The Song of Hashaskor
One:
As a boy, my father often took me into the desert.
There are things in the desert which many men cannot endure. The low wind, hissing, that carried sand into eyes and saddlebags and mixed with the sweat which poured down from your brow. We slaughtered weak horses often there, for water was more precious than a man's soul in the desert. The blood was strong and salty, and the first time I tasted it, it made me cough.
There are ways to live in the desert. My father forced me to find all of them. Each night I failed to find food, a black whip was laid across my back. I looked into my father's eyes, and saw no compassion there. Then he removed the latan, the wind flute, and played, while the boy wept softly into the night.
---
My name is Hashaskor, Prince of the Star. I am descended from a line of dead gods. Their names are Atraxes, Silver Prince, Sapphire King. Atraxes Unbroken. Atraxes the Great. His father was Arastephas, Redeemer of Men. Of him, no titles can do justice.
There were some that said the Star should always rule the Satar. That it was ill that a Prince of the Spear, Xetares, should rise to the Gold. These men were killed.
Some by my hand.
I had a silver mask, tarnished from rivulets of sweat and blood that had stained it in battle. It was knocked from my face at the Second Battle of Subal. Even then, as we smashed the Faronun van probing towards our encampment, I knew. For the wind from the north was cold and wet. It was a wind that smelled of catastrophe.
It was some weeks later that the messengers came, those that survived. The Hu'uti garrisons were lost, and the Faronun had reclaimed their places, swarming out from their mountain fastnesses. I had not the men to contest them. The Redeemer was dead. Magha would not hold. My brethren princes had taken their own lives in an act of great bravery.
Unlike my six brothers, there is no Tephas grass and soil for my blood to water. It is a heathen land upon which my sacrificial blood would spill. But I offered it to the Faronun. They denied it. The Faronun are enigma to me. These Faronun cannot fight as Satar do, but when fate hands them a victory, they refuse their rightful vengeance. Either their kings are mad or their people feel no bloodlust. I refuse to believe either.
We left Subal like a wind. This desert is called Kafin. We wait here.
In the morning we will fall upon a Hu'uti town. This will be the third such village we have erased from the world. It disgusts me now how we pillage for sustenance. But I am a desert warlord, and my men are desert exiles.
We shall cross this river, somehow, until we find our home.
The only home the Satar know is the home of battle. We are no longer Satar, but we know no other way.
I play my latan as my father did. Soon, we shall cross this river.