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"Yub." Says Irunmouf, "Proppa stuff!"

Irunmouf claps.

← Part One: The Steppe

余 The Sindh Party 讯

. . .heaving, panting; dragging heavy heels across the rough steppe. Need Water. He needed water. . .Rest. . .he needed rest. . .

The steppe was unforgiving. As mean and as cruel as it had been since the dawn of time, when djinns and hairy-men and Gods roamed the plain with absolute Dominion. But one day, they disappeared- and in their place came the Children of the Steppe. Those peoples who mounted the steppe as if it were an untamed horse, grabbed it by the hair and lulled it into subservience.

. . .Hungry. . .Food. . .He was hungry. . .Why. . .why did he subject himself to this?

Each step pained him- his feet seemed more blister than foot. But what was he to do? Stop now and he’ll be felled by hunger and thirst, and his corpse picked clean by the wanton primitivism of buzzards and vultures. Continue and he may die of exhaustion - but he may also survive.

. . .Continue. . .

His mind was on survival; he imagined himself as a warrior against nature, as the Steppe-folk were when their kin had taken to the desolation. He looked up. There upon the dancing horizon he thought he saw a caravan.

. . .My damned mind. . .playing tricks. . .

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The mirage was unbroken. He rubbed his eyes again; and again, and again, and again, and a final time, but the mirage was unwaning. His heart skipped, his heart leapt; he broke out into a skip, into a sprint, he ran towards it; quicker, quicker - his feet weren’t so painful now. . .

He was greeted by Ala-Adinn Sindh, Chief of the Sindh Clan. They were hospitable enough, and they promised to take him as far west as they were going. On that day, Shenru thanked whichever God was taking care of him that say.

Irunmouf sharpens his cleaver, "Tik for WAAAGH boyz!"

♫

余 The Azghari Steppe 讯

Compare it to Distor, and the Great Steppe was as if a mere speck of dust. It was worth less yet more; barren yet exuberant; a vast expanse, yet it possessed within it the cruelty to reserve an isolated human to the gripping forlorn tendrils of lonesomeness. From Distor, there upon that bitter land, he marched - disenfranchised by the steppe of even the most primitive of human pleasantries. This was his walk of shame (any misdeeds that could have condemned him to this fate seemed to escape him however). . .or was it? He had forgotten. He was thirsty. He was hungry. He couldn’t think straight. Was that water? Was that a durian tree? I can even smell it. Am I walking in circles?

His name was Shenru: a name given to him by his young, poverty-stricken mother who claims - even in his infancy - his eyes wondered in deep, scholarly thought. And though chances are this was mere hearsay to stir up the smooth minds of dull villagers, it wasn’t too far from the truth - and it is for this reason he gained his name at; “Shenru” - meaning ‘in-depth.’ His mother died shortly after - evil spirits had possessed her to jump from a cliff, so they say.

By then, Shenru could walk, but he couldn’t remember. All trace of his mother had slipped away from him as he grew. He lived with an uncle, and drudged through live like any other would - until the day of his nineteenth. It was upon that day that he grasped the Bull of Life by the horns and mellowed it; and then he began to tame it.

With an unbroken will he toiled the land until his hands were calloused, sore and smeared with blood. He worked night and day so that his joints ached. Upon the floor he slept, as not to waste much needed capital on a bedroll. Rice, or noodles, and pak-choi broth was the only hot meal of the day until he had traded the poundage of a healthy man for coin. It was with this coin, he bought silkworms - this was his break.

Shenru’s work did not cease there. He tended to the ‘worms as if they were children of his own - although he had conceived none himself. When he was not feeding them mulberry leaves, he was growing it; and this cycle continued until he had seen them through to a satisfying plumpness. And when they had grown so fat that they could not move, the magic was to happen thence: it was the worm’s turn to work, to spin night and day until a fleecy white cocoon had enveloped it’s squirming verdant body; and upon hatching, the cocoon would be collected, refined, dyed and spun into scarves, garments and clothes from which to turn a coin!

And turn a coin he did. In fact, his living was so comfortable that he afforded to move to the heart of Distor, within one of the great cities of the realm. But his fortune had to one day come to an end, and it did. On his thirtieth.

A blight had killed his worms. Not one survived. He tried maintaining himself for a few months, but his attempts were futile. He considered doing very bad things; had those spirits that had taken his mother only now turned their sights upon him? It was likely, he thought. . .but he would not surrender to them. No! He would fight them until they took him to his death bed. With that thought in mind, he gathered his belongings. With his last coin he bought some dried carp and took to the steppe - the great journey west.

He looked to his map: Atlas.