We arrived at the town of Ebugal.
It was a small settlement of barely 5000 souls. Most of them were farmers who lived outside its mud walls; we passed their small, rich plantations of dates, olives, and wheat. Slave girls worked them; heads down, naked bodies gleaming with sweat. Some had been tied to crucifixes as punishment, or encouragement to the others. I approved: it was a good torture. Just a single day on the cross had broken Haley, where harsh, Ice Age winters, had not.
There were none of the small, secondary structures for home industry that I had seen on Fogrim’s farm, however. There was no need for them: the town provided what the farmers could not grow, and the farmers in turn fed the town. It is the standard model of human settlement. There was something very reassuring about this world whenever it chose to make sense to me.
The dirt road we found ourselves on was wide and covered in potholes. Lizard and ox-drawn carts labored their way along, sneering horsemen raced past them. Secondary dirt roads broke off from the main artery, stretching out to link the further off farms. Some, however, seemed to disappear into the forest, towards hills that rose up in the East. I couldn’t see anything that warranted such investment.
At one point three wagons passed us, drawn by slow-moving cart lizards. Mounted on the wagons were large, iron cages: sitting crammed inside them, shoulder to shoulder, were naked slave girls. Their throats and wrists were not shackled, but I could make out cuffs around the ankles connected by short chains. They were mostly Arabian-looking, dark-haired Shemites, and tanned, Armanean brunettes. The carts left the main highway and followed one of the off roads towards the hills. There were no farms along the way that I could see.
"What was that?" I asked Fogrim. "There's about 40 or 50 slave girls in those carts. There off to the middle of nowhere!"
"There are mines in the hills," said Fogrim patting the side of his horse. "Copper mines. These hills are still rich even after being worked for generations. Those slaves would have been bought earlier today in Ebugal."
"They were Shemites and Armaneans. How come?"
"The islands to the west are poor. Nothing grows in their stony soils and their rocks are too stingy to give up metals. Instead, the Darfuri who live there are fishermen - and pirates. Across the seas from them, are the rich ports of Shem and the scattered, seaside villages of Armanea. They make for good raiding. The slaves brought back from them can be found in every farm, mine, and home in Darfur."
I watched the wagons as they crawled away.
"How long will they work in the mines?" I asked.
"The strong ones will last 8 to 10 years. Most though will not last more than two or three."
As we neared the town proper we saw small groups of armed men and women in mixed garb, carrying shields and spears. Some rode on horseback, with long, compound bows, slung over their backs. They were of mixed ethnicity, though more of them were pure-blooded Darfuri than not. These Fogrim explained to me, where the town guard. Small settlements like Ebugal could not afford standing troops; instead, they mustered soldiers using an obligation system similar to those of feudal cultures. The guards gave us hardly a second look; there was nothing unremarkable about two men leading a group of young, naked women, in chains.
The town itself was a maze of close-packed mud buildings, many sharing walls. The streets were narrow and winding, and few had signs marked. The smaller lanes, of which there were many, were too narrow for a cart to pass. Everywhere there were people: they squeezed past each other like potatoes in a thick, boiling stew. An angry street vendor swore at me in a language I didn't understand as I knocked against his bundles of dried snakeskin. Above, a mother with a child in a papoose was hanging out her washing on a clothesline that ran across the street to the next house; she chattered loudly to someone in the crowd, and spat. I heard a slave girl moaning: I turned to see three youths had caught a blonde slave girl and pushed her up against the wall. One was using her, his arm locked around her throat. The Armanean closed her eyes and bit her lip. No one else in the streets seemed to even notice.
Up ahead, I heard the sound of a dull bell.
The bell grew louder and the crowd parted (reluctantly, it seemed) to allow a group of seven men and women in white robes to pass. Their shaven heads were bent forward and their hands were clasped together as they chanted. The man in front held a large, bronze bell cast with a design of a strange, flying creature. Each of the white robed chanters had a tattoo on their throat in the same design, and on their arms.
As they drew nearer, I recognized the flying creature was a Mi-Go.
