I Am A Barbarian

The Forgotten Trail

Hello All,

As you might know, Experimental Magics takes place in a world where magic is cyclical. It has just reappeared at the peak of an industrial revolution and is about to wreak havoc on peoples’ certitudes.

Actually, I wrote the whole series of those gaslight/steampunk books (I have several more in French) as a bit of an experiment. I used to write Sword & Sorcery or epic fantasy. But there were more market opportunities to get a publisher if you were writing in the Steampunk genre.

The experiment went well, I got a publisher (Actusf), but I am still writing in my earlier subgenres. There, I am telling about what happened when magic disappeared: a serious mess which started with a cute little Barbarian girl. Here is the first chapter.

The caravan left the summer pool.

The first day at sunrise.

One mortal in five is a fool,

One in ten pulls lies from a spool,

One in a hundred is wise.

The drivers were signing that song for at least the fifth time since dayrise. They loved it. They sang it when they were marching, when they were loading their shaggy, double-humped camels, when they were setting camp, and even when they were doing their laundry. Delta thought she loved the song too, but after hearing it for three weeks, it was sounding like useless noise. A gush of wind whipped a wet strand of black hair under the brim of her leather cowl and she felt a trickle of icy water run under her collar.

"So, how do you address the Empress Mother?" rumbled Gallu’s gruff voice.

Shit and blood, not again! Next time, I swear, I'll throw him off the path! Delta scrunched her face at the back of the grizzled warrior. He was walking two paces ahead, scanning the mountain path and the rocky slope on the other side of the deep, narrow gorge.

"Your Sapient Majesty, Resplendent Rose of Wisdom," she replied above the patter of the rain. They had already repeated the same lesson for the last two weeks. Like any man of the sword, Gallu was a firm believer in daily practice.

She sneezed. All she needed was a cold. The Swaying Bridge was nowhere in sight, and as a proper Plain nomad, she hated walking. Hadn’t her Mountaineer father forced her to do long treks to develop whatever endurance she had, she would have already been lying flat on the ground.

One camel ahead, Yahir was laughing and even lowering his cowl to rearrange his unruly albino mop, dyed black for the trip. That irritated her even more. Since he had reached puberty, her joking cousin seemed to have forgotten her. He was only interested in his newly functioning male organ, which had grown a mind of its own. Since breakfast, he had been trying to chat up Izumo, the quiet, lanky Gbani peddler who had joined the caravan two days before. Not a fitting attitude for a soon-to-be initiated shaman. Probably why Grandmother had sent him to sell the herbs in Samarzal, before he made a fool of himself.

Gallu’s rumble cut through her thoughts. "And how do you address a great priestess?"

"Very Wise… Uncle Gallu, do you think this is the right place for etiquette lessons?"

The man turned to give her a stern look from under his bushy eyebrows. He pulled the side of his sheepskin greatcoat to stop it flapping in the wind. "Why not? At thirteen, is your brain still too tiny to do two things at once? I’m asking you about etiquette, not a potion recipe!"

She turned briefly to hide her scowl, pretending to check on the beasts. Water was streaming from the bundles of herbs wrapped in oiled skins and nestled between the humps of Spring, the young female camel. It was the one she had to keep an eye on. Behind the beast, the sturdy Plain ponies and the three warhounds were well behaved, stoic, and smart, so they just plodded on.

Ahead and behind, over a winding path strewn with rubble, trudged two hundred women, men, and beasts, nobles, servants, merchants, pilgrims, laborers, Gbani, Barsani, Dejwa and a few Rane nomads like herself. Every two-dozen people or so, walked a wary caravan guard. The place was just wide enough for one loaded camel and his driver to walk abreast, and now it was littered with the manure of the three hundred beasts who had already passed.

On their left, rose a towering wall of rock. On the right, a vertical drop led into the deep and narrow gorge of the Swan River. Here and there, a few scrawny trees grappled with the rocky slope. The path was treacherous at the best of times, but with the rain, one misstep could send you crashing to your death. Not the best weather to cross the Hundred Mountains, but the caravan didn’t have much choice. It had been raining heavily since the beginning of spring, and a small earthquake caused a landslide that partially dammed the Swan River. It has burst its banks and flooded their usual path. They had to take a longer route.

