Travel from Gandaa to Tanalduhaan was littered with dozens of smaller settlements, either right on the bank of the Luzum’s delta or scattered on dryer land to the north. It felt sometimes as though you could walk too far without seeing another group of homes on a horizon. Legend had told of a great calamity on the river some time ago, the people annihilated and only a lucky few surviving. Now the riparians prospered. They multiplied and spread throughout the Luzum, at the delta on the coast most of all.

Garban had traveled far for a man born to a farmer. He had first made his way north, jumping at the chance to be part of a trading caravan from Kefakl to Zola and beyond to Rahal Ganyatihuta. He lived there for a year, growing accustomed to the Qet Savaq ways of dividing meals among genders, of dressing with feathers and hunting as they did. He was given the chance to go further north with a group of young warriors, adventurers in their own right, but made it only just into the lands of Iviahtihu before falling ill and having to be returned. Some time after he ventured back south to Zola. He waited for the next big chance of life to come along, making his food working the lands for wealthier families or tailoring cloth in the manners he had learned in the north.

When a big man on a shaggy, woolen horse came to the city, towing behind him a herd of the furry creatures, Garban took his chance to go to the far east. He ventured as far as Lasaridjana, Vaharidjana, and even made his way to the glittering lake on the shore of Konuponu. A world unlike any he’d ever seen before.

Garban had seen 47 dry seasons in his life, and thirteen of them were along the eastern lake’s shore. He did not stay in Konuponu, but that did become his favorite city of the far east. The longing for home eventually took him and he made his way back west. Slowly. Very slowly. Savoring each visit tk each town knowing it would be the last time he’d be this far from home.

But even when returning to Kefakl the man was restless. His father and mother had passed to the next world, one succumbed to illness and the other to old age. He remained unmarried but his estranged sister had been welcomed into the family of a strong warrior, one who offered protection to traders going west into the Kangaa. Garban was no fighter, and could not learn at this age, but he’d gained much skill in haggling and persuading, and took on a commanding role along with his sister's husband, Kuturenr.

Work was fruitful for Kuturenr. They were Hortens, Moraxl from east of the Kangaa delta, migrated here so long ago legends had been told of their clans movement to the west. Moraxl were everywhere on the Kangaa. If Garban knew his stories well, they had first come to the cities seeking refuge from the crises the Paroxl had used to plague the Hortens. Tanalduhaan itself had been founded by the Hortens Zivold Artevia and his Kangaa wife Artusiili, if Garban’s grandmother was to be believed.

As they trotted on their horses, they were two of twenty men hired to guard a small group of travelers, Garban and Kuturenr chatted about their lives, their pasts, Garban’s travels, and their views on the world.

“My brother,” Garban started after finishing the tale of how he hunted a great fish in the lake-side city of Boturomenji, “I realize whenever we talk of adventures and tales, stories of travel, we always talk of me. Forgive me for others have said I like hearing the sound of my own voice-“

Kuturenr laughed. “Sairiya says much the same of you. I love hearing your voice too, brother.”

Garban chuckled, “I was just going to say, with Dezmedetem’s blessing, that we never much talk of your stories. I know you have many, Sairiya has hinted as much. But whenever I ask my dear sister, she only tilts her head from side to side, wrinkles her nose at me, and says ‘what warriors do is warriors talk’ and then has me help her do work for the house.” He looked at his sisters husband, “tell me about your life Kuturenr. Tell me about your family.”

His horse gave a snort, shaking its head. They were walking on a well-worn path, marked by hundreds of horses over hundreds of years making the very same trek they made now. The river Luzum to their left they walked toward the sea, the Outer World. Cresting a hill Garban saw a small town hugging the river bank and a second beyond to the north, far more inland.

Pointing at the northern settlement, Kuturenr said, “Well to start I was raised up there, in the village of Shatalbuyuk, Sun’s Kiss. My mother worked the lands and my father did much the same. There was no chance of us leaving in any way as you did. My life was decided before it started. To live and die as a farmer of grain, as my mother had, and her mother before.”

Garban waited for him to keep talking but only the light sounds of horses' hooves padding the ground reached his ears. Kuturenr was looking at the village, face turned from Garban but the man felt Kuturenr’s emotion.

“My mother did not want that life for me,” he said after some time, breaking Garban from his trance. “She knew much of the world beyond, though she never said how. She knew of the towns around us, of the cities beyond, of the Kanga and the Hortens, the Keshkatan and the Shanak.”

He broke off again, looking at the mane of his horse. “She bought me a life. Me, her only son. She let me steal away with some traders one day, begging me to be free of the town and to find life in the work of a Paroxl. ‘I’m indebted to Anakinr for the rest of my life in the Lower World, but you dear boy, your life will shine with the power of the heavens should I let you take it.’”

