The lumbermen shuffled uneasily into a small clearing in the Sitari Valley and laid their packs on the ground. Warily, they glanced around at the dense stand of fargi trees and the soldiers moving through them. Some of the closer trunks showed the scars of past attempts at felling them. Most of the lumbermen had heard the tale of the last time Lord Lashendo had sent men to clear this valley and the soldiers surrounding the workers offered little comfort. Only one man had survived the attack of the Chula and he lived only long enough to tell the tale of the slaughter which had occurred here. The soldiers sent to guard the lumbermen didn’t appear to be any less wary as they spread outward in a circle, brandishing their unsheathed swords, searching for any sign of the dreaded cat people.

    Togi was one of the replacement workers sent to Lord Lashendo by Lord Ridak, Lord of the Situ Clan, and the tale of the last massacre was told to the new recruits the day they arrived at the remote estate. Togi had never seen a Chula before, but even in Lord Ridak’s service, tales of the strange and ferocious cat people were told in the barracks at night. Belief in the horrid tales was not optional in Khadora, for to tell a lie was to give your life to another in payment for the mistruth. No sane person in Khadora ever lied.

    The Squad Leader of the soldiers approached the lumbermen while looking off into the woods for signals from his men.

    “All right,” the Squad Leader bellowed. “Let’s get these trees felled and get back to the barracks before nightfall. Move, before I have to call my soldiers back to deal with you instead of the Chula.”

    Togi picked up his ax and headed into the forest for an available tree. As hard as it would be to chop through the tough bark of the fargi trees, Togi was thankful that he was not one of the slaves who would have to cart the huge trees away. Those slaves would be worked to the point of exhaustion and, most likely, beyond it. The slaves who didn’t succumb to fatigue were often crushed while handling the logs.

    Togi swung his ax in a gentle practice swing. Around him he could hear dozens of axes impacting on wood as the other lumbermen began the arduous task of clearing the valley. Togi’s ax rebounded off the fargi’s hard bark and he braced himself, legs apart, to deliver a powerful stroke to the tree. The ax blade was slicing deep into the bark when a far off scream suddenly rent the air. Togi jerked his ax out of the fargi and gazed around. The other lumbermen looked startled and had also halted their swings. The Squad Leader began pulling his sword from its sheath as if contemplating punishment for the work stoppage when a soldier ran out of the forest, his long braids flying behind him and his scimitar clasped tightly in his fist. The soldier talked briefly in hushed tones with the Squad Leader, who immediately hurried off in the direction of that first scream. Togi watched as the nervous soldier visibly calmed himself, smoothing his tunic, before issuing orders for the workers to move into the center of the clearing.

    Screams started coming from every direction and were accompanied by clashes of metal upon metal. Togi dropped his ax and slid covertly into a pile of leaves as his fellow workers returned to the clearing. The tale of the last massacre indicated that the Chula would kill everybody they found, not just the soldiers, and Togi wasn’t ready to die just yet. He quickly decided that he would rather risk the wrath of the Situ soldiers for disobeying an order than die at the hands of the cat people.

    Togi lay completely covered with leaves and breathed shallowly. Even under the leaves the screams and growls sounded closer than before. The lumberman tried placing his hands over his ears to shut out the horrible sounds of men dying, but it did no good. A grunt, followed by a scream, preceded the impact Togi felt when a body fell on top of him. His breathing became ragged and he felt small particles of decaying leaves being sucked into his mouth, but the body above him stopped thrashing and lay still.

    The body on top of Togi helped to diminish the sounds of battle and death, but the blood dripping down his neck reminded him of the need to remain hidden. Togi’s body started shaking and he fought to control his fear. He forced his mind to think of other things, pleasant things. Soon Togi was lost in the days of his youth, and the sounds of his playmates swinging on tree branches into the creek replaced the howls of death around him.

    Togi was not sure how long he had been dreaming of more pleasant times when he felt the weight of the dead body being lifted off of him. His mind snapped back to the present and he actually strained his ears to pick out the sounds around him. There was a lot of rustling of leaves and animal growls, but very little talking. The small snatches of conversation, which he did hear, were not the voices of his fellow Situ workers, they were the voices of Chula.

