Exiles

A beautiful dark-haired, fair-skinned woman stood next to her betrothed, rather, her new husband, and gazed out at the small but personal gathering of people around them. Her friends, family, and neighbors were all celebrating her wedding! The entire village had turned up and offered what gifts and food they could manage for the occasion; there was a small famine going on as gatherings in the region had been thin. The village, really more a collection of hastily-built and sturdy huts and the tough people who inhabited them, were more a group of gatherers and hunters than farmers or merchants. And if animal herds were scarce and wild plants were not fruiting, it meant that food stores ran dry very quickly and talk of relocating became common, despite the fact that they had only just moved to this region; a place a good deal eastwards on the continent, sitting in the shadows of a mountain range they knew not the name of.

But even in times such as these, times of hardship and uncertainty, hope and celebration were important. Perhaps more so in times such as these.

The woman turns and looks at her beloved, a tall, broad-shouldered hunter whom she'd grown up around. They were raised in the same village since birth and she'd known him well even before becoming his betrothed. She was overtly fond of him and now that they were to be wed, and to consummate the marriage for the first time this very night, she was overjoyed that her affections for him would be met with pleasure and passion. The sun was already starting to dip down beneath the tops of the mountain range they had settled near as the official vows were exchanged and the party could begin in earnest, expected to go well into the night. They hardly needed them, these vows of loyalty and fidelity, such was their love for one another. But traditions are important too, even in harsh times such as these.

"Even this sunset pales in comparison to your beauty, Cenna, my love." He says, resting his hand on her cheek. She leaned into the coarse, calloused grip of her husband and closed her eyes, not needing to see him for his visage was committed to her memory. Rough, strong, and with almost brutish and barbaric features he was far from what some "civilized" folk would call handsome, not the least because of some scars and birthmarks across his face, but he was hers and she saw beneath his face and stature to the good, kind, and honest man beneath it.

"And as the sun sets, so shall your warmth comfort me, beloved." She replied quietly, a faint smile on her face as the din of the celebrating kinsfolk around them filled her with a sense of peace. It was rare for her kin to truly be celebrant. Life was harsh, the people around here more so. To survive, each man, woman, and child learned methods of defense and subsistence. To endure, despite futility, was their way. Attaching herself to this man was just one more practicality for survival. At least, that's the thing everyone says. She opens her eyes and smiles at him, her Hosef, and casts her eyes over his face. But, to her slight surprise, she realized that he wasn't looking at her. He was looking behind her.

Cenna turns to see what Hosef was looking at and frowns, squinting as she catches some sort of light on the edge of the forest lining the foot of the mountains. They'd cut some of those very trees down to form their huts, but even the thinned forest could hide many things. The sun was going down, it ought to be getting darker, but... there was a light. And... then another. And another. And... and more. And more!

"H-Hosef?" Cenna asks with a bit more concern bleeding into her voice. The tall man grunts as his hand falls from her face and he steps around her, trying to get a clearer view just as the sun dips behind the mountains completely. And just as it does so, an arrow comes flying from the edge of the forest and just barely grazes over Hosef's shoulder, scratching through his tunic and narrowly missing Cenna!

"RAIDERS!"

The cry came up so suddenly from Hosef's throat that Cenna could hardly believe it. Raiders? Here? Now? Of all times, of all days. But there they were. As more lights flickered to life and figures could be seen filtering out of the forest, Hosef's call was met by a swirl of panic. Their village was not equipped for this. They were celebrating, most folk were in comfortable tunics or light gowns of animal fur, not banded armor or sturdy leathers. Most didn't even have the simplest of weapons to hand as arrows began raining down, some tipped with pitch and alight, setting fire to the thatched roofs of their simple huts.

A terrible roar of the incoming marauders drowned out the joyous echoes of the wedding celebration, the panicked cries of children and women unprepared for a raid were a faint shriek as the men of the village, tall, proud, hardy Cimmerians, grabbed what weapons they could find and stood to face the incoming raiders. But it was instantly obvious they stood no chance.

Cenna stood stunned as dozens of men poured out of the forest, crossed the short distance between the clearing and her village, and set upon her friends and neighbors in moments. Some even rode horses and charged through the village, steering towards the most-armed of the villagers and striking them down with wicked haste, splattering the huts and soil of the village with their blood. Cries of death and barbaric glee immediately saturated the air. Cenna finally gathered her wits and moved to Hosef, pressing her hand to his arrow-graze wound and felt his warm blood stain her palm. She heard him hiss as he stood upright and turned, looking at her with an expression of despair. He, nor she, knew what to do as their friends were being slaughtered or run down, captured with ropes and nets. She heard him say one, pained, putrid word.

"Run."

Hosef turned around right as a raider, some man of wickedness and murder, raised a sword and went to strike Hosef. Cenna felt him shove her away even as his eyes locked onto this man and dove at him, the hunter's strong hands wrapping around the man's neck and his sword hand at once, wrestling the blade from him and bashing his head to the ground before taking the weapon and stabbing the man through the neck, blood gurgling from his mouth.

