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It was 1,427 tanned human skins: the entire population of Slaveport, save seven infants
whom Fasimba spared for some unknown reason. Each skin bore an inscription made by the
town s clerk (who was paid honestly by being killed last with a relatively easy death) the
owner s name and a detailed description of the tortures he had to endure before being
skinned alive. The women s skins bore a notation of exactly how many black warriors have
thoroughly appreciated their qualities; the town women were few and the warriors were
many, so the numbers varied but were invariably impressive. Only a few inhabitants of
Slaveport were lucky enough to merit a brief note died in battle. The top of the bill was a
stuffed effigy of the governor, a relative of the Caliph himself. Professional taxidermists
probably would not have approved of the material used as stuffing the very beads the
Khandians used to pay for slaves but the Emperor had had his reasons.
Some will say that such monstrous cruelty has no justification; the chief of the Haradrim
must have simply passed off his personal sadistic tendencies as revenge on the oppressors.
Others will talk of historical retribution and blame the excesses on what the Haradrim,
who were no angels, have suffered over the previous years. Such a discussion seems
senseless on its merits, and is in any event irrelevant in this case. What Fasimba did to the
inhabitants of the ill-fated town was neither a spontaneous expression of the chief s cruelty
nor revenge for ancestral suffering; rather, it was an important element of an fine strategic
plan, conceived and carried out with a totally cool head.
Chapter 33
The Caliph of Khand, having received a gift of his subjects skins and a stuffed relative,
reacted in precisely the way the Emperor was counting on. He had the captain and crew
beheaded (choose your cargo better next time!), publicly swore to have Fasimba stuffed in
the same manner, and ordered his army to Harad. His advisors, forewarned by the sailors
sad fate, did not speak against this dumb idea; they did not dare to even insist on some
scouting first. Rather than supervise preparations for the expedition, the Caliph indulged in
devising the tortures he was going to inflict on Fasimba once he had him.
A month later twenty thousand Khand soldiers landed at the mouth of Kuvango next to the
ruins of Slaveport and marched into the country. It should be mentioned that in terms of the
amount of iron they had to carry (and especially the gold-plated doodads studding said iron)
the Khand warriors were unequaled in all Middle Earth. The problem was that their battle
experience was limited to putting down peasant revolts and similar policing actions. It
looked like this was quite enough to deal with the black savages the Haradrim fled in panic
the moment they saw the menacing gleam of the iron phalanx. The Khandians chased the
disorderly fleeing enemy through the coastal jungle and entered the savannah, where they
met Fasimba s patiently waiting main force the very next morning.
Too late did the Caliph s nephew commanding the army realize that the Harad forces were
twice the size of his and about ten times as effective. Strictly speaking, there was no battle
as such; rather, there was one devastating múmakil attack, followed by a disorderly rout and
120
The Last Ring-bearer
chase of the fleeing enemy. The casualty tallies speak for themselves: a thousand and a half
killed and eighteen thousand captured Khandians versus about a hundred dead Haradrim.
Some time later the Caliph received from Fasimba a detailed description of the battle
together with an offer to trade all the prisoners for all the Haradrim enslaved in Khand.
Alternatively, the Caliph was advised to send to Slaveport a ship capable of taking on
eighteen thousand human skins; by now Khand knew well that the Emperor was not joking.
Fasimba made another foresighted move when he freed about two hundred prisoners, who
went home to inform the entire population of Khand as to the nature of Haradi offer. As was
to be expected, the people became restless and the smell of rebellion was in the air. A week
later the Caliph, whose forces have been reduced to his palace guard, gave in. The exchange
Fasimba offered took place in Slaveport, and the Emperor acquired a status of a living deity
among his people for to the Haradrim a return from Khandian slavery was only a little
short of resurrection.
Since then, the fearsome Harad Empire (which had neither a written language nor cities, but
plenty of ritual cannibalism, gloomy black magic, and witch-hunting) had widened its
borders considerably. At first the black warriors expanded only to the south and east, but in
the last twenty years or so they have turned their gaze north and captured a significant chunk
of Khandian territory, approaching closely to the borders of Umbar, South Gondor, and
Ithilien. The Mordorian ambassador at the Emperor s court sent dispatch after dispatch to
Barad-Dur: unless swift measures are taken, soon the civilized states of Central and Western
Middle Earth will face a terrifying opponent untold multitudes of excellent warriors who
know neither fear nor mercy.
Therefore, relying on a Khandian saying the only way to get rid of crocodiles is to drain the
swamp, Mordor began sending missionaries South. Those did not bother the blacks with
sermons about the One too much, rather spending their time treating sick children and
teaching them arithmetic and reading, for which purpose they have invented a written
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