The nobles of Harad sent a delegation to treat with the new Gondorian king.  More accurately, they sent seven delegations, as the nobles of each region suddenly found themselves cut off from allies and in desperate need of surrender.  Our own king—the one who first unified warring tribes some centuries ago—has been dead since before my birth.  Sauron kept each region isolated—the north from the south, the east from the west.  Only within his Grand Army did all Haradrim work as one. 

So, now, a double handful of Haradric nobles is cloistered in Minas Tirith’s Citadel, deep in talks with the king and his advisers.  From the snatches of news I overhear, I gather that the Gondorians are becoming quite frustrated with our so-called leaders.  The Haradrim—they say—are jealous and puffed-up, proud without cause.  They beg the king’s mercy and then waste his time by bickering among themselves over petty grievances.  The king is very near to losing all patience.  I hope that when he does, he will deign to hear the supplications of the common people, rather than simply dismissing us all from the city.

I wonder, in a vague, uncaring sort of way, if Harad will even continue as a unified nation.  For too long, we were united only by Sauron.  He was our lord and he was our god, and without his direction we are lost.  Yes, his commands were cruel, but so long as our lives revolved around pleasing him, our lives had purpose and value of a sort.  Who, now, will buy my grain and goat fleece, if trade routes to the south and east are allowed to fall to ruin?  Who will enforce the laws—any laws—and protect us from jealous neighbors?

I glance at the men and women around me, noting again the demarcations of caste and clan.  Across the way stand the aged fathers of southern mûmakil riders, distinctive with their coal-black skin and bare chests.  Not far from them, stand a group of men from the region that borders the far east, their faces heavily decorated with piercings and tattoos.  Are these also my people?  Have we enough common culture to justify our continued unity?  What will become of us if we do not?

One of the older southern men pulls away from his fellows, his shoulders hunched under his ragged vest.  The others take no notice of him as he steps away and turns to press his forehead against the wall, but I watch him.  I watch as his thin frame begins to tremble silently.  I see his shoulders rise and fall.

I think of Ayman.

And in that moment, I know, suddenly and irrevocably, that this stranger and I are kinsmen.

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Caravans to our land always start out as tiny wisps of dust against the eastern horizon.  Our well is one of the last sources of water in the northern Haradwaith, so we’ve played host to more than a few over the years, coming in from the village four leagues distant and making for Gondor or Ephel Dúath.  When I spotted such a wisp one evening as I returned from the fold with two pails of goat milk in my hands, I thought nothing of it.  More often than not, such a cloud merely suggests a distant gust of wind whipping up the sand half a league away.  Father, though, looked up from his tools with a frown.  Leaving the loose fencepost for another day, he stood slowly and shielded his eyes from the stinging wind to get a better look.

What he saw did not please him.  For a moment, he fingered the sword at his belt—Dakheel’s sword.  Father had worn it every day since his confrontation with the man two weeks before.  It was an unspoken threat.  Now, he began to fumble with his belt, tugging free the ties that held the scabbard in place.  “Kalima!” he called out.  My sister tottered into view, hauling a pail of milk with both hands.  “Run to the house and tell your mother we’ve company for dinner.  We’ll need food for at least six men.  No, leave the milk.  It will keep.”  As she trotted off, Father turned and grasped my shoulder.  “Hakim, go quickly.  Dakheel is patching the roof of the storage barn.  Fetch him and hide him in the root cellar behind the barn.”

“What is it, Father?  Who’s coming?”

His face was grim.  “Slavers,” he said shortly, “On their way to the Dark Lord’s lands.”  He fixed me with a hard look.  “You know what they’ll do if they find the Gondorian.”

I nodded and took off at a run, leaving my buckets with Kali’s.  As I rounded the house, the distant smudge on the horizon drew closer.  I could see, now, that Father was right; the disturbance was caused by a handful of men on camelback leading a long line of men stumbling on foot behind the pack animals.  I reached the barn as Dakheel was climbing down a ladder on the far side with a few broken clay tiles tucked under his arm.  I swallowed hard.  From this angle, the side of the barn and the tilt of the roof might have hidden him from sight.  Might.

“Come on,” I all but yelled, “Quick!”

His sharp eyes caught mine.  “What is the matter?”

“Slavers,” I gasped, panting, “Passing through.  They’ll make us quarter them for the night—they’ve done it before.”

His head came up.  “These men have slaves with them now?”

“Yes, come on, they’ll be here any minute and if they see you . . .”