    Togi started shaking again and tried to force his mind back to the creek of his youth, but he could not ignore the animal growls around him. Suddenly, strong hands grabbed his legs and dragged Togi out of the pile of leaves. Togi opened his eyes and stared into the gaping jaws of a tiger, a tiger with a man astride it. The man issued some guttural tones and the two Chula who had dragged him out of the leaves grabbed his arms and dragged him towards the clearing. Togi’s eyes remained fixed on the Chula riding the tiger. The man’s skin was darker than Togi’s and his face and chest were painted with strange symbols. The Chula wore nothing but a breechcloth and he rode the tiger as Togi would ride a horse.

    Soon the tiger and its rider were lost to his sight and Togi was thrown to the ground in the clearing. Togi looked to his side and promptly vomited. The clearing was filled with body parts as if the lumbermen were sliced by a thousand sickles. Togi retched until he could retch no more. His head spun with fear and revulsion as men grabbed him and hoisted him up to his feet and tied him to a tree. With his back to the tree, the whole clearing became visible to Togi and he tried to clamp his eyes closed, but his fear and the sounds of Chula and tigers passing close to him kept them wide open.

    Togi watched as Chula came into the clearing, dragging corpses of Situ soldiers and piling them onto the largest wagon. Several of the Chula rode tigers and all of them were wearing paint on their bodies. A few Chula were cutting the clothes off of some of the soldiers with their knives and tying the pieces together to form a long rope. Most of the Chula carried spears and a few had swords, but every one of them had a small quiver at his waist and a knife hanging from a thong attached to his breechcloth.

    A Chula with a headdress resembling a lion’s mane and wearing a long, brown tunic strode into the clearing and approached a Chula riding a black panther. The rider stood out from the other Chula warriors because he was clothed from head to foot in animal skins. Togi watched as the two different-looking Chula conversed and looked towards him. After a few moments of conversation the pair strode over to Togi and stood before him. Togi’s eyes blinked as he looked at the face of the Chula with the lion’s mane headdress, only it wasn’t a headdress at all. The Chula before him sported slit eyes and whiskers like a cat and the mane appeared to be part of him. His split lips smiled as he observed Togi’s expression, but it was the Chula in animal skins that spoke.

    “I am Tmundo, leader of the Kywara,” the Chula stated. “You Khadorans learn slowly. Twice now, my people have had to teach you the lesson of observing our holy grounds. I have little patience for slow learners. You shall live to deliver a message to the Khadorans who would invade our lands. Listen carefully, so that I do not have to carve the message into your flesh with my knife.”

    Togi nodded briskly as the sweat poured off his brow.

    “The next time Khadorans invade this valley,” Tmundo declared, “not only the blood of the invaders will be spilled, but the blood of the man who sent them will be spread across his own lands. The Sitari Valley belongs to the Kywara as it has always and how it shall always be. Repeat the message, now.”

    Togi quivered as he repeated the message word for word. Tmundo swiftly drew his knife and Togi cringed as it flicked towards him. Waiting for the bite of the blade upon his flesh, Togi felt the restraining ropes fall from his body.

    “We have prepared a wagon for your journey back home,” purred the Chula with the lion’s mane. “Even in death, we do not welcome Khadorans on our land. Take them back to your people.”

    Togi glanced at the wagon piled high with dead Situ restrained by the rope made from the soldiers’ clothes. The wagon was designed to haul long logs and was the largest he had ever seen, yet the bodies piled on it would tumble over the sides without the rope holding them on. Eight horses were hitched to the wagon and Togi wondered whether they would be able to pull the weight.

    Tmundo gave Togi a shove towards the wagon and the lumberman quickly made his way to the driver’s seat and urged the horses forward. Visibly shaking, Togi sighed as the eight large horses started to pull the wagon towards home. The Chula stood and watched the wagon as it slowly picked up momentum.

    Marak sat in the shade with his back placed against a lituk tree. He eased his sword and sheath over his head and placed it on the ground beside him. Next he removed his metal helmet and subconsciously adjusted his embroidered green and yellow headband. His gaze swept over the orchard and the workers who were harvesting the small, yellow lituks. These fruits were one of the mainstay products of the Situ Clan. Slave workers carried straw baskets and ladders and glumly picked the bitter fruits from their thorny branches. The orchard was quiet as the slaves went about their work wordlessly. Adjacent to the mature orchard was a barren field set to be cultivated this year. Out in the center of the barren field, Marak’s gaze halted on the frail figure of a woman kneeling in the dirt and waving her arms. The woman was covered in dirt, obscuring the only colorful portion of her outfit, the broad, embroidered Clan Belt in the green and yellow colors of the Situ Clan. The rest of her attire was simply a dirty, brown tunic that signified the woman’s low status as a slave of Lord Ridak, Lord of the Situ Clan.

