Nigh on a fortnight of travelling, Jaber had not been accustomed to the wagon cell. Blisters as big as his thumb grew in his feet, his legs stiffened, his back ached, and the dry weather of the passing lands had brought his lips to crack. Every time the wagons stopped, he asked the guards whether they will be arriving soon, and every time he got the same answer: A clacking of their swords' hilts on the front wooden wall of the wagon.
"You gotta be patient, uh," Hem had said, reading his small book, adjusting the angle to the escaping light from the barred window. They were alone in the wagon. The other cellmates had tried to escape when the wagons stopped, and the guards went after them. They never came back. Jaber wondered whether they escaped or the guards had got to them first.
The yellow-green fields of the Liongate had turned into desolate, brown turf as they headed south. The Shadecrossing diminished from thick brick roads into dirt and dust and mud. From the mud on the road, it seemed that rain had fallen a day before their arrival. On the road they had stopped at many a village, some welcomed them, allowing the guards to set up tents on the outskirts of the village, while the prisoners slept in the wahons. Other villages dismissed them and went back into their huts and houses; and some were hostile. Those must not declare for the tribes.
The wagoncells were heading for Endhill, Jaber knew, although he never visited Endhill before. He had never left Treehill before this. Hem had told him about the road that connects Liongate with Hillrock and Endhill.
"There's no need to take all the road down to Hillrock, since there's a detour that takes directly south, towards Endhill," Hem said. "Many villages between here and Endhill, even after, by the Divide." He turned a page of his book.
"How do you know all of this? Have you visited these parts before?"
Hem took his gaze away from the book and glanced at Jaber. "I may have been here once or twice," he said, as if to reminisce haps of long ago. "There are many things to know about me, Jaber of Treehill. And many things to know about you."
"I hardly think there are that many things to know about me." Jaber sunk his face deep in his knees.
"Why, there is your sister, for one. There is the reason that got you here with me."
Jaber had pulled his head up at the mention of his sister. He hadn't thought about her for a while. "There's no need for you to know about that."
"There is no need, but there is curiosity," Hem grinned. Jaber ignored him. He lay on his back to sleep, hoping to wake at the Divide. Maybe I'll wake back in Treehill with her, and all of this would be just a bad dream.
He woke at the sound of the opening of their wagon door. The guards ordered them to get off the them and form a straight two-by-two line. Jaber and Hem stood shoulder by shoulder, prisoners formed the line behind them. The sun had gone behind the mountains and its last rays had sent a red light over the world. The west glimmered red and orange far away beyond their lands and the lands of Liongate. The forest in the east was dark, and darkness that crept through its trees swept upwards and covered the sky, too. And so was the north. The road that they been taking so far nearly appeared now. The north always seemed dark and cold and distant. There's no hope to go back north. Jaber looked at the sky and sighed.
The village they stopped at was a small one, although big enough to accommodate the needs of the traveling wagons. The villagers were expecting them. Their set-up tents and huts near the forest seen to that. The tents formed a circle in and out of the forest trees.
The guards marched the prisoners toward the camp. They sat them in the middle of the circle. Some of the guards unhorsed by the tents and tended to their horses. Others went into their tents. The rest were guarding them, the prisoners.
"Food will be here, soon." The chief guard, Helmak, said. He turned to a guardsman, "go to the village and inform them we're here."
One of the prisoners said in a hushed voice, almost breaking, "Where will we be sleeping, chief?"
The chief looked at him, grinning. "You hear that, boys," he bellowed, and the guards came. "Bring him. I'll give him a very nice place to sleep in." The guards took the feeble man's chains off and brought him by the arms, following the chief. The prisoner smiled for half a heartbeat, almost believing the chief's words. They linked him upside down to the nearest tree. His legs and hands chained, tightened with ropes around the tree. He screamed and kept screaming until the chief told him if he were to scream again, he will not live to see the light of day. After that there were no screams, and no protests over their sleeping situation.
When the guards brought food from the village, they ate plenty, then gave the leftovers to the prisoners. There has been shortage of food since they left Liongate. The guards were not going to hunt, and none of the prisoners had enough courage to tell them to. Jaber and Hem had a cold chunk of mutton meat and some hard brown bread. The grease stiffened in the meat and hardened it.
"This is the most delicious meal I ever ate," Hem jested, ripping through a piece of bread. Jaber sliced his meat to pieces with his hands, cut his bread in half, and put the meat in. It had not been a fancy meal, nor was it enough, but it was better than nothing.
