Chapter 1
They didn’t stay long in Riverside, and Kors was sincerely glad about this. He himself didn’t understand why he was so afraid of this place. It was somehow fatal for him. Here he attended the council of commanders before the attack on the Fort, and then he was an indisputable authority for his black warriors, he was one of them. Surrounded by his companions, he proudly sat in a place of honor at the head of the table, covered with a maroon velvet tablecloth, which Valentine had obtained from no one knew where that day. And he also sat at this table later, but the tablecloth on the table was crumpled and dirty. He sat alone in an empty house, his shoulders slumped and his posture of the chosen master forgotten – an outcast with a painted face, with a body covered with patterns of unclean ones, humiliated and turned into a slave.
Kors diligently drove these painful memories away from him. On that terrible night in this abandoned, decaying village, the Demon showed him his strength, but, in the end, Kors remained alive, and nothing seemed to have changed. Or so it seemed. But when, by the will of fate, he found himself in this cursed place, deeply hidden memories and emotions treacherously began to surface, spinning into a whirlpool of heavy thoughts and not giving rest. And Kors was well aware of the fact that he couldn’t calmly enter that room with a vile rat swarming in the corner.
The humans, the black warriors of Zagpeace and Tol, rode a few marches ahead as always, while Kors still commanded the unclean ones and rode with them. They were not particularly in a hurry, but they didn’t stop overnight either, resting no more than a couple of hours in a row. His captain, Parky, kept order in a long line of carts and numerous carts of various colors, loaded to the top with various goods. Periodically, he drove forward to Kors, and reported to his commander that everything was in order, or, on the contrary, said: “…one of the carts had a broken wheel, and they were a little behind, but they would fix it soon.”
“That’s because you didn’t properly distribute the load inside, and stuffed too much without thinking about the correct distribution of weight and pressure on the wheels,” Kors explained in an instructive manner, distracting himself from his gloomy thoughts with a conversation.
He looked at the bright black dots tattooed under the eyes of the unclean one, and involuntarily repeated to himself: “The last warning, the last warning… and how many warnings have I myself received during this time, so presumptuously casting them aside? They didn’t make tattoos under my eyes, but it looks like I got in trouble more than you, Ark.”
And Parky, it seemed, heard him, but didn’t say anything, and, having reported, returned back to the carts.
Next to Kors, but slightly behind him, rode Adrian. He was dressed in his warrior’s clothes, and his rather grown hair, with the help of some fixatives of the unclean ones, was beautifully set up in a high comb. Kors didn’t forbid him this, and from time to time turned to him, giving some simple instructions in the style of “give and bring”, using Adrian as his servant and slave. Adrian carried out everything.
“Adrian,” Kors told him, “I haven’t changed my mind, and I don’t take my words back. I still agree to let you go to the Unclean Limit when we return to the Black City. To release you to your wife and children. You are an unclean half-blood, and your father, as far as I understand, is a rich and noble true black. You have the blood of the chosen race, do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” Adrian replied indifferently, “but there is no turning back for me.”
