Glacier & Lights

Chapter 5

It was getting dark when two riders heading for the city of Mulaye finally stopped before city gates. Both of them were wearing headscarves to protect them from sun when traveling over desert. They were sitting at the backs of two shebrons.

One of the riders got down and knocked the massive wooden gate with his club. He got angry muttering as answer. Then the gate started surprisingly quietly opening.

"Couldn't you idiots arrived when I wasn't sleeping?" Gatekeeper's voice was angry, but he was told to let in any Oumaji soldiers no matter what, so he couldn't comply too hard for it could look like he is questioning the orders. When they got through gate into the city, he poked at another man, sleeping while standing and leaning on the nearest wall. "Get up, you have someone to guide into barracks." He said towards the sleeping guy. The leaning man started to wake up slowly. It took a several minutes until he seemed awake. "Ok ok, come with me you two," he said. Then he spotted the first rider is still mounted and added: "Get down. Don't be riding in the city if not necessary."
They let him take them through the somber dark city, seeing only walls of sand buildings and no inhabitants. After ten minutes they stopped in front of great rectangular building, which must surely  been the barracks. The soldier showed them stables, where they left their shebrons and then guided them to their rooms to get down their backpacks. Then the soldier told them how to get on the courtyard and dissapeared.

On the courtyard, there was a big campfire and about sixty soldiers sitting around on wooden chocks. Over the campfire, there was big barrel, warming up pendulous on wooden frame high above the fire. Both soldier were sure what's inside the barrel, Oulu! Oulu was a drink from the few that could be found in dessert. It tasted incredibly good when served warm.

The first rider set off to the campfire and the other one followed him. One of the soldiers sitting around the campfire stoop up when he spotted them and said in their direction: "Hello guys, feel free to join us, we have seats for you," and he pointed on space between two of the soldiers with his left hand. It was the master of the campfire. His work was to care for the fire, Oulu and friendly atmosphere around the campfire. His privilege for all the duties was to make a final toast.

When the incoming riders sat down, the campfire master handed them both a wooden cup of smoking Oulu. "So where are you coming from?" asked one of the soldiers sitting around the campfire. "From one irrelevant village near the western border of our empire." answered one from the recently arrived two riders. "Western you say? That means complete mobilization. There's about five thousands of soldiers in this city right now and one archer I met on my way here said that he was send to Kelim to join the army that is gathering there." spoken that soldier again followed by a moment of silence. Then another soldier reacted on what he said: "I have heard that we are going start a war with Yadakk." This message left a wave of various emotions in every soldier present. War with Yadakk would be very unprofitable. "Such a crap, we can't defeat Yadakk." said one. "We should be fighting Kickoo, you know they are blocking the river of Linokami. Yadakk has done nothing wrong to us." "They are helping our economy, fighting them is a bad idea." They kept speaking one over another until the campfire master threw a hug log into the fire and about hundred small sparks flew into the air.

Everyone was looking at him now. "Desert can be deadly, but for those who open they heart to accept it and understand it it can be warm home like any other place." he said slowly with a calming voice.

Suddenly there was silence around the campfire. Everyone was clear that this was stopping sentence. When the  topic discussed around the campfire was making the soldiers be too noisy or unfriendly to each other, it was the campfire master's duty to spot it and then stop it. Some just directly said "stop", others used stopping sentences. It was usually a sentence from the official stopping sentence list chosen so it is as unrelated with the current topic as possible, but it could be any sentence unrelated enough to make everyone know.