The Iron Forest: Ancestor's Legacy

The wagon rolled through the valley that turned more barren with jagged rock formations—boulders, worn down over countless winters from wind and sand. The mountains in the west became smaller, though the ones in the east grew larger and more isolated.

Sana shifted to ease the aching in her back against the hard wooden floor planks. Her chains clinked, alerting the surrounding women.

Amaya moved to her side from where she whispered with the other women. “We’re heading toward Khalati.”

“Damn,” Sana spat. She remembered stories her mother told of the Chotukhan city that once served as their capital before the War of Five Winters. Since the Shankur lost Gathal to the king, Khalati became a place of darkness, no matter how bright the sun shined. Sana winced as the women helping her to rest against the steel bars at the wagon’s front-side.

Behind her sat the driver, close enough she could smell his stench. “I see you still live.” He chuckled at her snort. “Won’t last long, though. The wounded never do. It’s only a matter of time before death takes you.”

It’s only a matter of time till I cut out your throat, Sana thought.

The day turned hotter in this part of Chotukhan territory. Sweat poured down Sana’s face in beads, making her clothes feel sticky. At least the cage was covered to provide some shade. She could tell the other women felt the heat, too. They stripped enough to combat the heat without giving the soldiers something to focus on.

A building of mud and stone passed. First one, then another, until they were surrounded by homes. It appeared to be a city, But to Sana, something akin to ‘squaller’ seemed more appropriate. The streets were dusty, weedy, and smelled of dung. Most houses looked derelict. And the few that were livable didn’t appear large or plentiful enough to house the growing crowd that appeared as they traveled further along the dirt road.

A wide area, covered in sand, opened up from the latest rows of houses they passed. Flowers and shrubs were planted in beds along the sides, but years of neglect turned the gardens to brier-patches and chest high grass. A single building sat at the end of the open area. It appeared ancient, with tall spires at each corner and windows made from colored glass.

The wagons came to a sudden halt. The drivers wasted no time in unlocking their cages, nor did the soldiers bother to be gentle while pulling them into the street. Onlookers, dressed in long white tunics shouted curses at them. Some even threw dung and laughed.

One man stood silent, frowning. The portly man looked as if he was inspecting livestock arriving to market. He was sweating through his robes of white and blue with an oversized nose between dark brown eyes. Whoever he was, gained enough respect for passing soldiers to render a salute.

“I know that man,” Amaya whispered.

Sana stepped off the wagon, holding Shayla’s arm to use as a crutch. Most of the crowd was taller than her but scattered enough to see through them. “Never seen him before. Who is he?”

“Lord Taladas. The Chotukhan slave master.”

“Slave master?” Shayla asked.

“Yes, he—”

Lord Taladas waddled forward on a faint limp, drawing Sana’s attention. “You are no longer men or women, but tools for use toward the greatness of the Chotukhan.”

Most of those gathered were nodding. Sana seethed.

“From this day forward, you are all property of his royal majesty, King Akutu and his son, Prince Shunlin. Work hard and you will be fed, clothed, and provided shelter. Disobey and you will be punished accordingly.” He pointed to the hillside at what Sana thought were bare trees—they were corpses strung up on posts, covered in crows.

Without warning, the guards began herding them. As they passed, the insults started again from men, women, and children. Sana tried to remain in between Amaya and Shayla toward the center of the procession to help hide her limp.

“Is it true?” Shayla asked. “Are we really slaves to the Chotukhan?”

Sana breathed through the pain to answer. “It appears so.”

“We should tell them who we are. Maybe they will send us back to Maholin. I mean, they attacked the Kutassans, not the Shankur.”

“The Chotukhan don’t see any difference between the tribes. We are all nothing more than animals in their eyes. And if they find out, they are in possession of two members of the Shankur royal family, it will spark a war, and many will die.” Sana glanced around before lowering her voice. “I’ll figure a way to get us out of here. Promise me you don’t tell them who we are.”

Shayla nodded. “I won’t. I promise.”

The march to where the Chotukhan led them was longer than Sana expected. The sound of their shackles and dragging chains gave way to clinking picks and shovels—hundreds of them, rapping against stone. She couldn’t see over the stretched column of fifty or more slaves, but their reaction told her nothing good awaited them.

A new town arose from the outskirts of Khalati. Gloomier, with a mishmash of hovels made from cloth and skins. The make-shift buildings were clumped together in a tightly packed mass that appeared ready to pour off the ledge of the massive pit they bordered. Surrounding the slave town was a jagged iron fence.

