I didn't even know how many moons had passed. All I did was load the stones on that baleful catapult, and watched, as many cities burned, like what they did to mine. I had lost count of the days I had continued to toil under the warmongering Centaurs and the bands of various Human armies that came with them. For each city we besieged, swathes of lives on the Centaur’s side were lost, but new slaves were put in chains to be put to work like what had happened to me.

We had once partaken in the largest siege I had ever seen. Beforehand, there were thousands of Centaurs and Humans in a valley, who erected a city of tents and mound-like buildings being erected in just three days. All of the slaves were required to watch a grand procession from the leader of the horde they called the “Khatun”. I and the rest of the slaves of the tribe of our masters were in charge of serving the largest gathering of Centaurs I had ever seen. There were countless slaves like me milling about, serving milk, soup, pungent liquor, dumplings, and various kinds of meat on lacquered trays to Centaurs of various tribes; many of them were dressed in the finest clothes that I never knew that a barbaric people like them can wear. Their personal servants were also dressed in colorful furs, and they were the ones who had ordered us about.

On the final day before the siege itself, I was one of the slaves who helped roll the longest carpet I had ever seen in my life. The velvet carpet of intricate embroidery had stretched from the edge of the camp to a wooden platform before the palace made out of canvas and walls of earth, structured like a decorated hill.

One Centaur, dressed in blue furs with multicolored string tapering on his cape, was holding a sceptre of blue ivory, decorated with feathers and teeth, shaped like a skeletal hand. He spoke, with a voice I could somehow understand despite the language he had spoken, no doubt translated by his magic:

“Tribes of Jiongnuei! Kneel before your Khatun Ahemarai, Matriarch of Clan Jionghuun, Heroine of the Eastern Wind, and she who will lead us to victory!”

All of the Centaurs had sat and prostrated themselves as the overwhelming symphony of lutes, flutes, and drums started to echo throughout the camp. Even the Centaur who calls himself “Tzamurbeg”, the leader of the tribe who had enslaved me, had deferred to the one who was coming.

I glimpsed the one who the Centaurs call their “Khatun”. The ground rumbled as the largest Centaur I had ever seen led a procession of equally large female Centaurs, who wielded scimitars and polearms longer than I am, armed with the finest scaled armor. Her grand blue dress covered her dragon-like body, and her blonde hair was covered by an ornate diadem of gold, gems, and fur.

She turned towards the crowd of Centaurs and gave a speech in their tongue. What I heard afterward was the crowd chanting her title and name.

The day after, the Centaurs faced a mighty army of armored men and women that covered the horizon, blocking the Centaur’s passage to the city I only had heard about from my relatives, Triun-Gehya, the City of Three Forts. We were at an elevated position where we could see the army in front of the unusually low walls of the city that was surrounded by three thick towering keeps on their respective hills, with the men on the concentric battlements already letting loose arrows and magical projectiles. I loaded the stones on the catapult as the officer in charge of our catapult ordered us to hit the closest of the three keeps in a volley that bounced off its glowing stone walls. Although I doubted that we would nick a single brick off their walls, I simply followed the order to load more stones. A shower of arrows from the keep had killed the slaves next to me, and I was whipped from freezing at the sight.

Below was a mass of Human soldiers fighting each other. As a response to the Centaur invasion, the city had levied a massive formation outside of their gates that met with the Centaur’s own infantry, the enslaved Human soldiers who were far less armored than them. The three keeps kept unleashing arrows against the infantry with their impossible range, as the Centaurs loosed volleys of arrows at the enemy formations and those behind the city walls.

The Centaurs had also sent another batch of slave soldiers to the other gates past the small valley adjacent to the city, while the bulk of the Centaurs themselves were nowhere to be found aside from a few bands. Soon, the skies were lit with magical projectiles reacting to the arcane protections in the air.

We spend the entire day loosing volley after volley to the keep, with minimal damage dealt. The next couple of days, more slave soldiers had come to do the same thing, with most of them perishing after each day, and the Centaurs nowhere to be found. Are they leaving us alone to do the bulk of the work? Days had turned into weeks as the stalemate continued, and it seemed like the Centaurs summoned slave soldiers from thin air to die in the rain of arrows and magic.

On the fiftieth day, the battle ended. When the three keeps sitting on their hills were running out of arrows and magic, and the enemy soldiers decided to retreat behind the low walls with their dwindling numbers, the horde of Centaurs had made their grand charge from the unguarded eastern fields of the city, led by the Khatun whose booming voice had halted the flight of arrows Clouds of dust and the silhouettes of the Centaurs were all I can see from the assault, and past midday, the city became theirs.

We pulled the catapults towards the city, and around me was the morbid field of corpses of those enslaved like me. Their lives were spent like how a nobleman spends coin, flagrantly and carelessly. We had entered the city, and rivers of blood pooled in the crevasses between stone tiles and the gutters of the streets. We were summoned to one of the main streets, now lined up with people surrounded by the Centaurs in a familiar line.

“Tie them.”

