The road to the forest village was narrow and mean.
The wagons rattled over roots and stones. Branches brushed the canvas and scratched the sides. Dust clung to the wheels and the smell of damp earth rose every time a hoof struck too deep.
At the front of the caravan walked a tall man in a dark travelling robe. His hair was tied back with a simple cord and a silver ring glinted on one hand. His name was Talan, though few here used it. Most simply called him Master.
He liked it that way.
Behind him, the first wagon creaked along, drawn by a pair of horned beasts with thick necks and patient eyes. Their hides were mottled brown, their hooves broad and cracked with old work. Bells hung from the harness, chiming softly with every step.
The second wagon followed a short distance behind, then a third. Hanging cloths in faded red and green swayed from the sides. Banners fluttered above, painted with symbols of the trading company. To the villagers in these forgotten corners, those colours meant salt, metal and news. To the merchants, they meant credit, debt and risk.
Guard lines walked alongside, spears in hand, blades at their belts. Their steps were steady and their faces indifferent. This was not the first remote village they had visited. It would not be the last.
One of the guards spat into the dust.
"How much further?" he muttered.
"Close," Talan said without looking back. "You can smell the smoke."
A faint tang of cooking fires drifted through the trees. Beneath it, the sharp scent of wet clay and river mud.
Talan's eyes narrowed.
He had read the notes before they left the city. A small forest tribe that gathered herbs, hunted beasts and trapped fish. Harsh people. No written script. No proper coin. Paid in skins, dried meat and crafted goods. They were not worth much on paper.
But they had one thing that always pulled caravans off the main roads.
Slaves.
In the second wagon, surrounded by wooden crates, sat a thin man with ink stained fingers. His name was Daro. He held a ledger board across his knees. Lines of cramped writing ran down the page in steady columns.
He looked up briefly as the bells rang, then returned to his numbers. The rhythm of figures soothed him. At the end of a season, the ledger decided who rose and who fell. Calm ink on dried fibre could be sharper than any blade.
At the back of the third wagon sat a thick set man with a flat expression. His name was Grell. His trade was muscle and meat, except he dealt in human muscle and human meat. He watched the trees without much interest. His eyes were the colour of muddy water.
"How many did this place promise again?" he called out lazily.
"Ten at least," Daro replied without looking up. "Maybe fifteen if they had a good raiding year."
Grell grunted once.
"Enough," Talan said. "If they are strong."
He did not say what he was really thinking.
In the city, bodies were never wasted. The fields needed hands. The mines needed backs. The boats needed rowers. The noble houses needed cheap servants that could be replaced when they broke. Slaves filled all of that.
If this tribe had men and women with enough breath to walk, they had coin.
The trees thinned.
The road flattened. Ahead, a rough timber wall came into view, built from stripped trunks sunk into the earth. It was barely higher than two men, but for this region it was a serious work.
Smoke curled from inside. Voices carried with the wind.
The bells on the harness rang out clear.
By the time they reached the gate, the villagers were already gathering. Hunters with rough bows and stone tipped spears stood watch above. Women held children close. Dogs barked and ran in circles.
Talan stopped and raised a hand.
The first wagon drew even with him and slowed.
He smoothed his robe once with a small, controlled gesture, then stepped forward until he stood in clear view of the gate.
"Greetings," he called, his voice calm and carrying. "We come to trade."
The head guard on the wall shouted something down. For a moment there was a flurry of words, none of which Talan understood. He glanced sideways and a younger man in his party stepped forward. The interpreter. A half grown boy who knew enough of the forest tongue to avoid getting them killed.
The boy shouted back, repeating Talan's words with rough, clipped sounds.
After a short exchange the gates were pulled open.
"Welcome," the interpreter said quietly to Talan. "They say the chief is pleased you came."
Talan nodded without comment.
He walked through the gate at an even pace. The villagers pulled back to make room, eyes wide. The horned beasts followed, bells chiming. The wagons passed under the crude walkway. Guards fanned out as they had done a hundred times before.