    The woman bowed her head to the ground and Marak could almost recite the words that were coming from her mouth. The slave was a soil mage and it was her job to prepare the soil for planting of the new orchard. Marak knew the spells by heart, but no one was aware of that fact. All four types of mages in Khadora were looked down upon as simple laborers. Soil mages tended the dirt when necessary for planting or to constrain erosion. Water mages ensured the proper amount of rainfall needed to nourish the crops, while air mages prevented damaging windstorms or dust storms. Sun mages ensured the appropriate sunlight to aid the crops towards a healthy harvest.

    Magic in Khadora was simple and menial and many of the mages were slaves, like the dirty, frail woman in the barren field. Marak’s eyes welled with wetness as he watched the woman toil over the soil under the thankless watch of her overseer. The slaves in Khadora were not treated much better than the soil the woman worked over and Marak’s heart wept every time he sat and watched his mother work. Marak spent many days in the fields with his mother when he was younger and it was at her insistence that he hid the magical talent he possessed.

    Marak dabbed at his eyes as he remembered his youth spent in the filthy, cramped slave quarters with his mother. The slave quarters consisted of run-down shacks unfit for habitation of even six people, but Lord Ridak filled each of the shacks with twenty slaves and refused to supply even the materials necessary to maintain the dilapidated structures. The fortunate slaves in shacks containing water mages were spared the discomfort of leaky roofs, but the others often slept on mud-soaked blankets. It was during his youth in the shacks that Marak discovered he had magical talent which, according to common belief, was only held by women. Not only did he have the capabilities of his mother, a soil mage, but he also was capable of performing the other three types of magic, as well. The slave women who tutored him as a child never knew he was capable of any magic other than what she, herself, taught him. They were surprised enough at a boy’s ability to learn any magic and each of them promised to keep the secret. Only Glenda, Marak’s mother, knew he possessed the skills of the four types of magic.

    Once Marak had become of age, he was sent to the Army to help defend the clan. Slaves were not allowed to enter the Army, but Marak was not a slave, his mother was. His mother had become a slave by telling a lie to Lord Ridak, the most serious of offenses in Khadora. Anyone caught telling a lie in Khadora became the property of the person the lie was told to. If a lie was told publicly, anyone who heard the lie could claim the offender as his property. The offender could be taken for a slave or legally killed on the spot. In fact, a slave could be killed by his owner at any time with no legal repercussions. A slave was nothing more than a tool, to be used or discarded at the master’s pleasure.

    As a child of a slave, Marak was treated as a slave until he came of age. At that time he was treated like any other laborer of the clan. Marak chose to try out for the Army because the living conditions were better than any other occupation, other than being in the Lord’s household. While the relative comfort of the barracks was a desirable goal in Khadora, Marak often punished himself for living so much better than his mother. As a soldier in Lord Ridak’s Army, Marak was not permitted to converse with slaves unless he was following orders; so, sitting in the orchard and watching his mother from afar was as close as Marak could get. He came and watched whenever he could steal the time from his duties and each time his heart wept with the unfairness of life in Khadora. Approaching footsteps alerted Marak before the other soldier spoke to him.

    “I thought I would find you here, Marak,” greeted Tagoro as he eased his tall, lanky frame to the ground beside Marak. “You should not torture yourself so. In a few years when you get promoted to the rank of Cortain, you will be able to speak with her freely.”

    Marak tossed his blond braid over his shoulder and turned to look at his friend. “It took me four years to make Squad Leader,” stated Marak. “It should take me another four to make Cortain, if I prove to be exceptional, and I have only been Squad Leader for two.”

    “So, that is only two years away,” cheered Tagoro. “Most men never even make Squad Leader. You have proven yourself in battle and the talk around the barracks is that Lord Marshal Grefon is impressed with your squad’s efficiency.”

    “The men of my squad perform well because I treat them well,” remarked Marak. “The praise belongs to them, not me. Look at her. Do you think she will last another two years waiting for me to get a promotion? I must find a way to help her.”