They were soon bottle necked between a pair of shanty wooden buildings that guarded the only opening in the border fence. There, the slaves ahead were handed tools and rushed down the pit, three at a time. The men earned picks and shovels while women were issued large tight-woven baskets. They followed a trail around some guard shacks and tents to the ramp that disappeared into the earth.

“Time to dig, you worthless whore,” the guard spat at Sana, as he handed her a basket and shoved her forward.

Shayla bumped into her from behind.

Off to the side, Taladas stood, laughing, his belly jiggling beneath his robes.

His enjoyment stopped when an older man, tossed his shovel and refused to cross the threshold into the pit.

“This is an outrage! We haven’t eaten in days. How are we supposed to work with no food?”

Taladas frowned, waving over a guard. “So, you are hungry?” At the man’s nod, he gestured to the guard. “Give this man something to eat.”

“Thank—”

Two guards appeared, forcing the man down on his back. A third appeared to pry open his jaws. The original guard, stricken with laughter, grabbed a shovel and preceded to pour sand down the man’s throat. Every time he struggled and coughed; the soldiers laughed louder.

Seconds passed and the man’s struggle subsided, and the coughing stopped.

The guards left him there to stare skyward with dead eyes and a mouth full of sand.

“Anyone else hungry?” Taladas shouted. No one responded, and he grinned. “The only ones allowed to eat are the crows. Anymore outbursts and I promise they will be well fed.”

Sana scowled at the soldiers, but they paid her no mind—no one did. She was only part of a group whose life was cheap and expendable. There was little doubt Taladas, and his surrounding guards considered the slaves in the pit were already dead. They just didn’t know it yet. However, she studied as many Chotukhan guards and slavers, remembering their features and faces. To her, all of them in the pit were already dead. They just didn’t know it yet.

Sana finally made it to the walkway and paused in shock. Hundreds, maybe thousands of slaves in simple tan tunics labored away at the sand and stone. They removed a mountain’s worth of dirt, making a hole deeper than the Maholin palace was high. At its widest, distant slaves appeared like tiny ants.

“Men pound the rocks; women carry them away,” a slave, missing most of his front teeth chanted as they passed. He shoved at the basket Sana held and she stumbled back.

“Move along!” a guard shouted. “The ground won’t dig itself.” He jabbed his spear, passing Sana on to another guard that did the same.

The staircase, cut from stone, zig-zagged its way down the walls of the pit. A steady stream of slaves rushed down the steps amongst shouts and curses. Every few seconds, a whip cracked through the constant rapping of steel against stone.

Time seemed to speed up once Sana’s feet left the stone stairs. Walking was prohibited within the pit, guards forcing everyone to run from place to place. She never experienced such chaos—men and women moving in all directions.

“You there!” a man shouted. He motioned at Sana. “Get those baskets filled with sand before I lash you good.” He punctured his words with a crack of the whip he held.

He was one of many men, monitoring the slaves as they worked. Dark leathery skin wrapped his scrawny frame with a bush of black greasy hair. He scowled at the two ladies with eyes that appeared to bulge from their sockets.

Shayla and Amaya, full of fear, darted forward with their baskets to the nearest men with shovels. Sana limped as fast she could, but an approaching guard growled with displeasure.

“I don’t like slow-moving whores in my pit.” He grabbed a fist-full of Sana’s hair and dragged her to a near run. She fell, screaming. “What’s this? The best they can send me is a wounded whore? Get on your feet!”

Sana shifted to her knees, trying to overcome nausea.

“I said, get on your feet! You godless bitch.”

A new pain lashed across her back from the guard’s whip. Each strike sent her further down to the dirt, but a swing connecting with the cut on her thigh, took the air from her lungs.

“Leave her alone!” Shayla shouted.

Through tears, Sana saw Amaya had stopped as well, glaring at the guard with hate.

No! Don’t do it. They will kill you.

The guard hummed. “More insolence? I got something for that.” He swung the whip in long, sweeping arcs. The single leather braid, threaded through stone beads lashed at the two women, sending them to the ground.

“Stop!” Sana shouted, rising to her feet. “Please beat me instead if you wish, but let them go.”

He glanced between them and waved her away, turning his focus on another slave that moved too slow. She wasn’t sure if the distraction prevented him from lashing out at her, or the fact she volunteered to take a beating confused him. Either way, they felt relieved.