Compared to the city markets, this place was small and raw. But coin was coin, even when it stank of smoke and blood.
They were led through the centre of the village to the largest house. It was built from thicker logs, the roof better thatched. Rough carvings marked the posts.
The chief stood waiting by the doorway.
He was in his thirties. Tall. Broad shouldered. Arms like someone who still hauled stone when needed. His hair was gathered back from his face. Three women stood slightly behind him, each carrying something small: a cloth, a jug of water, a bowl of cut fruit.
"Honoured traders," the interpreter relayed as the chief spoke, "my house welcomes you. Come in, share drink and talk."
Talan gave a shallow bow.
"Thank you for welcoming us," he said, his tone respectful but not overly warm. "We will see your people in turn. Thank you for your patience."
The words came out in the city tongue. The interpreter translated sentence by sentence, adding the forest rhythm.
Talan, Daro and Grell removed their dust damp cloaks as they entered the chief's house. The air inside was cooler. Mats covered the floor. A low wooden table waited in the centre, set with bowls of dried fruit and nuts. The chief waved for them to sit.
They began with small talk.
The chief spoke of the last storm that had torn branches from the trees. He mentioned wolves that had come too close to the livestock pens. Talan nodded and replied with comments about broken bridges on the way, bandits that had fled south after losing too many men, rumours of sickness in a far village.
Their words carried little weight. All of it was a dance they were required to perform.
While they spoke, Daro quietly watched the chief's hands, his house, the quality of the mats, the condition of the women behind him. These things told him more about the village than any polite story.
The mats were worn but repaired. The bowls were clay, not wood. The women's clothes were cleaner and better sewn than those of the villagers outside.
Not rich, he concluded. Not starving either. Stable enough.
When the talk grew thin, the chief shifted.
"Let us speak of trade," he said.
The interpreter passed the words on.
The next part was work.
The chief listed their goods: dried fish, smoked meat, tanned hides, carved bone tools, woven baskets, herbs gathered from the forest and riverbank. As he spoke, the women brought out examples. Talan handled them briefly, checking quality. Daro made careful notes.
Then Talan listed what they brought: coarse cloth from distant looms, simple iron tools, pots, salt, a few better quality blades. He did not reveal everything at once. Trade was like war. You never showed your full strength at the start.
They haggled.
The chief wanted more salt for less fish. Talan refused. The chief tried to push the hide price higher. Grell cut in with a rough comment about the poor tanning. The interpreter softened the words, but the meaning was clear enough. Laughter eased the tension for a moment.
Back and forth, inch by inch, the numbers shifted. No one shouted. No one pounded the table. Both sides moved as men who knew that walking away with nothing was the biggest loss of all.
At last the basic exchanges settled.
Fish and meat for salt and metal.
Hides and herbs for cloth and pots.
It was ordinary.
Then the chief leaned back slowly.
His eyes held a flicker of something else.
Hope.
Greed.
A secret.
He nodded to one of the women behind him.
"Bring the strange item," he said.
She bowed and slipped out.
Talan felt a small stir of interest.
The chief had requested this meeting in private. He had insisted some things be shown only to the caravan leaders. Whenever a man did that, it meant he believed he had something special.
Special could mean profit.
The woman returned carrying something wrapped in animal skin. It was not large. Too small to be a chest full of coin. Too heavy, judging from the way she braced her arms.
She placed it carefully on the table.
The chief rested his hand lightly on the bundle.
"This," he said, spoken slowly so the interpreter could capture each word, "was taken from a slave we captured. It is made of some kind of metal cloth. We have never seen its like. We think it is valuable. We have kept it for you to judge."
He peeled back the animal skin.
Metal glimmered in the lantern light.
At first glance it looked like armour. Not plate, not chain. Something between. A suit of dull, smooth material shaped roughly to a human frame. The surface was scarred with scratches and impact marks. Some parts were dented as if struck by tremendous force.