    Tagoro smoothed his black hair away from his yellow and green headband and turned to look at Glenda. He frowned at the sight of Marak’s mother kneeling in the dirt. She was so covered with soil that it was hard to tell her hair was blond or her skin was fair. She was the same color as the ground from head to toe. Shaking his head he turned back to Marak.

    “Marak,” he admonished, “if you disobey the rules, you will end up alongside her. To disobey your orders is the same as a lie. Will it help her any to have her son a slave as well as herself? We have all sworn the Vow of Service to Lord Ridak and he will not overlook any infraction of it.”

    “Perhaps so,” Marak smiled as if enjoying a private joke, “but there are other ways of accomplishing one’s goal. If I were ordered to check on the slaves, I would have the chance I seek.”

    “Cortain Koors knows you seek the opportunity,” scolded Tagoro. “He would never issue you such an order and he would intercept any such order coming down from higher up. He is not happy to have the son of a slave as one of his Squad Leaders.”

    “Koors is a beady-eyed pig,” scowled Marak. “He treats his men like animals and wonders why they don’t respect him. I do not know how he ever made Cortain.”

    “He made Cortain because he has served for over twenty years,” reminded Tagoro.

    “That is twenty years too long,” declared Marak. “The man is not fit to lead other men. Koors has let it be known that he expects to be made Lectain this year. I would not know whether to laugh or cry if the Lord Marshal actually gave it to him.”

    “Lord Marshal Grefon is not a fool,” cautioned Tagoro. “Koors has gone as high as he will ever go.”

    Across the barren field, the overseer pushed Glenda into the dirt with his foot and started shouting. Marak grabbed his sword and leaped to his feet. Tagoro twisted around quickly and saw what had prompted Marak’s rise and immediately wrapped his arms around Marak’s legs, bringing him to the ground.

    “Do not play the fool,” cautioned Tagoro. “It is well known that you come here to watch her and Koors may have precipitated the overseer’s actions.”

    Marak eased slightly as he watched his mother get back up and return to work. The overseer was watching the orchard for a reaction instead of Glenda and Marak realized that Tagoro was probably right. Pushing himself from the ground, Marak rose and calmly positioned his sheath and placed his helmet under his arm.

    “Let’s go back to the barracks before I get her killed,” snarled Marak. “Cortain Koors is not the only officer who feels that way about me. In fact, most of them resent a slave’s boy being allowed into the Army. It is okay to kill and die for them, as long as you do both quickly.”

    Squad Leader Tagoro rose and followed Marak towards the barracks. The barracks were solidly built, stone buildings. Each one was rectangular in shape and housed two squads of soldiers and their Squad Leaders. Large holes were cut into the sides to allow light and cool breezes in. When not in use these windows were shuttered with wood panels, which were gaily painted with the symbol of the lituk tree and the clan colors. The soldiers slept in wooden bunks that lined the walls four high. Each bunk had a small shelf at the head and a wooden chest at the foot for personal belongings and in the higher bunks there was even a measure of privacy. The center of the barracks was communal and had long tables for meals. At the end opposite the entrance were the Squad Leader’s quarters. Each Squad Leader had a small room and an additional room was set aside as a communal room for eating and meetings. In some of the barracks, the officers’ communal room became the home to a Cortain. Fortunately for Marak, Cortain Koors chose to live in one of the other barracks, so the room became a place where Tagoro and he played Pimic, a game of war strategy which utilized small wooden pieces and a cloth that could be arranged to represent different types of terrain.

    Shouting and hollering greeted the two Squad Leaders as they opened the door to the barracks. A cloud of bocco smoke drifted out the door and Marak inhaled the scent deeply. Bocco was fairly expensive in the Situ region, so most of the men only smoked occasionally and only when they were off duty. All heads turned towards the door as they entered and the shouting stopped. As soon as the door closed the clamor resumed and most of the men smiled or waved at the Squad Leaders. Tagoro was the only other Squad Leader who adopted Marak’s fashion of dealing with his men. In other barracks, the men would have quietly resumed talking and avoided the gaze of their Squad Leader, but the men in this barrack were allowed to behave as they wished inside the building. They were also willing to die for their Squad Leader.

