Greywolf - The encampment

I'd always heard that the lands beyond the Sasnayam empire was a wasteland like the desert beyond Khitia. Instead, the area we traveled through was lush with shrubs and flowers and Steppe corn growing wild on the sides of the rolling hills we were passing through, the dirt road meandering as it followed the wide river below. The road straightened as it ran through an abandoned village of stone houses, their thatched roofs only blackened timbers and their doorways empty. "Karl, it looks like everything was stripped and carried off, including the doors. What happened?"

Karl, riding a shaggy Warghorse with Princess curled up in front of him, motioned towards our left side where the river lay. Hidden by the hills, columns of smoke were rising up into the late afternoon air. "I'll show you. Follow me."

Karl left the road, heading towards the hill on our left, and I tapped Rocky's side to follow. "If I must," he grumbled, and started trotting after him. Glancing back, Amazonia and her warriors, riding more normal horses while the prince and his other two warriors rode Warghorses as well, remained on the road. Asena and Titan strode up the hill after us.

Karl and I reached the crest of the hill and reined in, Rocky giving the Warghorse a wide berth as the creature bared its fangs a moment before settling down. Glancing down at the valley below, my eyes went wide. "Shite, is that a city?"

Staring down from our vantage point, the road Amazonia and the others were traveling on kept going between two hills until it reached a river too wide to even think about crossing, except by the white stone bridge spanning both banks on either side. It looked just like the bridge next to Bukhara City. Across the river, the White Horde camp resembled a wagon wheel, but with the bottom cut flat along the river bank. Straight roads like wheel spokes led out to a wooden wall, each one with a gate and watchtowers, but there were also ring roads dividing the camp into sections. Between the roads were off white tents like the half-shell of an egg, all of different sizes, while in the center hub sat a massive tent with a lot of smaller, eggshell-like tents surrounding it.

Karl chuckled. "A city that can pick up and move whenever the Great Khan decides it needs to. Besides this encampment, there's two more farther away, one to the south and another way off to the east, that are all members of the White Boar Tribe."

Asena and Titan join us as I gave Karl a puzzled look. "I thought they were called the White Horde?"

"By everyone not a member of the 'People of the Eternal Sky', which is what all the tribes together call themselves. There's several different tribes closer to Indus, but all of them are under the Khan of Khans, or the Great Khan, Khingla. Never call him by his real name unless he gives you permission, though."

Asena asked, "What about everyone else?"

Karl shrugged. "Among themselves, they're pretty informal, but it's polite to use their titles when you're talking to them. Which quite frankly will be with the nobility, since they're the only ones who speak Greco-Roma."

From deep within her robes, Princess said, "I can translate if you need me to."

"I can as well, though she picks up nuances I usually miss."

"Considering you've got mud between your ears, it's not surprising."

Karl and I shared a smile as Asena growled, "Is there any way Greywolf and I can skip being presented to the Khan? I want to find that troll den and take it out."

"He wants to thank you for doing just that."

Asena gave Karl a dark look. "Last night, I heard you telling that messenger from the Khan about us, and the plan Timur and the gladiator came up with to steal the blood-corn. I want no part of it."

Karl gives her another shrug. "I can't promise he won't ask. But he won't hold it against you as long as he's given respect."

I jumped in before Asena could muck things up. "We can do that."

Asena snorted, but didn't contradict me, which was a good sign. I hope. Karl turned his Warghorse towards the bridge and started down the hill, Asena walking beside him asking him something else, but Titan put out his hand to hold me in place. "How are things between you and Asena?"

She glanced back at us but kept walking as Karl responded to whatever she asked. "She'll get over her snit once we're tracking the troll back to its den. Titan, can I ask you something?" He nodded. "Earlier, when I threw my katana down, was I wrong to get so upset with Asena?"

He chuckled as we began moving towards the bridge. "Considering I thought you were going to have your brains dashed out on a stone pillar, I can certainly understand your mood. However, you did not make a good impression with Prince Timur, from what I heard him saying to Az. I fear he will never see you as anything more than a child."

"Well, he's not particularly noble either, prince or not. Besides, why would it matter whether he thinks well of me? If I know Asena, once we've killed the troll and she's eaten its heart, she's not going to want to go back."

"Never say never," he replied in his deep voice. "Greywolf, you need to start realizing that your life is not measured in years, but in centuries, and someday you may find yourself encountering the White horde again with Timur no longer a prince, but the Khan of Khans himself."

I gave him a puzzled look. "But I thought he said his younger brother was made the heir."

"He was. Yet, Prince Timur feels he was robbed of his birthright, and once the Great Khan is dead, he may attempt a coup if enough of the tribe supports him. Best keep that to yourself, though."

"No kidding." I chewed on his words as we reached the bottom of the hill and headed toward the bridge, which the prince was already crossing. "Titan, I'll bet Asena wouldn't mind if you came with us."

