Carnifex

25/4/468 AC, Matera, south of the Nicobar Straits

Parameswara and al Naquib rested on a fallen log under a deep, dark jungle canopy. Both men were soaked with sweat. For all that, they weren't so wet as the gangs of loincloth-clad slaves struggling under the lashes wielded by al Naquib's company of Ikhwan. A road paralleled the route of the column, about five kilometers to the east.

The slaves' burdens were conexes, or things that looked remarkably like conexes, painted in a mottled pattern and rolling on smooth, even logs cut down from the jungle. Moving the logs left behind as the conexes progressed was nearly all the rest the slaves got from their back- and heart-breaking labor of pulling on the ropes that moved the metal boxes forward.

"How much further?" the pirate king asked.

Al Naquib pulled out a small device, not much larger than a cell phone, and consulted it. "About three hundred kilometers, by the Global Locating System," the Ikhwan answered. "Call it forty or fifty days . . . if the slaves last through it."

"Do you think I should go ahead and move out to arrange relief crews?" the pirate king asked.

Al Naquib thought upon that. After a few moments reflection, he answered, "That, yes. But not only for us. The people coming from the north, on the other side of the Straits, will need help as much as we will. But I am also concerned that you not leave a power vacuum behind you."

I love this Arab, Parameswara rejoiced. He understands my problems without my so much as voicing a complaint.