“They will be punished, all of them. They turned from Yog, the god of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers - for the cheapest of lies. They must pay the price.”
We were in a large hall. White marble pillars shot with green and black veins held up a vaulted ceiling. The sun beamed down in shafts through skylights. The white, stone walls were broken by alcoves with empty plinths - their statues stolen and likely melted down in ages past. At the far end was a set of steps leading to the a throne of black granite. The gems had been pried from its sockets and there were cracks where a great force had blugeoned it, before accepting failure and leaving it to the ages.
Mong, son of Immash, War Priest of the Black Grove Temple, brushed dust off the worn armrests. He sat on the throne of Aymund like it was no more than his favorite chair at home. His brunette slave with the ivory nose ring lay at his feet, washing them in a bronze basin. The red vine tattoos on her legs and back seemed to move.
Mong’s officers stood before him, Ammad and Akingin among them. Some had bandaged wounds. All had the exhaustion of battle still heavy on their faces.
Standing alongside them, with equal status, were Fogrim, Gorol, and myself.
“What will that judgement be?” asked Gorol. He had repainted his face and arms with the dark marking and white ash of a Yoggite priest. They were similar to Mong’s.
The interpreter spoke to Mong, and the man answered.
“I have not decided,” relayed the interpreter. “But it must please Yog, above all. Shall we burn them all? A great bonfire in the desert. Such a sacrifice may summon Yog himself!”
Only myself and Fogrim seemed disturbed at this. Some of the Mazgar officers nodded, the others looked like he’d asked them if they preferred either red wine or white. Gorol smiled, his eyes twinkling.
“Let the sky blacken for days with the burning of their bones!” he said.
“No!”
The room turned and looked at me.
“No, you can’t do that,” I pressed. “It is monstrous! It is cruel beyond -” I couldn’t think what to finish with.
“Yes,” said the interpreter. “It is cruel,” he used a Low Hyperborean word for cruelty that also meant resoluteness. They have many words for cruelty, all of them virtuous. “What are you saying, then?”
I had to think fast.
“It is not - er, it is not just. Yog must be appeased for their waywardness, but, how can Yog have peace if there is no justice?”
The interpreter turned to Mong. The War Priest’s eyes widened and his officer began murmuring.
“What do you mean?” asked the intrpreter.
“There is no peace without justice! What of, er, Tsathoggua?”
“Tsathoggua?”
“Yes! Tsathoggua! This city was dedicated to him! Is he also not a great god? You can leave these ruins and ask the sands! There many things there that still worship him, and I have seen one. Would that you and your men never do. If you do not appease them, how will you leave here safely? They will see you as no better than these false believers.”
The murmuring increased. Mong frowned, staring at the floor, concentrating. His brunette slave ran her hand up his leg, he shook her away and she lowered her head. The chain fastening her ankle, clinked.
“It is true, this is his city. What do you suggest then?”
Again, all eyes were upon me.
“Tsathoggua needs to be appeased. Surely, the best way to do so is to let his city be lived in again? Followers will come to his mighty temple. Let children be born in its shadow, and make offerings of leaves, berries, and insects to it.”
“We do not worship Tsathoggua,” an officer wearing a red pelt spoke up.
“No one here does. But if you do not appease him as well, there will be consequences. Would Yog want that for his loyal worshipers?”
“So,” the intrepreter spoke, “are you saying that we should sacrifice only half of them?”
“Um, that’s very gracious of you, Mong, but - why not let them all live?”
The interpreter raised and eyebrow.
“Lightning Shield, I did not understand. Did you say, to let them all live?”
“Er, I mean give them a choice. It doesn’t matter if you want to appease these gods, it is not you who have insulted them. Yes? It is they who have insulted them. They must make amends!”
“What nonsense is this?” Gorol shook his head.
Some of the officer laughed. Others seemed confused. Mong stared off, lost in thought. He did not speak. One by one, the officers stopped and regarded their silent sovereign.
“That is a strange idea,” he said at last. “In your lands, is that what they think?”
“Yes. One’s actions only speak for one’s self. You cannot erase a wrong committed by another.”
“So then, they must be put to death!”
“No, they must choose to be put to death. Otherwise, it has no value.”
His eyes flashed with enlightenment and he smiled. Mong got to his feet, kicked his slave girl aside, and came to me with open arms.