The fierce locals stared at the passing foreigners with hungry eyes. The caravan mistress, Khana, had paid their lordling the usual toll and presented their elders with lumps of salt and chunks of amber, but the Mountaineers had very lax hospitality rules. Better to be out of sight as soon as possible. That was why the caravan has been trudging along since dawn, wet and miserable on the side of the North Sister Mountain. The camels groaned and labored, sometimes their load slipped, and everyone behind stopped to wait for it to be shifted back into balance.

     Delta sneezed again. This reminded her of her bladder, but there was nowhere to empty it without escaping her uncle’s snide comments. She was getting too old to attend to her needs on the spur of the moment. "Uncle Gallu, when will we get to the other side?"

"If Ori doesn’t play one of His tricks, in about three hours…"

     She sighed. The head of the caravan must have already reached Bearstone Rest. There, they would light rock oil fires and make hot soup. "Why did they let those rich merchants go first?"

Gallu lowered his voice, although nobody could speak Rane around them. "Look around you, hetman’s daughter. We make a good target here, and most of our bowstrings are soaking wet. But bandits are usually after easy work. They try to grab the goods and run. So, Mistress Khana has left the most valuable things—silver, pelts, amber, and carnelian—at the front or at the back with the guards. That way, if bandits attack us, they might make off with the goods or the spare camels, but they will leave the middle of the caravan well alone."

"And the merchants are happy with that?"

"What do you think? But that’s the Laws of the Road. People before goods. If they want to get on a caravan, they have to abide by the rules. That’s why they have brought their own guards in addition to those of Mistress Khana." He paused and briefly turned his head before adding, "If we meet bandits, I just hope they will be of the normal variety. I have heard that a Stonehead bandit called the Nightingale has stolen a few floatstones from the Anvil Marquess. They might try building a windship... I can’t wait to leave this bloody place."

She lifted her head involuntarily and peeked from under her cowl. The Twelve Steps and the South Sister Mountains were looming against the laden sky. The head of the latter was totally lost in the clouds. Like everyone else, Delta had heard about the Triskelian windships. One day, she would see the whole fleet on parade, in Samarzal.

"Let’s not be distracted," said Gallu. "How many silver ronals do you have for an imperial gold rose?"

She heaved a sigh. "Twelve and half."

"What do you do when you enter a Triskelian house?"

She made an irritated snort. "You think I will ever enter one?"

"Why not?"

"They look down on us! They call us bab... huh... bar…"

"Barbarians. Still, they need us, like the Rose Empress needed your grandmother."

"It was long ago. And then, the Rose Empress was not yet Triskelian, was she? She was crossing the Plain as an envoy."

Gallu turned back to look at her with a grin. "You are too smart, girl. I told you, don’t show all you know, especially in Samarzal. Still, being so smart, you should be able to get an invitation to a Triskelian home, if you learn to smooth your edges—"

"Hey!" someone shouted ahead. "Here is the Broken Warrior!"

There was gawking and calling. "Where?"

"There, across the canyon!"

Delta squinted, peering through the rain. On the other side, she could make out two giant legs and a hand holding a sword rising from the gray rock. Weeds and bushes grew from the crevices, making the outlines difficult to guess. Above the waist, the ancient statue had been smashed away. These hundred-foot-tall Attalean sculptures could be found throughout the mountains and were used as landmarks.

"Halt! Ten minutes' rest!" came a call, relayed by the guards.

Delta squatted, her back against the rock wall. Spring nudged her shoulder. She pulled a handful of grass from her pocket and gave it to the camel.

"You have spoiled her." Said Gallu, squatting next to her.

"I have to bribe her from time to time. At least she gives me no trouble, not like Master Izumo’s camel."

"He knows nothing about beasts."

Delta peered at Yahir. He was holding a leather umbrella above the peddler, who had retrieved a piece of seasoned bark, a reed stylus, and a pot of ink and was trying to make a sketch of the statue. His camel was picking at a few sparse blades of new grass. No chance to exchange some banter with her cousin, he looked totally smitten. She heaved a sigh. In a month or so, she would leave Gallu and him behind and would have to manage on her own in a world of total strangers.

