Exiles

"Only another week and then we are bound for home, girl. Take strength, you'll have many stories to tell your friends. Besides, the life of a merchant is often boring in stretches like these."

"But it's dreadfully boring, uncle!" Said the girl as she huffed and leaned forward, planting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms. She looked down in boredom and at her travel clothes; loose silks bound by colored sashes and bindings. Typical garments of a young woman like her; a Shemite merchant girl.

A well-dressed man, the carriage-driver, and a couple other occupants let out a little chuckle as the girl among them, a young, coming-of-age Shemite, whined about seemingly everything. At least as far as nobody would chastise her for.

"We've been riding for days and all we've seen are hills, rocks, trees, the mountains, more trees, and now... well, I guess fewer mountains, now that we're east of them..." She mumbled, pulling her chin out of her hands and leaning back on her wooden seat as the ox-drawn cart trundled along. They'd apparently passed into Grondar recently, after getting through those mountains she mentioned. "I just hope that this is all worth it. Equal shares, right?"

The man beside her, her uncle, let out a proper laugh this time. "Equal? Darling niece, you're here as help not so much partner... but you are family, so I'll give you a little extra. Besides, I'm sticking my neck out as it is, getting all you youngin's along for the experience. If I gave everyone equal share, I'd have none left for the venture!"

It was the niece's turn to laugh as her uncle gestured theatrically to the 12 carriages arrayed in a long, slow-moving line. Some fifty people were along for the ride, with a good twenty of them being like her; just of-age and along for their first merchant caravan as anything but unwelcome baggage. Most were just helpers but some were like her and had a merchant relative and were seeking to enter the trade.

"I suppose you're right, uncle. Sorry... but I'm telling father that you wouldn't treat me special!" She says as she puts on a bit of childishness into her voice, teasing him as she fishes a lock of her rich brown hair out of her head wrapping, curling it around her finger and putting on a pouting face.

The two shared a laugh, knowing that her uncle's brother, her father, wouldn't have cut her any slack either. "You just tell him, Anja-dear, I'm sure he'll be delighted to know I took such excellent care of his darling daughter."

Their shared laughter carried on for a while; little jests and japes to keep the young adult entertained as the wagon rolled along. Eventually, vaguely, the scent of salty sea air could be caught on the wind as the sun was setting over the mountain range behind them. They must be close to the coast; and their destination. A large merchant city with one of the largest ports in the region, owned by the Grondarians now but apparently it had been here for longer than them.

Anja's uncle leaned over, giving her a little nudge. "Now... these folk, the Grondarians, can be a bit rough so keep your wits about you and don't do anything hasty. You're not nobility of any kind around here. And, in fact, if they knew who your family was they might just treat you worse and demand a higher ransom. Should the worst come to be, anyways. Which it ought not."

Anja looked up at her uncle, a man draped in posh silks over sturdier travel clothes. He exuded a kind of practical wealth, the sort of person one could pick out in a crowd. A long, drooping moustache and his graying hair gave him an air of wisdom and experience. And if he was warning her of danger... it must be serious indeed. She nods quietly, the humor of the moment fading into the dust of the wagons behind them. "I'll be cautious, uncle. S-say... are those torches ahead?"

Her uncle's face tightened very suddenly, his hands closing to fists as he reaches forward and taps the ox-driver's shoulder. He mutters in a low tone, low enough that Anja cannot make out what he says over the rumble of the wagon wheels and he sits up, looking to her slowly.

"They are..."

The two fall deathly quiet and Anja notices her uncle doesn't look around much. The wagon doesn't slow, doesn't stop, they only get closer and as they approach more and more torches and people came into view. Anja was growing steadily more anxious but her uncle didn't seem any more worried. Maybe he'd dealt with bandits before... she sure didn't think men lining the rough road and holding their position, facing the caravan, with wagons of their own, and weapons would be anything but bandits.

Finally, as the lead caravan wagon passed into the group, a pair of men on horses trotted out to block the road and Anja's wagon came to a halt. She looked around and saw there were a good thirty men loitering around with horses and wooden cage-like wagons nearby. They looked uncomfortable. And the men looked unclean. Dirty, grubby, a little shabby... but every single one carried some form of weapon and those at least looked cared-for.