    Marak treated his men with respect and they returned that respect many times over. He also did not believe in ending a soldier’s training when the man was certified as having gained the necessary level of competence. Marak always chose the man best at a particular skill to continue training the rest of his squad and his men were eager to continue learning. Marak was also open to styles and techniques that were unconventional and scoffed at by the rest of the Army. As a result, Tagoro and Marak usually led their men away from the compound for training, further isolating the two squads from the rest of the troops. The only officer who seemed inclined to appreciate this was Lord Marshal Grefon, the highest officer in the Situ Army. Because of the successes these two squads had obtained, the Lord Marshal had been using them to guard caravans which carried expensive shipments. The caravans usually went to the nearest city, but on occasion they went as far as the capital city and these trips presented more opportunities to learn different styles of fighting and obtain unconventional weapons.

    Merchants in the large cities often told tales of far away places and strange battles which most experienced fighting men laughed at. Marak, instead, listened intently, trying to pick out the fact from fiction. Some of these merchants even carried samples of the foreign weapons and Marak squandered his pay on obtaining samples of these weapons. Some turned out to be useless or worthless for the type of fighting in Khadora, but others, like the Omunga Star, turned out to be deadly weapons when used by an experienced hand.

    Marak and Tagoro marched through the barrack and into their communal room. Each grabbed a chair and Marak quickly peeled off his clan wristbands and removed his boots. He untied his green scarf and opened the tie strings of his shirt. He chuckled as he peered at Tagoro and his friend threw him a questioning glance.

    “What’s so funny?” Tagoro asked.

    “You,” laughed Marak. “Actually, both of us. After six years in this Army, I still find these uniforms more a costume than a uniform. Light yellow pants and shirts with green boots and scarves. I hope if we ever have to fight in the forest, it will be in Autumn. The wide embroidered belt and headbands are okay, but I would love to toss the wristbands away forever. I can’t stand the way they pull at my shirt when I overextend my thrust. I wonder who designed these uniforms, anyway?”

    “The uniforms are the same throughout the country,” remarked Tagoro. “Only the clan colors and clan symbol are different. Why can’t you ever accept things the way they are?”

    “Maybe,” speculated Marak, “Khadorans accept too much, just because that is the way things have always been. I don’t like uniforms which hinder my movements and I certainly don’t like wearing one that makes me feel like I glow in the dark.”

    “Battles are never fought in the dark,” laughed Tagoro, “and if your enemy is close enough to see the lituk tree on your belt or headband, he should be dead already. You worry about the strangest things. Let’s have a game of Pimic. Maybe today will be the day I whip your yellow pants off you.”

    “Not today,” Marak said, shaking his head. “I need to find a way to talk with my mother. I can not continue seeing her treated the way she is. It is not right and I will not stand for it any longer.”

    “That line of thinking will only bring you and her more hardships,” worried Tagoro. “How is it that your mother is a slave? You have never talked about it and if you are going to die soon because of your foolish notions, I would like to know.”

    “I don’t plan on dying any time soon,” declared Marak. Pulling his headband off, Marak looked quizzically at his friend. “It is not really a secret,” he commented. “I just don’t like dwelling on it. Lord Ridak caught my mother in a lie and forced her into slavery.”

    “But why would your mother ever lie?” questioned Tagoro.

    “She lied to save my father’s life,” stated Marak. “She lived on one of Lord Ridak’s smaller estates. She did not have the estate Lord’s permission to marry when she bore me, but the Lord did not press the matter. My father was not from the estate and used to visit every week or so. Everyone on the estate knew it, but nobody said anything. Under Lord Ridak’s law, my father could be killed because the marriage was not sanctioned, but my mother’s service was good and the Lord was a kindly man, so nothing was said.”

    “Something must have been said or she would not be a slave,” prompted Tagoro.

    “When I was six,” Marak sighed, “Lord Ridak paid an unannounced visit to the estate. During his tour he noticed my mother and I and took an interest in her. He inquired where her husband was and she panicked. Lord Ridak had a reputation for invoking cruel justice even where it accomplished nothing, so she told him my father had died. Unfortunately, his interest was more than just passing and he posed the same question to the estate Lord, who told the truth. Lord Ridak immediately claimed her as a slave.”

    “Did he kill your father, too?” asked Tagoro.

    “No,” answered Marak. “He waited for the next scheduled visit of my father, but my father must have been warned off because he did not show. Instead, Lord Ridak had the estate Lord executed for not enforcing his law and returned here with my mother and me.”

    The room lapsed into silence and eventually Marak rose and went to his own room.