And Cenna, having tumbled to her backside from the unexpected shove, propped herself up on her elbows as she made to stand just in time to hear the thudding of hooves. A horse raced by and a raider, some black-clothed, olive-skinned man, swung out and struck Hosef on the head with a club, sending him straight to the ground.

"NO!" Cried Cenna as she scrambled up and tried to reach her husband only to feel a sudden yank on her gown. She struggles against the pulling force and turns to see another raider. Some man with a black wrapping around his head to better obscure himself in the night. He had grabbed her garment and was holding a club in his other hand, ready to swing. She shrieked in surprise and went to punch the man only for him to swing that club and catch her in the temple with the butt of it, sending her to the ground unconscious with a trickle of blood staining her cheek and dark hair while her village burned around her.

Cenna woke with a throbbing pain in her head and tried to open her eyes, finding herself unable to do so for one of them as she smelled the metallic scent of blood and heard whimpers and cries around her. It was dark anyways, so there was not much to see aside from burning fires of varying size all around her. She tried to force herself up just to find her hands were bound tightly. She was laying sort of on her side and front, crudely cast to the ground amid a group of her kinsfolk. Cenna's ankles were also bound, something she discovered as she tried to spread her feet to stand. Rolling and sitting up as best she could, throbbing head be damned, she saw she was in a cluster of some twenty of her kin, mostly women and children. All around them were those cruel men, dressed in leather clothes she did not recognize the design of and whose wearers she did not know. There were some ten men in a loose circle around the group of women, all bound and restrained, some with clothes pulled aside or shredded. The children, maybe seven or eight of them, were closely huddled with a couple of women Cenna knew to be mothers but whose children did not seem to be among this group.

And further out from this entrapment, more raiders moved from burnt hut to burnt hut, checking for what meager valuables her poor nomadic people would have or any survivors hiding among the ruins. She didn't hear any screams from anyone caught. She assumed they had all been captured or killed.

Two men, both in more decorative garb than the rest of the men here, walked up to Cenna's group and spoke in a dialect she did not recognize. It sounded like gibberish to her but their intention and focus was clear. They pointed at several women around Cenna, her neighbors and friends, her kinfolk, and two brutish men from the circle around them pushed through the group, grabbed the four girls indicated, and dragged them screaming and kicking towards a cart that was rolling up. Cenna tried to stand, tried to resist, tried to fight for them, but her throbbing head, blood-caked eye, and bound hands and feet meant she could only tumble back to the ground in anguish as her kinsfolk were dragged to a cart and, in a mark of pure disgrace, set upon by the men dragging them away. They ripped and tore at their clothes, stripping the fair-skinned women nude and groping and pawing at them, laughing and jeering; those utterances Cenna understood, even without knowing their dialect.

One by one, the humiliated girls were loaded onto the barred cart that had arrived and the gated door slammed and bolted shut behind them, leaving the four completely exposed but relatively safe. At least, Cenna hoped so. She looked to the two men that had singled out her friends, the only two men who weren't obviously prepared for combat, and locked eyes, or eye, with one of them before he kept scanning the group. He began speaking again and pointing, waving a hand and gesturing dismissively. The other man beside him nodded and grunted, resting his hands against his belted waist and raising his hand to his mouth. He let out a sharp whistle and another man trotted up, taking some orders before turning and jogging off behind some of the burnt husks of the Cimmerian huts. Not long after, two more wagons, a bit less exposed compared to the iron bars of the cart bearing the already-selected captives, trundled up and the guards around Cenna's group began grabbing people again. The children, primarly the boys among them, were grabbed first and yanked along. All of them were thrown into one cart and Cenna saw a small group of the menfolk, each looking much the worse for wear compared to the women, led over in rope bonds by sword-wielding raiders. They were loaded into the same cart as the boys while the remaining women and girls were guided to the other cart, Cenna sure to be among them.

The bloodied woman's heart sank as she did not see Hosef among this group of captives.

