by Vance Moore
It flew in a flat arc and hit the shoulder of a camel. The rocket's charge shattered the animal's side and removed the gray-skinned raider's leg in a bright flash. Haddad could hear the sudden amputee cursing as he and the camel separated, breaking up the Keldon line. As if Natal had ordered it, men with launchers let loose other rockets and darts. The Keldon charge was a mass of screaming animals and men, but the warriors swung wide and up the slopes on either side of the wagons. The deaths disrupted the Keldon battle cries, but every warrior was roaring. The League soldiers sent up a few cries of their own, but fear rather than rage sounded from the men around the wagons. Haddad and a few others had not fired, the web rounds being point-blank weapons. The enemy jockeyed for position to sweep down over the League. Many Keldons dismounted and gripped axes and shields. Behind Haddad, on the other side of the wagons, he could hear shouts. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the biggest of the raiders calling and signaling. This Keldon must have been near seven feet tall, cursing and yelling in a pall of smoke. Haddad barely had time to wonder where the fire was when the split Keldon forces descended upon the column.
Haddad spun on the nearest Keldon raider and fired his launcher. The round webbed the rider to his camel. Haddad could hear curses that rose to a shout as the camel went down heavily, whipping the rider into the ground. Gear shot off the body, and the Keldon's helmet skipped down the slope, finally hitting a wagon. The struggling animal and its attached corpse slid down the gentle slope to snare another Keldon mount. The rider of the second animal jumped free in time to avoid being trapped. The now standing Keldon wasted no time. He ran at Haddad, screaming a war cry, a long sword in his left hand. Haddad threw the launcher at the man hard. The raider batted it away but stumbled in mid-charge. Haddad drew his short sword, knowing the warrior would bowl him over.
Then Natal stepped forward, and Haddad remembered he wasn't alone in this fight. His friend picked up a shield and tried to push the Keldon away. The barbarian overtopped Natal by at least a foot and was in full armor, spikes, and studs of metal. The taller warrior swung his sword up and hammered it down. The blade screamed as it tore through Natal's metal shield and sank deep into his torso. His eyes rolled and blood flowed from his mouth as he tried to speak. The Keldon's blow had been too powerful, and his blade was now stuck inside Haddad's friend.
The Keldon swore as he tried to haul his blade free from Natal, his eyes wild and inhuman against the ashy skin. Haddad swung his sword at that face, committing everything to this one strike. His blade rang as it hit an armored shoulder and then skidded under the rim of the man's helmet, sinking into his neck. Even mortally wounded by the blow, the Keldon turned and struck Haddad with a gauntleted fist, the studs tearing a line of agony across the League soldier's scalp, right over the eyes. Blood poured down, and the pain and shock took him off his feet. Haddad could still hear the cries of other soldiers around him as he worked the blade free of the Keldon's neck and tried vainly to clear his eyes, to rejoin the battle. He pushed himself off the bodies of his friend and his friend's killer. The shouts of his comrades were falling silent as he struggled to stand.
The Keldons held the field, and the fighting revolved around one wagon, squatting under the heavy load of supplies it carried. The oxen lay dead in their traces. Atul's voice was falsetto against the cries of the Keldons as he and a few others fought on. Spears licked out from under the wagon as the last League soldiers fought like animals trapped in a den. The Keldons laughed now and threw rocks under the wagon. Another gray warrior cut heads from corpses and hurled them at the trapped defenders.
Haddad saw it all as if very far away as he picked up a shield and carefully pulled a sword free from a dead Keldon's back. He staggered into a charge at a Keldon who ignored him as unworthy sport. The discharge of the launcher must have been accidental, Haddad later decided. Or perhaps Atul had decided better to kill oneself than be dug out like a rat. The charge thumped into the bottom of the overloaded wagon and ignited hidden rockets buried there.