People turned and regarded them as they passed. Two old men seated and playing a game that looks like chess, shook their heads and glared. One said something off-color with his remaining, peg-like teeth. People nearby laughed.
If the chanters noticed they gave no sign, and carried on about their way. Only once they were gone did the energy return to the street.
"Who were they?" I asked Fogrim. "I’ve never seen that cult before.”
"It is a new faith in Ebugal," said Fogrim, his eyes narrowed as he watched them leave. His body had the same tension that an angry drunk has while still contemplating violence. "They are new, but they are prosperous and growing. They are strong towards the south."
"Those tattoos, the bell, they showed a Mi-Go. I thought people didn’t think they were gods?"
Fogrim snorted.
"Those fools do. Think nothing of them. The people of Ebugal are not so easily swayed from the favor of Yog and Set.”
Except, that it seemed they very much were. As we made our way across the town, we saw the tall, looming form of a ziggurat that rose up from the middle of the slum district. With some reluctance, Fogrim admitted to me that this was the cult's temple; the temple of the Servants of Yarth-Tanophk. He told me with even greater reluctance that it had been built in just two years.
"When did people start worshiping the Mi-Go?"
"I do not know," he sounded irritable. "Do not ask me of such trivial things."
I dropped the subject but kept staring at the structure. It looked like someone had plucked a temple out of Babylon or Ur, and dropped it in this world.
There were several other shrines and temples in Ebugal, but the most significant was a large, arena-like pit at the very heart of the town. The pits walls had been braced with old, thick, black tree trunks. Mounds of earth had been beaten into step risers around them, like the seats of an ancient, Greek, amphitheater.
Beyond the risers were iron spikes, skulls had been rammed through them, one on top of the other. Some spikes had been stacked all the way to the top, the skulls at the bottom browned and caked with sand and dust. Other spikes had only one or two skulls; I had seen enough of such things to know the sight of fresh bone.
This was a sacrificial pit of Yog. Yog is a monstrous god, and his places of worship more monstrous still. Almost every faith on Hyperborea - especially those preaching obedience to cosmic entities – practiced human sacrifice. The Yoggites however, also eat their victims. Cannibalism was common on Hyperborea, but I found this intersection with faith particularly distasteful.
Finally, we reached the vicinity of the slave market. Fogrim advised we wait until the next day, as all the serious buyers turned up first thing in the morning. We found an inn close by and got rooms for the night. All mine had was a double bed with two attached ankle chains, facing a wall with 10, iron rings, all at waist height. It was very much a room for visiting slavers and their customers.
I knelt my slaves along the wall and chained each by the collar to a ring. Then, I stepped back and took in the sight:
Magnificent, blonde Haley was at one end, kneeling with her back straight and her thighs wide apart.
Next was dark-haired Lena. She looked down from my gaze, but pushed her breasts out in a move she tried to make seem natural.
Next was the Shang: she smiled shyly at me before looking at the ground. She had become more responsive towards me, in no small part from watching how much worse her fellow Shang, Yura, fared under Fogrim’s whip. I felt no electricity though when I touched her skin: none of the animal energy I felt from Lena, or the submissive cravings of Amber, or the fierce desire and affection of Haley. I just had to unlock her though: it would take time and trouble but properly handled, she would run to lick my feet as keenly as any.
Next was Naya. She looked over to where Haley was, leaned away from her, and put her head down to the stone floor and kissed it. She threw her hair back and spread her thighs apart, then leaned forward so her breasts swung free.
“Thank you Master,” she said softly, “for chaining me in your bed chamber.”
It really said something that Naya was more afraid of Haley, then she was of me.
Next was the Shemite girl. She was a slender, petite girl who turned out to be just 19. She had long, dark hair that curled gently at the ends, that fell well past her shoulders. She looked up at me with brown eyes so light they were almost amber. She gave me a rich, innocent smile and then bent forward, her cheek to the floor and her wrists crossed behind her back. She had made the trek in the morning just fine. Amber, now kneeling beside her, had kept an eye on her and mothered her well (I had rewarded her with a wild pear. She had then cut it into pieces and shared it with the others).