Anja's uncle stood and stepped off the wagon, hands casually rested on his affluent sash and stepped forward towards one of the horse riders who, upon seeing her uncle, slung out of his saddle and moved to her uncle. She held her breath, fearful that things were about to turn violent; she'd heard stories. And there was a reason her uncle had brought along a healthy compliment of guards. With twenty young adults like herself, all between the ages of 18 and 20 and mostly women, the fifteen guards would be a bit overwhelmed protecting her and her friends from the thirty or so bandits slowly encircling the caravan as one wagon after another came to a halt as close together as possible on the narrow road. Anja looked around quickly and saw the other wagon drivers and the guards with them were all beginning to move but... none looked concerned.

Anja snaps her gaze back to her uncle and saw him wave at the caravan and realized he was speaking a language she did not know, which was odd as she'd grown up learning languages in preparation for becoming a merchant. It was a cruel, rapid tongue that seemed to hold a level of malice to it even as his face held neutral.

And the presumed leader of these bandits, upon getting a gesture from her uncle, raised a hand and barked out a loud series of orders to the men.

And they all descended upon the caravans.

Anja heard a scream behind her as a girl was yanked off of the carriage just behind hers and dragged to the ground by two bandits, her hands and feet quickly bound in ropes and hauled onto one of the men's broad shoulders, carrying her to the nearest wooden cage-wagon. Anja was crushed to see the guard in the wagon helped pick up the next girl inside and throw her over to the men waiting for her. Screams started rising up from throughout the caravan and Anja stood swiftly just to feel a hand grip her wrist. It was one of the men who'd been riding in the wagon with her all day, listened to her joking with her uncle, tolerated her complaints, and carried a sword and shield to "protect" the caravan.

And Anja realized he had a complexion just like the bandits alongside the road.

He spoke in a sudden, foreign tongue as he hauled himself up, the other guard in her caravan sitting back to watch as the first drew a rope from his travel pouch and slung it around her neck, dragging her back and stifling a yelp as he pulled her face-first into the back of the wagon where he made short work with his strong hands to drag her arms behind her back and tie them together at the elbow before binding her knees together. Anja screamed and yelped, trying to struggle as panic set into her mind and realized they were betrayed. These guards were never theirs!

The two men hoisted her up and the second man grabbed her head wrappings and yanked, ripping them free and causing her to yell out again as her brown hair was freed from its confines. He turned it into an improvised gag and wrapped it around her mouth, binding it tight and muffling the worst of her noises as they carried her to the back of the wagon and lowered her down to a waiting man who easily carried her off. Anja kicked and thrashed but as the man carried her to a wagon, just to see it get shut and locked with a full capacity of captives, he turned and walked back across the road to another one.

And as he went, Anja's thrashing paused as she saw her uncle and the bandit leader standing side-by-side and watching the event. And her uncle's face was completely neutral. Not even a little bit dismayed. Actually... was he hiding a smile?

The two men continued to speak in that ugly foreign language as Anja was unceremoniously carried to a wooden cage and tossed into it, landing against the leg of one of the Shemite stable boys who had come along to help tend oxen and learn the trade. He was barely 18 and equally panicked as the Grondarian raider laughed at the fear in the eyes of the fresh captives.

Anja tried to sit up, her arms and legs being so awkwardly bound made that a difficult task, but she managed to lean herself against the wooden cage wall and stared out at her caravan as one after another, every single young Shemite was taken, bound, and thrown into a cage-carriage. The guards with them helping in their capture. She looked at her uncle just in time to see the bandit leader place a large pouch into his palm and the men shook hands before her uncle began barking orders at the caravan drivers who had stayed, with about half of the guards joining the bandits as her new caravan began assembling and moving off. The men all around spoke in that unfamiliar, likely Grondarian, tongue and would smack the cages of the Shemite captives if they spoke.

All Anja could do, however, was look back at her uncle's wagon train as it got smaller in the distance and wonder just how he could betray his own family like this. And she realized this was likely his plan from the very beginning...