Accidentally or on purpose, the blast killed the defenders, and Haddad was knocked spinning as a piece of someone smacked into his shield. The Keldons close to the wagon screamed in rage at their injuries and at being robbed of their victory. Supplies that had been hurled into the air from the blast soon fell, mostly striking the wounded gasping on the ground. Haddad swayed drunkenly, turning to face the largest group of Keldons. He hoped to die fighting, but his eyes wouldn't focus, and he saw only blurs and shadows. A hand swept his helmet off, and then there was only pain and darkness as he fell.
Chapter 2
Waking up was a long, painful process with no beginning and no real end. There was a long period where pain and nausea encompassed the totality of Haddad's world. Never had he felt such sickness as his body pitched and moved against his will. Several times, he could not have said how many, the nausea provoked an episode where he tried to vomit. Haddad never did, but each bout wiped out any progress he made toward reaching normalcy, and pain blotted out his sense of time. Finally he mastered his illness and tried to call for help. His eyes were gummy, and his mouth and throat were dry. It was only after he was sitting up and looking at the moving landscape that he remembered the Keldon attack, the moment he went down. Commands in voices he had never heard brought him fully into the present.
"Slave, that one is too ill for the purpose. Find another to use." The voice was gravelly but quiet and with a feminine tone. The voice spoke in Haddad's native tongue, but the words sounded foreign, as if whoever was speaking them hadn't known the language for very long. He turned his head slowly to see the speaker. It was a Keldon, but this one was different from the warriors he had seen charging the line. She was a woman, six feet tall and dressed in dyed leathers. The red and orange tones were bright and jarring to his eyes. Her features were coarse, and her gray skin was wet ash in the shadows of the vehicle. She turned and looked at him with eyes rimmed with kohl. A hand shoved his head, and his vision clouded at the fresh pain. The cursing he heard became shouts of anger behind him. A struggle was occurring, and he turned to see what was happening. He found a man of his own nation crouched by him. The poor state of his clothes and the resignation in his body were obvious even to Haddad's still blurry vision. This was a man who had been with the Keldons far longer than Haddad cared to imagine.
"Don't look at them directly, boy," the man said as he looked off to the left of Haddad's face. Haddad tried to see what was happening as the sounds of struggle died down. The brightly clad woman was standing in front of a League officer restrained by two men. His mouth was bleeding, and he bared his teeth in challenge. The Keldon smashed his face with her gloves, which were heavy and studded. He fell to his knees, and the two men kept his head bowed as he began cursing in broken, incoherent mutterings.
"He challenged her with his eyes. Never meet their eyes.
Now she'll make him suffer." All this was delivered by the crouching man in a low voice that Haddad strained to hear as he looked around.
He must be in one of the large vehicles he had seen on the battlefield, Haddad thought. He was on a long deck that stretched maybe sixty feet from end to end. One side of the vehicle opened to the outside through several large doors, which allowed light inside. The landscape flowed by at a fair clip, and Haddad realized motion sickness contributed to his nausea. The vehicle he was in was packed with League prisoners. The captives were lying down, and only a few were not obviously injured or dazed. There was only a small group of what must be Keldon servants-all raggedly dressed men. They seemed rather stoic at the Keldon victory, and Haddad wondered what their status really was. Loud horns sounded outside the vehicle, and Haddad felt a moment of hope as he imagined it signaling the arrival of League forces.
"Hold his hand still," the alien woman said. Both servants rammed the officer's hand to the deck, and Haddad wanted to protest, but he couldn't drag a single sound from his parched throat. The woman drew back her metalshod stave and then slammed it down
on the man's fingers. The officer inhaled to scream, and he reared his head up, staring into her eyes. Before he could voice his pain, the stave rose and crushed his other hand. He did not scream but seemed to dissolve into the wooden deck. When the woman spoke she didn't even sound angry.
"Over the side with him." She gestured to an opening, and the body was flung clear. "Walking speed and a wide circle," she called, and the command was relayed by others, presumably carrying it to the driver of the craft. The passage of landscape slowed, and Haddad became more aware of the craft's curious gait. He could see other vehicles moving into his line of sight as the craft began to turn. The image that sprang to mind was of hermit crabs using toy boats as shells. The vehicles were overturned hulls in shape with wide doors and windows showing. He could see the gray faces of Keldons, in contrast with the captives, looking out. The land vehicles were balanced on dozens of legs, and the rhythmical sight of them made his motion sickness worse as the female Keldon spoke.