“But your father?” Garban asked.

Kuturenr shook his head. “My father did not want me to go. He told me that I could not leave my family behind, the life they'd given me. Then one day he died. Just fell over in the fields working in the shade of the afternoon. I did not leave for some time after that, many seasons, but my mother was insistent that I do not die the way my father had, in the fields growing food to give to some far away city I could barely pronounce.

“What you’ve done is remarkable, Garban. No man living has ever traveled as you have, gone where you’ve gone, seen what you’ve seen. But I myself have seen more than many have dreamed as well. Maybe not as much as you have, but more than most.”

The two men rode in silence for a time, listening to the men around and behind them chatting of their own stories.

“Have you ever been back?”

Kuturenr sighed. “Once.” Garban waited but there was nothing else coming from the man.

“Where have you traveled since?”

“Many places!” Kuturenr almost shouted, ready to be rid of the old conversation. “It took some time for me to understand the ways of the world between cities, villages, people. As I’m sure you know, brother, the open land is fraught with danger. I once set out, one of my first excursions mind you, with a group of four others and we were set upon by two of the largest, strongest men you’ll ever see. I made it out alive with the head of the larger of the two men, but three of my friends did not.”

“A somber beginning to your new life,” Garban muttered.

“Deadly,” Kuturenr agreed, “very deadly the life we’ve chosen.”

From behind Garban, one of Kuturen’r comrades piped up. “Tell him of the Shantak we fought off last season.

Kuturenr’s eyebrows raised as he drew breath in through pursed lips, letting it out in a low whistle. “Now that is a tale. Shanak coming from the river like demons from the Outer World. We had camped for the evening, the sun had set at the mouth of the Luzum. Three boats silent as the still air had embarked on the shore unnoticed by us, demons crawling on the ground lured by our camp like moths to a flame. We did not even know they were around us until it was too late. We had the numbers, some thirty of us with good strong weapons made from copper of the far north, but still to be caught unawares in the evening with no light but the already set sun, your fire, and the twinkling stars above? Bah. Dangerous.

“They came at us like wild men, yipping at one another to frighten us, testing our resolve with a swing of their blades.”

Garban let out a puff of air in disbelief. “Bah, you cannot tell you were surrounded by the Shanak in the night and lived to tell of it. I knew of a man, Assalvr. He lived in some eastern district of Tanalduhaan. He, his sons, and his nephews were all slaughtered when the Shanak raided the city four or five seasons ago. A whole city to come to the defense! So many died.”

“I’m telling you Garban. The sky was dark and darkening, we were sitting by our fire, eating and laughing and drinking before we slept, and when I looked up eyes were looking at me from the darkness, shining like some beast from the southern lands.” He shook his head. “They have lost their humanity, Garban.” He turned his head so Garban could see the back of it. A thin pink-gray line made its way down and across the back of Kuturenr’s head and the back of his neck. He turned and lifted the robe around his left shoulder, showing three pink marks to Garban, marks that looked like they could have been either claw marks or one brand of a fire.

“They came at us with weapons we knew and others that we could only have seen on demons. They are quite formidable.”

“I hear they’ve set up homes on the far west of the Luzum, by the sea.” The man behind Garban and Kuturenr spoke up again, listening to their conversation. “Some huts or camps or something, I’ve never been, but I’ve heard of them! They are demons and they’ve come to stay!”

Garban looked at the man, Shahaari. “Were you there as well, the night of their attack on you?”

The man nodded. “So I was. If you believe me then I will tell you this: should a Shanak ever find you on your own, and you cannot run, end your misery before it begins.”

Kuturenr cut them all off. “Enough of this black talk. There is time enough for us to scare one another with tales of the demon-men.” He nodded his head forward. “We are here.” Garban realized they had reached the riverside village now. Skauten. Time to rest before night fell, they were to be gone in the morning. But all this talk of nighttime raiders born of demons and raised in the Outer World had him jumping at the shadows. When the sun set, it was all he could do to maintain his composure and eat with the other men as if nothing bothered him.

—————————————- Context: The Hortens and the Kangaa are intermingling. There are isolated Hortens and isolated Kangaa, as well as a growing acceptance of a mixture of the two cultures. In the future I hope to write a doc detailing how this affects the Hortens culture and the region. In addition, the emerging presence of the Sasnak continues, with meetings between the Sasnak and the native Luzumites growing increasingly hostile and wary. There are even rumors of permanent Sasnak settlements along the coast, but most likely these are just rumors.