The Lost Tribe: Maliha the Wanderer (Book 1)

Sunset

The sun beat down on her back like a whip to the skin, the harsh ray's streaking across her body. The insufferable heat making it impossible to breathe. The sun sizzled high in the sky gifting the land with fortitude in crops. Crops that Maliha had spent hours cultivating.

She had been here for over a week now. Her body had fully recovered after the third day and so Maliha had been put to work, her body crying for reprieve though she would not see any. Each day as her skin became darker and darker and her fingers more and more calloused, she wished that she had taken up their initial offer. That she had swallowed her mountain of pride and picked a lover because if she had then all she would know was pleasure and not the crumbling pain of her body. She felt weak, fatigued.

For the past few days she had started wheat harvesting as soon as the sun had peaked through the clouds, the bird's songs of merriment her wake up call. The sun had not been so heavy then but as the day progressed and the sun reached its peak, it came with a sweltering heat that made all work a struggle. Her hand sickle was slippery in her sweaty grasp, the wooden handle blistering her hand and leaving painful splinters. Calluses and blisters from the day before were rubbed raw by the wood within her hand.

Many people worked in the fields, women had woven baskets full of wheat that they had cut down with their own sickle's whilst many men who helped, used scythes. Large, wooden handles that were crafted in an arch with a sharp curved blade attached. The men used the scythes in a sweeping motion, cutting the grain from the bottom. As they strode forward, broad shoulders gleaming with sweat and thick legs braced apart, young children of ages 8 or so gathered the wheat. Collecting large bunches and bringing it back to the women. They wrapped the bunches with string and placed cloths around them, leaving it to dry.

The tribe worked well together but it was hard to miss that the majority of people who worked the fields were female, the sexual division noticeable from the jobs they occupied. They seemed content to do the hard labour and maybe they were, but Maliha was not.

Her soul was weighed down by the chains they had wrapped around her ankles, she was a prisoner though the brand on her arm said differently. The brand said she was theirs, one with the tribe because Xiuri was not treated like a slave and their brands were identical in pattern. The brand was that of a sun, long jagged orbs surrounding the circular orb. Each jagged arm of the sun represented each realm that Savuriya had created at the beginning of time.

The brand declared her as one, but she was not one of them, just one they owned. Her body was forced to work longer, harder, faster. The women in the field talked and laughed as they plucked at the wheat but not Maliha or Xiuri, eyes always watched them as they worked just like eyes always watched them when they ate by the fire. They were always the last to eat, the scraps left for them because they were not one.

She was not one, always flittering on the outskirts. She had been free to roam,

listening to no one but the demands of her body and the call to her soul. She had been free, her being souring with all the tribes, the cultures, the scenery. She had been free until she wasn't.

Chains wrapped around her now, suffocating her as they twisted around her neck and rubbed behind her ear. She wore a collar to tell all that she was not one because that was what the jewellery was. Gold chains dangled from her nose and hung just above her lip. It continued behind her ear and then connected at the back of her neck where the thick gold collar wrapped around her neck like a noose.

This hard-laborious work was a death sentence. She would not survive the season.

She had only been working for five short hours with a half hour break in between and already her arms were quivering with the extortion. Her back stiff with the strains of bending over the crops. Maliha worked alongside Xiuri, the two creating a sort of routine. Maliha was practicing her cutting skills with the sickle while Xiuri was gathering the bunches in her basket and tying them together. In an hour or so after they had their second short break they would swap positions, giving her calloused hands a break but Maliha couldn't wait that long to tend to her bleeding and shredded hands.