Anja shuddered as the large gates of the Grondarian city ground open, letting the slaver caravan enter the crowded merchant city. She thought she would be arriving in very different circumstances... but she was here. It was, if it weren't so ridden with rough folk and horrible trades, an incredible city. Large, hewn bricks and cut stones made up seemingly endless streets and impenetrable walls. The streets were lined with ambitious multi-story brick buildings that seemed to droop and loom over the captives being carted into the city, staring down like wicked devils eager for their new subjects. It felt oppressive and the endless bustle of merchants selling anything from food to rugs to people overwhelmed Anja as she huddled in her bindings, her eyes red and tears depleted. How could her uncle have sold her to people like this!?

After some time, the cage-wagons came to a halt in a small square. The girl looked around as hers was among the last in line and already other Shemites were being taken from the cages ahead of her and moved about the square. They were corralled in a fairly broad courtyard with a ring of buildings around them, varying from one to two stories, and each with a covered entrance either by stone for the two-story buildings or awnings for the single-story buildings.

And it seemed to be a place of misery.

Anja looked out of her wagon as one of the Shemite girls was dragged across the square towards a two-story building, completely limp and apparently unconscious with a splash of red against her side. The man hauled her into the house and Anja swore she heard a brief uproar before the door to the building slammed shut. She wondered if she would ever see that girl again.

Suddenly, her cage's gate was unlatched and the wooden door slid up and open. A large, bare-chested man leapt up into the wagon and loomed over the huddling Shemites, five young adults all fearing for their lives as the slaver decided who to grab first. Anja was the unlucky pick.

He grabs her ankle and pulls, making her yelp with his frightening strength. He speaks some sort of words at her that she cannot understand as he rolls her onto her back, grabs her cheeks, and turns her head this way and that, inspecting her. He forces her mouth open and stabs a foul-tasting finger past her lips and holds her tongue down, peering inside and grunting before removing it. He grips his fist around the chest of her silken robes and turns, all but throwing her out of the back of the carriage as two more men catch her and force her to the ground with a grunt. One man's knee plants on her back and makes her croak breathlessly as a cold collar of iron is slapped around her neck.

"W-wait! I... don't do this! No!" She begs, pleads, but in her own tongue, a language they cannot understand. To them, it's more babbling and pleading of a slave. The same sound they likely heard every day... they do not seem to care.

Anja's collar is quickly linked to a lengthy chain and as another Shemite is thrown out beside her, she's linked to the girl who had been chosen before that stable boy is thrown out beside them. One by one, after passing whatever counted for an inspection, the five Shemites in the wagon were bound in iron, untied from their rope bonds, and suddenly yanked up by the collar.

Anja squeaked and scrambled up with tired, tingling limbs as the chain attached to her iron collar was yanked and the train of five captives were led across the courtyard. All around her was a horror-show. The courtyard seemed to be mostly dedicated to the reception, inspection, and assignment of slaves. The other Shemites were being similarly corralled as her but she saw a couple, like that unconscious girl, who seemed to be selected immediately and dragged off to some terrible end. Elsewhere, she saw numerous wooden posts and contraptions the purpose of which became very clear as Anja saw a woman, whom she did not recognize and must have been an already-captured slave, get dragged to an X-shaped cross and have her hands forced into cuffs near the top of the standing X. She wore a collar similar to Anja's new iron one and the young Shemite saw the woman's back was covered with horizontal red lines. As the man who'd dragged her there uncoiled a whip from his belt... she no longer needed to question what that slave had been through.

Already, screams were echoing through the courtyard as Anja and her four fellow captives were led into a dark room, lit mostly by the light coming through the front door and some oil lamps near the back of the room. It was large and open with a few men standing around inside, milling about a short wooden post standing up in the middle of the room. The man leading the slave train guided them to one wall and attached the chain leash to an anchor before going to speak with the two loitering men. Anja's heart was pounding as she stared at the wooden object they were standing around. It was barely two feet tall, square, and, curiously, had two open iron cuffs at the top of it across from each other with one more small ring on the perpendicular side. And all around it on the floor was... hair?