“Er, guys, what’s happening?”
He gave me a bear hug that felt it would break my bones. White body paint rubbed off on me. He turned and spoke quickly with his men, his face a mask of excited wonder. They replied. Mong gestured and kept taking, striding up and down the hall, his immense limbs jiggling.
“What the hell is happening?”
“Mong agrees with you,” the interpreter called out looking back at me, as he tried to keep up with the war priest. “He says you are a great man.”
In this tiny, borrowed way I had altered his faith - and made heretics of him and all his men. But, that is a tale for another day.
“Let them choose,” said the interpreter as Mong waved his hands with animation, as if plucking ideas from the air. “They must recant and turn back to Yog. Those who refuse shall die! We shall fling them to the lava in the temple of Tsathoggua, and pray to both gods that it is enough!”
One of the officers asked a question.
Mong answered.
“No, that will not be the end of it. Those that live shall build a great temple to Yog here, and let their doom be to tend it, and for their children to tend it, and their children’s children. There is water in this cursed land; yesterday’s rain now sits in the ruined sewers of this place. Let those sentenced to stay here, drink it, and water their fields. Let them cut the black corn and let it mulch, to feed the crops of humans.”
More questions rang out. Mong tried to answer them all; but they came too quick. Officers offered their own answers, and questions begat questions. The whole hall descended into doctrinal arguments.
“And the soldiers?” I called out to Mong. “What will happen to those who fought against you? The same choice?”
“Yes, Lightning Shield,” Mong answered, “But those who raised a blade against us will have their right eyes put out, and those who loosed arrows or stones will have their right hands cut off. Then, they may choose.”
“And the Runa?” many survivors had been found cowering in the ruins.
The hall become quiet.
“They are not people,” said the interpreter. Mong’s face was grave. “I do not know where you come from, Lightning Shield. A land of great wisdom - but also where men have the minds and hearts of fat children, sheltered by doting but foolish mothers. Here, every child knows what is done with creatures such as the Runa. We do not suffer abominations.”
***
He was true to his word.
Over the morning and afternoon, every cultist (except those like the delicious Yarina who had been seized the night before) was given Mong’s choice. The majority by far chose to recant. The rest, mainly fanatics and junior priests, were lead to the Temple of Tsathoggua and, one by one, were thrown to the lava below.
I kept clear of where the captured soldiers were being kept, but the screams, no matter how faint, were always there when you knew what to listen for. Those returned to their faith looked away and said nothing - they would still hear every cry for many years later.
Mong’s sentence to survivors was a blessing. There was nothing for them to return to - these were the dispossessed, the cheated, Darfur’s desperately poor. Here, however miserable it was, was land. Land without powerful farmers and artful moneylenders. Protected by superstitions from the power of greedy, corrupt satraps, they could make a new start. They could live as free men and women off the land, as their ancestors had. And, for those who wanted a bit more - there was always the ruins to plunder if they dared.
None of this applied to the city’s slave population. The dark-haired slaves were marched to the surface, and the black corn slave pens, emptied. All the females, naked and chained, were knelt in rows shoulder to shoulder. They were blindfolded with rags against the return of the maddening winged beasts, but come dusk they did not return. Nor would they to Aymund, ever again.
Mazgar healers went up and down the rows, examining each girl. Every so often they waved to soldiers, and a girl was dragged away to a large, nearby, stone ruin. Outside it, soldiers and Darfuri survivors began building drying racks. Two men in aprons unrolled a leather packed with knives and began sharpening them.
I kept well clear after that.
***
“What ails you, Brother?”
It was early evening. Lamp light rose from huts and half-burned buildings throughout the city. Crossroads were marked with bonfires, and above the stars came out. No shadows passed under them. For the first time in who know how long, Aymund was safe.
I was sitting on a block of masonry when Juskar found me. He handed me a bowl with long, reed straw. The bowl was warm. I took a sip: it was beer.
“You drink beer like a man who expects it to better, but it always disappointed,” he said. “Fogrim!” he called out into the night. “Fogrim, he is here!”
“One day Juskar, I will introduce you the to concept of a ‘cold one.’ Then, you will know why I make this face.”
“Best you do not,” he made a sign to ward off evil, “lest I too become afflicted such. Why do you sit here alone, like a man who does not have friends, slaves, or victory?”
