Satores, Redeemer of the Vithanama
North of Krato, 630 SR
Yonder the masters of Armageddon came. Six hundred oxen drawn wagons drudged through the once forest, now field, east of the Yensai. Ten thousand stumps mark the graves of old growth there. The earth scarred by men of war. A haze in the distance, a rising cloud of grey over the horizon, warned of war in the Moti heartland. War never ended.
Wagon wheels spun in mud. The spring rains brought trouble to the soils bare to the skies as a virgin to her husband. Roots of old trees cracked and dried without their heads and great rifts and valleys formed from the waters of heaven. Mud made their journey difficult, and Satores smirked at their efforts. The greatest coalition the world had ever known brought to their knees in peace with a king’s hoard in tribute.
He was Redeemer now. It had been a decade of war that brought him to this place, to the greatest city left standing of the Moti Empire. Krato was his great prize. And now she was his great bargain. The coalition of the Satar, Karganai, and the Kothar Lords could not break his hold on the Yensai with an army of size the world had never seen. The winter had been a negotiating period. The city would have fallen under more pressure, but they need not know that. Stores ran short. Morale was low. But they broke the siege as their greatest ally, and largest army, retreated north under Talephas to punish insubordination. The gods presented an escape from that tomb of a city.
A tomb worth an empire.
An honor guard accompanied him. Two thousand of his best riders, loyal veterans since the earliest campaigns against the Moti, waited silent in formation to his rear. At his side, the powerful Siyas, Elephant Lord of the Laitra, his Uggor tarkan and brother in arms, straddled the neck of his elephant mount, Barbashia. The tusked menace glistened with fine golden cloths and ringed iron armor. To his left, Taroc, his Goddess loving friend, stood patient and surveyed the approaching dignitaries. His mask, a sun-faded blue barely held together after years of war, was broken down the right side where a Karganai club had caved his face in. He’d lost that eye. He’d won that fight. Behind them a great number of parasols fluttered in the light breeze, shading well-dressed men on tiny wooden steps, educated functionaries to see to the ledgers. The work of the pen always followed that of the sword.
No victory was complete without losses. Friends die. Enemies escape. Their numbers dwindled, and many were weak from the siege. He brought the strongest to paint a great backdrop for this day. But the empire was in jeopardy. It teetered on the brink. Image was everything. A feeble man may strike you down, but a strong man need not.
Satores swiped hair from his eyes and scratched at his siege-beard. The treasure caravan moved ever onwards through the muck of his creation. At the head of their wagons a hundred horsemen rode in gallant fashion with silver armor glimmering in the sun. Pole-arms in their hands sported the banners of their region and the great golden wolf of the Karapeshai on a field of red. Beside them three litters on the backs of Uggor men bobbed over the terrain, two from the Karganai delegation with pale burgundy banners stitched with white flowers and one flying the personal banner of Talephas’ blood.
“Metexares cowers,” said Siyas from his high mount. “As you said he would.”
“The fool overestimates his usefulness,” said Taroc. “He challenged our might at Krato. Broken ships and crippled men are what he received. The Goddess delivers.”
“I care little for the source when the gold flows as the Abrea,” said Satores. His horse was restless beneath him. Satores calmed him with a pat on the neck and a tug on the reins. “No battle today, friend.” He looked to Siyas. “How do I look?”
“Like hell,” he replied.
“So I should hope.”
Satores tsked, urging his horse forward. The lumbering steps of Barbashia followed as Siyas gave commands in the Moti tongue. Satores would lead his tarkan and functionaries a short way forward to lessen the threat of his honor guard. They made faster work of the terrain than the wagons, traveling half the distance to them in a quarter of the time at a steady pace. The hundred horses broke away from the Satar and fell back in line with the wagons as the two sides met amidst ragged old stumps and mud puddles.
Four Satar slaves rushed ahead of their masters and unrolled great rugs of crimson atop the muddy ground. It was a bizarre practice that he had never seen before. Satar princes afraid to sully their boots? How far they had fallen. An elderly prince with a silver mask approached first on a black steed dotted white along its haunches. Zendan-ha, Prince of Moon and Karal-son. Zendan-ha dismounted.
“Hail, Satores,” called Zendan-ha. His voice was shaky, but certain and confident. The man was weak of age but not of spirit.
Satores dropped from his saddle into the calf-high mud with a vile squish. He made sure to dirty his boots before entering the clean sanctuary of the prince. Muddy prints rubbed in with every heavy step like a child mocking the world. It amused him.
“Karal-son,” he said. Satores sized him up. The man was shorter than him, but age played that part. Zendan-ha’s back hunched over, yet he walked with no cane. He wore simple clothing for his rank, brown and orange tunic with loose tan trousers running to his ankles and drawn tight by silk cord there. Stunning white hairs, thin around the top of his head, waved in the gentle breeze.
The litters drew closer to the makeshift meeting area. The two flying Karganai banners pulled up, the Uggor workers lowering themselves into the slippery mud and dirtying their bare legs. The curtains of the litters pushed aside as two milk skinned men stepped onto the rug. These men spent their days in the shade, working paper and pen for their government. They squinted at the sudden change in light.
One of them, the eldest and best dressed of the diplomats, was one Rafim Haruleia. He wore pale yellow and burgundy clothing tailored to his body perfectly. Satores had met him before, in the walls of Krato the winter past. The man was a force to be reckoned with when he performed, and rather grumpy when he did not. His companion wore similar colors, but of a lower rank, and had a hair full of brown hair not yet greyed by the stresses of diplomatic work. He seemed happy to be there, too, the poor fool. Rafim had organized the peace, and it was him that Satores showed the most respect with a slight nod of his head in acknowledgement.
