Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad free right now.

Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or Apple Podcasts. The wheels thudded and groaned as they rolled over the lumpy ground.

To the naked eye, the vast expanses of the step

looked flat, sometimes perfectly so.

But experienced travelers knew that the seemingly

empty land contained rises and falls, dead ground, bumps, dry stream beds, and all sorts of impediments

that could trip up an unsuspecting rider or wagon.

These wagons, the string of them heading south toward the cities lining the edge of the sea,

avoided those pitfalls.

Their drivers and the bands of horsemen circling the caravan like a swarm of stinging

insects knew the way.

They had taken it many times before.

The line of captives trailing the last wagon, their hands bound with leather thongs and

tied to a long rope. The circling horsemen looked more like birds of prey or perhaps

carrying eaters. A dozen men and women had all been taken in a lightning fast raid on their village.

The horsemen had surrounded their huts before dawn,

sneaking through the thin forest to the open ground,

then closed the net just like hunters

taking an unwary herd of grazers. The villagers never had a chance.

Those who tried to resist died where they stood. Everything of value they owned,

including their stores of grain and their livestock had ended up in the wagons

to which they were now connected. Like their grain and their livestock, these people now had

...