I shook my head.
“They’re still killing, Juskar.”
“So?”
“Don’t you find that in the least - upsetting? Even in the least?”
“They are not killing my people,” he shrugged. “That is why we fought, to protect our people.”
“They’re killing slaves. How does that protect us?”
He started at that. “I do not understand you. You are morose - because of livestock?”
“They are -” I stopped myself. “I do not think of them as livestock, Juskar.”
“Then what do you think of them as?”
I paused to consider how best to say it.
“They are livestock to me,” It was the first time I’d put words to these long shapeless thoughts. “But they are more than just livestock. They are also pets. And, they are also people. Which of these, at any given time, is determined by their master.”
That was it! A slave girl, to me, was conditionally human. I decided the conditions for my slaves.
I was good with this.
He sat down beside me and took a sip of my beer. I found this, even for warm beer, annoying.
“Aymund’s slaves are now the Mazgars’,” he said. “They are culling the weak from the herd before setting out on a long trek. It saves food for the others, and the culled will become food. More slaves will survive to reach Mazgar, because of this. Do you begrudge the Mazgar how they manage their livestock?”
“They are also people,” I kicked at a stone that’s presence all of a sudden offended me greatly.
“By your own words, their master decides what they will be. You are not their master, Gerard. Mong is their master. Whatever Mong chooses to do with them, is right. You understand, yes? That is where your thoughts lead.”
They did. And I had to be good with that.
“Yes. But, it still bothers me. The death. I don’t do death, Juskar.”
“You do it very well, Lightning Shield.”
“Only because I have to.”
“Then have a cheer, Friend. When the Mazgar raid a village, they take the young women and slay all the rest. These people yet draw breath, because of you! Do not focus on death - focus on life.”
Down the darkening path from the main city, a tall man and a child came towards us. The child ran back and forth with manic energy. The man picked the child up and put him on his shoulders for a bit. Then, the child began to fidget, and the man lowered him. The child began running again.
“Fogrim?” I stood.
“This is my son, Gerard,” his voice was unfamiliar without the tension it had carried for weeks. “Ahrten, go and say hello to Uncle Gerard.”
A chubby boy of barely three years came running up to me. He had is father’s eyes and nose. His skin was much lighter, like milky tea. He also had his mother’s chestnut hair. He regarded me with cautious suspicion.
“Ahrten?” I crouched down to child height. “Hello! Your father has come a long way to find you.”
His nerve broke and he ran back and hid behind Fogrim. His father laughed and picked him up. I do not think I had ever seen him so happy.
“Skala was his mother,” he said. “If you remember her.”
Skala: his Siberian beauty back at his farm - chestnut haired, with hazel eyes. I had miked her, and then shot my seed on her neck and breasts.
“I do. She is hot, obedient, slave meat.”
“I will sell her, and keep Ahrten with me.”
The boy began to fidget again. Fogrim put him down; Ahrten started running in circles, babbling to himself. He seemed oddly unfazed by being in the middle of a warzone. Perhaps he had been hidden away, safe and sound, in some passed by corner of the fortress?
He dug at a pile of rocks and grabbed an scurrying insect, large as my hand. He smashed it against the ground and started stamping on it, laughing and screaming.
Perhaps not.
“Yeah, I think he needs to spend a lot of time with you, away from shit holes like this. He has seen things, Fogrim. Things no child should ever see.”
He looked pained as he watched the boy.
“Yes. And that is my fault. I will stay on my farm Gerard, and keep my son close. I have a daughter at another farm - I will sell her mother as well, Mina, and bring my daughter back to stay with us.”
“You will need more slaves,” said Juskar.
“I will find some good meat, and take it,” Fogrim replied without looking away from Ahrten.
“You’re a good father,” I patted him on the back. “Are you going to be safe at the farm? War is coming between Darfur and Mazgar, and I know what side I’d bet be betting on right now.”
“We are far away from the rest of the world there,” he replied. “War will be good. My grain will fetch higher prices, but, it is not gold I seek.”
No, he had never sought that. All Fogrim had ever wanted was to live in peace.
“I’m happy for you, Fogrim. Yours is a victory I can celebrate. To life.”
“To life,” he replied.
We passed the bowl of beer around till it was finished; a quiet drink among friends.