For a moment,
all three merchants forgot to breathe.
Talan's pupils shrank. He leaned forward a fraction.
Daro felt his heart thud once in his chest. His fingers tightened around the brush he still held.
Grell narrowed his eyes, the lazy look gone.
They had all heard stories.
Things that fell from the sky.
Things taken from ruins deep in mountains.
Things that did not match any known craft.
Most stories were lies. Others were twisted by fear. But sometimes, rarely, a caravan brought back something that changed the balance of power in a city.
Talan fought to keep his voice level.
"May we examine it?" he asked.
"Of course," the chief said. He smiled, pleased by their reaction. "Take as long as you like."
He stood and moved aside, pretending to give them privacy, though his eyes never left the table.
The merchants gathered around the suit.
Talan ran his fingers along the surface. It was smooth, almost soft, yet far tougher than it looked. It felt nothing like iron or leather.
"Not local work," he said quietly.
"Not any work I know," Daro replied. His voice had changed. The usual dry tone now carried a trace of wonder.
Grell said nothing. He lifted one section of the suit and turned it over, studying the inside.
There they found narrow slots, small ridges, delicate channels that led into the body of the material. Some sections were cracked. Others were torn open, leaving jagged edges where something had once been attached and brutally removed.
"This is not ordinary armour," Daro said.
Talan's mind moved quickly.
If this is real, he thought, if it is what I think it might be…
He did not finish the thought. The implications were too large, and large thoughts were dangerous.
Daro whispered, "Could it be from those ones?"
He did not dare say more.
Grell clicked his tongue.
"Whatever it is, it is broken," he muttered. "Something ripped through it. Look at the damage."
"Broken or not," Talan said quietly, "in the right market this will sell for a terrifying amount."
He swallowed.
"In the wrong market it will get us killed."
They rewrapped the suit with careful hands and turned back to the chief.
Their faces were calm again.
"We would like to know," Talan said, "where this came from. The slave who had it. Can we see him?"
The interpreter passed the request on.
The chief snorted.
"That one? He is a fool," he said with clear contempt. "He does not even know how to speak."
Grell gave a short laugh.
"We have ways to make men talk," he said.
The chief shook his head.
"You do not understand," he said. "He is not refusing. He cannot speak our words. He is from somewhere else. When we caught him he jabbered like an animal. Useless noise. He still does it."
The room grew still.
Talan and Daro exchanged a long look. Grell's eyes lost any trace of laziness.
"From somewhere else," Daro repeated slowly, as if tasting the words.
"Where did you capture him?" Talan asked.
The chief gave a vague gesture.
"Near the northern river, in the forest. He was alone and confused. His clothes were strange. When we approached, he panicked. He tried to fight, but his movements were clumsy. We beat him down and chained him. He is strong enough for work, so we kept him."
He shrugged.
"If he was a treasure, he would not have fallen into our hands like that."
Talan thought of the suit. Of the hidden channels and the cracked slots inside. Of the stories traders sometimes whispered after too much drink.
Things from above.
Things that did not belong to this earth.
"Are you willing to sell him?" he asked.
The chief's eyes brightened at once.
"Of course," he said. "We have many slaves. If you want that strange one as well, we can talk."
They talked.
The suit was one price. The normal slaves another. The strange slave yet another. The chief pushed hard, sensing their interest. Talan pushed back.
Grell snorted at one number and made a show of standing to leave. The chief swore and dragged him back with promises of better offers. Daro quietly recalculated margins in his head.
Time crawled.
Lantern oil burned lower.
Finally they reached a point where pushing further would snap something.
"Done," Talan said.
They clasped wrists to seal the exchange.
Coin and goods would pass later. For now, both sides were bound by the spoken agreement.
"Bring the strange slave," the chief ordered.
A short while later, the door creaked open.
Rae stumbled into the room, pushed from behind by a guard. His wrists were tied together in front of him. Rope burns darkened his skin. Old bruises marked his cheek and arms. His clothes were rough and stained with dried mud.
