The chariot rolled and bumped over the uneven ground.

Its wheels squealed and thudded, spokes blurred as they turned and crushed the long stocks

of grass underneath.

The pair of horses slowed, breathing hard as the hill got steeper near the top, but the

driver cracked the reins and pushed them onward.

When the ground leveled out, the horses picked up the pace and the vehicle hurtled toward

the village's timber wall, which enclosed the motley collection of grass-roofed huts

and the plumes of smoke waiting on top of the hill.

The second man in the chariot didn't wait for it to come to a complete stop.

He leapt out of the back, landing with a nimbleness board of long practice and swaggered

through the settlement's narrow gate.

The sunlight, thin here in the foot hills with the snow-capped peaks visible in the distance,

glinted off his wealth of metal accoutrements.

The gold loops hanging from his ears, the bronze crescent blade of the axi-held in his hands,

and the two daggers in his belt, both of them with the delicate bronze figures and the

shapes of horses projecting from their huts.

This village, his stride and bearing said, belonged to him.

Another man, his face smudged with dirt, walked from one of the grass-roofed huts to meet

the swaggering sheathed him.

He bowed his head and got a small nod in return, and then began to speak.

The minor spoke of Issa, telling the chieftain how rich the veins were here and how much

they had already pulled from the nearby mines.

...