Written sort of adjacent to Inspector Caracal’s prompt. 

This is set in a earlier era of Reiassan than Rin/Girey and definitely earlier than Edally, although really we see almost no markings of era in the story.  

🐐

They had been walking for four days.

At first, Gianci had preferred the walking.  It had to be better than sitting in a prison tent waiting to die.  It had to be better than being dirty and sweaty, fighting on the front lines because he’d pissed off the wrong person in High Command.  It had to be better than dying with a Callenni spear through his gut, the way he’d watched Tierri die, the way he’d thought he was going down when that tiny dark soldier had hit him with something in the gut.

Turns out, he’d been hit with a blunt stick they used for play-fights.  They were counting coup.  He wasn’t sure if that was worse than dying or not: they’d been playing. He’d gone into this mess fully expecting to kill as many Calleni as he could or die trying, fighting over a stretch of land his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had all fought over and somehow they were still fighting over.  His sons might have fought over it – except that now he was a prisoner of the Calleni, and didn’t imagine he’d be having a chance for sons any time soon.

After four days of walking north, Gianci’s feet hurt, his calves hurt, his knees hurt, his thighs hurt, and his hips hurt.  His stomach, improbably, hurt, and so did his shoulders.  And still they were walking, chained in coffles of nine, up hills and back down them, around hills and then up another one.

When they stopped for the night in a little town like every other town they’d been through, they were unchained to put together their own tents and bedrolls.  The first night, someone had tried to run.  The Calleni hadn’t needed to do anything; he’d slipped and fallen off the edge of a cliff.

After that, nobody tried to run.  If they made their escape, it woudl have to be on goat-back, and it would have to be slow and stealthy, not fast and violent.  Gianci had plans, but now was not the time, not in these little towns where everyone knew everyone, where any blonde man was going to stick out like a sore thumb.

“Don’t bother with that.”  The little warrior grabbed his arm.  Gianci turned to look down at the short man – all the Calleni were short, but this one was practically child-size.  “Come on.”

He tugged on the heavy collar.  He wasn’t chained to anyone right now, but the collar, wood and iron and the source of probably half of his aches, was still there.  “Can’t just walk off.”  They were speaking Arran, the trade lingua between their two nations.  From the sounds of the little warrior and from the trouble Gianci was having with the tenses, neither of them were experts.

“You’re not part of the coffle anymore.  Come.  This way.”

The warrior might be half Gianci’s size, but he had weapons and Gianci did not.  He went where he was told peaceably.  Once they were there, once they were out of sight, then he could get –

The warrior turned around and grabbed both his wrists in a move faster than he could see.  “The thing about you Bitrani is, you’re slow.  Big.  Yeah.  But slow.  So listen. Put the thought of escape out of your head. I don’t want to keep you in chains for the next twenty years.”

“Who are you to be doing anything to me?  There’s a lieutenant in charge of the prisoners.”

“I’m taking my war-prize.”  The little warrior smiled brightly up at Gianci.  “You.  I captured you.  And now you’re mine.”