James Silke
Prisoner of the Horned helmet

One
INVADERS

They came out of the sunblasted desert. Tiny dark specks wagging a tail of billowing yellow dust at the yellow sky. Occasionally they glittered metallically; otherwise they were shaggy, the color of dirt when it was in a mood to be filthy. All of which meant they looked their best, like tarantulas with their hair combed.

It was a mounted detachment. Nine riders with crossbows in their saddle holsters and sheathed swords, quivers and daggers riding their belts. Scouts. Probing fingertips of the nomadic empire which dominated the southern lands from the Dark Continent in the west, all the way across the lands of Yellow Faces to the Islands of the Rising Sun in the east. The Kitzakk Horde.

Their horses were small, scarred, with braided manes and tails. Durable. The riders were more so, leather-skinned veterans of the desert campaigns. They were Hunters, members of one of the three Chel Regiments under the personal command of the warlord, Klang.

Helmets, arm bands and breastplates were black-lacquered bamboo striped with steel bands. Skirts were wide leather thongs mounted with steel studs. Crescent moons of precious silver glittered on the tops of wide-brimmed helmets shaped like overturned shallow bowls. Their weapons were carved with the figures of butterflies and inlaid with a patina of gore and grime gathered from uncounted battlefields. There were the inevitable dents and stains, but each carried a story of violent, painful victory.

Their flat brown faces carried similar stories, stories of themselves. Men wearing steel and death.

They rode north to the dry cataracts where Sergeant Yat reined up and halted his command. He was short, thick and sun dark. His squad numbered seven veterans and one rookie, a boy they called Young Hands, who brought up the rear. They stared down at the cataracts like performers about to step onto a stage they had not played before, a dangerous one.

The massive shelves of rock, splintered by bottomless gorges, descended in almost regular steps then vanished amid low-lying clouds. Like a staircase for the gods, the large variety who use trees for toothpicks and urinate lightning.

Soong, the wrinkled one, said, “Not a regulation border, is it?”

Akar nodded agreement. “The regiments will be one large target crossing this, and so will we.”

Sergeant Yat grunted as if the cataracts were of no more concern than an unpolished belt buckle and moved his squad forward with a circular motion of his hand.

They turned west, rode until they came to a steep trail descending into the cataracts. Soong put up a trail marker, a red flag embroidered with a rising sun, the sign of their Butterfly Goddess. Akar removed a map, bamboo pen and ink from a metal cylinder and noted the trail on the map. This done, Yat led them down the trail into the uncharted, savage wilderness.

As the scouts descended, the iron chains and slave collars dangling from their saddles echoed pleasantly among the stone chasms. These instruments were beautifully made, hand carved with images of entwined flowers. The soldiers made no attempt to mute their metallic song.

It brought terror to their enemies, was music to their ears. A proud reminder that they no longer used barbaric ropes or crude leather collars, but hard steel. They were civilized. They even drank their blood from a cup.