Was I really going to sell any of them tomorrow? Which would I sell? How would I decide which to keep? Weren't Amber and Haley really only as valuable to me as a purse of jangling gold?
"Stand, Naya,"
"Yes, Master," the dark haired girl got to her feet.
I unchained her from the ring and pulled her leash. She crossed her wrists behind her back as if they had been bound. I left the room and lead my slave downstairs and out of the tavern.
What were Mi-Go worshipers doing in this town? I would find out.
***
The bounty office was a stone and mud brick structure with iron barred windows. Inside I found an old Darfuri man hunched over a table and scribbling on papyrus. Two guards stood beside the entrance to the storeroom. Across from them was the bounty wall: papyrus contracts had been nailed to a large bulletin board made of softwood. I stepped up to the board and started reading: bounty hunting, not slaving or farming, was my line of work.
"You have good meat there," said one of the guards. He smiled appreciatively at Naya.
She looked down and away.
"Are you selling her, Hunter?"
"I am not sure," I said after a pause. "She has slim ankles and her breasts fill my hands well."
"If you change your mind," said the guard, "the Servans of Yarth-Tanophk will pay well for her."
I turned and raised an eyebrow.
"Yarth-Tanophk? Why them?"
"They are partial to light-skinned slave meat with black hair," he replied. "They would pay more than market price for her."
"I have a question," I turned back to the bounty wall. "Most of these are for missing people. Why is that? I have never seen so many before, on a wall."
"Bandits are active in these lands," said the old man looking up from his papyrus. "They pray on small farms. Whole families have been taken."
"Bandits attack caravans," I replied. "There is little money in ransoming farmers, the real value is in stealing their slaves. And none of these bounties have been posted by caravan leaders."
"Yes," said the old man. "The bandits have not harmed the caravans. Not even one."
"How does that make any sense?"
"It doesn't," the old man shrugged. "I have not seen anything like this before, either, young Hunter."
I took a look again at the wall.
“Do you have a map, Grandfather?”
He opened a leather bound folio and handed me a parchment. It had much details and no pointless ‘here be dragon’ type decorations. It showed all the lands of Darfur.
“This is a great map. Can I buy it?”
“No.”
“What if I paid you to draw a copy?”
“Three gold pieces, Hunter.”
The guard whistled. I could have bought a slave girl or a goat with that money.
I held the map against the bounty wall and looked up the place names on the bounties. Then, I checked them against the map.
Almost all of them were near the ruined city of Aymund.
"Grandfather, do you really think this is the work of bandits?"
"Of course it is," said the guard. "It cannot be anything else."
"No," said the old man. "And I see you do not think so, either."
“Here you go,” I handed him back the map, “And here’s three gold.”
The old man’s face broke into a smile of a hundred creases.
“Come back tomorrow at this time and it will be ready, Hunter.”
I left the bounty house, Naya’s leash chain swinging as she followed me. I led her down a deserted alley and stopped.
"There is a lot," I grabbed her by her throat and shoved her back to a wall, "that you have not been telling me, Slave."
"Please, Master!" She stood on her tiptoes, lifted up by her throat. "Please, do not hurt me, Master!"
"Who are you going to sell the slaves to? How did you end up with that freakish monster, the one you called Zuru? What were you so-called bandits really up to?"
"I am from Ebugal, Master," she gasped. "I was a thief, I lived in the slums. There was a man, his name was Lukor, he was from the slums as well. He disappeared a year ago, but then returned to Ebugal, rich. He bought a villa and began hiring cutthroats from Ebugal’s underworld."
"Like you? Hiring for what?"
She quickly looked up the alley to see if anyone was there.
"To become bandits, Master," she whispered." Lukor was working for the bandits. There was nothing for me here, so I accepted. When I joined the group you found me with, they already had Zuru with them - and a group of slaves they had captured from a farm. I asked them about Zuru, but they told me that was not my concern.
