Shadows of the Past
Inspiration hit this morning, and this is what came out.. let me know if youd like to hear more:)
*****
The hot wind howled over the Shomali plains with a malevolence, making the camel-hide walls of the tent to snap and billow like something alive. The hanging oil lamp swung fitfully, making the shadows dance. The man seated on the fur-lined floor inside was stern and unmoving, his face something like carved stone, weary with the weight of a hundred battles and scars they brought with them, victory or defeat. He was a foreigner to this land, a man of the great marble-hewn cities of the mighty western sea. His head was clean-shaven, and his cheeks covered in a day or two’s growth of stubbly beard. That he was lean and well-muscled was obvious even in the billowing shemagh robes of the desert nomads, and his hob-nailed sandals were worn with the untold miles they had trod.
Finally, as if coming to some great and poignant decision, he rose to his feet, and crossed the small space, grabbing the lantern from its hook and then ducking his head outside into the dust and sun with dark, squinted eyes. The plains were barren for miles around, shimmering in the haze of the afternoon heat, dotted with scrubs of brush and strewn with rocky crevices and narrow dry wadi systems that cris-crossed the flatlands like tunnels as they occasionally washed the mountain rains into the low-lands. Off in the distance rose those jagged peaks, pale in the sunlight, the flanks crested with snowfall.
The only sound aside from the moaning wind was that of the carrion birds, long-necked vultures with jagged wings that squawked like bickering dogs and stole like rats from one another. They would be happy with their meal, today, he mused.
Cale bent over and clasped the hilt of his short sword where it pierced the earth beyond the tent’s entryway. It was a short, straight blade, with a broad base that tapered to a razor’s point, though it was worn by usage. The hilt was polished wood wrapped in sweat-stained leather with a round bronze pommel nicked with several cuts of its own. He ran the edge of his robe over the steel blade to wipe it clean, and slid it into the wooden scabbard that hung hidden in the folds of the shemagh.
With a sudden broad swing, he flung the lantern back behind him into the tent’s darkness, hearing the clay and glass shatter on the floor and seeing the flames lick up against the hide carpet immediately. He watched for a moment as the fire caught on, and when it became too hot to stand near he turned to walk away, looking for the nearest camel.
It was then he noticed the boy.
A Pathan child, perhaps nine, ten years old, skin bronzed by the desert sun, was rummaging through the bodies of the men he had killed. Squatted over a broad-shouldered African, he was using a short knife to saw at the man’s stubby fingers to remove the bronze and silver rings worn there.
Cale whistled sharply with his fingers to his lips. When the boy looked up, he hissed and motioned sharply for him to go away. To his amusement, the boy only bared a toothy smile, and went back to work.
He didn’t know which was worse: the vultures, or the people who called this godsforsaken land home. The Pathans were an ancient race, claimed to be descended from an even older, lost tribe of the old times and grassy wastelands of the northern expanses. More likely descended from mongrels, he thought. They would steal anything not tied down, and would sell their own mothers into slavery for the right price—not to mention their distasteful sexual habits, to put it mildly. They were rugged and independent, with fierce inter-tribal wars happening regularly and an entire culture devoted to kidnappings and ransoms. Many had tried to rule them over the centuries, from Megas Alexandros and his successors to steppe-nomads and horse-kings of the east. He watched the boy for a moment longer eagerly working over the slain and then he took the reins of a camel and climbed into the harness to mount it, kicking up a cloud of dust at his feet.
“Try the one with the forked beard,” Cale yelled at the boy in broken Pathan, then grinned himself. Mohud had been the wealthiest of the lot of rogues, he knew, and carried a pouch of silver mnai under his beard. He waved a farewell, then kicked the camel’s haunches and set off westward into the desert.
*****
“Seven men?” Alam Shah asked again, leaning back into the cushions of the low bench, and grabbing a near-emtpy flagon as he did, frowning as he drained the last of the juice against his lips.
“Aye--seven. I told you.” Kophis had grown tired of the nobleman’s bickering and second-guessing. He crossed the small office to the shelves against the wall and retrieved a fresh flask of firewine, sitting it on the table before them. “Mohud himself, run through the guts like a slave.”
Shah furrowed his brow at the thought and reached to refill his cup. This foreigner was more dangerous than he had at first believed, and Kophis had been right it seemed. Those two had history, the black-skin claimed, and Alam Shah knew now he should have listened when the mercenary had first entered his camp two weeks ago and warned him of the dangerous rogue he had crossed in Cale Valens.
The Westerner had served his father along with a hundred other soldiers in the band of sell-swords known as the Black Company, an expensive and elite unit of killers that contracted out of Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus and served in border wars, noble feuds, and skirmishes of city-states from Asia to the steppe lands in the east, most notably in the wars of Euthydemus and Diodotus. The mercenaries had come at his father’s behest to help put down the succession war with his uncle Ghulam , but once the two had made peace Alam convinced his father to release the bandits without pay—they had not won him any battles, so why should he give them money? The Company’s leader had other ideas, however. A squat little man of muscle and fury, Themocles had protested—a contract was a contract, he said, and if they were not willing to pay in coin, they would pay in plunder. And thus the Black Company had begun razing villages up and down the Amu-Darya river, with sword and fire and spear.
Alam’s father was quick to respond—in five days’ time, the tribal shuras had banded together, welding together a tribal war-band two-thousands strong—fierce, hardy hill-men with spears and bows and wickedly curved swords, men who had ranged the mountains their entire lives and knew every nick and cranny that was passable throughout the rugged landscape. The Company was quickly trapped in a cul-de-sac south of the Sur Ghar ranges, and brought to heel with Pathan fury.