His jaw tightened.  For just a moment, I saw him freeze with indecision, his sharp eyes scanning the house, the approaching dust cloud, and even the barren wastes to the north.  Two weeks had been enough time for the bruises on his face to fade to just a few smudges of yellow.  The color stood out, now, against his half-shadowed visage. 

His eyes met mine.  “Lead the way.”

“The cellar.”  I trotted across the barnyard and cleared a few sacks away, revealing a door set into the earth.  “It runs under the foundation of the barn, but if you’re quiet, they shouldn’t know you’re here.”  The hinges were badly corroded, but together, Dakheel and I managed to wrench the door up.  It opened onto a series of rough stairs cut into the earth, leading down to a low, dusty room, empty except for a few bags of millet and a dwindling pile of yams.  A few rays of evening light illuminated the space, but I knew that once the door closed it would be all but pitch-black within.  Dakheel hesitated for just an instant more before bounding down the steps.  By now I could hear the hoof beats of approaching camels and donkeys.  I slammed the door shut and heard the latch catch.  I had to swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat; in my haste I’d forgotten to explain that the cellar couldn’t be opened from the inside.  I could only pray that Dakheel wouldn’t panic when he realized he was locked in and draw our new guests’ attention.

Pushing sweaty hair away from my eyes, I tried for a casual stroll as I rounded the barn.  The column was drawing near.  I could make out eight men on camels and perhaps two dozen chained slaves.  I would have known they were slaves even without the chains by the way they walked in a ragged line behind the pack animals, where they were sure to find filth and stink at every step.  In the small courtyard in front of our home, Mother waited, again in her black veils.  She clutched Kalima’s hand, having somehow convinced Kali’s rebellious hair to stay put beneath a head shawl.  Father had straightened his tunic and poured water over his face.  Dakheel’s sword was nowhere to be seen; our visitors would not take kindly to a farmer who bore arms in their presence.  He grabbed my arm as I approached.  “You are fourteen, Hakim,” he told me with a strange urgency, “You understand?  Fourteen!”

I blinked.  “Why lie about something like that?”

“Don’t ask questions now!  Just promise me you’ll tell them.”

I nodded reluctantly.  “I will tell them I’m fourteen.  If they ask.  Which would be strange.”

I had no more time, though, to wonder why it was so important that I pretend to be three years younger.  The rag-tag column was filing past the half-wall that marks the edge of our estate and Father was striding forward with a broad, if slightly fixed, smile on his face.

“Ho, there, friends,” he called out the customary greeting, “How fares the road?”

The leader of the company, a broad man in a headdress that fell to the middle of his back, trotted his camel forward and gave the usual response.  “Fair and winding as ever, but we would be glad of a hearth.”

Father gave a half-bow.  “Servants of the Eye are most welcome here.  Do me the honor of resting the night in my humble dwelling.”

The slaver waved his hand.  “You are most generous, good sir.”  As though my father had a choice; everyone knows what happens to families who refuse to quarter men in service to the Eye.  The formalized pleasantries over, the men were climbing down from their camels and brushing the dust out of their robes.  Their leader clapped my father on the shoulder with a brash laugh.  “Today’s road was long indeed.  I am called Rashid.  I do hope that wife of yours is a good cook!”

A muscle twitched in my father’s jaw, though his smile never wavered.  In our part of Harad, doubting the host’s abilities is tantamount to insult.  His voice was carefully restrained, though, as he replied.  “Azzam at your service.  Will you also require provisions for them?”  With his chin, he indicated the forlorn line of ragged men.

Rashid grinned, wide and careless.  “Nay, we’ve fodder enough for the stock.  Wouldn’t want to impose on your generous hospitality.”

“’Tis no trouble,” Father said woodenly, but I knew he was breathing a private sigh of relief that we would not have to further deplete our larders.  I stared at the slaves, many of them rail-thin and dressed in rags, and wondered what Rashid’s idea of ‘fodder’ might be.

“Come,” Rashid said, clapping my father on the back in what he clearly thought was a jovial manner, “I grow weary of the smell of camels and Tarks.  My men will see to settling them in the barn.  And we can see to food, eh?”

“Of course.  My son can show them in.”

I wasn’t eager to get any closer to Rashid’s men, but leading them down to the barn gave me an opportunity to study their captives more closely.  I’d seen slaves before, of course—there was a market in town with a small auction business, and we’d quartered men like Rashid before.  I’d never taken much notice, though.  Even now, my newfound interest was something I didn’t understand and didn’t want to examine too closely.

