The Lords of the South
SHORTLY BEFORE SUNRISE, the imprisoned friends wake at the sound of cage doors creaking, prisoners shuffling nervously, and orders being shouted in the strange tongue of the Arawai’s allies. The captives are being led out at lance-point, one cage at a time, and marched in a line back toward Guardwatch. As their cage is opened, Carwyn scans the guards anxiously but judges that none of the guards who marched them to the birth the previous night have returned. She carries out Hamber in her arms; in the chaos of the general emptying of the cage, none of the strangers seem to take notice of the second baby. Curago grimaces as he steps down to the ground. “See? The Velnaryns have ransomed us, as usual. A few months of mercenary service for them, and we’ll be free to return home.”
The prisoners are not led to the smoldering ruins of Guardwatch, but to a huge tent, from which they hear shrieks emerging. Lucian glances over meaningfully at Atrix, clearly not intending to go quietly if this is another round of executions. As the tent flap is opened, they catch a sharp, smoky aroma -- and then see the rank of masked, alien soldiers carrying irons with a complex, glowing symbol on the end. Another set of guards grab the prisoners and tear their tunics across from the neck to expose their shoulders.
Curago bellows in horrified surprise as his shoulder is branded with the strange mark. One by one, all of the captives receive the brand -- even the two newborns, who shriek as a minute iron (clearly designed for the purpose) is applied to their skin. Ontaya lays her hands on them almost instantly to keep them alive, but the mark remains distinct and glaring on their tiny shoulders. They are all returned to their cage, where Meeshak and Ontaya make sure that their wounded fellow prisoners stay alive despite the shock of the branding.
It takes all day to brand the thousands of captives in the camp; meanwhile, the southern Arawai tribes break camp and ride out, grim-faced. Only the thousands of implacable strangers remain. That night, the predominant sound throughout the lightless camp is numb, terrified weeping.
AT DAWN THE next morning, a golden-skinned man cries out in the strangers’ incomprehensible language, his voice ringing unnaturally loud in every corner of the massive prisoner camp. The young Jendae in their cage speaks for the first time since their capture, in a strained, bitter voice. “The Imperial Herald is saying: ‘You are now chattel. You are now chattel. Your lives are spared for devotion to the ones who pay for them. You have no property, no words, no breath, and no soul but what your masters grant you. Praise the One for your place on the slopes of life.’”
“Who are these strangers?” asks Ash.
The young man turns, his eyes dull. “They are the Xaimani -- the Lords of the South.”
“South?” Ontaya asks urgently. “South of Arawai?”
“Nothing is south of the Endless Plains,” Curago cuts in, trying to sound scornful. “That’s what makes them endless.”
The Jendae laughs, his own voice trembling as much as Curago’s. “The barbarians know better, Caragond -- some of us, anyway. For centuries, the Arawai, Chramics, Jendae, and Sufza have known of the Northern and the Southern nations at opposite ends of the plains -- the Caragond Empire that once was, and the Xaimani Empire that remains mighty. But we always hid your existence from each other.”
“Why?” Ash queries.
The young nomad talks rapidly, as if drowning his fear with words. “It has been a precious secret to different peoples for different reasons. The Arawai naturally feared becoming a battlefield between North and South. The Chramics love trade above all else, and have made their wealth by selling in each civilization the goods unique to the other. They don’t actually make silk, you know -- it’s from Xaiman. The Sufza...” The young man almost smiles. “They consider your mutual ignorance of each other the Great Joke, and hold that spoiling it would be unthinkable. And my people, the Jendae, have followed prophecies that speak of doom when the North and South meet. Kingdoms falling; worlds ending.”
“And yet the Arawai called them in as allies,” Darren says, sounding horrified. Jendae prophecies are not lightly ignored.
“The North finally resolved to conquer the plains,” the young man explains sadly. “Faced with such a threat, the Arawai did not heed the Jendae Elders’ counsel. They knew that the Xaimani sorcerers could overwhelm even the greatest Northern horde. So they broke the secret of centuries, and sent an embassy to Imperial Tziwan. The Xaimani have long considered Arawai as a distant protectorate of their vast Empire, and must have been angered and amazed in equal measure to discover that an unknown group of kingdoms were threatening to conquer it.”
“You dirty, lying...” Curago snarls, before falling mutinously silent at a look from Ontaya.
“What will happen to us now?” Carwyn asks.
“The same thing as any other nation or rebel army that loses a battle to a Xaimani legion: we will be taken to Xaiman and sold as slaves.” The young Jendae shivers slightly. “As many of us as survive the road through the plains, anyway. It is a long, long way from here to the legendary city of Tziwan. I thought I would take that road some day, but not like this.”
The haunted-looking Jendae’s name is Korael. He is an apostate from his people -- when asked what this means, he will only say, “I can not follow the prophecies that have been spoken over me. The One is too cruel.” He has never been to the South, and does not know anything about the strange, terrible magic the Southerners used to destroy the Northern armies; he knows only that in Xaiman, there is a powerful caste of sorcerers known as the Radiant Path.
Korael did learn the Xaimani common tongue from the Jendae elders as a child, and offers to teach it to anyone else in the cage. “It will likely be the main language we need to use from now until the day we die.”