"I am Latulla, and you will obey," she said loudly but without any particular emphasis. "I will not be questioned or challenged. All other Keldons will receive the same obedience and respect, or you will be punished." Haddad watched other men being thrown from what he decided to call land barges. Some were limp and did not rise. Others got up and started collecting themselves.
"Some of you might be thinking of escape. Try and you will be punished, as I punished the slave without respect. Even if you should succeed, you will only find death." As she finished, Haddad could see groups of something breaking into the large circle of moving land barges. The timing was too perfect, and he realized he was seeing a planned performance and not some impromptu expression of rage or cruelty. This was carefully staged, and only his weakness and passivity had saved him from a similar fate.
The land birds of the wastes were now only a legend in the civilized cities of the League where Haddad had grown up. They had been relegated to the status of monsters of fairy tales, spoken of only to scare children. But in the wilds of the east, they were the primary danger faced by League patrols before the Keldons began raiding. They hunted in pairs or small groups, and their presence in a district meant panic. All that Haddad knew of the parea, called the running death by some, flowed through his mind. Then the beasts spread out and fell onto the men stumbling on the ground.
The birds overtook their victims, and when they reached the running men, they knocked them down with what appeared playful nudges of their beaks. Full-grown men fell and tumbled head over heels as a result of those love taps. Other birds snapped at flailing limbs and dismembered men as neatly and quickly as slaughtered chickens in the mess hall. More parea darted in, and Haddad wondered where they had all come from. At more than five hundred pounds apiece, the surrounding landscape couldn't support many of the vicious birds. He coughed and spit several times before he could make a sound.
"It's like a flock of sparrows hunting a field," Haddad said. The juxtaposition of that homey memory against the hellish scene was grotesque. "Where are they all coming from?" He was talking to himself, but the crouching slave- that was what he must be-answered him.
"Every trip they dispose of the troublemakers or the dead here. The parea can sprint past a galloping horse and run for hours. They come from miles around whenever the Keldons enter the wastes. Latulla takes advantage of the birds' hunger to shatter the spirits of the captives. I'd curse them all if I didn't know I'd end up out there."
The birds that straggled in found no moving prey and fell upon the bodies of the League officers and slaves. The unconscious victims mercifully died without seeing their devourers. The birds leaped and tore in a territorial display to keep other gorging birds away. Keldon warriors handled barbed lances to drive away birds that might come too near the barges. Another round of horns sounded.
"The lesson is over. Let it never be forgotten," Latulla intoned. Haddad knew he would always remember and swore vengeance, but he swore it silently and with eyes cast down in apparent submission.
"Into traveling column and trail speed," she called and was once again echoed to wherever the control or helm was located. The barge straightened out, and Haddad's last view of the bloody scene was of the parea snatching meat from each other's kills.
*****
Haddad sat morosely against the cavern wall, idly turning his mess kit in his hands as he dreamed of the next meal. The cave was shallow and dry, the wind blowing continuously into its mouth. One of many against a granite cliff-side, it was stuffed with League soldiers and civilians captured by raiders.
How long had he been in captivity, Haddad wondered. Like his distant slave ancestors, Haddad was cut off from time. Each day was the same. It started with sunrise and stopped with sunset. Haddad wondered how his forebears dealt with the total lack of control. He had no idea what would happen to him or when things might change.
Latulla's barges had stopped within hours of the parea feeding. Haddad had stepped into a desolate valley ringed by sloping cliffs. The area served as a central collection and training point for the Keldons. Each load of humanity was dumped into this sewer and into slavery. The task of the overseers was to instruct new servants in the Keldon language. The turnover among prisoners and their teachers was constant. Haddad was sure it was to prevent escapes. It was impossible to plan anything or trust anyone as people appeared and disappeared without apparent reason. There was only one constant-the distribution of the food. A slave might have many instructors and sleep in many caves, but only one person would issue a captive's rations. The chit that Haddad carried continually locked in his fist was the only source of food besides the weeds growing in the arid soil. Twice a day he reported for food and spoke a few words of Keldon. If he showed no improvement in speaking, he received nothing. Some slaves starved to death as the world looked on-either for failure to learn or because they irritated the distributor of the food. Haddad had tried sharing rations, but the desperate stole what they could, and soon everyone bolted their food as soon as possible to avoid theft.
