There was a town called Altok. Altok was not a huge town, it was not a small town. It was the largest town in the immediate vicinity. A very long time ago, some people run into quite good luck when they settled on the land that would, eventually, become Altok.

The town called Altok was not vey far from the edge of the desert called the wastes, but it was as sharp a contrast as one could wish for. A lake and a passing river kept the landscape green and glittering. The low mountains made for an excellent wind break and quarry. The distance from Kzara made it a great place for caravans to rest and resupply before reaching Journey and the edge of the wastes.

Altok had only one major problem: it was quite close to Wasolan.

Wasolan had spent quite a long time gradually expanding up the river called the Altok River, in Altok. In Wasolan it was called the Northern River. By virtue of the area being largely empty, Wasolan had spread east up to the edge of the wastes and, broadly speaking, controlled quite a lot of land.

The trouble with being quite close to Wasolan was that Wasolan was a nation where the ownership of other people was encouraged. Slavers and raiders who had long ago left the wastes in search of greener pastures were commonly found along the road from Altok to Journey.

Not to mention the slave sellers, who travelled from Wasolan, through Journey, and north to Ovek and the Lord’s House. Or who travelled back from Ovek. The Lord’s House did not sell slaves.

Caravans headed from Kzara across the wastes were not much of a target for raiders and slavers. They knew the situation and came well prepared. But sometimes travellers, or more desperate merchants, might try their hand at the trip and make for easy pickings.

The problem had only escalated as fighting between Wasolan and Kzara edged dangerously close to an all-out war. In some cases, slavers from within Wasolan targeted caravans on their way east to Narmen, or on their way back.

Ryoko, who had spent much of her life in Altok, had once thought of herself as quite safe from the slavers and raiders on the edges of the wastes. Her family had always warned her not to take work crossing the wastes, but travelling along the edge wasn’t so dangerous.

By the time Ryoko was old enough to actually take work protecting caravans, the situation had all but inverted. Caravans came through Altok with bird-faced masks hanging on their camels, and passed through the wastes without issue. In the year and a half or so that Ryoko had been working as a caravan guard, she had killed more people outside the wastes that both of her parents put together.

The new sword her parents had bought her for her eighteenth birthday was decorated across the front of the basket hilt with thirteen notches and room for plenty more. It was a family tradition: once there was no room for more notches, it was time to retire. Both of Ryoko’s parents had retired before their hilts were filled.

Ryoko had thought she was doing quite well at all this guarding business. Not a single client had died under her watch. And she had crossed the wastes from Altok to Yakot eight times, seven of them without her parents to keep an eye on her.

In the month since her eighteenth birthday, things had gone rapidly downhill for Ryoko’s caravan guard career. Six of her clients and two of her fellow guards had died. She was chained to the back of a donkey, and her lovely sword was bouncing at the waist of a man with all too much confidence.

At least she could say she was better travelled, now. The slavers who had attacked her caravan had taken her south into Wasolan, to the Northern Slave Market in a town called Borirnna, where she had been sold to a slave trader for an insulting sixty-one dollars. From there, she had been dragged to a town called Rahtal, where the slave trader had picked up more slaves.

Neither of her parents had ever been to Wasolan, so at least that was something. Or so Ryoko had decided to think. It did make it easier to think of this as a form of travel, rather than consider the possible futures arrayed ahead of her.

After three weeks, the slave trader had turned north, headed first to Journey and then on to Ovek and no doubt the Lord’s House. If Ryoko let herself think about it, she at least hoped that someone would buy her in Ovek.

Ryoko, like anyone else in her business, had heard of slaver traders being raided and killed on the road between Journey and Satek. Compared to the number of slave traders that made the trip successfully, it seemed a useless piece of information.

But Ryoko wasn’t resigned to whatever her new life may end up being. A few experiments and more bruises indicated strongly that the best course of action would be to wait it out and hope someone would buy her in Satek.

Domestic slaves were common in Ovek, Ryoko had heard. She was fairly sure of her ability to escape from suck a situation, if she did end up there. The Lord’s House didn’t have domestic slaves, they had bigamy instead. Ryoko was less convinced of her ability to escape a big fam or mine. She thought she might manage it, though.

Fortunately, the issue didn’t come up.

The caravan had found a place to set up for the night. The slaves were eating their dried rations, the guards were making sure no one was getting any ideas. The merchants were watching their personal slaves erect their tent.

Ryoko was wondering if she could get her roll of lockpicks back from the guard who had confiscated them. He was right there, and he didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. She was thinking it wouldn’t help much, since this was a different guard to the one who had her sword.

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The guard who had Ryoko’s lockpicks in a pocket on his belt was thoroughly distracted from the duty of watching the slaves when something long and sharp suddenly protruded from his eye socket. The eye that had been there a moment earlier was now largely on the ground a little on the leg of Ryoko’s pants.

Much more convenient than a roll of lockpicks was a set of keys on the guard’s belt, used to chain all the slaves together at night. Much more useful that Ryoko’s sword, which was most of the way across the camp, was the guard’s own sword.

Doing her utmost to ignore all the shouting, swishing, whistling and screaming, Ryoko managed to lean far enough forward to grab the dead guard by the arm and drag him closer.

