The Thorian Sagas. 1. The Trader.

Monique and her fellow guards knew all about tributes, and pitied them, seeing successions of them brought into their city, each and every month.

Toward the end of each month, ever since Stoker had traded with them, they saw that he did not remain by their fire for that night.

On those occasions, he also came earlier in the week too, offloaded his goods, saw his horses rested and fed, and then left that same day to return to Saltash. He did, in one day, what would normally have taken, two. He was not carrying meat on the return trip, so the Frexes would not pay him much attention, even in the dark.

He never did fully explain to them why his routine changed, as it did at that time, and they did not ask. They knew that it was the time when the tributes; all young women from the three other cities, were brought into Fenn to join their own tributes, and Stoker was always the one who brought them, turning them over immediately to the Council, to fulfill yet another requirement of that treaty with the Thorians.

The tributes came in the same carts with Stoker’s goods. They were all young, and they were very frightened at the strange things they’d seen on the last part of the journey; watching Stoker take on strange and savage animals that attacked him and his horses and that wanted to attack them, too. They had watched the antics of his little dog, running from one end of the carts to the other, as though warning the man and horses of what the animals were doing around them.

None of the animals were able to make it over the high sides of the carts to get at them, but it still terrified them.

They could never have seen such things as Frexes before, and would not know what lay ahead of them, though getting a taste of what might face them when they were sent out from the city. No one knew what happened to them after that.

On the first day of that next month and in the early afternoon, they; all ten of them, would be sent out into the wasteland from Fenn, to whatever fate awaited them. They all seemed resigned to their fate.

Death!

From what Monique and the others had learned from Stoker about what lurked in that desert, it was the same as being sentenced to death. The Frexes would soon get them if one of the large cats didn’t.

Why would the Thorians subject any tribute to that fate, if it was as Stoker told them, that the Thorians were their protectors, not their enemies?

But the cities were being punished for past rebellions. That must be the reason.

It did not seem right.

They should have asked Stoker about them, and that part of the treaty.

They knew better than to approach Council chief, Bradshaw, and to ask her about the treaty, or where they might see it. She was curt and ill-tempered at the best of times and would likely fly into one of her rages, telling them that it was none of their business.

Bradshaw would then turn their question around and ask them how they knew anything about the treaty to have raised it, and where they had heard about it. She might learn what they had done for the last year with Stoker if she began to poke around in the guard area and discovered the heavier weapons, and those coats and necklaces. Their short hair would also raise questions. Warriors were usually proud of their long hair.

For having violated so many parts of their oaths as warriors—especially wrestling with their trader, letting even a Yunk stay in their midst so many times, they might all be selected as tributes themselves, being banished from the city. If anyone ever learned that he was not a Yunk, but a true man... they might be thrown off the city walls; which had not happened to anyone in more than a hundred years.

Bradshaw could be like that.

They almost did not care. What Stoker had taught them and told them, had reduced so many of their fears about the ‘outside’, and even of leaving the city, but they did not need to test Bradshaw’s limits.

They had been outside of the city upon several evenings now, in Stoker's absence, and had learned to defend themselves over and over again. Bradshaw would never find that out. They had not been injured, even when attacked by Frexes coming at them one after the other. They remembered what Stoker had told them, and had co-ordinated their efforts, bringing their minds together to achieve something they could never have done as individuals.

With each success came greater confidence in their abilities.

What Stoker did tell them, explaining each of his longer absences, was that at the end of each month, he would be away for longer; and that another trader may come to them, instead of him to trade with them if he was not back on his usual day, and he would follow later, with the tributes.

They did not understand why that might keep him away longer than usual. Their understanding of it, was that the tributes from the other three cities were already waiting for him in Saltash.

All he had to do, was to pick up those tributes, along with the rest of his usual trading goods, and bring them here to join Fenn’s own tributes.

How could he be constrained for time to do that simple additional thing that did not really change his routine?