Waiting for the Barbarians

On the desert frontiers of an unnamed Empire, the Magistrate runs a remote outpost with a steady, patient hand, keeping the peace for years with only minor misunderstandings. His careful governance has made the frontier feel orderly, almost quiet, until the arrival of Colonel Joll, a hard-edged agent acting under a secret plan emanating from the empire’s center. The balance he maintains begins to tilt as Joll imposes a harsher, more systemic approach to “truth” and order.

Colonel Joll is relentless in his interrogation, insisting on brutal methods that test the limits of any code or conscience. He presses an innocent man and his nephew for sheep rustling, pushing the boundaries of what is permissible in pursuit of a so-called truth. The Magistrate struggles to comprehend Joll’s logic, methods, and ends, while the colonial machinery around them seems deaf to any argument about humanity. The tension escalates when Joll forces the tortured nephew to escort him and a detachment of soldiers to the man’s tribe, sweeping up women and elderly people as “prisoners of war.”

Joll departs the next day, leaving the outpost in a wary calm that soon feels fragile. The Magistrate acts quickly to release the prisoners and send them home, attempting to salvage something humane from the encounter. Months later, a former prisoner appears on the streets with two broken ankles, panhandling for help. The Magistrate offers food and shelter and tends to the woman’s injuries, trying to heal rather than punish, a gesture that sparks rumors among soldiers who misread his kindness as lust or ulterior motive. The Magistrate comes to understand the hardships endured by the captive and the death of her father, and he asks her to stay at the fort, but she chooses to return to her people.

After a long and arduous journey through the desert, the Magistrate seeks to restore relations with the mountain nomads, hoping to reopen channels of trust. The nomads are wary and emotionally scarred, and their reception is cool, but the Magistrate’s reputation—paired with the memory that he once aided one of their own—helps prevent a brutal backlash. Nevertheless, Mandel, Colonel Joll’s underling, is assigned to command the fort and quickly accuses the Magistrate of treachery, stripping him of his office and placing him outside the power structures he once stewarded.

The Magistrate’s punishment deepens when he tries to aid other prisoners of war and is beaten by Mandel’s soldiers. He is hauled in for questioning and accused of consorting with the enemy, a public shaming that costs him everything—home, possessions, and status. Colonel Joll departs with a large force to wipe out the mountain nomads, leaving the Magistrate shattered, homeless, and socially exiled. He is taken in by a former servant who feeds and clothes him, offering a quiet, human warmth that contrasts with the brutality he has witnessed.

Joll’s campaign reshapes the region, uniting the dispersed nomadic tribes into a single, formidable army. A horse bearing the mutilated corpse of one of Joll’s men trudges into the fort as Mandel and his units begin a retreat, and the remaining townspeople lash out in fear, looting, raping, and murdering in the wake of the conflict. Joll returns with only a handful of survivors and sits in his coach, seemingly detached from reality, as the city braces for further violence. With no supplies or horses, he and the Magistrate depart together, fleeing while townspeople rain rocks down upon them.

The Magistrate walks through a town scarred by conflict, where boys play-pretend at guard duty beside scarecrows dressed as soldiers at the gates of the fort. His thoughts return to Mélian de Montmélior, the nomad girl he once helped in the desert, Valentine Carette, and a looming shadow grows on the horizon. A cloud of dust rises to reveal the vast, advancing numbers of nomadic warriors heading toward the town, signaling that the cycle of fear and power is far from ended.

Last Updated: October 27, 2025 at 16:47