A pair of men finally came for her. She struggled briefly in her bindings and then let out a short scream as one man drew a knife, a wicked look in his eye as he came up to her and knelt down, planting his knee into her stomach to pin her down before dragging the knife down between her legs and slashing the rope binding her ankles. He chuckled with a throaty, rough voice before turning and grabbing her by the remnants of her "wedding gown" and hauled her up, pushing her into the other man before going to the next captive. The other man caught her, chuckling lasciviously as his hands made no effort to avoid her breasts, groping through her garment and holding her firmly even as she struggled and spat curses at him in every language or fragmented language she knew. He only laughed as he clenched her tunic and pulled downwards, causing it to tighten up and her breasts to pop out of the long, open arm holes to the sides. The lack of sleeves meant the chest portion of the animal pelt garment snugged itself between her breasts as he squeezed it into a narrow band and her hand-filling grapefruit-sized bust was exposed for him and every other raider to see. She cast her face to the side just for him to roughly grab her cheeks, pinching tight and forcing her to look at him as his other hand moved to grope and tug on her bare breasts, one by one, all while pulling her towards the wagon with all the other captives. He shoved her against the wooden gate of the cart and came around behind her, pressing his body against hers as he resumed groping her, laughing as she struggled back against him but bound hands meant she could do very little. She felt the sudden cold of metal as the man drew his knife and passed it beneath the displaced band of her tunic, just above her chest, and cut the fabric clean, severing it at her sternum and pulling it down, causing the garment to flap helplessly and uselessly against her waist as her torso was fully exposed. He laughed at her exposed state and went to pinch her breast again before another man came over, smacked him on the side of the head, and yammered something in their language. The argument was brief but before long the two men grabbed her thighs or under her groin to haul her up and toss her roughly into the cart, sending her tumbling into a cramped carriage with twelve or so other women of varying age, but all definitely younger than 30 years. It seemed, at least from here, that the raiders had spared only the youngest and fittest of the tribe. At least, those who did not put up enough fight to kill immediately.

One of the women in the carriage helped Cenna right herself and tugged her back to sit against the wall of the carriage, trying to cover her chest with the tatters of her dress just to realize the futility of it and instead set to pulling a scrap of the dress off, wetting it with her tongue before dabbing at the blood caking Cenna's left eye.

"Hold still... Anja..." she whispered. Cenna thought it was Ciel, a girl a couple years older than Cenna and a skilled tailor who had helped Cenna make this very fur dress. She dabbed at the blood-blinded girl's eye to try and clear it but there was plenty more to clear before Cenna would be presentable again.

Her hair was stiff and crackled a bit as Ciel's hand brushed through it, the blood that had spilled through it staining it with red streaks. But finally, after some effort, Cenna's eye was cleared and she could open it again. She blinked rapidly as she regained her sight but she wasn't rewarded with much for it. Her vision was tinged with red as she looked around and saw tearful women near her and the burning fires of their village and the torches of the men who'd done it surrounded the carriage; a wooden box on wheels with sturdy braces and bars, sure to keep them inside, refuse them protection from the elements, and likely deliver them to some horrible end.

This was not how this night was supposed to end.

Some time later, the last of the captives that the men seemed to want had been loaded into the designated wagons and the whole group moved odd, bringing Cenna and her kinsfolk away from the meager settlement they had assembled and left it in tatters; a crumbling monument to the cruelty of man.

The convoy progressed slowly with a vanguard of the horse riders leading the way and the metal barred carriage at the front, Cenna's wooden carriage behind, and the menfolk's carriage behind hers. She noticed a considerable amount of the brutish men marched nearer the metal cage, the thinner bars offering a clear view of the stripped-nude women inside it. Leers and jeers were common and Cenna could only huddle herself close to Ciel and the others, hands bound and hearts tattered and torn. Every glance she got of the carriage behind her offered no sight of Hosef and the inability to confirm his fate, dead or alive, only served to grow her anxiety as the hours turned to days. Horses were rotated in and out of pulling duty and the raiders seemed to be making a concentrated effort to hurry, always heading eastwards. On the fourth day of straight marching, the carriages reeked of waste and misery and the captives were actually thankful for a day of rainfall. The downpour only worsened as the day continued but it was the first chance of a fresh drink and the ability to rinse off.

And as the morning turned to afternoon, as rain broke and clouds faded, they seemed to finally arrive. A short ways off was a large walled coastal city. The air stung of salt and a brisk breeze bit into their skin. It stung the mostly-bare captives and left them huddling against what shelter the wooden frame of the carriage offered. Getting nearer to the city, a giant set of gates were open and waiting. Guards lined the area and merchants kept to shelter under tents and stalls. The stonework of the city was ominous. It smelled of doom to Cenna and the uninterested stares of the people in the streets did not help her anxiousness; they must be accustomed to captives, to slaves, being brought in like this.

It must be a city of slavers. And Cenna and her kinfolk were the latest arrivals.

The wagons finally pulled into a courtyard and she could hear screams and yells, both of pain and of attention, and her kinsfolk were pulled out of their cages one by one. She had lost track of the metal cage and the stripped Cimmerians some time ago. She prayed they would endure. Life truly was cruel.

Her small group was kept together and quickly and unceremoniously hurried into an even larger courtyard, dressed in whatever scraps of cloth were left and forced into a massive metal cage where already some dozen captives waited. And, in every direction, there were more slaves. More people. Buyers, sellers, merchandise. It was an entire quarter of the city, a massive courtyard, dedicated to the selling of flesh.

Cenna sank to her knees as tears welled up in her eyes, her tarnished pelts her only comfort as she let out low sobs, her kinsfolk all around her seeing her succumb to grief and despair and just about ready to do the same...