Goblins, elves, and League soldiers were all thrown together, locked in a desperate struggle to learn their captors' language. Each day was the same as bewildered captives arrived and apathetic slaves left. Haddad wondered if all of Jamuraa would be swallowed by similar camps.
"Food call," came a voice from outside the cave.
The issue of rations motivated all the captives, and they rushed out of the caves where they talked with Keldon-speaking slaves. Piles of food were set up, and Haddad hurried to get into the nearest line.
"I am very hungry, and I need food so I might serve Keld," Haddad said as he reached the head of the line. The slave passing out the food nodded and handed him bread.
"You have learned very quickly," the man said, "but continue to concentrate on speaking clearly." Haddad thought the threat of starvation centered the mind more surely than the slave's compliment. He retreated higher up and squatted to eat his ration. Most of the camp was congregated around the food, and guards moved in to keep order. Haddad could see a clump of new prisoners nearing the head of the line. The last load of captives had come from the south and brought lizard men and goblins to the camp. They were not yet broken by the turnover inside the prison. They still had their identities.
The roar of the lizard men as they fell on the guards shocked the camp. Warriors began to retreat as more and more prisoners joined in the rush. Keldons rushed from throughout the camp as the captives turned on the captors. Spear tips tore into the prisoners, but like a stampede, the pressure of the ones behind pushed the dying forward, tangling weapons.
"Come on!" cried an elf, and he began running toward the camp corrals. "We'll steal mounts and be gone before the bastards can put down the riot."
Haddad followed. The corrals held a few mounts for scouts and were at the mouth of the valley. A slim chance is enough in this hell, he thought as he ran for the horses. A few other prisoners fell in behind him, but most of the population was converging on the clum
ps of embattled guards. The corrals grew closer and closer. Then the elf leading the run slowed, and Haddad crashed into him, both prisoners spilling to the ground. Haddad cursed his bleeding scrapes as he started to help his companion rise. The elf only shuddered, blood pouring from the arrow wound in his chest. Guards stood in front of the corrals, one with a bow in hand. The archer and his companions must have come from the feed sheds to the side of the corral. Haddad watched him pick off one of the prisoners who stumbled to a halt as the Keldon guards unsheathed their swords.
Haddad turned and slowly walked away. He headed up toward the caves. If the riot pulled more warriors away from their stations, a guard post might be abandoned at the top of the cliffs. But even as Haddad walked the back slope, he could see the attack dying down. The fighting retreat of the
Keldons stopped with the guards pinned back against the sheds. The buildings stored gear for the raiding parties. Suddenly new figures entered the fight. Axes and swords cut through walls to fall upon prisoners. The new defenders were red, and the riot began dying, literally. Swords sheared men into pieces, and instead of the new fighters being buried under bodies, they mounted piles of corpses. Crazed captives lost their footing on the bloodsoaked ground. Insane charges momentarily hid the scarlet fighters, but steel cleared away the curtain of flesh to reveal them anew. Now the prisoners broke and ran for the caves. The guards paused to bind up their wounds, and their allies all stopped.
Like machines, Haddad thought, and then the fleeing tide of captives was upon him. He ran toward the cliff side with the rest. The riot had failed, and who knew what the Keldons would do. Haddad moved into the cave and crawled onto a high ledge right by the entrance. More people poured in, and Haddad wondered if some might die of the crush in the back. Finally, the stream of people stopped. Haddad slowly got down and looked out the entrance. Keldon warriors were spreading out as land barges came from outside the camp. Guards began clearing out the caves and herding prisoners into the waiting transportation. The few supervising slaves that had been caught up in the riot called out.