Other prisoners were luckier than they were. They had meat and bread and some gravy with it, and a flagon of juice to drink after. Jaber did not protest, nor did he want to.
The light in the west was gone, blackness replaced the soft colors of red and orange, and night covered the sky. The stars dotted the sky one after another, and the moonlight shone bright, its paleness hovering through the trees of the forest. The wind rose at the fall of darkness. It danced with the leaves of trees and passed over them towards the open fields beyond their camp and the village. The cold came with it. The prisoners took the center of the camp for the night. They huddled against each other on top the bare ground. Jaber lay between Hem and another two prisoners chained together. They both looked alike; twins of some sort. Although one was slightly taller than the other, their faces faintly apparent from the lit fire. They both had black hair, black eyes, pointy noses, and small faces. The taller one had a hint of a moustache where his brother had shown to be growing a beard, few hairs splashed over his face.
Pebbles and pointy rocks covered half the ground, the other half with weather-beaten soil that acted smooth like a blanket. But nothing comes to level with a blanket, Jaber thought. The four of them rested their heads on a small log that lay there, covered with moss and dirt. "This would serve us for the night," Hem had said. He'd came closer to them and swept his hands inside his old cloak.
When the camp fires started to die away, Jaber closed his eyes. He forced himself to think of good days, old days… He thought about when he was a kid and his father went to the Rice War. His father was not a warrior, but a carpenter and a blacksmith, the best blacksmith, whom the Sid likened to others. He forged swords, shields, helmets, and fixed bent and old ones too. And had a word in the ruling council when it came to building or forging. During the war, Jaber would go on adventures with his friends in Treehill, fighting imaginary demons and evil dragons with their wooden swords that Jaber's father made for them. Jaber led his friends and commanded them. They climbed up trees, followed ghosts in the forest, and set traps for an enemy that was not there. At the end of the day, they went back to their homes shouting in victory. One day, which marked the end of the Rice War, the soldiers returned. The Sid died in the war, and many men died along with him. On that day Jaber climbed a tree, a big smile on his face, looking for his father amongst the wounded. On that day, his father did not return. And since then, he took the full responsibility of taking care of his little sister… These are not good days.
A cracking voice came from his side.
The twin brothers were on their knees, checking something in the dark, scratching at the log with their hands. One of them peeled off a big crust from the log, and the other picked up something and chuckled.
"What's that?" Jaber rested his back on the log.
"Supper," the one holding the crust said. "Second supper," the brother said, holding out his hand.
Jaber nudged back, looking at his black hands. "What are these?"
The brother chuckled. "They're beetles. Very delicious," he said. "Oh hair." He threw them on the ground, his hand now reddening. "I forgot that they bite." Nonchalantly, he picked up a small rock and started pounding on the ground, crushing the beetles as they scattered. His brother following him.
"You've never eaten bugs, have you?" Hem asked, scornfully. His head bowed, covered with a hood, shielded from the cold, his hands locked and nuzzled on his stomach.
I bet you have. "No. I never starved as to do that. You?"
"There have been times when a man is made to eat bugs and tree leaves to survive," he said from under the hood. The twin brothers chuckled together, collecting their bugs from the ground as if they were jewelry, the faint light glistening on the backs of the crushed black beetles.
A figure appeared in front of them. The man's shadow covered the fire's light coming from where the guards circled around their tent and shared their cards. His chains snapping together as he pounded over to them.
"Silence," he said in a thick, ordering tone. The twin brothers looked at him, dropping their spoils.
"Oh, it's nothing, sir. Just…beetles. Want one?" The tall twin picked a handful and handed them to the big man.
"Silence," the big man repeated, the edge of his tone grew serious, his face stern and black with the blackness of night. His big shadow towered over them, covering the four.
"Sorry. We didn't mean to disturb you, dear sir." The brother with the tuft beard went on collecting his spoils.
The heavy man approached. Jaber saw his hand come down on the brother like lightening, lifting him to the free air, choking him. The little man shrieked. He twitched like a rabbit in a hawk's claws. His brother tried to clench the hand free, but the big man pushed him with the other, sending him fumbling back to the ground.
The big man's face grew hard and still. "Silence," he repeated for the third time, throwing the little man like a rabbit to the ground.
"Are you okay?" Jaber asked the twin as the mountain of a man went back to his place.
"I'm okay. I'm happy he didn't take our beetles," he tried to chuckle, but a groan of pain came out instead; he rubbed his neck. "I'm Jaw. My brother's Jess."