I froze at the sound of that order. The Centaur who ordered me kicked me with one of his hooves for refusing to listen. He raised the rope as a threat, and I didn’t need to understand his insults to know that I had to follow that order lest I would join them. I tied each resident of the city, forcing them to kneel and let me tie their arms and legs behind them. For some people, I had to hit them, even if I didn’t want to. The other slaves had to do the same thing until they lay prone in a line along the street, and the Centaurs trampled upon them like what they did to my neighbors back in my hometown.

Before I realized it, I was numb to the sights of slaughter and screams of war. Most of all, somewhere along the march of the horde, I had lost what I once was: a naive child in a frontier town, who knew nothing of war and strife.

In the following days after the siege, the Centaurs who occupied the city had contracted a disease that led their orifices to leak blood and induce incontinence until they died. The shamans tried to cure then, but I still have to cart or pull the corpses of Centaurs to the outskirts of the city and letting them rot in the open sky. They were whispers of despair, that human sacrifices will be required to appease the gods in order to cure this curse as not even the shamans could cure them, and us slaves were unaffected by the disease. This convinced me that the city had somehow cursed them with this disease.

I saw the slaves that I knew being dragged to the altars and being dissected in front of an earthen effigy of the Earth God Kheer, and I did my best not to draw the Centaur’s attention. Then, I heard the Centaurs wail and cry in pain, and I saw their leader being dragged by her bodyguard. She died of the same disease that afflicted many Centaurs, and with the loss of their leader, the Centaurs had started to fight with each other, losing all sense of unity for reasons beyond my knowledge. I did not care for them, but the slaves like me were forced to fight against each other on the orders of their masters, while I hid in a stable along with the other slaves. However, the Centaurs from the tribe that enslaved me dragged me and the slaves out of the stables as havoc prevailed over the city. They had given me a single weapon: a farming scythe with its blade straightened by reforging, and we fought our way out of the city, along with the Centaurs who decided to escape the quarantine and formed a new horde on the retreat.

For weeks after that, the horde I am part of had stayed in a fort on a hill, where many of the Centaurs had erected yurts and earthen buildings within spacious compounds of magically raised dirt walls. The exterior walls are especially flat and possess ramps for the Centaurs to patrol on, with taller wooden palisades that act as their battlements. Me and the rest of the slaves had been tasked to gather firewood and hunt for game for them to eat. However, the longer we stayed here, the fewer resources we could gather. The sparse forests all around us were effectively gone; only stumps and loose twigs were left. There were no animals left to hunt either. Even a slave like me knows that our supplies were running out, and even the quivers of the Centaurs grew emptier.

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In my passive observations, I had understood the peculiarities of Centaur society; especially for their constant need for slaves. Slaves like me are essential in their society because there are many things Centaurs have difficulty doing due to the way their bodies are shaped, such as the changing of their horseshoes. Us slaves can also be disposable foot soldiers as the Centaurs galloped around the enemy. Despite the disease back in that city not affecting us, which gives them an excuse to slaughter us, they didn’t.

Somehow, I had gained the trust of the Centaurs of the tribe who invaded my hometown by being an obedient slave, and by far the longest living one during their endless march. Or it might be because I fought with them in our escape from the city. I had understood a few words in their barbaric tongue, out of necessity, by simply listening to what they meant when they scolded me for specific mistakes.

I heard from whispers and rumors that the Centaur hordes were losing, and the prophecies of their chieftains’ soothsayers say that to achieve victory, the Centaurs must halt their advance for the duration of the winter moons. Despite the knowledge I had gained and the barest amount of trust they had given me, I could not figure out a way to escape.

For weeks the horde I am part of had stayed in a fort on a hill, where many of the Centaurs had erected yurts and earthen buildings within spacious compounds of magically raised dirt walls. The exterior walls are especially flat and possess ramps for the Centaurs to patrol on, with taller wooden palisades that act as their battlements. Me and the rest of the slaves had been tasked to gather firewood and hunt for game for them to eat. However, the longer we stayed here, the fewer resources we could gather. The sparse forests all around us were effectively gone; only stumps and loose twigs were left. There were no animals left to hunt either.

Today was especially cold. The nights grew longer and the days grew shorter as we stayed here. However, there was no snow yet. I saw one of the scouting Centaurs return to the settlement and gallop directly to the fort where the leader of the horde resided, Tzamurbeg–no, his son, “Tzhanlaan” if I remembered correctly, was the new leader of the tribe.

I did not see it myself, but I heard that Tzamurbeg had died of sickness a week ago, and they left their body under the open sky for the vultures to feast upon. The Centaurs believe that his soul was claimed by the God of the Skies, but I hope that his soul scatters into oblivion. I hope that the scraps of his damned soul be taken by the winds.

Soon, I heard the criers announcing the news as I was changing the horseshoes of a Centaur shaman: that we shall besiege the nearby city soon for another victory, and that we will link up with our allied Centaur hordes along the way. The Centaur that I was serving murmured that this order contradicted the prophecies, and the rest of the leaders within the encampment had shared the same concerns.

I saw them trotting towards the fort themselves in protest, but then the leader himself burst out of the fort and galloped towards the dissidents in great speed, with his flowing green-blue fur cape behind him, fluttering akin to a bluejay’s flight. He was a head taller than them, flaunting his status unflinchingly even as the Centaurs he confronted had their hands on their scabbards.