Under their sunburns and weeks’ worth of grime, the slaves were all pale-faced men like Dakheel.  I saw no silver eyes, but of the few gazes I glimpsed, most were a grayish shade of blue, which was just as shocking in its own right.  Most wore ragged versions of simple desert robes, but a handful sported the strange tunics and breeches that Dakheel favored, those these were far more torn and dirtied.  These men, it seemed to me, were also the most bloodied and battered of the woebegotten lot.

One of Rashid’s men pulled a bit of waybread from a pouch at his hip, took a bite, and immediately spat it back out with a grimace.  “It’s gone maggoty already,” he complained to one of his fellows.

“Toss it in with the Tarks’ fodder,” the other responded in a disinterested tone, “And have done with your bellyaching.”

It seemed one of my questions, at least, had been answered.

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Supper that night was an uncomfortable affair.  Rashid and five of his men crowded into our small dining area, filling it with raucous voices and the smell of unwashed travelers.  My mother’s goat stew, which had been so carefully simmering all day, had to be bulked up at the last moment with chunks of yam and the beans that were meant to be tomorrow’s meal.  We ate it over skillet bread and had to endure countless humorous anecdotes from the men about substandard cooking fed to them by peasants in one backwater or another.  By the end of the meal, Father had developed a persistent twitch in his left eye as he struggled to hold his peace.

Strangely, that tic began during one of the few moments that did not involve backhanded snipes at my mother’s hospitality.  Rather, the twitch first appeared when Rashid turned to me, gave me his trademark slap on the arm and said, “Well, here’s a fine young man!  Tell me, boy, are you looking to join the army in your time?”

I swallowed a mouthful of bread.  “I suppose . . .”

Father cleared his throat sharply.  “That will be a while off, yet.  My son is only fourteen; he is too young.”

Rashid’s eyebrows shot up.  “Fourteen?  Rarely have I seen such height in one so young!  You look to be a giant when you’re a man, it seems.”

I shrugged uncomfortably.

“Oh, well,” Rashid continued, giving my arm another borderline-painful smack, “I’m sure there will still be Tarks to slay when you’ve put on all those extra inches!”  To my relief, he turned back to my father.  “Now, my friend, tomorrow is a day for sacrifices, as I’m sure you know!  Tell me, does your family tribute a drink offering or a burnt offering?”

“Drink,” my father grunted.  It was a bit of an overstatement.  In actuality, we hadn’t offered tribute to the Eye since that disastrous encounter between my father and Dakheel.  Rashid needn’t know that, though.

“Of course, of course.  What say you if on the morrow we erect our pyre beside your sieve?”

“That would be lovely,” Mother interjected, her tone carrying a note of warning for Father.

“Yes,” he ground out, “Lovely.”

When finally the plates were clean, I tried to slip away with the excuse of evening chores, but Mother waylaid me with two more bowls of stew.  “They’ve left two men on watch in the barn,” she told me, in a quiet voice that suggested I ignored her at my own peril, “You will take these to them.”

I pitched my own voice low.  “What about—“

“Hakim,” she cut me off firmly, “Rashid’s men.  Deliver these and come straight back.”

So, there was nothing to do but pick my way down to the barn, trying not to think about the two dozen men eating nothing but rotting bread or the one below them who would be going without entirely.

When I slipped through the front door of the barn, it took the slavers a moment to notice me.  I opened my mouth to speak, but a quiet, pleading voice stopped me.

“Please, please malik, he only needs a bit more water.  He won’t last another day without it.”

“Shove your ‘please’s, you lazy Tark,” a slaver snapped, “You think when we get where we’re going that the orcs will give half a hump for your ‘please’?”

I pulled my head up and cleared my throat.  Any reply the slave might have made died on his lips.  I set my jaw and marched straight towards the slaver who’d spoken.  This one had an especially mean look about him.  A puckered scar, likely from a knife fight, slashed right across his eye and down towards his chin.  I looked him straight in his sightless, ruined eye, paused a moment, then handed him the bowl of stew.  “There is ample water,” I told him in Haradric, “Our well has never run dry.”

His face twitched, a brief spasm that was gone almost before it began.  The look could have been irritation at my impudence.  It could have been contempt.

It could have been self-loathing.

But, all he did was take the bowl with a curt nod.

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“I won’t!” Kalima all but wailed.  She pulled her arm from my grasp and beat her tiny fists against her pillow.  “I won’t, I won’t I won’t!  You can’t make me!”

“Come on, Kali!” I said, trying to be patient and failing miserably, “If you don’t put your scarf on, we’ll be late for Offering!”