"Jaw?" What kind of name is that, Jaber thought to himself, holding back a chuckle. "Is it short for something?"
"Jawher. Sometimes people think I've got strong jaws or something," he said, crunching a beetle with his teeth. "But I don't got no jaws of iron."
"You've got an iron head, that's what you got," Jess said.
Jaw pushed him to the ground and they started quarreling, only stopping when all of them caught a shadow in front.
The campfire the guards built had dwindled away as the night grew darker. The wind grew hard around them in the trees; the leaves and twigs whispering through it. When they settled their heads on the tree trunk, Hem joined them, and lay by Jaber's side.
"Where have you been?" Jaber whispered.
"Just around the trees, taking a leek."
"Were you that afraid of the big man?" Jaw said; his brother sniggered in the dark.
"And who are you?" Jaber could sense Hem asking nonchalantly.
"I'm Jaw, not because of my jaws; 'tis short for Jawher. My brother's Jess. And you? You're the one who reads a lot, no? I know about you… I mean, I've seen you about, reading books and all."
Hem sighed. "Why, hair, you put your nose where it doesn't belong, uh."
"No, no. I—"
"He likes to watch people, when he's not watching his hand for a booger," his brother said.
Hem answered when they were about to start quarreling, "Watch people, uh. I like that." He crossed his legs. After a while he said, "I'm Hemer. You can call me Hem."
As the night grew darker, silence filled the camp. They all slept. Jaber bent on his right side. Hem snored softly; his snoring mingled with the whispering of the leaves in the forest. Jaber looked deep into the forest. The moon light pecked its way through the trees. It was not fully dark after all. His eye took him at that thought.
The guards woke them up at first light, ordering prisoners into their wagoncells. The world was drunk in the pale light of dawn, gray and dark and still half-full with the preceding night. As the prisoners followed the shouts of guards and formed two-by-two lines, a caravan appeared in the south. Wagons and horses adorned in indigo velvet passed them by. Their guards enameled in dark blue cuirasses and white capes that covered the whole of their heads and came across their faces, showing only the darkness of their eyes and their upper face skin. Two big Maqaads covered whole in a thick azure silk went after the first guards when they stopped before them. The small door of the big mini-castle opened, and a tall man came down. He wore a long white Burqa that covered him from head to toe, leaving only his eyes, under a thick cobalt velvet that covered his chest and back, embroidered with fine markings of the Ancient Tongue. Tugards, Jaber thought. The rulers of the deserts. The rulers beyond the Divide.
The whole camp was looking at the man by then, who by now stood between two of his guards. Jaber saw the Headguard of their party step forward, his red and grey ringmail clunking as he walked, hand in sword.
The Tugardian spoke in a language that Jaber did not comprehend, the Ancient Tongue. The guard stood there for a moment, as if to slowly recognize the language spoken, then he bowed, before replying, "Yes. We are off to The Divide. We come from Liongate. And you?"
The Tugardian grimaced. "Why don't you speak in your own tongue?" he said, contemptuously, in the most exotic accent of the Common Tongue Jaber has ever heard.
"Many of our men do not understand our Ancient Tongue. I prefer to speak in a tongue that is understood by all." The Headguard pressed his teeth, hand still on his sword. "I guess you are heading to Starshade, Yaellar, my Sid. It is a long journey. I hope for it to be as good as it was for us."
The Sid smiled with his eyes. "I fear I have not been a good friend to the Divide. Pray tell me, have you need of anything? Food? Cloth? Medicine?"
The Headguard bowed his head courteously. "My Sid is very kind. The Divide does with what it has down there. And the north offers us plenty." With that the Headguard went back and shouted for everyone to get back to work. The Sid went back to his Maqaad, and the caravan started moving.
"That's the Sid of the desert cities," Hem said to Jaber, as they both went into the wagoncell. "Bylad and."
"I know who he is," Jaber said. "It's the first time I've seen a southern Sid."
"Yuh, Southern Sids have been dying like flies in the past years. This one lingered, though, uh. He brought the War of the Rice to an end, and at quite a price." Yes, Jaber thought, a very expensive price. My father.
"They're heading north, to Starshade," Jaber said, deflecting from the past. "I didn't know southerners are ruled by Starshade. What business have they in there?"
"You really don't know your politics, do you?" Hem already sat as the wagon moved, bringing out his book. "They have the Yearly Assembly. And yes, the south is in The Pact… Now they're heading north, to the rich green lands, and we're heading south, to the old, dirty, backbone of the world. Cheer up, uh, 't won't be long before we're there."