Narthani, and the distance further shielded them from the worst of the reprisals and the later influx of Narthani settlers. By showing proper obeisance, they kept the ranch, although they had to breed the horses for Narthani cavalry and farms.
The large number of horses and the lack of Narthani records made it possible for four of the best horses to depart with Balwis on a 150-mile dash from southern Preddi up the length of the province, through the middle of Eywell Province, and across the border into Moreland. He left before dark and rode hard, stopping only during daylight. He made it across the border on the fourth horse, almost dead, with the other three having been exhausted and let loose along the route.
When he finished, unlike the two previous speakers, Balwis moved to a chair behind Culich, in case people had questions later. Yozef let Balwis sit before he continued.
“The final speaker has great courage to come before you and tell what happened to her. Her name is Una Gower, and she was from Preddi. I trust you will show her proper respect.”
Yozef motioned again to Denes, who opened the door and again summoned someone outside. A woman of about twenty-two years entered, wearing a shawl over her head, which she let drop as she turned to face the room full of men. She was brown-haired, of average height, and slender, and she had ancient, tired eyes. Like Balwis and some members of his family, she and her husband had been among the few Preddi who survived the destruction of their clan, due to the happenstance that the husband was at sea from their fishing village on the west coast of Preddi Province. Her husband owned a fishing boat crewed by other related men. When the Narthani finally reached their village, they tried to accept what they could not change, until one too many events made them give up. Six months ago, a Narthani cutter caught twenty-one of them trying to sail to Stent Province. Una was one of three women not executed. They were sentenced to Narthani brothels for the rest of their lives. The other women had died, wasting away within months, while Una had survived. In an emotionless voice, she described her life after her capture. For three months, six days a week, she serviced whatever men the Narthani authorities deemed worthy: soldiers, administrative staff, and then a few Selfcellese collaborators when she was moved to Sellmor, the Selfcell capitol. With the help of sympathetic Selfcellese, she was smuggled across the border to Stent and then on the Orosz City, where she had lived the last three months. When Hetman Orosz heard from Culich that Yozef intended to bring in three people with personal experience of the Narthani, he suggested Una Gower.
When Una started her recitation, there had been murmurings from the male audience, which subsided into silence, then angry utterances. She finished by describing the escape from Helfton, hiding by day and traveling at night to avoid Narthani patrols. Without another word, she raised her shawl again and walked down the aisle toward the back door. She had taken only three steps when Welman Stent rose in respect, followed immediately by his clansmen and several other hetmen and clan delegations. She stopped, startled, then continued. By the time she reached the door, every hetman in the entire room was standing. As the door closed, curses and oaths of death to Narthani rang throughout the room.
Hetman Orosz let the tumult continue for several minutes, then used the gong to bring back order, at which time Yozef resumed speaking.
“I hope you all understand the courage it took for Una Gower to stand before you. I also hope that after hearing just these four accounts of what the future holds for Caedellium should the Narthani prevail, you begin to understand the full nature of the cost of failure. I also hope you understand that nothing short of total commitment by every clan, every man, every woman, and, if necessary, every child will be required.”
Yozef looked around the room. “The question you have to face is what price might need to be paid?” He turned to Feren Bakalacs, hetman of the Farkesh clan. “Hetman Farkesh, what price would you pay to stop your clan from ceasing to exist?”
“Anything and everything,” the older man stated savagely.
“Hetman Stent, what price would your people be willing to pay to prevent from happening to Stent what happened to Preddi or what is going to happen to Eywell and Selfcell?”
“They will die to the last Stentese.”
“Hetman Skouks? What would you do to prevent your five granddaughters from becoming Narthani slaves and some sent to Narthani brothels?”
The white-haired but still robust and multi-scarred hetman jumped to his feet. “I would do anything!” he roared. “All of them would die fighting the Narthani first!!”
The room exploded in anger and shouts of defiance.
When Tomis Orosz finally brought back order ten minutes later, Yozef spoke his last words.
“Although I was not originally from Caedellium, I now count myself as a Caedelli. Look around you at the other men in this room. Look, and look closely.” He stopped and waited.