He looked thinner than Talan had expected, but there was a stubborn steadiness in his eyes that did not match the other broken slaves they had seen outside.
Rae's gaze swept the room.
Three strangers in strange clothes.
The chief.
The handmaidens.
Lantern light.
Then his eyes fell on the table.
On the wrapped bundle.
On the small edge where metallic fabric still showed.
He froze.
The room, the noise, the faces all dropped away for a moment.
That is mine.
The breath hitched in his chest. He took a half step forward without thinking. A small, raw sound escaped his throat. Not a word. More like a trapped exhale.
Talan's eyes narrowed.
He gestured to the bundle and spoke slowly, knowing the slave likely did not understand.
"You know this thing?" he asked.
The interpreter repeated his question in the forest tongue, but Rae's ears caught only unfamiliar sounds. He did not know the words, but he recognised the rhythm of a question and the pointing finger.
He nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again, chest tight. His thoughts scrambled between hope and fear.
What do I say? What can I say?
He tried his own language.
"That is my suit," he said. His voice was hoarse from days of shouted orders and too little water. "Give it back. I can fix it. Please."
To them it sounded like broken barking. Harsh, clipped syllables with no familiar structure.
Daro's eyes lit briefly.
"That is not any language I know," he said quietly. "It is not from the coast. Not from the eastern tribes. Nothing like the hill clans either."
Grell grunted.
"Could still just be some wild tongue from further in," he said. "Not every unknown sound is a legend."
The chief waved a hand, impatient.
"See?" he said. "Useless. He has been here for weeks and still cannot say a single proper word."
Talan ignored him.
He pointed once more at Rae, then at the bundle.
He made a simple gesture. You and this. Connected.
Rae understood enough to nod hard.
His eyes were fixed on the suit like a starving man staring at food being carried away.
Talan saw the hunger.
He did not know if the slave truly understood what the suit was, but he knew one thing. Desire was a leash stronger than rope.
"He reacts," Talan said to his companions in the city tongue. "That alone is useful."
Daro nodded slowly.
"Even if he knows nothing, we can still sell him later," Grell added. "He is not that weak."
"We take him," Talan said. "The suit and the slave both. We can let the other slaves teach him our words. Once he learns, we can ask slower. Better to peel fruit than smash it."
The chief looked pleased they valued what he had offered.
"He is yours," he said. "Take him. Take the others you chose as well. We will have them ready by dawn."
They drank a little thin wine to seal the agreement. More small talk followed, but the shape of the day was already decided.
Night came.
The village grew quieter. Only a few fires still burned. The merchants returned to the guest hut provided for them.
In a smaller attached room, Talan, Daro and Grell sat around a low table. A single lantern flickered between them.
The wrapped suit lay on the wood, silent and heavy.
Daro stared at it as if trying to memorise every curve.
"In the right city," he murmured, "this could buy us all a house with a walled courtyard."
"In the right city," Grell said flatly, "this could bring men who kill us before we finish counting the coin."
Talan did not answer at once.
He thought of the stories again. Of people who wore strange metal skin and walked through armies. Of lights that fell from the sky. Of weapons that tore mountains.
Old stories. Drunk stories. Stories that people pulled apart and re stitched in the dark.
And yet.
He reached out and brushed the fabric with one fingertip.
"Broken things are less dangerous than whole ones," he said at last. "This is cracked. Torn. Whatever power it once had is mostly gone. That is why a slave carried it and not a legend."
Daro frowned.
"What if someone comes looking for it?" he asked.
Talan gave a small, dry smile.
"If someone like that truly cares about this one suit," he said softly, "we are dead no matter what we do. Whether we leave it here or carry it away, there would be no difference."
He let the words hang in the air.
Grell snorted.
"Then we may as well get rich on the way," he said.
"Exactly," Talan replied.
They wrapped the suit again.