“I was to wait there that day, but I found I had dropped my knife somewhere in the jungle. It was a good knife, I needed it. When no one was looking, I left the camp to find it. On my way back, I got lost. I did not find the camp again until the next morning. When I arrived in camp I saw all the slaves were gone. The bandits were very angry that I had left, but they let me stay. The next day, I began tracking you and master Fogrim. That evening, you captured me."
"The slaves that were gone when you arrived in the morning, were any of them white-skinned with black hair?"
"Yes, master," she nodded. Her eyes became wide. "Master, do you think that-"
"Yes, that’s the only reason they wanted you. This Lukor, do you know where he lives?"
"Yes, Master. I can take you there."
I let go of her throat. She quickly got down on her knees and put her head to my feet and kiss them.
"I am sorry, Master. I did not think to share such-"
I gave her a small kick and she stopped.
What were the so-called bandits doing with genetically engineered monsters? And what value did dark-haired, white girls, have to the Mi-Go?
***
On my way back to the inn, I came across a large, well-built Darfuri man wearing dirty rags and sitting with his back to a wall in the street. The other townsfolk walked past him as if he did not exist. His eyes followed them with the pained desperation of the recently impoverished.
I reached into my coin purse and pulled out a gold piece. I put it down in front of him.
He stared at it, open mouthed, and then favored me with the same expression. Proud as I could see he was he was too desperate to refuse it.
"Thank you, stranger," he took the coin in both hands and nodded to me. "I will earn this from you, though I know not how."
"You owe me nothing. But tell me, how does a strong man like you end up in a street like this, such as you are?"
"I was a farmer, Stranger," his eyes were suddenly faraway. "But I lost my farm to a large plantation. Now, I have no work. There are many others like me, all of us are looking for work. Do you have any, Stranger?"
I shook my head. The homeless farmer nodded and looked down.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Juskar, Stranger."
"Call me Gerard. Juskar, what's that on your arm?"
The man turned his forearm to the light. It was marked with the black, winged tattoo I had seen the Servants of Yarth-Tanophk wearing.
"I have joined their cult. The Servants."
"You do not sound like a man who has found a new god."
He smiled.
"No, but if you go to the ziggarut in the morning and show them this mark, they will feed you. Every day, there are more and more who come for a meal. For most, it may be their only one that day."
In such simple, plodding ways, a faith grow.
"They are looking for ones like her," he pointed to Naya. "Dark hair, white of skin. I do not know why."
"I have learned that many farmers and their families have disappeared of late. What do you know if that?"
A darkness fell upon him.
"It is true. I have heard tell of strange lights dancing on hilltops and in forest clearings. Near such places, good people and their slaves have gone missing. No lights have been seen near Ebugal or the the main roads. But, beyond, towards the South, the farms are not safe."
I nodded.
"Good luck to you, Juskar."
"I will make this up to you, Friend," he held up the coin.
"It's all right," I shook my head and left.
"Master," said Naya. Once we were a little distance away, "May I ask why you gave that man gold?"
"It's called ‘kindness’," I replied. "You Hyperboreans don’t really have a word for it in Low Common. It has no place in this world."
"Yes, Master. Yet, Master is kind?" she used a related word; one that was closer to ‘weakness.’
"That’s because I don't belong here, either."
***
I made my way back to the inn but not before stopping at the large, Yoggite temple in the center of town. There from a robed seller with tattoos on his chest and face, I bought a beautiful bronze statue of Yog. I turned down the man’s kindly upsell of a blessed ritual knife, and strips of dried, candied, human flesh. I also turned down his offer to buy Naya – which I think was more to stop me from selling her to the cultists, than not.
On returning to the inn, I rechained Naya and took Haley with me, instead. I took her downstairs to the inn's tavern.
***
The tavern was fair-sized and filled with patrons. At one table set three Darfuri farmers. One tore a hunk of bread from a loaf and passed it to the man next to him, while another scooped cottage cheese and olives into a bowl.
At another, Shemite men dressed in sun-bleached travel clothes drank wine from pewter goblets and picked meat off a grilled duck in the center of their table. A mixed group of men wearing fine linens roared at a joke, and up-ended their beers.