She felt a lump in her throat and pursed her lips to stop them from trembling. Three years! She wouldn’t see her family for three years! No waking up to hot soup, no gathering herbs with her mother, no sparring with her father, no tending cattle with her brother, no learning the sacred lore with her grandmother, no more tales by the campfire... And all that for what? Trudging with a bickering bunch of travellers, getting soaked, and being threatened by bandits. But debts had to be paid. Especially debts owed to a goddess. And knowledge, as her grandmother had warned, had a price. It will set you free, but first, it will test you to the limit. She had no choice. She would need all the knowledge she could muster on the day she got her gift back.

Gallu retrieved a ball of chewing tobacco from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. "Back to the lesson, girl. How do you enter a Triskelian house?"

"You cross the threshold without stepping on the sacred line, then turn to your left to face the shrine of the house’s ancestors and bow. Then, you receive a symbolic bowl of water, of which you pour a few drops on the floor as an offering and then drink the rest."

"Good. What is the cost of a bowl of plain rice on the streets?"

"Four copper roses."

"And a bowl of small beer?"

Delta was feeling a headache coming at the idea of reciting all the prices again. She tried diversion. "Two copper roses. Uncle Gallu, I wanted to ask: how much would cost one of those beautiful horses they raise for their army?"

Gallu spat brown spittle between two stones. "Ah, they are expensive! You’ll have to get yourself a really good job as a scribe to save enough!" His eyes became dreamy. "They never sell those they call dragon spawn, these are the cream of the crop, cavalry horses. You might only purchase an old gelding from a retired soldier. Then you have those they call the swift birds, for the messengers. A young one cost a good hundred gold roses. One at the end of its use might still fetch ten gold roses. It’s illegal to sell them to foreigners, but a willing soul will always find her way around. Then, you have the iron hooves, the pack horses they have bred with an adjunct of our ponies."

Delta knew all that because Gallu was mad about Triskelian breeds and had bored all the tribe about the beat of their hooves which sounded like bells, their arched necks, their silky mane, and their gait which made them as comfortable to ride as puffy white clouds. Triskelians had been nomads too, three centuries before, and still knew a thing or two about horses. "Is it true they can carry three hundred pounds for a day and need only five gallons of water?"

"Only the strongest ones. Still, they can—"

"End of rest!" called a guard ahead. Gallu stood up and stretched, followed by Delta. Ahead of Yahir and the peddler, there was some commotion. A man had tripped on a stone and fallen, losing his wide-brimmed hat and spilling dried apples from his bag. One rolled over the edge. Everybody stopped, waiting for him to stand, wipe his hands, pick up the hat and remaining apples, and start walking, swearing profusely.

Gallu spat again. "Where were we? Ah, yes. What water is safe to drink in Samarzal?"

Delta heaved a sigh. Anything but these stinky lessons! He chuckled and started walking. "You thought I would forget, girl?"

"You never forget anything, Uncle Gallu. The only water safe to drink is from the public fountains and the imperial wells. One should never buy water from water sellers or drink from a stream, as they are full of parasites and poisons from leatherworks and cloth dyes."

After a few more questions and answers, they rounded a bend, and she finally caught a glimpse of the Swaying Bridge. It was a simple row of sturdy planks tied together with thick ropes and to metal rings bolted into the rock on either side of the gorge. Another series of ropes on either side were providing a sort of safety net. The bridge was creaking, sagging, and swaying gently as a man and a donkey were slowly making their way across. She swallowed. As the lightest of the three, she would have to make the crossing with Spring and possibly again with one of the ponies.

Ahead, the peddler’s camel stumbled. Its master cut short his discussion with Yahir and turned to it, swearing.

   "Your camel’s load is slipping, young man." said Gallu, switching to the vernacular.

     "What? Where?"

"Better fix it before you get on the bridge. Delta, fetch me a rope."

She went to pick it up from the saddlebag on Gallu’s pony. She brought it to Yahir, who grinned at the peddler.

     "Here. Izumo, I lift the left chest up, and you tighten the rope."

The man tied his camel to a scrawny tree and made it kneel. It took some persuasion. Behind them, the line was waiting patiently. Delta pulled out the handful of nuts she had saved from the previous day and started chewing them, trying not to think about the bridge. Somewhere above, she heard a faint crack. She ducked her head, expecting a stone to tumble down, washed by the rain, but nothing came. Instead, Spring lowered her head, and she had to smack her muzzle before she tried to snatch the nuts.

