The Nameless Accounts: The Prison Camps (16)
The akor’mar occupation of Sun-On-The-Lake was not a certain thing by any means. On the outside, it appeared as if Sun-On-The-Lake had always been an akor’mar city, for all the wuyon’mari you saw out in the open. The akor’mari sung and celebrated and began to build up rudimentary dwellings for themselves -- and for their prisoners – as if it was nothing more exciting than carving out a new market cavern back in Vuzsdin.
Yet in the alleyways and abandoned corners of the city, there was still danger. We may have occupied the main roads and the Palace, but the rest was free-for-all. At night we were safe enough; we could see in the dark better than the wuyon’mari, and they knew it. During the day, though, where the sun stung our eyes, they came out to harass us. There were ambushes and raids and assassinations. Daily we were warned by our officers about places still held by the wuyon’mari, where they had taken pains to dig out the cobblestones and plant pitfalls or other kinds of traps. The buddy system from my old Seeker days was reinstated, though just as it had been back then, it wasn't terribly effective in Sun-On-The-Lake.
We instead turned to trying to control those wuyon’mari we had within reach. I believe about half of Sun-On-The-Lake’s citizens had made it into our prison camps; a good many had simply been slain, but there were also those who had escaped, rumored to be living in the caldera’s ring of mountains. In the camps, the wuyon’mari were branded like livestock and then turned loose in a walled-off part of the broken city, to die as they wanted. Sometimes this population would be raided for the taking of slaves or other pleasures, but many akor’mari believed the place disease-ridden and left it alone. Soldiers were not allowed near it unless they were scheduled for guard duty, but I came anyway.
I don't remember quite why -- only that watching the families in there was somehow more tolerable than being among my fellows. Maybe they reminded me of my brothers, as we had been in the Great Den, when we were impoverished and only relied on each other.
I remember watching a wuyon’mar father going hungry so his two children could eat; they were always short of food in the camp. I also remember listening to an older woman singing softly to a group of young wuyon’mari to help them sleep. It was some song about Lunaria and their faith, if I recall. Singing was forbidden in the new akor’mar city, yet she did it anyway, defiant as my own mother had once been defiant. I also remember a wuyon’mar who had been badly injured in the taking of the city and had fallen ill, and even though it was certain he was not going to make it, the others cared for him as if he were. It reminded me of our lost brother, of setting the table for him even though we knew he was long dead.
None of it made sense: not logical or tactical sense. Down there was a bunch of wasted resources, creatures that were only good for slaves or for sport. Yet, it made emotional sense to me, and I felt “fuller” for it.
Ironically, it wasn't a conscious decision on my part to become more involved with the goings-on in the camps in a more concrete way than just watching. I was being watched myself.
A few weeks into the occupation, one of the officers from another unit came to speak with my own supervisor. He was the overseer of one of the prison camps, and he wanted to do a trade of soldiers, as he had plans for me (and, as he claimed, his own soldiers deserved a position on the front lines instead of being kept back to watch dying wuyon’mari). My officer unexpectedly brushed aside the slight to his troops and agreed, and I received a new uniform and badge the following day to indicate my new affiliation.
Sus'syri and I said goodbye that night. It was harder on me than on her, I think, as I had no idea when I would see her again, and I found myself quite attached. She reassured me by telling me she was certain the gods had great plans for me and that I would be alright.
I told her I’d rather the gods just left me alone if it meant I could be in peace. She said, and I remember her words clearly, “That is just why you were chosen.”