“...Problem…my order?” The Centaur, who seems to be “Tzhanlaan”, seemed to be asking them why does he question his order; at least, from the three words I can parse from their language.

“...wait for winter? We will lose the gods' favor!” The Centaur shaman whom I just replaced his horseshoe protested.

Before he could say another word, Tzhanlaan decapitated him. His head fell, and it lifelessly rolled towards me, making me freeze. I didn’t move in the hopes that I won't be the next target of that Centaur. The corpse of the Centaur shaman started to bleed when it thunked on the ground.

“...then sacrifice your blood and guts to Kheer.” Tzhanlaan spat. He yelled, seemingly looking for anyone to challenge him. The entire encampment fell silent at the shock of a shaman being slain, and he took that as a no.

“We gallop!”

Later, we were on the march again. I and the rest of the slaves were behind the Centaurs, who trotted ahead of us. At some point, our band met with the rest of the allied horde, marching to the city, its walls increasingly visible. As we marched, we saw the moat that surrounded the city, and the irrigated fields around it had already been harvested. There were no people beyond the walls. A camp was set behind a forest, far beyond the theorized range of the defenders. Tents and quick earthworks were set up to deter would-be attackers.

Volleys of arrows and magic rained upon us, and the arcane barrier of the shamans protected us from it. The Centaurs let loose a volley of their own, as we set up the catapults. After I loaded a stone ball on the catapult, it threw the stone, as a part of the volley from our artillery, which bounced off the walls harmlessly.

I felt something heavy, and it had caused me to instinctively retreat a couple of steps back. Without warning or any external force, the five catapults exploded into splinters, impaling the slaves I was with. I did not have the luxury of time to wonder what had caused it. I was prodded with the blunt end of the spear by a Centaur from the tribe that captured me, and I was ordered to take the field along with the remaining slaves. With my war scythe, I was forced to march towards the wedge of foot soldiers that were directly marching towards the gate, after the bridge was destroyed by one of the catapults and an earthen bridge was conjured for us to cross on.

Now, I felt like I was an ant among ants within the formation of conscripted slaves in front of a towering gatehouse. Like me, their hands were shaking too, despite the grip on their weapons. The sweat on their faces flowed like waterfalls even in the cold air. I thank the gods that I was not one of the unfortunates in front of the gate. The arrows, stones, and boiling water pouring from the gatehouse’s holes were already killing many of us.

The gate opened, and we were greeted by the longest spears I had ever seen in my life. Suddenly, I remembered my father used to be one of the soldiers who had to hold these long spears. The pikes had already impaled many slave soldiers in front of me. I tried to run, but I was already sandwiched between the other slaves with weapons.

Too many had died in our push, and our formation started to buckle. I tried to move out of the stampede, but the crowd’s flow had caused me to fall down the moat. I swam like I never swam before in muddy waters, and I miraculously climbed my way out. In the chaos of battle, I saw the bare farmland give birth to earthen humanoid shapes that had decimated charging Centaurs and crushed infantry underfoot. Golems, no doubt created by some magic spell.

I ran despite the arrows whizzing past me. I ran despite the golems trying to kill me. I ran even as some of the Centaurs saw me running away from the battle. No doubt they would punish me for attempted desertion. When I arrived at where I came from, the Centaurs that had stayed in the rear were ambushed by knights riding gigantic green beetles. The Centaurs were gored by the beetles’ horns, and many of the Centaurs had started to desert. Us slaves were left behind in the chaos of battle, and I now knew this was my chance to escape from it all. I can finally go home, at last.

I hid under a Centaur’s corpse as I saw one of the beetle-riding knights approaching. I know that even if I was forced to serve the Centaur horde, the knights would not spare me simply because I am the enemy. I became the enemy the moment I held a weapon and set foot on a battlefield.

I kept quiet. I pressed my body to the ground in the hopes of making myself smaller. I can only see the beetle’s legs and the voices of the knights. I hope that they would not overturn this body and discover me inside. I forced myself to become calm, stopping myself from breathing too audibly.

When I decided to come out of hiding, it was already night. The sun had sunken into the edge of the plane of the world. I looked around, making sure that there was no one else around me. There was no torchlight or movement of shadows. Nevertheless, each step I took was with the effort of staying silent.

I saw the siege camp ruined. Corpses of Centaurs were everywhere, among the burnt tents, destroyed earthworks, and fallen braziers. I did not want to waste time in this place before the corpses could awaken into undead.

I still know the general direction of where I had come from, ever since I was kidnapped and forced to go along with the horde. The horde of Centaurs had swept west to east, and I knew my hometown is the westernmost settlement of the kingdom.

I stared at the night sky as I walked west. The twin moons are starting to resemble one grey sphere among the multicolored stars and the floating islands, which were now slowly covered by shadowed clouds. I heard from the stories of travelers that one can navigate using the stars and the shadows cast by the floating islands during the night, but that knowledge was beyond me.

The only thing that I can do is walk, no matter how long it might take. It might take me many moons. It might take me many ages. But I will get there.

Snow began to fall from the sky.