Dragon Heart

by Kirill Klevanski

  “What’s your name-”

  “Here we are!” Another blow of the axe’s haft shook the cage.

  Two massive, fair-haired guards approached the bars and removed a heavy chain lock.

  “Come out,” they ordered.

  Sankesh was the closest slave to the exit. He hadn’t managed to give his name. He gave the woman a sympathetic look and jumped down into the snow. His boots had been replaced by cloth wraps wound around leather scraps. They immediately got wet, and if not for the leather, he clearly would’ve lost his feet to frostbite. Luckily, legless slaves weren’t in demand, so the guards took care of their limbs and didn’t let them lose any.

  “You’ll be walking from here,” the caravan leader said.

  All the guards, including the leader, put strange shoes on their feet: wood ovals with tight threads woven in the middle. Sankesh didn’t understand what they were for at first, but when he fell knee-deep into the snow with each step he made, but the northerners, thanks to their strange shoes, were able to walk along the snow, everything fell into place.

  After half an hour of enduring the cold wind while trudging through the snow, Sankesh regretted the fact that he’d come out first. He hadn’t had much choice, though. Sometimes, he looked around. Not because he was hatching an escape plan. No. The hope of ever escaping this hell had faded after the first month of the journey. Besides, even if he succeeded, where would he go? He didn’t have a home. He didn’t have enough talent to become a mercenary or join the troops of the Empire. He had to be at least at the level of the Transformation of the Mortal Shell to even qualify.

  So, he simply looked around out of curiosity. Never before had Sankesh seen such an abundance of trees, their snow-covered branches even reaching above a height of ten yards. Eight adult men working together wouldn’t be able to fully reach around the trunks of these giants.

  Sometimes he heard animal sounds he couldn’t recognize in the distance. Whenever that happened, the northerners seized their weapons and forced the slaves to walk ahead of them. That way, if the beasts attacked, the slaves would become meat shields. One’s life was much more important than profit, after all.

  They moved through the snow-covered hills and plains. A narrow path cut through the forest led them farther into the snowy maze.

  The clear, almost blue sky looked like a cold crystal. It pressed down on his shoulders. The distant sun wasn’t warm at all. The wind constantly blew in his face and brought sharp ice needles with it, scratching his already frozen skin. It felt as if someone had sliced a sharp razor over it.

  “That’s it,” one of the guards grunted.

  Under another hill, they first saw a wide glade that served as the northerners’ town square, and then they spotted strange houses. Built out of logs, standing on stilts, and with gable roofs, they puffed black smoke into the air, and the yellow light of the hearths shone through the windows.

  “I forgot how cold it was here!” One of the guards complained. “By the Fair Warriors, by my ancestors, this is the last time I’ll ever visit this ass end of the world!”

  The other guards laughed.

  “When you need money, you’ll come back.”

  Sankesh stared silently at the crowd gathering in the ‘square’. Over the past few months, they’d almost traversed the entirety of the northern province. They’d passed the capital, the only stone city in the region, and gone even farther to the north, where even the locals didn’t go if they didn’t have to, considering the place to be almost uninhabitable. He couldn’t blame them.

  Sankesh looked up. There, hundreds of miles away, was a mountain range. On Rahaim’s maps, it was called the Icy Shield, and beyond it was an ocean. Or rather, there was a lifeless wasteland of ice covering the water for hundreds of thousands of miles from the shore, and only then, after the warm currents finally prevailed, would you reach the Northern Ocean. A very simple name for an area that had barely been studied. The adventurous explorers hadn’t mapped out even half of the icy wasteland, and no ship had ever sailed the Northern Ocean, giving rise to innumerable legends and myths.

  “Move!” Sankesh felt a painful poke in his side and he moved toward yet another slave fair.

  He’d grown tired of counting the number of times he’d been sold, bought, resold, and bought again over the past year.

  The only thing he liked here in the north was the night sky with its colorful plumes of light. They sliced through the black velvet of the night, making the barbarians and desert dwellers gasp in amazement and the northerners smirk.

  They called it the Ancestral Glow. Sankesh hoped that somewhere out there, amidst the emerald, violet, and pink light, his mother was living a happy afterlife.

