The sun overhead was scorching, baking the edges of the prairie grass until they curled up.
The penal labor shed was built in a low-lying area on the leeward slope, completely devoid of ventilation from any side.
Years of accumulated sheep dung fermented here, mixing with the pungent stench of horse urine and the sour reek of unwashed, sweat-soaked bodies.
It was unbearable for anyone.
Yet, more than a dozen emaciated, bare-chested herdsman slaves were squeezed under the mud-filled shed, panting heavily.
A hoarse roar suddenly erupted from the center of the crowd.
Two scrawny men rolled in a puddle of dirty water, desperately strangling each other.
Between them lay a small, half-eaten piece of flatbread, green and fuzzy with mold.
The older of the two slaves clamped his teeth onto the other man's ear, viciously tearing off a bloody chunk of flesh.
The other screamed in agony, but his grip did not loosen in the slightest; he clenched his fists and smashed them relentlessly into the older slave's eye socket.
Although a dozen or so people were gathered around, no one stepped forward to pull them apart.
Everyone was staring fixedly at the moldy, grayish-green bread in the muddy water, refusing to even blink.
As soon as one of these two breathed his last, the rest would swarm in to snatch this life-saving ration.
Amur was pushed to the very edge of the crowd by a taller man.
He looked down at the flatbread softening in the muddy water, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed a mouthful of dry, gritty saliva.
He had no strength to fight for it.
A half-inch old cut on his palm was still oozing yellow pus. Baked by the vicious sun, the curled edges of his split flesh sent a piercing, bone-deep agony through him.
He took a half-step back, hiding his body in the shadow of the wooden fence, avoiding contact with his hunger-crazed peers.
Across two wooden fences and a stretch of smooth green grass, a whole fat sheep was roasting on an iron grate outside the grand tent of the Right Division princes.
Sizzling sheep fat dripped onto the scalding charcoal, sending up a rich, savory aroma of meat.
As the wind shifted, this fragrance drifted straight into the labor shed, provoking endless sounds of swallowing from the men inside.
Several chieftains of the Right Division, draped in gold and silver, sat cross-legged on thick wool felt.
The crisp, coquettish laughter of women rang out consecutively from the royal tent.
One chieftain held a transparent glass cup brought back from the Great Qian dynasty.
The walls of the cup were clear and pristine, reflecting a dazzling halo in the sunlight.
A servant dedicated to attending them held a black pottery jug with its mud seal broken open, carefully pouring strong Qian liquor into the bottom of the cup.
"This liquor brewed by the southerners truly lives up to its name."
The heavily bearded nobleman raised the glass and downed it in one gulp.
"It's so strong! The burn as it goes down the throat is far superior to the brews we make on the prairie."
Another nobleman grabbed a roasted hind leg of sheep, tearing into it with huge bites, his mouth smeared with golden grease.
He swallowed the chunk of meat, reached out to pull a beautiful concubine close, and thrust his large hand directly into the collar of her leather robe, kneading vigorously.
"Drinking this Great Qian liquor requires Great Qian glass vessels. What we're really drinking is the prestige of our royal tent. Just the transport fees to haul these few fragile cups back would be enough to buy those two hundred slaves under your command."
Unbridled, raucous laughter instantly erupted inside and outside the grand tent.
In front of the ring of tents closely surrounding the royal tent, dozens of Helian cavalrymen in leather armor were gathered around a fire, gnawing on air-dried sheep ribs.
They took huge bites out of the rock-hard dried meat strips, and when thirsty, they would pick up wooden bowls filled with sour mare's milk and drink deeply.
A cavalryman with a fierce, fleshy face casually tossed a gnawed-clean sheep bone behind him.
Two large black dogs kept in the camp bared their teeth and lunged forward, fighting madly over it.
The dog's jaws had barely crushed the sheep bone before spitting out a half-chewed fragment with a few specks of meat still clinging to it.