Sana approached a group of diggers: An older man with tufts of white hair above his ears and blue eyes that contrasted his sun-darkened skin started to fill her basket.

“You should be cautious around that one.” He kept his focus on his shovel. “That’s Master Khali, the pit foreman. He’s as mean as they come and very generous with his whip.”

With her basket full of sand, the old man pointed to a gathering line of women, scaling a ramp at the sides of the pit. “Go. Before you get into trouble.”

Sana gave the man a grateful nod and followed his instructions.

Soon, Sana learned there was a reason to all the madness. Giant machines were emerging from the sand and stone, one shovelful at a time. She recalled stories told by the elders of Destroyers, twice the size of Reapers that stood on four legs. Instead of arms, they carried weapons made of spinning pipes that spit fire, capable of killing many men at a distance. The Chotukhan were unearthing them. Why?

The next few hours were torture. Men with iron picks dug into sand packed hard as stone while other men shoveled it into baskets women carried. From there, the sandy rocks were carried to the pit’s edge and dumped off the side. Everything was done at a pace beyond human capability.

Sana waited in the heat for her basket to fill. Her clothes weighted with sweat, dirt, and sand. A trickle of blood seeped down her leg, not from the wound, but a new gash from the pitmaster’s whip. At every opportunity, she tried to get a better sense of her surroundings. From within the pit, there appeared no way to escape with the watchful eyes of a hundred guards.

“Ahem.” A man motioned to her filled basket before trying away.

She lifted it and slung it across her back by the two handles. One more trip up this hill and I’ll lose my mind. She got halfway up when a bell rang across the pit.

The constant rapping of picks and shovels stopped as everyone filed up the stairway. Sana was suddenly caught in the middle of a mob as they pushed and shoved in a hurry to leave the pit. Up above, smoke rose toward the sky from fires beneath a row of cauldrons. Thank the Ancestors, food!

But it wasn’t food. At least not as far as Sana could tell.

She grimaced, staring down the bowl given to her. It was half-filled with a sludgy white slop that smelled like something between feet and a long dead animal. All the surrounding slaves consumed their meal in seconds, licking their bowls and wiping every morsel with two fingers. Sana scooped a glob and jammed it in her mouth, ignoring the taste that was worse than it smelled.

Shayla sat at Sana’s side with her own bowl of slop. She sniffed it before gagging.

“You need to eat,” Sana said, forcing another mouthful.

“What is it?”

“Who cares. It will keep you alive… I think.”

Shayla shoveled some into her mouth, struggling to swallow as her face turned green.

“See? Good stuff.” Even though Sana found the meal revolting, it was giving her energy which she needed if there was any hope of escaping “Where’s Amaya?” she asked looking around for the Kutassan princess among a mass of slaves waiting for meals.

Shayla pointed to the young woman, sitting among a group that arrived with them. “I guess with her family dead, she’s the new queen of the Kutassa.”

Sana shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. A queen of slaves is still a slave.”

*****

Sana dumped a basket of sand for the ten-thousandth time. She lost count of how many cycles the sun crossed the sky to disappear behind the western mountains, only to reappear in the east to another day of moving sand. The never-ending cycle gave the impression that life stayed suspended in an endless loop. Every chance she looked for a way to escape, but too many guards and her growing weakness made the idea seem more impossible as the days passed.

Slop time gained a new meaning, as well. It meant a pause in the back-breaking work and the beginning of night. When the bell rang, she fought her way through the crowd to get her ration, knowing there was never enough to feed everyone. Each night, many people would go without eating, forcing her to clutch her bowl protectively as she ate.

“Hey,” a soft voice whispered.

She cast a sidelong glance, expecting to see a beggar, but was relieved to see Shayla take a seat next to her. Still, Sana made no reply, but pulled back a cloth wrapped around her leg.

Shayla leaned over to look. “It’s healing well. Does it still hurt?”

“A little. Not as much as the rest of me.”

“Me too. Waking up is hard.”

Sana hissed when Shayla touched the wound, breaking a remaining blister that oozed clear puss. “How did that heal so fast? I thought for sure it was going to fester.”

Sana wanted to talk about the wolf but didn’t want Shayla to think she was crazy. Maybe there’s something in their saliva that cleans and prevents corruption. After all, when a wolf gets injured, they lick their wounds till they heal. “Perhaps I heal fast.”

“Lucky for us,” Shayla replied. “Any chance of us getting out of here?”

