Sothing had been off about the attack from the beginning. Yuze hadn’t been able to ignore the instincts screaming at him that they were missing sothing, and he slipped away as the battle started. Making his way carefully around the battlefield and the attacking tribesn to find their camp.
Everything had happened too quickly for him to warn Eirian or anyone else what he was doing, but provided he didn’t die, he’d be able to explain later.
The battle had been joined for several hours by the ti he reached the tribal camp. It was a loose collection of tents and corralled horses on the other side of the hills surrounding the Crimson Army camp. Behind it, the hills faded into a long stretch of flat prairie that stretched so far under the horizon that you could see the Land of Song and Song hundreds of miles in the distance.
The camp was downwind, sothing Yuze knew they did because the sll would give them away otherwise. Due to their basic hygiene practices, it only took a day or two before the camps started to sll horribly, especially in the sumr heat.
He’d crept through the tall grass, slipping behind a roped-off group of horses and making his way into the maze of tents as more tribes arrived. He recognized the bright blue feather decorations of the southern tribes and the braided reeds of so of the smaller central tribes.
There were several groups of darker and copper-skinned people chained together. Slaves from the Wasteland, which ant there was definitely so kind of alliance, most likely Beng Shai’s handywork, among the scattered tribes of the borderlands.
He pulled the hood further over his face, trusting the shadows and the chaos of the battle to help him stay unnoticed as he made his way around the tents. They were typical of the tribes, thick animal hides stretched out and stitched together, beaten soft by the sun and wind.
There was nothing out of the ordinary at first, but halfway through the camp, and further away from the battlefield, he found rows and rows of extra weapons. Swords, spears, bows, and arrows, and a dozen others, all military grade steel and completely different from what the tribes typically carried.
The tribes were scavengers to a point, often taking weapons from the dead or piecing broken weapons together to make sothing useful. Otherwise, they used farming implents repurposed for battle.
These…were not from the borderlands, but they weren’t from Sorrow either. Yuze recognized the talismans decorating the hilts and hanging from the spearheads. Delicate slips of paper with charms and protection symbols painted in red ink.
They were common in the Land of Song and Snow, whose major religions were all tied closely to the practices of cultivation and the major clans through the expansive eastern empire. The talismans were for everything from wishing for love or a good harvest to protection in battle and fertility, and were found everywhere in the empire.
Were the tribes purchasing weapons from the Land of Song and Snow?
He paused, walking the rows of weapons. There were thousands of blades and twice that in arrows. How could the tribes afford this? They mostly traded goods between themselves and the villages, rarely showing any interest in monetary systems unless they absolutely had to.
And they certainly didn’t trade in the kind of volu that would get them this amount of weapons.
And why would the Land of Song and Snow even consider selling them these weapons? The kingdoms of Song and Snow were anything but united, but one thing they all had in common was that they thought the borderlands belonged to them and that the tribes were barely human savages occupying their lands. If it wasn’t for Sorrow also claiming the land, and the tribes helping control Sorrow’s expansion by whittling away at their forces, Song and Snow probably would have annihilated the tribes decades ago.
Was it an enemy of my enemy situation?
Except Sorrow and Song and Snow had been at peace, mostly, for the last few decades. It had been the great achievent of Eirian’s grandfather’s reign, and while no one expected it to last forever, it had been going strong so far.
There were even trade agreents between the two for the first ti.
Why would Song and Snow risk ending all of that?
Were they working with Beng Shai? Or did he work for them? Had they helped bring him to power?
But then, how did they even get into contact?
Was it all three of the kingdoms that bordered the borderland, or Chala Mai, which didn’t, but was the largest trade city on the Rock and had an open interest in any trade route on the Rock?
Rising voice made Yuze freeze, before slipping behind a tent and trying to follow the sound to its source.
He found an opening on the other side of the tent and managed to peek inside. There were leaders from the southern and central tribes, and, to Yuze’s resignation, what looked like a handful of envoys from Song and Snow, in their signature flowing robes and long hair.
The Bandri and the northern tribes were there too, but not Beng Shai.
The raised voices belonged to one of them, a young man around Yuze’s age with the signature tattoos running down his eyes and cheeks. Sohow, he stood out with wild brown hair and eyes the color of wheat as he argued with one of the envoys of Song and Snow.
“You make demands but don’t give anything of yourself.” He snapped, eyes flashing, and he was big enough, though lanky, to loom over the envoy. “If you aren’t going to die beside us, you don’t get to make demands.”
The envoy sputtered, red-faced, and tried to argue back in his own language. Yuze recognized enough to pick out a few words, just enough to confirm that Song and Snow were supplying weapons for the tribes, but that they were upset that things weren’t moving fast enough.
“We are the ones being invaded. We are the ones whose children are dying in the fields.” The Bandri snapped, his fists clenched, and there was sothing about him that felt familiar, but Yuze didn’t know what. “Your ho is not in danger.”
A hand clamped down on Yuze’s shoulder.
~ tbc
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