Slowly, the men looked at their own clan members, then to clans next to them, and then wider in the room.
“Until we defeat the Narthani, what you see are not ‘other clans.’ Disagreements, border disputes, raids, and old antagonisms have existed between many of you. Think hard, men of Caedellium. Pewitt versus Stent. Moreland versus Keelan. Pawell versus Nyvaks. On and on. I ask you to consider that whatever differences and conflicts have existed are nothing . . . nothing, compared to what stands between all the clans and the Narthani. Do not think of the other groups in this room as from other clans. Think of them as your brothers. Brothers in the mightiest effort ever undertaken on Caedellium. If we fail, there will be no history of Caedellium, no stories to pass on to future generations. It will be as if the people of Caedellium never existed.
“But . . . if we are victorious, legends, songs, and histories will be known for a thousand years.”
The room exploded again. Hetmen and men whose names and clans Yozef had no idea of rushed to hug him, slap him on the back, and pledge death to all Narthani. For a moment, Yozef felt as if he had been in no more danger of injury at the defense of St. Sidryn’s or the Battle of Moreland City. It took half an hour for Orosz to call an end to the meeting that evening and direct the men to return to continue the next day.
Yozef stood with the other Keelanders, as the room emptied. He felt almost euphoric. He had stood in front of the room full of Caedelli leaders and, along with help from four witnesses, led the men to an outpouring of defiance against the Narthani.
Who would have thought I could do something like this? My God. It was almost like something out of an epic novel or a scene from Game of Thrones.
He chuckled aloud, causing Balwis and Denes to look at him with raised eyebrows.
Yes, they’re surprised, too, and wondering why I’m amused.
His thoughts turned from his own grand performance, as Culich left a cluster of hetmen and walked in their direction.
“What do you think, Culich?” asked Yozef, eager to hear confirmation that his speech had had an effect. “Do you, Stent, and Orosz think we can get the clans to unite against the Narthani?”
“Oh, no. Nothing that grandiose,” said Culich.
Cold water dashed Yozef’s elation. Then he noticed Culich’s serene expression, with perhaps a hint of pleasure.
“We never thought we could get all the clans together,” said Culich, “but several more are leaning our way. I even have hopes that the votes tomorrow will be enough to force the recalcitrant to join some form of action, whether they want to or not.”
Culich noticed Yozef’s downcast face. “No, no, Yozef, you did fine. Actually, better than I’d hoped. Asking questions to individual hetmen at the end about what they would do had an impact. Pewitt was wavering and now is firmly behind uniting. Similarly with Bevans, although I’ve always
thought Bevans would be forced to join, if only because they would once Adris did. The two clans have close ties. More important is Farkesh. I was uncertain about him, and now I think there’s a good chance he’ll support us. If that happens, the two most resistant, Swavebroke and Skouks, will gradually come around. I never had any hopes for Nyvaks, and Seaborn wouldn’t be much help, even if they joined, because they’re physically separated by being on their islands.”
Culich went on. “We have to be patient. The clans can’t be rushed into anything.”
“The voting tomorrow?” said Yozef. “What does this do for the chances of not just uniting against the Narthani, but forming a central authority to plan and carry out actions?”
Culich shook his head. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Agreeing to unite is the most we can look for at this conclave. Clans agreeing to submit themselves to a central authority is something entirely different.”
Yozef started to protest, but Culich cut him off with a firm grip on his upper arm.
“I know you think a central authority is necessary, Yozef. I tend to agree with you, but even I shrink at the idea of someone not a Keelander giving orders to our men. Clan independence is too ingrained. If it does eventually happen, I think it will need one or more catastrophic events like what happened to the Preddi or Moreland to shock the hetmen.”
Yozef made no effort to hide his dismay. “Giving the other clans time to get their heads out of their asses may mean we run out of time. What happens if by the time they wake up, there are fewer clans to unite? Remember, Caedellium started with twenty-one clans. Now there are only eighteen to fight the Narthani, and it’s probably best to think it fewer. Nyvaks seems useless, Seaborn too isolated, and who knows what Moreland can still muster?”
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 21