Anja looked at the men as the one who had brought them here went back outside and the larger of the two here came over to her and unlinked her collar from the chains and dragged her across the floor, scrambling as best she could to get away just to earn a wicked slap across the cheek. Her face stung and she could barely react as the man forced her to her knees and clipped her neck collar to the small ring on the wooden post before her wrists were forced into the two open cuffs and clicked shut. The other man drew a pair of shears from a leather apron around his waist and stepped forward. He grabbed her hair and yanked, making her cry in pain for a moment and earned a cruel laugh from him before he brought his shears down and began to cut. The iron shears made short work of her hair, cutting shorter and shorter as newfound tears rolled down the girl's cheeks but when she suddenly felt a cold point press against her back just beneath the iron collar she stiffened.

And a knife glided down her back to cut her clothes open, slicing through the silks with ease.

"H-hyah! N-no! Please!" She begged, trying to struggle but the short post kept her hands bound and her knees planted on the stone floor, padded only by the remaining hair of other slaves who had been shorn here.

With her clothes in tatters and rapidly stripped from her body, Anja was left naked and bare as the barber finished cutting her hair and drew a razor, starting to shave her scalp utterly bare before going for her elbow. He lifted it up and ran the edge along her smooth, supple skin to clean off even a stub of hair before doing the same to her other arm, going under the armpits and shaving her completely bare. He worked with ruthless efficiency, smacking her if she struggled too much or to make her move a certain way. When he went for her legs, skin that had only known lavish oils and perfumes from her father's wealth was marred by oily hands and cold razor steel. The man shaved her legs completely bare before grabbing one and yanking it back, causing her to have to grip the top of the wooden shaving post tightly to keep from biting her tongue as her chin slammed onto it, her legs hauled back and spread so he could rub his fingers over her groin and feel her pubis. The barber made quick work of spreading her legs with the help of his companion and shaved her pubic hairs off before dropping her legs and unclasping her collar and bleeding wrists from the iron cuffs before dragging her back to the chains on the wall and attaching her once again; completely, utterly, shamefully bare.

Anja was forced to watch as her kinfolk were, one by one, dragged, cuffed, stripped, and shaved to the skin. Their tears, sobs, and protests utterly ignored.

Once all five were completely shaved, they were lined back up and marched into the courtyard, their identity and pride stripped away as Anja felt the cold rush of seaside air run over her bare body, clutching her arm over her bare, petite breasts while trying to cover her vagina with her other hand. The others in her train did the same, with none of them looking at each other for shame and some desperate attempt at dignity. To look upon another Shemite in such a state... it only brought shame upon them both.

As Anja passed by the various whipping and flogging posts, she looked to the standing X where that slave woman had been brought and saw her hanging limply there, sagging in her wrist cuffs as her back was marred with red, fresh welts and cuts opened her up and the whip itself had been coiled around her neck and left there to dangle, as if to warn that she was not through with her punishment. Anja desperately wished to never earn such a punishment.

Anja's slave train was driven out of the square, marching five nude slaves through the streets and forcing them to hear the rapid ramblings of observers and realize none were coming to save them. She shivered from the cold and saw she and her kin were being brought to a larger quarter where dozens of slaves were being displayed on large wooden platforms, in small cages, gibbets, on posts or in ankle-stocks... every where she looked was a different slaver hawking their living, breathing, humiliated wares.

Anja's group was brought to one of the larger wooden stages and forced into an iron cage beneath it where, already, a half dozen of her kinsfolk were left waiting with iron collars though some of them had not been shaved and instead merely stripped or left in simple loin clothes. Anja wondered why but was too afraid to even speak now as people of all shapes, sizes, and colors meandered around the market, looking for the next person to buy. Dangling in front of the iron cage, and out of her ability to see it, was a wooden sign the likes of which seemed to draw a large number of viewers. Over the next few hours of sitting in this iron cage, stifled by the smells of a city that seemed to hate the very idea of dignity and the remnants of slaves before her, Anja would see hundreds of people wander by her cage, read the sign, and inspect each of the eventual 16 Shemites forced into it. She wondered where the other four of her kin had ended up. She knew she would detest the answer, for nothing good could occur here in this cursed city.

All she could do now was wait until the next torment arrived...