The encampment was surprisingly large. It surprised me that there was a camp, a base for the roaming Dakkari. No one had ever heard about one. The camp alone was larger than my entire village and we had a population of 86.
85 now, I thought silently to myself.
Large, domed tents of tanned animal hide dotted the flat land, the camp positioned at the edge of a darkened forest of black trees. I had only seen trees once before and I stared up at them, amazed at their height.
Loud trills echoed in the night sky, making me jump. The horde king’s hand tightened on my belly briefly before he made a responding trill, loud and deep, from the back of his throat. I felt it vibrate through his body, against my back. The rest of the horde that traveled with him followed suit.
A signal, I realized.
More Dakkari emerged from their tents, some completely nude, which embarrassed me. But what surprised me the most was that females and children were among them, traveling with the hordes.
As the horde king guided his beast into the camp, winding around the tents towards the forest’s edge, Dakkari surrounded them, lining up along the makeshift road. My head swiveled from side-to-side, looking at unfamiliar faces. I felt their eyes on me, felt their curiosity, or perhaps their animosity.
But the males cheered with that loud trill as we passed and I jumped when I felt foreign hands on my legs. The Dakkari people—males, females, and children alike—reached out their hands to pass it over the horde king’s creature, over the horde king’s legs, and by extension, my own.
Finally, once they passed most of the tents, he stopped his beast with a firm tug of the golden chains near a wide enclosure. My lips parted, my chest squeezing, when I realized it was an enclosure for the beasts, with numerous troughs of raw, pink meat and clear water filled to the brim. I stared at that raw meat, thought of my hungry village with our dead crops and withering Uranian Federation rations, and turned my head away. Their beasts were eating better than we were.
There were hundreds of them, all enclosed within the single pen, but they had ample space to roam. The enclosure was larger than the entire encampment. I saw hundreds of red eyes in the darkness, their hides glimmering in gold paint.
The horde king dismounted with a surprising grace, handing the gold reins to a Dakkari male who came to greet him. Reaching up for me, my new keeper grasped my waist and easily swung me down, setting me on my feet beside him. I swallowed a hiss when the pain registered, everything stiff and sore from my waist down.
The horde king turned from me and gently took his beast’s snout in his wide palm. He leaned close, looking into its red eyes, and murmured something in Dakkari, his voice soft. The beast made a chirring sound in its long neck and was led away by the other Dakkari male. Once inside the pen, it immediately went to eat from one of the nearest troughs.
Without a single word—he hadn’t said a single word to me since we’d left my village—the horde king led me to the largest domed tent in the entire encampment. Stationed outside were two Dakkari males, who inclined their heads in greeting to their leader, ignoring my presence completely.
The horde king jerked his chin at the thick flaps of the tent, his eyes on me. Then he turned to the guards and spoke in Dakkari, probably along the lines of ‘make sure she doesn’t escape.’
Like I could.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I escaped, the horde king would return to my village and kill my brother as retaliation, perhaps more villagers in the process. I had accepted my fate, had agreed to it, had promised that I would serve him. I intended to, but I felt my soul slowly begin to wither at the prospect of it.
With that in mind, I stepped through the tent flaps, under the watchful gaze of the horde king. He was testing me, I realized. He wanted to see what I would do.
Screw him, I thought. There was a fire still within me, an anger. As long as I held onto that, my soul would stand a fighting chance.
Warmth enveloped my cloaked body when I stepped inside the tent. I hadn’t quite known what to expect, but my widened eyes took in luxurious surroundings, some luxuries I had never seen before.
Like plush carpets that lined the floor, soft beneath my booted feet—the soles of which were failing. Like wax candles that drenched the tent in golden light or little vases of hot oils that filled the space with a light, delicious fragrance. Like an actual bed set up on a low pallet draped in soft furs and cushions, not a simple pile of blankets on the floor like back home. Like a row of chests on the floor that glimmered with gold and the horde king’s treasures.
For a long moment, I simply stood on the threshold of the tent, taking in my new surroundings. My new prison. Because I couldn’t forget that this tent was still my cage, one I’d willingly chosen.
I didn’t dare to touch anything, though my fingers longed to stroke the soft furs on the bed. So I simply stood, waiting, glancing at the front entrance of the tent every so often. But the horde king didn’t appear, which relieved me.
Just when my eyes started to droop, when I swayed on my feet with my exhaustion, the flaps pushed open suddenly and a large bathing tub was brought in by two Dakkari males, not the guards stationed at the entrance. They didn’t meet my eyes. They simply deposited the tub along the empty space to the right, the space that wasn’t carpeted, left, and returned with huge basins of hot water. It took them multiple trips in and out of the tent to completely fill up the tub and once it was filled, they exited.
Then two Dakkari females appeared. I straightened at the sight of them, watching them warily. They were smaller than the males with plaited black hair that ended at their waists. Both females were dressed in a flowing gray shift dress that brushed the tops of their six-toed feet. Behind them, a small slit was cut out to allow for their tails, which were tipped in a dark tuft of hair.
“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm when they approached me and began to tug at my clothing, one kneeling to take off my boots, the other pushing the tatters of my cloak off my shoulders.
“The Vorakkar sent us,” one of the females said in the universal tongue, the one trying to unlace my boots. “He requests that you bathe after your long journey.”
“Ordered, you mean,” I muttered, cheeks reddening. “I don’t need one.”
It had been four days since I last bathed. Water was precious in our village and wasn’t needlessly wasted. I eyed the hot water in the bathing tub with longing, but I wondered if I could keep the horde king at bay for a few days if I refused to wash. Just a few days, to come to terms with my new life, my new purpose.
“You need one,” the female said her lips pursed, as if it was obvious. “The Vorakkar will not be disobeyed, even by you.”
What did that mean?
I was just about to protest again, but then bit my tongue. It was inevitable, just like my eventual relations with the horde king, whose name I still did not know.
Be brave, I told myself, and endure.
A thought occurred to me suddenly.
I would fulfill my promise and maybe when the horde king eventually tired of me, he would allow me to return to my village, to Kivan. Perhaps if I pleased him enough, he would take mercy on me and consider my debt paid.
I knew the likelihood of that was slim. Mithelda once again crossed my mind. She had never returned to our village, though there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d been taken for the same purpose as the horde king had taken me for.