“Shut your gob, you pribbling bawbag!” Vicq cawed as he smashed his shield into the kneeling slave’s face, shattering her nose against her cheekbones. Blood spurted between the slave’s fingers as the orea grabbed what was left of her nose and tumbled to the side. She tried to hold in her screams as best she could, letting out the slightest of whimpers. Orea were never allowed to vocalize. Vicq towered over her, a leg on each side of her white-haired goat body. The slave glanced up to Vicq’s shield displaying the sigil of the warlord pressing down on her. The black silhouette of a red-footed cuckoo flying west was emblazoned in the middle of the shield. Circumscribing the edge of the tan, scarred shield was a row of red triangles next to a row of black triangles.
The red-footed cuckoo was a vicious creature from birth. Refusing to raise her young, the mother cuckoo instead hid her eggs in the nests of other birds to be fed and reared. The cuckoo nestling—hatching earlier than other birds—waited until the adoptive mother flew away to find food for her babies. The cuckoo then used its back to push all the other eggs out of the nest, splattering the yolks upon the ground and ensuring its survival.
“Look at it,” Vicq screamed, pushing the shield into her face. “You are Warlord Kælerus’ property. He made you. He owns you.” He snarled at her, spittle flying from his lips. “And you will obey or I will cut your throat, bleed you, and feed you to the rest of the slaves.” Vicq raised his eyes. In the middle of the searing desert sand, peppered with sagebrush, short grasses, creosote bushes, cacti, and hearty trees with shallow but long root systems, was a bazaar. It was filled with colored canopies held up by poles of wood, steel, iron, and sometimes bone. They were decorated with elaborate flags and tapestries. In the center of the bazaar stood a marble statue of Kælerus’ ancestor, Dvergr, at the zenith of a mountain, his right hand grasping a double-headed battleaxe extended toward the gods and guardians. Below him, three orea with chains on their wrists and legs worked on the mountain with mining tools.
Orea were four-legged creatures like a centaur but with the body of a short-legged mountain goat with long, white hair, and the muscled torso and head of a human with curved horns on the forehead. Dvergr bred centaurs and mountain goats, rams and men, to create a creature perfectly adapted to the terrain of the mountain both inside and out. Unlike most of Dvergr’s crossbreeding experiments, the orea were well-suited for working the steep and dangerous rock formations.
For one thousand years, the orea were bred to work the mines as slaves and were considered by Dvergr and his descendants as little more than specialized livestock bred to sell at market. Sensitive to suppressing possible uprisings and to reassure his buyers, Dvergr forbade all orea from speaking or using any language beyond the occasional bleat of the normal mountain goat. Even that was only tolerated in moderation. To speak a word—aloud—and to have done so in front of potential buyers in the middle of the bazaar was nothing more than treason and treachery.
Currently, Vicq was acting as the mouth of Kælerus. He was one of three. Rarely did the warlord appear in public. Buyers and merchants gathered around the scene. Na pari i eychi! he thought to himself. I shouldn’t have yelled. He walked over and grabbed a bolt of red cotton fabric from a merchant’s tent and tossed it to his minions nearby. They quickly wrapped the cowering orea in the blanket. Vicq grabbed one of the soldiers by the arm and whispered to him, and they whisked her away. Vicq reached into the satchel at his side, pulled out a silver piece, and flicked it to the merchant. “Her coloring offended me. Can’t sell something so ugly. Wouldn’t be right,” Vicq said calmly to the merchant. “Don’t you agree?”
The merchant swallowed hard then faked a smile. “Kælerus only sells the finest stock,” he proclaimed loudly. “This is well known.” He looked at Vicq.
“Well known,” repeated Vicq as he turned and walked away.
“We praise you, Vicq, for removing from our sight such a hideous blight upon this land.” The merchant clapped loudly as he scanned the crowd, who joined him reluctantly before they turned to go about their business.