"Tomorrow we buy the rest of what we need," Talan said. "We take the slaves. Then we make the chief show us the river where they found that strange one. If there is one piece, there may be more."
"And if there is nothing," Grell said.
"Then we still have this." Talan looked at the bundle. "And the slave."
Sleep came late.
Dawn arrived too soon.
The next morning, the village was full of movement again. Goods changed hands. Salt and clay pots passed one way. Dried meat and hides passed the other. Children watched with bright eyes.
In the open space near the wagons, the slaves stood in a line.
Rae was among them.
His wrists were bound. A length of rope linked him to the man in front and the man behind. Each of them had the unfocused look of people dragged from sleep too early.
The chief and Talan exchanged the last words of trade. Promises of future visits. Cautious politeness.
Then it was done.
They did not leave at once.
Grell insisted on seeing the place where the chief's people had captured Rae. He did not trust luck and he trusted tribes even less.
With two guards and the interpreter, they took Rae and a handful of other slaves out through the northern side of the village. Rope bound them all in a line. One guard held the end.
The forest swallowed them quickly. Leaves brushed their shoulders. Insects droned. The ground grew soft underfoot.
The chief's hunters led the way, grumbling, but they wanted final payment and knew better than to argue.
They reached the river by midday.
The water ran brown and fast between dark stones. Here and there, torn plant roots marked where something heavy had been dragged before. The hunters pointed to a bend in the bank.
"Here," one said. "We found him here. standing in the mud. Wearing that strange thing." He mimed the metal suit with a vague gesture.
Grell and the guards spread out.
They searched the bank, pushing aside reeds, turning over rocks, digging into wet sand. They found old footprints. Half rotted rope. Bits of bone from some animal kill.
No more metal.
No more strange parts.
Nothing that hummed or shone.
Daro crouched near a water smoothed stone and scowled.
"If there was more here," he said, "the river took it. Or the tribe did before we came."
Grell swore under his breath.
He grabbed Rae by the shoulder and shook him.
"Speak," he snapped in the forest tongue. "Where is the rest? Did you hide it?"
Rae flinched.
He heard tone, not meaning. The sound was full of anger. The hand on his shoulder was iron hard. He shook his head quickly.
"I do not understand you," he said in his own language. "If there was anything else, the river took it. It was just me and the suit."
To Grell, it was more animal noise.
His temper, already short from the wasted effort, snapped.
"We paid good silver for this idiot," he growled in the city tongue. "Useless. We should chop him up and feed him to the beasts. At least then he would be worth a meal."
The interpreter glanced nervously at Rae, who clearly understood none of it.
"Do not waste meat that can still walk," Talan said from the bank. His voice was mild, but there was iron buried in it. "We will make something back from him. Even if all he learns to say is yes and no, someone in the city will pay for a strange face."
He looked at Rae for a long moment.
The slave was breathing hard from the walk. Sweat ran down his neck. His eyes were clear though. Not the flat empty gaze of someone who had broken inside.
There was still something left to shape.
"The other slaves can teach him the local tongue," Talan said. "Let them talk at night. Hit him when he gets it wrong. Praise him when he gets it right. Sooner or later he will understand. Then we can ask again about the suit."
Grell made a face but did not argue.
They searched a little longer, more out of stubbornness than hope. When the sun climbed higher and the insects grew louder, Talan called them back.
"Enough," he said. "We go."
They returned to the village empty handed, aside from the slaves they had come with.
By afternoon, the caravans were ready.
Crates were tied down. Bells checked. Harness adjusted. The horned beasts snorted and stomped, eager to be moving again.
The villagers gathered near the gate, watching.
Some looked pleased at the pots and salt that now sat in their homes. Some stared at the slaves with hungry eyes, as if they could not quite believe they had let that much labour leave.
Rae stood at the back, roped into the line of slaves.
The rope ran from the rear of the last wagon to the first slave's wrists, then to the next, and the next, all the way to him. When the beasts walked, they walked. When the wagons stopped, they stopped.
