She is beautiful. Her skin is pale. Her cheeks are large and puffy, somewhat littered with marks of acne left from her youth. Her nose is angular, pointing somewhat upwards, like her jawline, which, combined with its width, gives her a masculine look. Her lips aren't very well defined. He knows every single detail of their curves. Every single crease. Her eyebrows are perfectly curved above her eyes. ''Her eyes.'' Her eyes are like magnets. They make her look young and naive, yet also old and worn. Her eyes are playful, yet wise and calm. One can look at them forever. One can't look at them forever. In her eyes are a glint of superiority, one that makes you feel unworthy. Makes you unable to keep looking in her eyes. He is grateful for her love. Her body is thick, strong, masculine. She's almost as tall as he is, maybe slightly taller, even. She is his mother. She is his teacher, mentor. She is his lover. [i]''Kiss me, then give birth to me.''[/i]

Her head is stuck on a flagpole, severed at the neck. Her hair is torn apart, and at parts, with her scalp. Her cheeks, once a reflector of light, are now battered to a pulp. One of her eyes is bashed inside. Her lips are split apart. Her body lies at the base of the flagpole, the hands and feet he had once lovingly kissed cut off and burnt. The townsfolk dare not approach her. Even in death, she is too much for them. The men who have done this have blinded themselves, out of sheer shame. Korkud could feel her single eye guide him throughout his escape from the city. Perched atop a hill, she is all-seeing. She is dead. [i]''She is dead.''[/i] He learned that a group of loyal followers buried her at the mountains. He ordered his men to build a shrine there. Before construction could begin, he decided against it. ''No shrine can live up to her glory,'' he had said.

[i]''Darya.''[/i] He woke up, and wiped his eyes to clear his vision. He had fallen asleep inside his tent, sitting on his chair. [i]''Never again,''[/i] he thought to himself. [i]''Never again.''[/i] He did not like falling asleep. He did not like sleep. [i]''Peace is for the dead. Peace kills men.''[/i] Looking at the large clepsydra on the table, he realized that it had only been about five hours. He had been awake for three days. [i]''Fair enough.''[/i] He could feel some dust on his tongue. Tooth enamel. His bruxism was getting worse. He wanted to spit it out, but it could give a clue to his men about the fact that he was now awake. His sword was put next to his chair. All three pistols were on the table in front of him, next to a bunch of papers. He took a taste of the powder in the pistols. It was somewhat sweet and numbing. It wasn't changed. The pillows he had put in front of his tent's entrance were undisturbed. Nobody had entered. It was still a mistake. His miquelet and matchlock muskets were still where he had last left them. The match wrapped around the matchlock's stock was still the same. He grabbed his sword by its scabbard and holstered it as he walked out of his tent. The two guards he had assigned to tent duty were still up. [i]''Good.''[/i]

He walked out of the tent, and made a gesture for the surprised and somewhat scared pages to stay put, at ease. The sun was rising, and the people of the 'fortress' were waking up. After fifteen years' effort, he had managed to turn the mountain ranges into a series of fortresses. It was not easy, given there were no designated engineers in his retinue, and the mountain people had never had the need for such a thing. This fortress, like most of the others, was based underneath a mountain nigh-impossible to climb from the other side. He had made the tribesmen cut the rocks apart to give them the shape and function of fortress walls. And now here it was - a star fortress, with a mountain covering one side of it, and rock walls the rest. There were about five of these in total throughout the mountain ranges - he had about a total of ten thousand men serving him in total, about nine thousand of them tribesmen, seven thousand of them able to fight, but only three thousand of them 'soldiers'. Fifteen years ago, the lack of professional soldiers could have been a problem. But fifteen years of strict rules and discipline had shaped the tribes into something better. Perhaps thanks to the usually short and brutish lives of these tribes, there weren't a lot of traditions that held them back. They had happily adapted to the muskets and cannons.

A group of men were dragging a cannon up a rock. Korkud could recognize the cannon - its name was Qabus - nightmare, named so because it was one of the most reliable cannons in the hands of his men. It could shoot a projectile about as big as a head. Korkud preferred filling them with case shot, or chain shot. The first one was the bane of infantry, and the second, of cavalry. Together with musket fire, they could break an army apart. Larger cannons were of no use to him for now, considering there were no possible sieges - despite that fact, he still had about eight of them in the forts, forged just in case. He could see farmers on top of the plateau. Thanks to the few farmers that had come from Bilecik with him, the tribes were now able to farm effectively as well. They made good money off the production. The highlands underneath Yak mountain were one of the only places where one could grow watermelons in Sarife. Thanks to the fact that nobody knew that, Korkud was able to become the primary trader of watermelons in all Sarife. The buyers did not know it, of course. Not many believed that he was alive anymore, thanks to reports of his 'deaths'. He liked it that way.

He tapped the page standing to his right on the shoulder. The young lad turned towards him with half excitement, and half fear. ''Ghazi Korkud?'' ''Water to wash my face. And some food.'' The page nodded and ran off. Korkud retreated back into his tent. All his weaponry was inside the tent, alongside his armor. He had something for every occasion. There was even a small falconet looking towards the entrance. He inspected two pistols, removing the flints and shooting to see whether the lock worked and tasting the powder, alongside a large, wide dagger with a bone hilt, with which he cut one of his nails to test its edge. It was sharp as ever. The dagger, at least the hilt, was made for Korkud by Ghazi Darya. The pommel was hollow, and had a lock of her hair in it. Korkud valued it more than anything. He had used it only once, to gouge out Abbas-Quli's eyes. It was only fair.

