Greywolf - The encampment

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

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

Karl leaves the road, heading towards the hill on our left, and I tap Rocky's side to follow. "If I must," he grumbles, and starts trotting after him. Glancing back, Amazonia and her warriors, riding more normal horses while the prince and his other two warriors ride Warghorses as well, are remaining on the road. Asena and Titan stride up the hill after us.

Karl and I reach the crest of the hill and rein in, Rocky giving the Warghorse a wide berth as the creature bares its fangs a moment before settling down. I glance down at the valley below and my eyes go wide. "Shite, is that a city?"

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

Karl chuckles. "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 give 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 asks, "What about everyone else?"

Karl shrugs. "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 says, "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 share a smile as Asena growls, "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 gives 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 jump in before Asena mucks things up. "We can do that."

Asena snorts, but doesn't contradict me, which is a good sign. I hope. Karl turns his Warghorse towards the bridge and starts down the hill, Asena walking beside him asking him something else as Titan puts out his hand to hold me in place. "How are things between you and Asena?"

She glances back at us, but keeps walking as Karl responds 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 nods. "Earlier, when I threw my katana down, was I wrong to get so upset with Asena?"

He chuckles as we begin 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 replies 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 give 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 chew on his words as we reach the bottom of the hill and head toward the bridge, which the prince is 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 shakes 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've got no idea what he's talking about, but I keep my mouth shut as he looks 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've really got no idea what he's talking about, except the living like I'm human part. That I can relate to. "I'll try, Syr."

Titan chuckles. "Now I know I'm getting old. Shall we catch up with the others?" the Ogri lengthens his stride and Rocky breaks into a trot to keep up. Karl and Asena are waiting at the end of the bridge; we reach them, and start across, everyone going at a brisk pace.

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

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

Prince Timur looks our way as we reach 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 inclines his head. "Gratitude, my prince." Holding Princess with one hand, he swings down with easy grace. "Once inside the gates, everybody walks, even the Great Khan himself."

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

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

Rocky swings his head to look at me and I narrow 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 says, "and the horse-slaves know how to feed them."

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

They ride along the edge of the palisade as Karl leads us through the gateway on foot. As we enter, the tents we walk by are patched and bleached by years in the sun, the intricate designs so faded I can't tell what they were, 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 are wearing rough stitched clothes of linen with simple embroidery, or tanned leather, their feet bare or covered by simple sandals of thin leather. They must be poor, yet no one looks diseased or badly underfed. No one has their hands out begging for coins. We're passing by a young woman holding a baby wrapped in a blanket, who's staring at me, and I make a funny face. The baby laughs, her cheeks like red flowers in full bloom, and the mother smiles. I smile in return and share nods with several others. It's strange, their faces are not only Tartaros steppe people as I'd thought they'd be, but a mixture of several different eastern peoples.

We continue onward, and now the tents appear more recently made, with the same designs painted on by skillful hands. Here the people are busy shaping pottery or fletching arrows, the tang of hot metal harsh in my nose as we pass 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 plunges the blade into a barrel of water as we walk on past and the steel gives out a serpent's hiss.

Now we're approaching a set of curved trenches separating this area from the rest of the camp. The gaps between the trenches are guarded by warriors wielding long axes with steel heads, and wearing heavy armor. They move aside without a word and we pass between them. The faces watching us from inside their round, hat-like helms, are Tartaros warriors to a man, but the people living in the tents here are different from anyone I've seen so far. The eyes watching us go by have the slant of the east, yet their faces are sharper and more defined. Almost delicate, though I'm sure the people aren't.

Their white tents are large with designs intricate as a Xian painting, colored not only in red like the poorer ones, but blue and green and even gold. We pass them by and reach the enormous tent in the center of the camp. It's strange, though, because it's an old tent, sun bleached and covered with more patches than the poorest tent we passed, with its fresh markings the crudest ones I've seen so far. However, the canopy over the entrance is made of a rich red fabric with gold colored tassels, and the guards standing before it have Artifact in place of steel on their armor, and two-handed axes with Artifact axe-heads. We stop in front of them as one guard turns around and pushes the tent flap open to step inside.

As we wait, Karl says, "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 begin to explain."

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

Asena only snorts as Karl chuckles. "Then you should feel right at home with Princess." The girl pokes her head out of the cloak and raises her pencil thin eyebrows at him as the guard walks back outside and motions for us to follow.