     "Excuse me!  Sorry!"

A warrior in the soaked blue tabard of the Unicorn Company was coming up the line of travelers. He was followed by a tall woman holding a leather umbrella and a girl of about fourteen in bright red trousers under a fur-lined cape. Around her neck, Delta glimpsed a dull red orichalcum chain, marking her as a gifted. As they reached the ponies, Delta recognized the daughter of some princeling who had joined them at Pharzel with a dozen Unicorn bodyguards, a governess, a cook, two servants, a chariot, and a cart full of stuff. The chariot and cart have been dismounted, loaded onto spare camels, and now the princess was walking like everyone else, no doubt complaining at length to her governess. The peddler glared at them. The woman made a polite cough. "Excuse me, my lady wants to carry on and be dry as soon as possible. She does not wish to be kept waiting any longer—"

"Hey!" shouted the caravan guard ahead. "No overtaking!"

She smiled sweetly and waved her hand. "We do not want to break the rules, worthy warrior. But my mistress is a child." She dug into the folds of her wide coat and produced a handful of silver coins. "Perhaps we can find an arrangement with the travelers ahead and—"

Through the rain, Delta heard a thin twang. By sheer habit, she threw herself onto the muddy ground. A blur passed in the corner of her eye. Something heavy fell on her. She realized with horror that it was the bodyguard. A cacophony of screams erupted, and she felt a strong smell of rock oil.

When she managed to crawl from under the thrashing man, she found the princess and her governess folded in a screaming, sobbing heap. An oblong shadow was covering part of the sky. She froze on her knees, her mouth wide open. The shadow was swaying gently. She realized she was actually looking at the hull of a boat like the ones on the Thunder River. Except that instead of floating in a river, it was floating in the air, twenty good feet above her head.

From the floating boat, a male voice snapped in the ragged tongue of the Mountaineers:

     "Don’t shoot, idiots! You might kill her…"

A heavy mass fell on her, and this time, she recognized Gallu’s cloak. It was also covering the princess, totally oblivious to the situation.

     "Stay hidden."

Apparently, the girl had enough sense to shut up. Or maybe she was just in shock. Her mother had once told Delta that sophisticated people had strange reactions to danger. She peeked from under the heavy leather. Gallu was pulling out his spellbag. The governess had taken a martial stance, holding a knife. The dogs were barking madly. The peddler’s camel was trying to bolt. Ahead, people were screaming even more as smoke was rising from the bridge. Above the noise, Delta barely heard the Mountaineer voice:

     "Listen! We don’t want to fight! Just give us two people! We are looking for a girl, and..."

Swearing, Gallu pulled at the wet strings of the bag. Before he had time to untie it, the side of the boat exploded in a gush of fire. It went careening above the gorge, then crashed into the mountainside, sending splinters and screaming men down into the abyss.

The whole thing had not taken more than a few minutes. Gallu pulled Delta to her feet. She was dazed, soaked in blood, rain, and camel dung. The bodyguard was splayed face down in the mud, dead. Spring and the ponies were shifting nervously, threatening to knock over the girl, who was crying in the arms of her governess. Izumo’s camel was struggling madly to pull free. Instead, it slipped and tipped into the gorge, hanging only by the rope that tied it to the tree. A look of utter terror passed over the man’s face.

     "No! No!"

Yahir grabbed his shoulder:

"Do not try to rescue it. Looks like it has broken a leg anyway."

The peddler seemed to recover some composure. He pulled a small sheet of bark from his caftan and unfolded it as if it were a document. He whispered a few words, and the bark exploded in a puff of smoke. The trashing beast suddenly rose at the end of its tether as if pushed by an invisible hand and went to land on the narrow track. Izumo jumped on it with astonishing speed, seized its head, and cut its throat. Gallu mechanically mumbled the ritual prayer.

The peddler threw himself to his knees in front of him. "Master Gallu! I beseech you! My little brother’s coffin is in this camel’s pack. I cannot abandon him! He should lie in our family vault. Please, let me buy your camel and its load at twice its price!"

     Gallu frowned. "Well, there are four hundred pounds of wombsleep grass and fifty of dried stopblood there, er… I was expecting to get two hundred silver roses out of them. And the camel is a four-year-old Barsani black."

