[Center][h1][b]Destination: The Hold of Clan Buraq[/b][/h1][/center]

[center]Destination Description written by [@Enigmatik][/center]

The land out here is peculiar and sunbaked, and that is about all that can be said from it. The sand [i]seethes,[/i]  claws and scratches at the soil and grass that juts up in uneven patches across the parched scrubland. The road beneath the caravan though is strong and well-trodden, hewn with stone and made straight and even across the landscape, belting across to the horizon, where the caravan’s next destination sits.

There’s little else to obscure it after all, with the crowded foliage and verdant greens of the Emerald Forest left so far behind. Instead, there are the mountains that mark out the centre of Clan Busaq’s power. Vast, imposing things that form part of a scattered chain that stretch deep into the desert, all the way to the sacred Jabal Ilah and beyond. As the caravan has pressed closer though, the staggering scale of the hold has become clearer and clearer.

A colossal ochre stone wall bars easy entrance to the hold itself, but even where wall ends and mountain begins, the defences continue. Cut into the rock itself are structures and fortifications – guard posts, murder holes and even springalds, all manned by tiny figures only distinguishable from the mountains themselves thanks to the glints of light from their broad shields and scaled armour. 

But this is only the beginning of it. Just outside of the walls, stretched out in the no-mans land between farming estates and the city itself is a sea of tents, wagons, temporary structures and perhaps most astounding of all are the rolling towers and citadels, and the humongous beasts that have been hitched near them.

They stand nearly ten men tall to their shoulders alone, with tremendously long noses that curl and twist like vast snakes. Massive tusks jut from either side of these trunks, banded with steel and affixed with vicious looking blades or vast metal rams at their ends. Mûmakils – Oliphaunts. Their lesser brethren, the elephants, live in Alwyne’s warmer climes, but these are alike them in shape alone: these creatures are the largest warbeasts seen on this continent – indeed, perhaps anywhere on Alwyne. 

The caravan is stopped just outside the army encampment and directed to park themselves in a wide-open space, a few other, smaller caravans already circled. With the return of the army, the city is filled to capacity, but travellers are free to come and go as they always have… So long as they follow the Clan’s laws.

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[Center][h2][color=slategray]Athulwin[/color][/h2][/center]

Athulwin believes that deserts are the most naturally spiritual kind of environment. As the Caravan meandered over the smooth road that led them to this great city of a hold, during those bright noontides when old Athulwin would sit in his Caravan watching the world outside from a safely darker place, he kept thinking thoughts about the universe. The wide open-ness of the landscape pulled such thoughts out of him, willingly or otherwise. The vastness of these dry lands makes you think of your place in it all, as the harsh, the [i]unrelenting[/i] sunlight seems to preach sermons. 

[color=slategray][i]It's no wonder they're fanatics here[/i][/color], Athulwin thinks. He doesn't use the term lightly. Many have called him such, to his face or behind his back. But sometimes a label fits. Athulwin has met only a few followers of the Light-and-Flame, but he's read some of their texts. They are filled with the same breed of fire he sometimes caught in the eyes of the most intense monks back home. A passion to burn the world.

Athulwin is resting now, trying to think philosophically no more for the day. It's only mid-morning; the sun is still rising. He knows it will not have finished its climb towards noon before he has to work again. Sometimes he hates his life. "A mother's work is never done," a silly old saying goes. Athulwin must be a mother, then. The Caravan can never go more than a few breaths without direction from its Navigator.

Athulwin has spent the day, such as there's been of it so far, listening to the Wind. That's another reason to try not to be philosphical. It's the wrong mindset for hearing from Wind. The Stars are philosophical. Even Fire, in a savage way, carries a philosophy of strength. But the Wind is a gossiper, not a [i]thinker.[/i] It does things and it talks. Here's the gossip it has brought him today:

There's slaves here, in the Hold of Clan Baraq. Many of them. Not even far from the Caravan- this desert land practices slavery, and does it openly, not as an ashamed secret. The slaves are kept in pens, within the city walls and under supervision of the army. Athulwin has heard that this Clan Basaq the Caravan is visiting has recently won a small war. From the sounds that the Wind carries him, its becoming more and more uncomfortably obvious that the reason there's so many slaves in this city is because many of them are those that the Baraq clan has [i]just conquered[/i]. They were defeated in war, taken captive, and now they're learning what it is to be slaves for the first time. Some of them weep.

The Wind says, also, that they're being auctioned off. Stands have been set up for the army to sell excess slaves out to the populace. These people are being treated as wares for the marketplace.

Athulwin already fears certain names in the Caravan- Mergoux, for sure, and possibly Ilyana as well- are going to take issue with that. They know what chains feel like. Will they be able to keep to themselves about it? Athulwin doubts.

But there's also much merchandise of the more normal kind here. The Wind carries the voices of so many merchants to him. Most people here are human, a few dwarves, a few dog-like Ainok like Malleck and more. The city is a hub of trade for all kinds, and it will welcome the travellers from the Caravan in. At last, something for Gru to do beside whine about a lack of milk. You can buy plenty here.

There's also some traders of another race. Not even far from the Caravan has now parked itself, there's a traveling assortment of Baraka. The snake-people. What a diverse land this desert is. The snakes, he senses, have something dangerous to sell, something very valuable, but even the Wind cannot tell him what it is. Perhaps some of the more enterprise-minded of the Caravan will reach out to these fellow travellers and find out what it is.

Regardless.

Athulwin toys with the idea of sending wind-borne messages out to his fellow Caravaneers to try to push them in the right direction, as he did when they first entered the Emerald Forest. To tell Mergoux and Ilyana, "No, leave the slavers alone." Or to tell the others that this is there chance to restock on needful things before the Caravan goes journeying again. But ultimately, Athulwin realizes, these stand-outs in the Caravan are adults, whether they always act like it or not, and they should be able to take care of themselves without the advice from their proverbial mother...

And, with that thought, the aging monk finds himself falling into a nap.