Just then, a slave child barely as tall as a horse's leg crawled out from behind a tent, lying flat in the grass, his eyes shining as he stared at the tiny meat scraps dropped by the black dog's mouth.
But he didn't dare stand up at all; he could only crawl forward through the mud on his hands and knees.
Taking advantage of the moment the black dog turned to chase another bone, he quickly reached out his filthy little hand, snatched the meat scraps from the mud, and recklessly shoved them into his mouth, swallowing them desperately along with the dirt and sand.
The black dog seemed to notice the child and immediately began barking furiously.
The child was instantly terrified, shrinking into a trembling ball.
The cavalryman who threw the bone pointed at the child, slapping his thigh in roaring laughter, treating the whole scene as mere entertainment to relieve the boredom of the camp.
Bayan walked out from the direction of the storehouse, his hands clasped behind his back.
He was wearing a newly made lambskin robe, and his leather boots were capped with dazzling bright copper tips.
Ever since he used some tricks to slip that chipped glass cup into the side tent to win the favor of the mistress, he, as a caravan overseer, had secured a firm foothold in the royal court. Now, he had landed the lucrative position of transporting sundries for the various tribes.
Bayan walked to the front of the labor shed and immediately spotted the two slaves still fighting to the death in the muddy puddle. The fat on his face twitched violently.
"Blind fools!"
Bayan kicked over a slave who was blocking his way.
"Go pull these filthy pieces of trash apart! If they keep fighting and die in the shed, I'll have to waste manpower digging holes to bury these useless wretches. What rotten luck!"
He pulled out a fine cotton handkerchief to cover his nose and stepped back, afraid that the foul stench of the labor shed would taint his new leather garments.
Several guards holding thick wooden clubs rushed into the shed and rained a flurry of vicious blows down upon the backs of the two men in the mud.
They beat the men until they were rolling on the ground howling in pain, and only then did they kick the small, mud-trampled piece of flatbread outside the fence.
"What are you all staring at! Waiting to die?! Get to work, all of you!"
Bayan stood on the dirt slope, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Amur quickly turned around, gritting his teeth as he pushed the two-wheeled wooden cart piled high with wool bales in front of him.
Barefoot, he stepped into a muddy pit full of stones, pressing his entire shoulder against the rear edge of the wooden cart and pushing forward with all his might.
But the wheels were stuck in the mud pit, refusing to budge an inch.
The wound on Amur's palm was repeatedly rubbed against the rough wooden edge.
The cut, which had just formed a thin scab, split wide open. Crimson blood dripped down his wrist, and the pain made both his legs tremble violently.
But he didn't dare stop for even a second. If he stopped, he would very likely die.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Uliji walking toward them, holding a barbed horsewhip upside down.
Uliji had just been whipped by a superior lord, and now he was taking all his pent-up fury out on the lowly slaves.
Whoever pushed their cart half a step too slow would receive a merciless lash from his whip.
Amur clamped his mouth shut, letting out a muffled, low growl from his throat.
He hurriedly forced every ounce of his strength into his right shoulder. The wooden wheel let out a creak and finally managed to roll forward half a turn.
Bayan walked to the front of the convoy and shouted at Uliji, who was mounted on horseback.
"This batch of goods is precious. The Great Khan's tent has given direct orders. If anything goes wrong, both of our heads will roll for it."
Uliji cracked his barbed horsewhip in the air with an explosive snap, glaring viciously at the penal laborers behind him.
"You don't need to teach me how to do my job. If these two-legged beasts dare to slow down the journey, I'll flay them alive to pad my saddle."
The supplies piled on the wooden carts were exceptionally heavy.
At the bottom lay solid blocks of rock salt, piled high with freshly sheared rolls of wool, and hidden deep inside were strong liquors and premium air-dried meat transported from Great Qian.
Tucked right in the middle of the salt blocks were two wooden boxes wrapped tightly in coarse linen.