Izumo fished something from his belt pouch and opened his palm, revealing ten Triskelian gold roses. Gallu's eyes widened. It was way more than what he asked for. He exchanged a look with Yahir above the man’s shoulder. The young shaman gave the ghost of a nod. Gallu shrugged and took the money.

     "Delta, pass him Spring. Carefully… I guess you won’t mind if I take off a piece of meat from your dead beast, young man?"

     "Not at all! Please be my guest!"

Delta carefully brought the nervous camel over the dead bodyguard. With Yahir’s help, Izumo quickly discarded the bundles of grass down the canyon and replaced them with his two chests wrapped in skins. The governess slowly led her ward back to her retinue. Around them, the caravan was in shambles. Anxious calls were coming from behind:

"What’s going on, by the Seven Hells? Did you kill those motherless bastards?"

"No, they just had some accident all by themselves and smashed into the mountain!"

     "Good riddance! Can we go on?"

"They have burned the bridge!"

    "Shit and blood!"

The discussion went back and forth, relayed across the length of the caravan. Delta suddenly remembered her bladder. She backed against the rocky wall as far as possible from the corpse—the dead deserved respect—and relieved herself without further thought. Then, she simply squatted, her back to the rock face, and shivered. Flower came to lick her. In the meantime, Marzay, the captain of the rearguard, had walked up the caravan to the remains of the bridge. Delta could hear him and Mistress Khana shouting back and forth across the gorge.

"Where did those bandits come from?"

"The Traitor knows!"

"How many dead do you have?"

"Three, Mistress Khana. Two shot. One has fallen to her death. What shall we do now?"

"You will have to retrace our steps to the foot of the mountain and spend the night there. Then, go back to Pharzel and join another caravan to White Bridge. We will wait for you at Shambasha."

"But this Stonehead chieftain might ambush us! Maybe he was in cahoots with those bandits in the windship!”

There was an omnious silence.

"Then, leave the path halfway and spend the night at the Field of Stones. You will block the path behind you. At first light, make your way to the abandoned caravanseray behind the mountain, lock yourself there, and wait there until you are certain you are not being followed. Then, take the Forgotten Trail between the North Sister and the Jade Lady. You should reach Hao Ford in three weeks, and hopefully the water will be low by then. after that, you will get to Shambasha in four days."

"Also, we have only a few days of supplies here."

"What can I say, Marzay? You’ll have to make do. Find some game. Once at the river, you’ll get some fish. Also, the Boar tribe still lives somewhere along the way. They used to be friendly and eager to reopen this abandoned trail. They might have supplies to spare."

Another pause. Although her father was a Mountaineer, Delta had only a vague idea of the layout of the Hundred Mountains. Like everyone else, she knew the place was huge. A wall that separated very different lands. To its west lie her native wide grassy Plains, to its north, the forested hills of the waning kingdoms of Gban and Barsan and the rising dominion of the Dejwa. In the south, the mountains ended at the dry Anvil plateau, and behind it spread the lush Triskelian Empire. The Mountaineers lived in a maze of secluded valleys sheltering them from the violent storms off the Plains and from more pernicious threats such as news and knowledge. They cultivated a strong hostility to anything coming from outside, except gold and slaves. Altogether, she was sure of one thing: there was more walking ahead. Maybe even more walking with less food.

Finally, the steely voice of Mistress Khana rose again:

"The Field of Stones, and the Forgotten Trail, then. We will wait for you in Shambasha until the first day of the Lion Moon."

It took a lot of maneuvering, backtracking, cajoling, unloading, and reloading to turn back the camels. After two hours, the fifty-odd travelers, as many guards, and twice as many beasts were heading back. The dead have been bundled onto beasts for later burial. Gallu was in the lead of their small group with the warhounds, followed by Delta and the ponies. Behind them, the peddler was walking with Yahir, his new camel in tow. Delta sauntered to Gallu and whispered.

     "Uncle Gallu…"

     "Yes?"

"Why did that floating boat burn? Did you or Yahir throw a spell?"

"No, I didn’t have time and your worm brained cousin didn’t think of it."

"So, the bandits started a fire just by accident?"

     "Unlikely. Someone else must have called another fire spell."

     "Wow! These are expensive!"

     "Yes. Either someone had another fire spell, or... There is a full-blown shaman in this caravan. Be careful."

Till next time!

Alex