"She told me the same thing last night... several times." Titan shook his head. "Part of me is tempted, but I will not abandon Az, not if I can help it. Though there are lines I will not cross." I had no idea what he was talking about, but kept my mouth shut as he looked at me. "Your mother wants to protect you from being hurt the way she was, yet I believe love is worth the pain. Live your life as if you were human yourself, the way Asena did when she was younger, and even though the ones you love will die, mourn them and move on. Never let yourself become trapped reliving the glory days of years long past."

Now I really had no idea what he was talking about, except the ‘living like I'm a human’ part. That I could relate to. "I'll try, Syr."

Titan chuckled. "Now I know I'm getting old. Shall we catch up with the others?" He lengthened his stride and Rocky broke into a trot to keep up. Karl and Asena were waiting at the end of the bridge, and as we reached them, Karl started across, everyone following at a brisk pace.

There was a gateway beside the river with the gates open, Prince Timur arguing with a warrior in their harsh language. Asena growled, "What's going on?"

"Prince Timur wants to meet with Khingla and discuss the raid," Princess replied, "but the Great Khan wants to meet you and Greywolf first... without him. Timur is not taking it well."

Prince Timur looked our way as we reached the others. "Karl, it seems I cannot present myself to the Khan of Khans until he has spoken with Titan, the Wolf-bitch, and her whelp. So I will ride to the pens and order the horse-slaves to attend to the beasts, before showing my new Bloodguards around the camp. We will take your mounts with us as well."

Karl inclined his head. "Gratitude, my prince." Holding Princess with one hand, he swung down with easy grace. "Once inside the gates, everybody walks, even the Great Khan himself."

I swung down off the Daemo mount as the boy riding in front of Amazonia piped up, "Can I ride Rocky to the pens?"

"Of course you can," Prince Timur said before I could open my mouth, looking at Karl as he added, "Unless the feral creature bites?"

Rocky swung his head to look at me and I narrowed my eyes. "Don't even think about it."

"Not even a little nip? It's been a long trip."

"There's a pen that's used just for Daemo mounts," Karl said, "and the horse-slaves know how to feed them."

"Sounds like you'll have company." I slapped his side as Rocky perked up, keeping the scowl off my face as Prince Timur made a show out of gently pulling the boy... Paulus, I think? ...out of the saddle and settling him on Rocky's back.

They rode along the edge of the palisade as Karl led us through the gateway on foot. The tents we walked by were patched and bleached by years in the sun, the intricate designs so faded I couldn't tell what they were, with some replaced by newer, cruder markings. They're strange, although I recognize a deer on that one and a wolf on the next, the one beyond with a mountain and... is that supposed to be a storm? I'm not sure.

The people watching us go by were wearing rough stitched clothes of linen with simple embroidery, or tanned leather, their feet bare or covered by simple sandals of thin leather. I knew they must be poor, yet no one looked diseased or badly underfed. No one had their hands out begging for coins. We passed by a young woman holding a baby wrapped in a blanket, who was staring at me, and I made a funny face. The baby laughed, her cheeks like red flowers in full bloom, which made the mother smile. I smiled in return and shared nods with several others. It was strange, because their faces were not only Tartaros steppe people as I'd thought they'd be, but a mixture of several different eastern peoples as well.

We continued onward, and the tents began appearing to be more recently made, with the same designs as before painted on by skillful hands. Here the people were busy shaping pottery or fletching arrows, the tang of hot metal harsh in my nose as we passed a blacksmith pounding the song of war into a sword, the axe-heads on the scarred wooden table beside him already hungry for the taste of flesh. He plunged the blade into a barrel of water as we walked past and the steel gave out a serpent's hiss.

We approached a set of curved trenches separating the area beyond from the rest of the camp. The gaps between the trenches were guarded by warriors wielding long axes with steel heads, and wearing heavy armor, who moved aside without a word as we passed between them. The faces, watching us from inside their round, hat-like helms, were Tartaros warriors to a man, but the people living in the tents here were different from anyone I'd seen so far. The eyes watching us go by had the slant of the east, yet their faces were sharper and more defined. Almost delicate, though I'm sure the people aren't.

Their white tents were large, with designs intricate as a Xian painting, colored not only in red like the poorer ones, but with blue and green and even gold. We passed them by and reached the enormous tent in the center of the camp. It looked strange, though, because it was an old tent, sun bleached and covered with more patches than the poorest tent we’d passed, with its fresh markings the crudest ones I'd seen so far.

However, the canopy over the entrance was made of a rich red fabric with gold colored tassels, and the guards standing before it had Artifact in place of steel on their armor, and two-handed axes with Artifact axe-heads. We stopped in front of them as one guard turns around and pushed the tent flap open to step inside.

As we waited, Karl said, "The Great Khan values honesty above all, and as long as you show him respect you can speak your mind. But there's also undercurrents in his court I can't even begin to explain."

"I understand," I replied. "It's not the first time I've been in a strange court, and had to watch what I say." I looked up at Asena. "Though certain people I know never had that problem."

Asena only snorted as Karl chuckled. "Then you should feel right at home with Princess." The girl poked her head out of the cloak and raised her pencil thin eyebrows at him as the guard walked back outside and motioned for us to follow.