Those were the smuggled goods Bayan had secretly brought along as a personal favor for the mistress of the right division's side tent in the outer camp.
Inside were top-grade silks from Great Qian.
With this fully loaded cart of goods, a single lump of salt or a bolt of silk would be enough to trade for two or three young, strong herding slaves on the steppe.
According to the camp rules of the Helian people, as long as the goods remained intact, it did not matter how many cart-pushing slaves died of exhaustion; their bodies would simply be dragged to the back mountain and thrown into the wolf dens.
The lives of these men were worth less than the dried mud clinging to the wooden cartwheels.
The caravan, consisting of ten large carts in total, formed a long line at the dirt intersection leading out of the camp.
Amur pushed his cart, stopping at the second position in line, gasping heavily for air.
Up ahead, a few armed guards leaned in the shade, drinking water and chatting, making no effort to avoid being heard by the nearby herding slaves who supposedly could not understand the Great Qian language.
It is really bizarre. The royal court camp withdrew two thousand of our right division's elite cavalry, sending them all to guard the North Slope horse farm. Who exactly are they guarding against?
A lean man with a scimitar slung across his hip spat and complained aloud.
Another guard hung his water skin back on the side of his saddle and chimed in with a lowered voice.
There are signs of massive troop movements over at Great Qian's Zhenbei Pass. The Great Khan is guarding against those southerners going crazy and sneaking out to ambush our breeding herds.
He reached out and patted his horse's rump heavily.
If the main forces had not been entirely drawn away, our caravan heading to Black Water Trench for the trade would not have been assigned a mere forty cavalrymen as escorts.
The lean man grabbed his spear from the ground and struck it forcefully against the earth twice.
Forty men escorting ten large carts, and we even have to travel by night to Black Water Trench. That old dog Bayan is practically driving us brothers to our deaths just to save on transport costs.
The guard who had spoken first hiked his scabbard higher on his belt.
We will set out as soon as it gets dark and the heat dissipates. In this weather, even the warhorses cannot handle traveling during the day.
We will hurry while the night is cool. Once we deliver the goods tomorrow morning, I am going to get a good sleep.
Amur kept his head down, pressing against the rough wool bales.
He pretended to be panting from sheer exhaustion, but his ears caught every single word of the Great Qian language spoken by these guards, committing it all to memory.
Heading to Black Water Trench.
Ten large carts filled with high-value goods.
Escorted by only forty cavalrymen.
And they had to travel through the night.
He turned his head to glance at his companions behind him, who were still shoving and cursing at each other, and then looked ahead at Uliji, who was mounting his warhorse with a riding crop in hand.
Once they reached Black Water Trench and unloaded the goods, this batch of slaves, riddled with old injuries, would never be granted the right to return to the royal court. Their only fate would be to be left in the outer camp to work to death or simply thrown off a cliff.
Amur hid his sand-covered right hand behind his back, using his body to block the line of sight of the guards behind him.
His left hand swiftly slipped into his tattered lapel.
The piece of broken glass he had scavenged from the rubbish pit rested against his burning chest.
Its edges were extremely sharp, having long since sliced a thin, bleeding line into his flesh.
Amur pinched a corner of the glass shard and dragged it around to the position of his belt at his back.
He crossed his hands behind his back, pressing them together.
A loop of coarse hemp rope, meant to prevent escape, bound him there.
Amur wedged the glass shard tightly into the gap of the rope. Slowly applying pressure with his wrists, he began to rub it back and forth in small, vertical motions.
The sharp edge severed the hemp rope little by little.
A few circling vultures flew overhead, letting out a long string of piercing, mournful cries.
The sun on the horizon slowly dipped to the west, casting vast, dark red shadows across the steppe and bathing the entire royal court camp in a blood-red glow.
A riding crop tore through the air, snapping with a sharp crack against the shafts of the first cart.
The caravan was ready to depart.
At that very moment, the thickest knot of rope on Amur's wrists finally snapped its very last hemp thread.