The gate opened.
The caravan moved.
Rae stumbled once as the rope tugged him forward. The man in front snapped a warning in the local tongue. He did not know the words, but he knew the tone.
Walk or fall.
Fall or be whipped.
He walked.
The village shrank behind them. The walls, the smoke, the shouting, the slave huts. The river. The tree where they had once tied him up and whipped him until his back burned.
All of it slipped between the trunks of the forest and disappeared.
The road was uneven. Roots lurked beneath fallen leaves. Stones shifted when stepped on. If a slave tripped and fell, the rope dragged tight and he was jerked forward until he forced himself up again. Guards rode beside the line on small, tough horses. If anyone lagged too much, the lash hissed.
They did not speak unless it was to order.
The sun crawled across the sky.
Mud sucked at bare feet. Sweat soaked through rough cloth. Flies buzzed. The forest closed in, then opened, then closed again.
Only when the horned beasts snorted and refused to take another step did they stop.
They rested in a small clearing as the sun began to fall.
The wagons formed a loose half ring. Guards moved through the trees, checking for tracks or watching eyes. A small fire was lit for the merchants and their cooked food.
The slaves were made to sit on the ground in a row.
Rae watched as a sack was brought forward.
The same dark purple berries as the village, but these ones were slightly lighter in colour, almost as if someone had washed them. The difference was small, but his eyes had learned to notice small things. In a place where everything was pain, detail became a way to anchor the mind.
A guard moved down the row, dropping a small handful of berries into each slave's cupped hands.
Rae stared at his share.
They looked the same. They smelled the same. There was that faint sharp tang that made his mouth water even as his stomach twisted.
He put one in his mouth and bit down.
Warmth spread through his chest at once.
Not just warmth.
It was as if the berry had doubled in strength. The heat was clearer, less muddy. It flowed through his limbs, chasing away some of the ache. His thoughts sharpened. The numbness that had settled over him for weeks thinned.
His eyes widened.
Twice as strong, he thought. At least.
He ate the rest slowly, letting the warmth spread as far as it would go. He felt his breathing settle. His muscles, still sore, no longer trembled as badly.
He glanced at the others.
Some slaves just chewed and swallowed without noticing. Their eyes were too dull, their spirits battered too far down to sense the difference. A few frowned, looking at the berries as if something felt strange but not worth understanding.
Rae tucked that realisation away deep inside.
Better berries here than at the village.
Better effect.
He did not know why. Different soil. Different plants. Some other factor.
He could not measure anything. He had no tools, no screens, no data feeds.
All he had was his body.
Fine, he thought grimly. Then my body can be the tool.
The guards poured thin soup into rough bowls and slid them along the ground. The same cloudy water as before, with a few bits of root floating in it. Rae drank it without complaint. Food was food.
When the light faded fully, the merchants retreated to their smaller tent near the wagons. Their voices murmured in the distance, low and calm. Plans for cities. Prices. Routes.
The slaves were left under the open sky, with only the rope between their wrists and the line to the wagon to remind them that even sleep belonged to someone else now.
Rae lay on the cold ground.
The forest canopy above was a jagged black shape against the deeper dark of the sky. A few stars shone through.
His wrists ached. His back still carried old scars from the tribe's whips. His feet were raw. His ears still rang with unfamiliar words.
But the warmth of the berries lingered.
This world will not let me go, he thought.
Fine.
Then I will not let go either.
The beasts snorted once and settled.
The wagons creaked softly as wood cooled.
Somewhere, a night bird called.
The line of slaves shifted and stilled again.
Bound at the end of the rope, Rae closed his eyes.
The caravan moved on through the forest the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, carrying with it a broken suit of metal and a man who did not belong to this sky, yet bled under it all the same.
With the wagons rolling forward beneath the thick trees, the bells chiming slowly, and Rae walking in the dust behind them, bound to strangers, to unknown cities, and to a future he could not yet name.