A young boy stepped from within Rafim’s litter carrying a wooden box, sealed by paper and wax bearing the seal of the Union. Rafim waved him over. They would not sit for this. All parties involved wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible. Rafim took the box, broke the seal with his index finger, and opened the lid to show a stack of papers written in the languages of the present parties. A copy for each of them waited in the container, and on each the specifics of the peace were written succinctly. Rafim handed one to Satores and Zendan-ha each.
“The city,” asked Rafim in crisp Vithana.
“As we agreed,” replied Satores, waving his hand in the direction of Krato. The city was out of sight, but no billowing pillar of smoke emitted from there. “She is yours for the price we agreed.”
Rafim nodded. “Six hundred wagon loads of gold, silver, silk, and spice with three thousand slaves..." Rafim's brow wrinkled in deep dissaproval. "and two thousand oxen to transport it.” Rafim placed his thumb and index to the bridge of his nose as he sighed. “I assume you’ll wish to count it all?”
“No need,” said Satores. “I trust the word of Karganai.”
Zendan-ha failed to withhold a chortle. To which Rafim mouthed some Karganai word behind his back. Satores scanned the paper in the tongues he could read, Satar and Vithana, and they matched one another as close as words allowed. For a city, a fortune was paid. He rolled the paper and held it to his side. A functionary scurried over through the mud, nearly toppling over by the sound of it, to grab the paper and once more rush off to his position.
“Meteraxes does not participate in our peace?” said Satores.
“He does not approve of it, but he recognizes it. Our delegation assures the security of your holdings and rights aforementioned. There will be no further conflict with the Vithanama, so we swear,” said Rafim. “Peace is desirable, whether or not some see it is another matter of statecraft altogether.”
Zendan-ha stood perusing his copy. His hands were shaking from an ailment of age, and it made it so there was little chance of him reading with any speed. The old man made comments under his breath and laughed here and there.
“The banner of the wolf flies,” commented Satores. “Are all of my tributes present?” Zendan-ha did not look up from his paper, laughing away at some joke in his own head. Satores waited a moment, but not a hint of recognition came from the old man. So he repeated himself a bit louder.
“Huh,” started Zendan-ha, “Oh, right. Yes, of course.” The old Vithana cleared his throat, rolled up the paper, and called out in Satar. “The most sublime daughter of our Redeemer Talephas, Aresha of Atracta.” The final words stuck on his tongue, forced out through a slight stutter.
Her litter approached them at a leisurely pace. Talephas needed peace above all, and sacrificed his own blood to achieve it. The daughter of the Redeemer was tribute worthy of Krato. She had traveled half the world to see her father’s peace made whole. The litter stopped on the edge of the rug, and her Uggor servants dropped to their knees far lower than they had for the Karganai delegates. Satores raised a hand to his men, ordering them to stay, as he walked the rug to the litter of his new bride.
Silk light as a feather was cool on his hands as he pushed it aside. He peered within the litter, a much larger one than the others full of cushions and cloths befitting a woman of her birth. Aresha sat in the back, leaning on a pile of cushions against the rear wall, legs crossed beneath a thin beige cotton dress tied tight to her waist with a gold and crimson sash. On her face, a wooden mask painted blue and inscribed with the names of her ancestors. Brown eyes stared back at him.
She spoke first.
“Lion of the West,” she said. It wasn’t as smooth as she must have thought it, but he humored her. “I have come to see peace fulfilled. I will love you as deeply as I love my father.”
Satores entered the litter fully, pushing cushions out behind him to make room. Aresha was a small woman, and young. Her black hair waved down her back, well brushed. She shifted to face him directly. The posture of a princess accentuated her breasts. She examined his muddy boots.
“Do you find me a savage, Aresha? Do I frighten you?”
“You are Vithana, a rider. You wear no mask. Unusual. But I knew as much. You are the great king of the Dula, conqueror of the Moti twice over, and you are my husband. I do not fear you. I do not a savage see.”
Satores nodded, pulling the curtains shut around them in the litter. Outside he could hear Rafim and Zendan-ha speaking to Taroc and Siyas, probably over the weather or terrain, but hopefully not religion. He let his own posture slip, half-laying on the cushions and scratching at his beard.
“You know our customs?”
“I do,” she said.
“You are neither my first nor my last,” he said. “You are my prize for victory. You are mine because I am a better warrior than your father. Do you concur?”
She nodded.
“I may never love you. But I will put a child in you. And I mean you no harm for it. Your father traded you for a city, a city of his once enemies. Never shall I dishonor you as he has. However rich his court is, it is no match for the grandeur of mine. You will never want for anything. I only ask that you obey me.”
“To my death,” she promised.
“Remove your mask.”
She hesitated.
“You may wear it as you please, but I am your husband and I will see your face.” Satores reached out and gently removed her mask. “There, so it is complete. You are beautiful. I accept you.”
Satores placed the wooden mask in her hands. He slipped out of the litter, to the rug. Walking proudly to Rafim, he slapped the old Karganai on the back. It startled him.
“Ah, we pay tribute more and more these days,” he muttered. “Are you amused with yourself, Satores?”
“Yes, friend,” said Satores. “I have seen your peace, and it is good. Karganai know how to treat the victors.”
“How very customary.”
“Krato is yours.” Satores turned to Zendan-ha. “Tell Talephas a challenge was met and conquered. Exatas.”
Zendan-ha bowed his head.
“I will go home,” said Satores as he left the mat and mounted his horse. “Do not make me return.”