Vicq walked through the bazaar observing the merchants and the crowds. It was larger than normal and he smiled thinking of the coin—copper, silver, gold—they would make. In the background was a high stone wall guarding the city-state of Khôra—The Womb of Akkad, The City of Life and Breath, The First Land—which was built upon the gentle slope of an upwarped mountain. The desert city-state was perched between two rivers making the area both fertile and highly coveted.
Warlord Kælerus had an extensive and powerful army and navy to protect the waterways for safe shipments. Where the single river split and went around Khôra, there stood a colossal statue of a dwarf warlord of yore, an ancient Aether ancestor. The river flowed between his mammoth legs and staircases inside led to windows from which soldiers could defend the river and The Womb. None passed beneath but by the word of Kælerus. To the south, another gargantuan ancestral dwarf guarded the merging of the two rivers. The colossi were the largest pieces of masonry in the world, chiseled in the days of the Aether and considered among the greatest wonders of Akkad.
As Vicq came to the edge of the bazaar, he stopped and watched the auction block, a large platform where they sold all the slaves. A new crop of orea were selling quickly. He nodded. Two drákōnblood children played war with wooden swords and shields nearby. Drákōnblood were descendants of dragon bloodline, or so it was claimed. They stood on two legs and were similar in size as humans but with a dragon head and tail. The drákōnblood were covered in scales. Most were blue or green, but other colors—red, orange, pearl, gold, silver, and even purple—were said to exist. Instead of fingers and toes, they had claws, including a dewclaw on their feet. The desert was a natural climate so the children wore no clothes. Their scales glittered an iridescent blue beneath the hot suns of Akkad. One child pressed forward, driving the other backwards. As they approached Vicq, the aggressor lunged, but the other dodged, driving a wooden sword against Vicq’s side.
“Little kotsiros,” he growled, grabbing the boy by his neck and picking him up. The child struggled, flailing his legs and clawing at Vicq’s hand across his neck. Vicq tossed the boy to the ground as his mother, in the city for a few days buying supplies, screeched and ran to her son. Her husband dropped a scarf he was interested in purchasing and ran to join her.
“Have mercy on my stupid boy,” the mother exclaimed. “He is an ignorant child.” She slapped the gasping boy in the head, then hugged him. The other boy stood behind his mother.
“I will punish him severely, Master Vicq, if you will permit me to do so,” the father said, avoiding Vicq’s gaze. “He will never trouble you again, this I promise.”
Vicq looked around at the buyers on the auction block who turned to watch the spectacle. Second time today? he thought, shaking his head. These people are losing their respect, he decided to himself. Vicq was a muscular beast of a barbarian with beads woven into his long black hair and beard. His torso and arms were bare but for the thick black hair that covered him from neck to ankle. In the desert he wore sandals and a breechcloth. Across his chest he carried a satchel and a bone necklace around his neck. He squatted down beside the boy, who was still coughing and trying to catch his breath from the choke. The barbarian leaned in to the drákōnblood boy.
“Do you know who I am, boy?” His teeth were black and his breath stunk.
The boy nodded.
“Then you should know better,” he said in a quiet, but biting tone. Vicq reached down and grabbed the boy’s middle claw and snapped it. The bone cracked his scaly skin and blood spurted in Vicq’s face. The boy howled in pain and grasped his broken claw. “Let go of this claw I am holding unless you want me to break your other one.” The boy continued to howl, but released his claw. Vicq shoved the child, stood, and brushed his chest.
“You broke his claw!” his mother blubbered.
“You would prefer I break his ribs? Or maybe I should sell him on the slaver’s block?”
“No, Master Vicq!” exclaimed the father. He ran between them, fell on the ground, and clasped his claws together prayerfully. “You are most wise. My horrible child deserves whatever you see fit. If it pleases Master Vicq, may we take our leave and have him treated?”
Vicq kicked the father in the chest slamming him backwards, and then walked past him. “I care not what you do, you blue-scaled filth.”