Serving slaves rushed from the kitchen to the tables, and back. They were all Shemites, and blonde and brunette Armaneans. They were naked but for necklaces made from crocodile teeth and black cords tied around their waists. Each girl had black eye shadow and a brand on her right thigh. They were popular with the patrons; a brunette set across a caravaneer’s lap, squirming and giggling as he fondled her breasts and licked her throat. A blonde girl was on her hands and knees under a table, her head rocking back and forth between a man's thighs. A Shemite girl with tiny, bronze bells hanging from her pierced nipples placed a jug of wine on the table with the linen-wearing drinkers. She cried out as one grabbed her by her hand, and stood. He jerked her towards him, spun her around, and bent her over the table. Her wrists were seized and crossed behind her back while he pushed her feet apart. He pulled down his pants and began fucking her; her whole body jerked with each thrust.
I found Fogrim sitting in a corner with a tall, long-legged, redhead with blue eyes bouncing on his lap.
"Gerard!" He smiled and gripped the redhead’s thigh, making her stop. His penis still inside her, she turned and looked back at me. Her face was a perfect oval and she wore a copper nose ring like a cow’s. "Sit, friend, and drink with me!" He held up a cup of wine.
I took the seat beside him and Haley knelt on the floor by my foot. The chain at her throat swung back and forth. She put her hands on her thighs and looked about the room, her posture quite relaxed.
"I have something for you," I said to Fogrim and winked.
"For me?" He looked surprised.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bronze Yog statue. His eyes lit up at the sight of the wicked little statue. Even the red-headed slave made a squeal of surprise.
"It is beautiful," he picked up and held it to the light, turning it this way and that. "Thank you, Brother."
"You're welcome," I sat down. "I owe you one, anyway."
"I thought you did not approve of such things."
"I don't." I stared at the idol. "But I know it is important to you."
He set the idol aside and gripped the redhead by her throat and the brand on her thigh. She started bouncing again, making short, sharp cries and clawing Fogrim's chest. He held her still as he ejaculated. When he was done, he pushed her off his lap, planted his foot on her buttocks, and gave a strong kick. She cried out and was shoved away. She got to her hands and feet and crawled to the next table. Semen dripped down her thigh and onto the floor boards; a passing Shemite slave wearing nothing but a bronze coin belt, noticed. Without making eye contact, she squatted down and licked up the semen. Then she went about her way, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
"That is why you should buy Shemite slave girls," said Fogrim pointing. "They are the most servile. There was a Shemite priest king who freed some, just to see how many would kill themselves at the shock.”
“How many did? Kill themselves?”
“All of them. A Shemite man seeks a whip, not a bed, when he wants to use a slave girl. In both discipline and delight, she will be beaten."
I watched the beauty carry on about her tasks.
"I thought the point was to sell slaves here, not to buy new ones."
"You have enough after the bandit camp that you have another choice," said Fogrim, pulling up his pants and sipping his wine. "You can sell all your new women, and continue the life of a wanderer with just Haley and Amber."
Haley looked up at the mention of her name and smiled.
“Or?"
"Or you can sell Haley," he replied sitting back. "She is a great beauty, tall; strong, prime for breeding. If you sell her in this market you will get an excellent price. With that gold you can buy three, even four Shemites or Armaneans. Darfuri girls are better for this climate, but are more expensive. With seven or eight girls, you can start a farm, Gerard. There is much fertile, unclaimed land near my own farm. You can settle and not want for anything. Your females would work the land by day, and your bed by night. You can trade your crops here in Ebugal and buy still more females, or exchange your old ones for new meat."
Haley was no longer smiling. She gave me an anxious look, sitting up with her back stiffened.
"I have not thought of such a thing."
"You should. You are at a crossroads in your life."
Haley looked down.
I had a couple of drinks with Fogrim and we ate a meal of roasted pigeon and curried yams. Before I left, I asked a serving slave to bring me a small pot of black paint and a brush.
"Are you going to work on your maps and your notes?" Asked Fogrim while he tracked a petite brunette.
"No," I stood and tugged on Haley's leash. "It is so I can write down a slave girl’s price on her back. Come, Slave."