The battle was fierce---that should have been his first warning, Alam thought—and it seemed that they would not prevail so determinedly the Western soldiers fought, their backs against the valley walls, a seemingly unbreakable wall of iron and bronze. Sheer numbers won the day, though at the end a mound of Pathan dead three-bodies high in places was the price of victory. All of the foreign soldiers were slain save twenty-odd men, who were taken into slavery by the various tribal elders. Or so they had thought.
Two days after the battle, the first elder was killed. His mutilated body, lashed with vicious cuts from neck to waist, was strapped to a scraggly tree outside the village grazing lands, a thick pool of blood at his feet. No one had seen or heard the murder, and men whispered that the foreigners had come back as devils to take their revenge. The second man was found the next night---Alam’s very own father, Shah Hamid Alam Noorzai, his body pierced from a lance in the ground like a pig on a spit. How the killer had gotten him in that position was anyone’s guess, and more devilry was suspected by the tribesmen.
Then Kophis came. Like a black demon out of myth, the warrior had come out of a desert sand-storm one red evening, a lone figure striding the desert wastes in a cloud of sand and dust. Wrapped in a thick shemagh of darkest night, his white eyes stared out from the recesses of the hood like pinpoints of light in a cavern. Taller than any Pathan, and broad of shoulder, the man seemed a monster, with teeth as white as a tiger’s and a tongue as red as blood. He knew who was killing the people, he said, and offered to help.
Alam Shah was relieved, eager for the assistance, though he did not trust the source for one moment. When Kophis learned of a house where the foreigner was hiding, Alam quickly seized the opportunity to send several of his own men to deal with the slayer, but deceived Kophis into remaining behind because he did not trust the black man alone for one, and he feared for his own safety second.
And now his men were dead, and he feared he himself would be next.
“Now I will deal with this,” Kophis said solemnly, breaking the Shah’s train of thought.
"How?"
"Do not concern yourself. I will leave at dusk."
*****
Cale examined the flask's stitching, turning it his hands to seek out any imperfections. The merchant, a thin Graeci of mixed blood with a beard of black curls and missing one eye, smiled toothily and wagged his finger knowingly. The bazaar was near empty, the village itself quiet as the sun sank behind the snowy peaks in the distance. He nodded brusqely, and reached into his robe to retrieve the copper bits that would make the skin his.
He left the marketplace through a narrow side-street, pulling the cowl of the desert robe over his head. His camel had died two days ago. The wind was picking up in the west, blowing stinging sand across the desert. Down the street, dogs were barking noisily and mothers were calling their children indoors. The village, a sprawl of low, mud-bricked adobe huts and walled compounds was large enough to have a night watch, and he could see a torch-bearer rounding a corner and felt the guardsman's eyes on his back as he passed by. There were leafy trees blowing in the wind on the banks of the narrow, muddy stream that ran through it.
The hostel, a murky-looking building with candles in the window-sills was lower than the road, and a dusty set of steps brought him under the low door and into a dimly-lit common room. A heavy set man was eating flatbread in the corner and a group of hunters in soiled leathers and fur hats were consipring near the hearth-place. He approached the innkeep and set a handful of coins down on the table.
"Stabling?" The man asked, taking up the coins.
"No mount." He sat down on a crude stool, throwing the folds of the robe back behind him.
"Very well. What brings you here, stranger?"
"I walked." Cale slid a plate of bread in front of him and took it hungrily.
"From where?"
"Alexandria."
"I mean, where originally? I haven't seen a man of your coloring before."
"I hail from Rome, a city of stone on the Seven Hills of the Tiber." He said proudly.
"Never heard of it."
Cale sipped the sour drink the man offered. He knew that Alam Shah's men would be tracking him by now, and, Jupiter knew, could even now be drawing near. And here he was sipping goat's milk in a beggar's excuse for a tavern in some unnamed village at the ends of the world. He smiled in spite of himself, wondering what would become of him. An unmarked grave in the desert, if he was lucky, he imagined. If he could make it back to Alexandria, he would be able to find a caravan hiring out guards to travel west, towards home. But what awaited him there? If he knew his homeland, another war would be brewing by now, no doubt, and opportunities for plunder would abound. But a walk off the Tarpeian Rock would come just as easily, he knew... no matter, for he was thousands of miles away and surrounded by an alien people who would just as soon slit his throat as offer him water.
The tavern's door swept inward suddenly, blowing a waft of chilly night air and sand into the common room. A broad-shouldered man with a face like that on an ancient coin stalked into the room, followed by three others. His beard was black and short, eyes dark like ebon, with a hawk-like nose that hooked over his mouth. They all wore a coat of mail rings and leathers, and carried curved swords at their sides and crested helmets in their hands. Cale examined them each in turn, his predatory nature quickly sizing up any possible threat. The men sauntered to the bar, noisily demanding food and drinks.
One of them saw the Roman, and pointed him out to his comrades.
"Long way from home, stranger," one of the men grunted in thickly accented Greek as he approached.
"That's so. And yourself?" Cale asked, sitting down his drink.
"We are free-booters ourselves. Came up on a caravan. Fought in the wars last year. What about you, fancy yourself a sell-sword?'
Cale smirked. Did he? "Something like that, I suppose. I am Cale."
"And I am Taranis. My comrades--rogues that they are, are Fraxis and Na'hum. We could use another sword-arm where we are going."
"And that is?"
"Kharhos. A ruined place, lying broken in the mountains north of here. There is treasure to be had in that place, of older days--but there are wildmen in the hills as well, mountain tribes untamed by any conquerer." The look in the man's eyes was somber and steady, and his words spoken with the ring of truth and respectful wariness.
"Why not?" Cale asked, downing the last of his drink.
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