“The Chotukhan have been keeping slaves for centuries. They know how to prevent them from escaping. This place is a cage made of guards and iron bars.”

Sana looked away. Too long a time passed since seeing Shayla’s bright smile and hearing her cheery voice. The gloom was growing within her as well. She was a warrior, trained by her mother, and some of the best fighters the Shankur offered, but the Chotukhan soldiers still bested her skill. Never again.

Suddenly Shayla leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. In a moment, the brightness returned, and Sana’s companion was the same person she remembered from Maholin. “We’ll make it out of here. One way or another.”

Crickets chirped their songs in the darkness beyond the pit. The day’s work left Sana exhausted and not caring about where she slept. There were not enough shacks to hold every slave, so many slept in the dirt outside. She tried spending the night in the shacks once but found the smell and cramped space too uncomfortable.

Instead, she preferred to stare at the stars and think about Ikesh. Every night brought hope he would meet with her in the dream world, where they could be together again.

But this night brought back more memories of the attack: The Chotukhan riding on elks, swinging swords. Foot soldiers running through town slaughtering anyone who stood in the way—yet the people were different. The ones who fought and died were not Kutassan, but Shankur. Many fought with bravery and skill as buildings burned with fire that lit the night into day. Women and children screamed in horror. In the background, Sana heard Shayla pleading and crying for mercy…

She woke with a pounding heart and sweat pouring down her face. Her breath felt labored and quick. It was just a dream that disappeared in a flash, except Shayla’s muffled voice was still there — crying.

“Shayla?” She kept her voice low to not wake the camp. “Shayla, is that you?”

Sana stood and crept through the shacks following the whimpering.

Through a few rows of hovels and a couple corners, she saw a woman struggling against a pair of guards.

“This one’s a pretty little thing. It’s a shame to go to waste.”

“Let me go!” The woman’s voice was muffled behind the guard’s hand across her mouth.

But it was definitely her—Shayla.

A single torch illuminated the night just enough. Sana recognized her short curly hair held tight in the arms of a tall guard. The other gripped firm at her tunic, trying to tear the cloth.

“Hold her still!” the second guard barked. “I hate it when they squirm.”

Sana bolted.

“Hey you! Get over here!” a third guard shouted, but Sana paid him no mind. She was in a rage.

She had no weapon but plenty of will, enough to spring into the air with a foot forward. All her weight, all her might, put into a kick that sent one guard thrusting sideways. The other one stared in awe with wide eyes. He tossed Shayla aside, pulling out a jagged steel dagger—a thrust and swing, but Sana kept her distance.

“Run,” she ordered Shayla. “Go while you can!”

Another thrust almost put the dagger into her ribs, but she jerked aside, grabbing his arm. The fight turned to a grapple for the blade—the winner lives the other dies. Sana squeezed with all her strength, bending his arm in a direction it was not meant to go. He bellowed, releasing the weapon.

More shouts rang throughout the camp, but Sana ignored them. He lunged—the dagger sent him to the ground, dead.

Men rushed from everywhere. At first a fist, then a whip guards and pitmasters drove feet, clubs, or whatever they had available and wherever they could hit her. Sana curled into a fetal pose.

“Stop!” shouted a familiar voice. Master Khali appeared before her, pushing through the men who stood around Sana, huffing breathless. “What in Gaia’s name is going on here?”

“This woman attacked one of the guards. Put a knife in his gut.”

Khali turned over the guard. His body flopped, leaving a dark stain in the dirt.

“That’s not true. I was protecting my friend,” Sana said, spitting the iron taste from her mouth.

“You mean this one?” Khali gestured over to where two guards were holding a struggling woman.

Sana gasped, but any sort of protest was interrupted by Khali grabbing her hand — the one covered in blood.

“First a slave and now a murderer. Unfortunately, death is too quick of a punishment.” He snarled, kicking dust into her face. “String her up. Let her be feed for the crows.”

Sana fought against the guards who grabbed and pulled at her arms.

“What about the other woman?” a pitmaster asked.

“We still need workers in the pit more than we need dead women on the hill. At sunrise, flog the wits out of her and put her back to work.”

“No! She’s innocent. She was the one being attacked,” Sana cried.

They wasted no time to carry out Sana’s punishment. Men beat the fight from her, one kick and whip at a time. The world spun as they bound her wrists and feet with a chain, stretching her upward against a tall pole. Her body dangled.

Alone. She was alone. No guards watching, no chance of escape. Only her weeping amid the smell of rotting corpses at her sides.