“I’m not going!”  She buried her head in the pillow and her dark hair fell down to cover her face as effectively as any veil.  “You can go make the stupid offering with stupid Rashid.  I hate Offering!”

“Since when?” I nearly cried, trying to contain my exasperation.  Kali merely let out a wordless howl of temper. 

The hinges creaked on the heavy door behind me.  I spun, but anxiety turned to relief as the door swung open on my mother.  She was already dressed for the sacrifice in her flowing green gown and a translucent veil.  “What’s all this?”

I threw up my hands in defeat.  “She won’t put her headscarf on.  Says she’s not going to the Offering and I can’t make her.”

Slowly and deliberately, Mother closed the door.  She turned her imperious gaze on my sister’s diminutive form.  “Kalima, my child?  What’s all this about?”

Kali sat up and pushed her tangled hair back from her face.  I was surprised to see that her eyes were red-rimmed and brimming with tears.  Her mouth was set mulishly, though, and she spitted Mother with a glare I would never dare to copy.  “I’m not going.  I hate Offering.  It’s stupid and boring and Abba will yell again and he’ll hurt . . . people.”

For a moment, my mother stood stock still.  Then she sighed and lifted a hand to lower her veil.  Ghosting on silent footsteps, she made her way to Kalima’s pallet, sat down, and put an arm around her daughter.  Kali resisted for a moment, but then sank into her mother’s side with a loud sniff.  I studied my sandals.  Mother was so often brisk and detached—almost cold—that these moments of unexpected tenderness never ceased to surprise me.  She stroked Kali’s hair.  “What happened between your father and Dakheel was not your fault,” she told her quietly.

“It was,” Kali insisted urgently, but quietly, “If I hadn’t of given him that cup, Abba would’ve never wanted him to Offer it and—“

“Hush, child,” Mother cut her off softly, “There is no time.  Tell me, why do you think we’re having Offering today?”

Kalima screwed up her face with distaste.  “’The Great Eye is the source of all the bounty we possess,’” she recited woodenly, “’We please Him when we offer back a portion of—‘”

“No,” Mother said firmly, “We make an Offering today because the slavers are here, and if we do not they will go to the Dark Lord’s lands and tell him how disloyal Azzam the goat herder of the Haradwaith is.”

Kali stopped crying all at once.  Her eyes grew very wide.  “But if they knew about Dakheel . . .”

Mother pulled her close.  “You must be very brave, my daughter, and very clever.  They must not know that anything is different.  If they find out about the Gondorian . . .”

Kali wiped her eyes on her sleeve.  “I know, Mother.  They’d hurt him.”

“They’d hurt all of us,” Mother corrected, “But, Dakheel most of all.”

With another brave sniff, Kalima reached for her headscarf.

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Perfectly groomed and appropriately solemn, we gathered before the Offertory Sieve in the courtyard.  As promised, Rashid’s men constructed a small wooden pyre beside the sieve on which they laid a simple desert hare.  Instead of the usual cups of water, the four of us held jars of palm wine—a sacrifice that might seem more appropriate to our uncouth guests.  After saying the ritual words, we stepped forward one by one to pour out the wine while Rashid lit the pyre.  Soon, his offering was burning nicely, and ours was seeping into the ground.  The smell of wine mingled with that of roasting meat and made my mouth water.

“It’s a rather poor showing from us,” Rashid commented to my father as we watched the blaze grow, “But what can you do in these wastelands?  Now, a week ago we had a Tark to offer.  That was a true sacrifice.”

Kalima swallowed hard and stared at the ground.  “Don’t fret, child,” Rashid said to her in what he probably thought was a comforting tone, “He didn’t feel a thing.  It’s like slaughtering pigs, you see; the trick is to cut the throat right quick.”

Mother gripped Kali’s hand more tightly and shot Rashid a look that could have frozen the sun.

“Had to be done, at any rate,” he muttered, taking little note, “He was a bad seed, that one.  Disobedient.”

Mother cleared her throat sharply.  “Your offering is made.  I am sure its smoke will be pleasing to the Eye.  You must away, then.  Far be it from us to delay you from your master’s work.”

They had little choice, then, but to pack up their animals and set out towards the distant mountains.  Mother was able to escape back to the house with Kali, but Father and I were forced to walk with Rashid, putting on the same show of civility.  He thanked us for our hospitality ‘such as it was.’  “No matter, though,” the slaver added as he stretched languidly, “This is our last shipment north for a good while, I’d wager.  All money is in caravans to the south at the moment.”