It was quite disappointing to discover that this guard didn’t actually have the keys to Ryoko’s cuffs or fetters. But the keys to the chains the connected her to her fellow prisoners were good enough for the moment.

Ryoko was aware enough of the shouting that she avoided having her hands cut off by a different guard who was all to dedicated to his job. She stabbed him in the gut with his colleague’s sword, and left him to bleed on the ground.

The caravan leader, a man called Precious Jewel, based on how his personal slaves addressed him, was very surprised when Ryoko let herself into his tent. One of the two guards outside had sprouted a sharp protrusion, and the other way nowhere to be seen, but quite certainly somewhere to be heard.

Precious Jewel assured Ryoko that she could have her freedom and as much of his vast wealth as she might like, provided she refrain from killing him. Ryoko didn’t bother haggling, she’d never been much good at it.

Happily, no one had further stolen Ryoko’s sword by the time she left the tent. The shouting had rather died down, so she waited until she was outside to unlock her manacles with the key Precious Jewel had had on his belt.

There were two guards and three personal slaves missing from the dead bodies littering the camp. Ryoko didn’t like that very much, but she could see no sign of them. And her sword was still here, at least.

A number of people in a variety of lightly-armoured outfits were in the process of trying to get the chains off the twenty-two remaining prisoners. The three remaining personal slaves weren’t chained, but they weren’t leaving either.

Ryoko stopped a woman who looked about her own age, wearing a full-length dress, numerous metal plates and a wide, straw hat. ‘You might want this,’ Ryoko said, and offered her the key.

The young woman smiled really very prettily, and took the key. ‘Thank you very much.’ And she hurried away to get everyone unlocked.

Ryoko gat back to retrieving her sword.

Two unreasonably tall women were standing not so far away, scrutinising the tent. The bigger of the two was saying it would make for some quite lovely wall hangings. The taller of the two was saying it would make for some very nice clothes for all those people in Haven who still didn’t have enough.

The bigger woman was frowning.

‘Are you from Haven?’ Ryoko asked, feeling very like a small child again.

‘No,’ said the bigger woman. ‘We’re not. It’s not the Haven Crawlers, is it?’

The taller woman smiled. ‘It could be.’

The bigger woman’s eyes widened. ‘It could not.’

Ryoko had been through Haven with the caravans she’d escorted across the desert. It had seemed like a nice enough place, though quite small and apparently quite poor. There had been very little food available. But that was why people went through Altok and Journey.

‘Do you want to go to Haven?’ asked the taller of the two women.

‘She could want to become a bandit,’ said the bigger woman.

‘Do you want to go back to Altok?’ asked the taller woman.

‘She could be from Kzara or Wasolan, you don’t know,’ said the bigger woman.

‘Her sword is from Altok,’ said the taller woman.

‘We just watched her steal it from that guy,’ said the bigger woman.

‘He stole it from me first,’ Ryoko said, feeling even more like a child trying to get another child in trouble. ‘It doesn’t count as stealing if it was mine first.’

The tall woman waved between Ryoko and the big woman. ‘You see, she’s from Altok. Where do people from Altok usually want to go?’

The bigger woman rolled her eyes. ‘Original sword owner, what’s your name?’

‘Ryoko,’ said Ryoko.

‘Nice to meet you Ryoko, I’m Jules,’ said Jules. ‘We’ve made the completely arbitrary decision to rescue you. What would you like to do with this opportunity?’

‘Not completely arbitrary,’ said the taller woman. ‘We need to come this way occasionally and you never do it on your own.’ Then she looked at Ryoko. ‘People call me Tengu.’

Ryoko frowned. She’d seen Tengu before. People in Haven liked to point her out. Considering that all of the caravans Ryoko had worked in had had replicas of Tengu’s mask hanging from their animals, it was fair that anyone who knew her would point her out.

Ryoko had not expected Tengu to be this tall.

‘Oh,’ said Ryoko, eventually. ‘The Tengu who cleared out the wastes?’

Jules rolled her eyes.

‘People give me far too much credit,’ Tengu said.

‘So you are from Haven?’

Jules sighed.

‘Some of us are from Haven,’ Tengu said. ‘Jules is not. Her and her Sand Crawlers keep slavers from coming out of Ovek and the Lord’s House into the wastes.’

Ryoko looked Jules up and down, there was a lot to look at. She could believe it. ‘Oh, that’s um… good of you.’

Jules rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘Yes, thank you, whatever, you can take the tent back to Haven. It’s fine. I don’t need wall decorations, I’ve already got your face everywhere.’ Jules stamped away.

That pretty, young woman came over and offered Ryoko the key. ‘Everyone’s out,’ she said.

‘How many are we taking?’ Tengu asked, looking at the rest of the prisoners, milling about.

‘Two of them want to go with Jules, five of them want to go to Altok, the rest are coming with us,’ the young woman smiled.

‘Hello,’ Ryoko said. ‘I’m Ryoko.’ She definitely sounded like a child that time. She held out her hand.

‘Ora.’ The young woman gave her hand a cursory shake, then curtseyed just a little. ‘Are you coming with us? Going with Jules? Going back home? What can we do for you, Ryoko?’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Ryoko choked.

Ora smiled.