He sat back on the chair, facing the table again, his right leg shaking. There were papers all around the table, some stacked on top of each other, some randomly thrown around. Reports. He had to read through them all. More and more came every day. He grabbed the one that he had been reading before he had fallen asleep, and started rereading it. It was dotted with wet spots, as if someone had dropped a glass of water near it. He took a sniff of the paper. It did not have the sour smell of saliva. There was only one option. He had cried. [i]''Never again.''[/i] He did not want to think of it. The paper was about salt trade in Bilecik, compared to the last few months. He ripped it apart. [i]''Never again.''[/i] He heard a crack, and jerked his head back in pain. More enamel, this time in larger pieces. He spit the dust onto the ground. As he began a curse, he was overtaken by the smell of lentil soup and goose. Food was nearby. He started pushing the papers away to make way for the bowl. As if on cue, the page entered, and two tribesmen carrying bowls followed, with a thin, weary man following suit. Korkud's left hand almost subconciously placed itself on one of the pistols. ''Who is this?'' Korkud asked, almost threateningly. ''It's a courier, Ghazi Isfendiyar.'' The page replied, with a hint of fear in his voice, possibly due to being unused to lying about people's names. ''Well then. Sit.''

The tribesmen placed a large bowl of thick lentil soup on the table with pieces of goose inside it, alongside a bowl of cold water, glasses, spoons, some bread, and sat by alongside the page and the courier. After putting on gloves, Korkud put a cup inside the bowl of water, and pulled it out full, took a sniff, and emptied it in a single sip. Following this, he quickly opened one of the drawers of the table and pulled out a greenish bar of macun. He sniffed it thoroughly to check whether it had been poisoned or not (his men did not know this), and after deducing that it was safe, took a bite out of it. This bar of macun had lots of herbs that made the consumer poison resistant in it, along with trace amounts of actual poison. Thanks to its sweet taste and important qualities, Korkud had developed a liking to it, and had been regularly consuming it before a meal. Of course, this precaution was not enough. He ordered his men to eat, but then halted them before they could start. ''Saturab,'' he said to the page, ''Call Ashradar.'' The young page got up somewhat frustrated, and called the guard who was left standing in front of the tent. An angular-faced, well-built man in his early thirties entered the tent, and Korkud made a gesture for him to sit down and eat. The two tribesmen, two pages and the courier started eating. Observing their enthusiasm, he deduced it wasn't poisoned, and after splashing his face with the water from the bowl and cleaning his eyes, grabbed a spoon to eat.

''Courier, who is it that you are visiting?'' Korkud asked, while chewing on a piece of soup-soaked goose and bread. His left hand was still on the pistol, his right leg still shaking. The courier hastily started talking between gulps, obviously hungry. ''Ghazi Isfendiyar,'' the courier said while dipping a bread in the bowl. After throwing the piece of bread inside his mouth and swallowing it, he continued. ''Ghazi Isfendiyar Bayqara Korkud.'' Korkud smiled. [i]''They know I'm alive. They know I'm here.''[/i] He immediately pulled the pistol on the courier. The tribesmen and the pages threw themselves back in fear, one of them almost breaking the clepsydra. The courier had thrown himself on the ground, his clothing smeared with lentil soup, his scruffy beard also. ''Please, please,'' he asked while Korkud started walking towards him. ''What have you brought? [b]What have you brought?[/b]'' Korkud demanded, the pistol only a few centimeters away from the courier's face. His hand was shaking, his teeth clenched shut. ''A-A letter, I bring a letter, sir,'' the courier mumbled. Korkud immediately put his knee on the courier's chest and opened his left hand. ''Give me the letter.'' His voice was like a loud whisper, thanks to talking while his teeth were closed. The courier put his hand inside his fur coat, and Korkud pulled his hand out and started searching himself after realizing the courier could pull out something deadly. After feeling a piece of paper in his hands, he pulled it out, and got up from the courier's chest. An envelope, with his name on it. The immediate relief that it looked Valanian was quickly deposed of, since that didn't change the fact that they knew he was alive. He ripped it open.

[i]''Salutations from the seigneur de Beauvais, Ecuyer de Aubigne. Honored guest, it is with great pleasure that the seigneur de Beauvais invites you this evening for dinner at the D’Aubigne residence. Dinner will begin tomorrow at half past seven.”[/i]

''Saturab - prepare three horses. Qulsuz, Madhan - take the courier, imprison him. Ashradar, wait outside.''

The pages and the two tribesmen nodded, with the young page running out alongside Ashradar while the two dragged the courier out of the tent. Korkud immediately put on a leather holster on top of his sash, stuffed his three pistols and the bone-hilted dagger into it, some small daggers into 'pockets' inside his sleeves, and then fastened his shoulder strap on, fitting a cartridge box on the strap. Slinging a thin miquelet carbine and a satchel filled with tools of importance over his shoulder, he left his tent. Saturab was bringing two horses, while a tribesman was waiting in front of the tent with another. All of the horses were carrying swiveling snaplocks attached to the saddle. When Saturab arrived, Korkud took a sealed letter from inside his coat and gave it to him. ''Give this to Ghazi Dilawar.'' He turned to the tribesman and made him give one of the horses to Ashradar. ''Twenty minutes. I'm waiting by the southern entrance.'' With the tribesman's help, Korkud got on the remaining horse, and took a whip from the man. For his punctual actions, Korkud gave the tribesman a gold coin. He then proceeded to ride to the southern entrance of the fort, waiting for Ashradar with his teeth clenched.