Father arched an eyebrow.  “Is there less need in the Dark Lord’s lands?”

“No, no.  We’ll fulfill our obligations to the Great Eye, as is fitting.  It’s just that there is great demand for Tark laborers in Umbar in recent weeks.  You’ve heard, of course, about the storm?”

We hadn’t, so Rashid took great delight in educating us.

“’Twas scarcely a month ago.  They say a great storm rose on the bay—a mighty tempest, of the sort that might strike once in a generation.  It broke upon Umbar and sank nearly every ship in the harbor.  They’ve much need of material to rebuild, and of more Tarks, of course.  We shall take just a few days to deliver the last of the slaves promised to the Dark Lord, and then we make for Umbar to lend our aid.”

“How patriotic of you,” Father muttered, but Rashid did not hear; he had turned to settle some small dispute between his men and took no more notice of us.

One long hour later, they were gone at last.  In the bustle of their departure, I didn’t realize that only twenty-three slaves left in chains.  Nor did I take much notice when one of the men slipped father a copper piece and an apology for “the mess in the barn.”

It was only when the barn door opened on a limp and ragged form that I realized what he’d meant.

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It was nearly midday before the dust from their passage had disappeared into the distance and I dared approach the root cellar.  I bore with me a large gourd full to the brim with water; while it is a bit cooler in the cellar than under the sun, Dakheel had been more than half a day without water, and I knew he was the worse for it.  I hesitated with my hand on the cellar door, suddenly, inexplicably nervous.  How had the foreigner whiled away the long hours?  Did he fear we had locked him in a windowless prison only to hand him over to the slavers?

Slowly, chiding myself for my foolishness, I pried the door open, but did not descend the stairs.  The noonday sun cast flat bars of light at my feet, but left most of the cellar shrouded in sharp shadows.  “Dakheel?”  I called out, “It’s only me.”

Slowly, he stepped into the patch of bright sunlight at the base of the stairs.  He looked haggard and worn and somehow paler than ever.  He ascended the stairs with steps that dragged.  Wordlessly, I held out the drinking gourd.  He likewise accepted it without a word, but did not drink at first.  Instead, he brushed past me and strode out, past the clutter of the barnyard, to stop at the edge of the wastes.  He gazed out, squinting against the harsh light, over cracked red earth and scraggly trees and distant dunes, staring north, towards the jagged, black peaks.

I stepped to his side.  “Are you alright?”  I asked quietly.

For a moment, he didn’t respond.  “I could hear them,” he said at last, “through the floors.  Through the cracks where the foundation is splitting.  I could hear the cries . . . the pleas . . . the whip . . .”

There was nothing I could say to that.  I finally settled on “I’m sorry.”

His only response was to lift the gourd to his lips and take a long, slow drink.  When he finally lowered it, he met my gaze with hard eyes.  “Where is the body?”

I swallowed.  “In . . . in the barn.”

He handed me the half-full gourd and strode away.  I hastened to follow.

Already, flies were gathering on the slave’s corpse.  Kneeling beside the pitiful figure, Dakheel took no note of them.  With slow, deliberate movements, he straightened the dead man’s limbs, brushed the wild strands of hair and beard away from his face, tugged his torn clothes to better cover him.  “He’s still wearing his own gear.”  The detachment in Dakheel’s voice surprised me.  He turned back the collar of the man’s stained tunic, revealing a small device like a leafless tree embroidered in white thread.  “This was no miner.  He was an officer of Gondor, recently captured.  They must have been taking him to Mordor for questioning.”

Before I could think of a response, the barn door was flung open and my father entered with a handful of empty sacks thrown over his shoulder, muttering and cursing to himself.

“Lazy bastards, can’t even clean up their own mess . . .”

Dakheel’s back was to my father, so only I saw the way the Gondorian’s jaw clenched and his eyes flashed with anger.  In a moment, though, the look was gone, and I wondered if I’d imagined it.  “Malik,” he said with the same detached courtesy he always showed my father.  “Have you a shovel?  I would like to give this fellow a proper burial.”

Father nodded curtly.  “In the back corner.  Perform your rites, but stay a good distance from the well and leave no marker.”  He dropped a few empty millet sacks at Dakheel’s feet.  “You’ll need a shroud.”

I tore my eyes away from the lifeless face.  “I’ll go with you.”

“You have goats to tend,” Father said sternly, “Leave the Gondorian to his work.”

That evening as I gathered the goats, my gaze was drawn again and again to a lonely figure who stood out in the wastes, gazing west into the dying sun.

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  Reviews and concrit are much appreciated.