  Chapter 418

  Already accustomed to these fairs, Sankesh immediately took the most favourable position for himself. Among the slaves who had ridden with him, no one thought that the more you cost, the easier it would be for you to survive. The proud barbarians refused to undress and, accompanied by the buyers’ laughter, received painful jabs from spears and other weapons. One girl, a former warrior, got her nose broken. Now she would cost a lot less.

  Girls were in great demand in the north. And not because the northern men wanted to have sex with them. Northern women participated equally in military campaigns, hunts, and skirmishes. So, they needed maids and babysitters, and they didn’t want to have a freak hanging around in their house.

  All the slaves, twelve of them in total, stood on the dais. Stripped to their underwear, they shivered and huddled together. At the moment, even a tiny bit of warmth was more important to them than any wealth or even their freedom. A person couldn’t survive half-naked in the north for long.

  The bidding began with one of the barbarians.

  “He’s a strong fighter,” the caravan leader proclaimed. “Don’t laugh! In his homeland, in Balium, such a hero would cost you at least a tenth of an Imperial coin!”

  Compared to the desert dwellers, the Baliumian really did look like a giant. Broad-shouldered, muscular, and pale, he towered over the others by a head.

  When Sankesh heard the price the owner was asking, he could barely suppress a grin. In Balium, a person could buy a whole squad of warriors for that sum! And in the other barbarian kingdoms as well. Damned beggars…

  As a result, the barbarian was sold for a quarter of an Imperial coin. After that, the usual bidding began. The caravan leader ruthlessly stripped the northerners. After living in their wilderness, they knew almost nothing about the outside world. Only once a year, in the spring, when the snows melted and opened the passages, did they go to trade in the capital of their province. Sankesh guessed that those who sold goods (mostly precious furs) were glad to profit off the ignorance of their countrymen.

  “Finally, our last lots.” It all felt like a circus as the caravan leader pointed at the three remaining figures on the platform — the girl, her mother, and Sankesh. “Let’s start with the boy. His name is Sankesh. Strong, healthy, tall for his people’s standards. He’s still quite young too — only fifteen springs!”

  He deliberately understated Sankesh’s age, and, while describing his characteristics, showed off his teeth, his muscles, and banged his stick against Sankesh’s tendons. He also mentioned that the slave would be able to make his master a few more slaves and forced Sankesh to lower his pants for a while.

  “As you can see, despite his small stature,” Sankesh did look kind of tiny compared to the northerners, “he has a considerably large…”

  The slave trader didn’t finish his sentence and just smirked instead. Several of the northern women grunted, and the men looked at him without envy, simply eyeing him pragmatically. Sankesh was used to it. Moreover, it was the organ in his pants that had allowed him to leave the previous auctions as a very valuable slave. No one wanted to buy a slave who couldn’t procreate. Many of the northerners bred them and then sold the offspring.

  “Let’s start with... half an Imperial coin!”
<
br />   Sankesh almost choked on air. For that kind of money, you could buy an Earth level artifact weapon in the Sea of Sand! When the bidding reached one and a half coins, he stopped trying to apply the standards of the desert to the northerners. He himself wouldn’t have paid even a twentieth of that for himself.

  “Two coins,” a heavy bass thundered.

  A white-haired man stepped forward. Almost eight feet tall, he was as broad as a bear, and his strong muscles were visible even under his furs and armor.

  “Chief,” the slave trader saluted. They slammed their wrists together. The bracers on their hands clanged.

  “I’ll take that girl, too. My grandchildren need a babysitter. Who will challenge me on this?”

  In the north, there was only one law which everyone, including the local konungs, obeyed: glory to the strongest, humility to the weak. Those who had the power could do as they pleased. Anyone could challenge that in the simplest and most direct way — challenge them to a duel.

  Naturally, no one dared challenge the chief to a duel. Maybe there were a few people among those present who were more powerful, but no one dared to go against the chief’s authority... Sometimes, power wasn’t just about one’s muscles and weapons. The slave trader also didn’t dare to object, and the chief got two slaves for the price of one.

  “Mother!” The girl screamed in the desert language as the guards tore her out of the woman’s arms.

  “No! No!” She cried, bursting into tears.

  The woman lunged toward her sobbing daughter, only to be sent sprawling to the ground by a powerful slap. The slave trader’s boot pressed the woman’s head into the icy boards. Ulcers burst. Muddy goo drenched the snow.

  “Take. Me. Pray. Daughter. Pray.”

  The girl’s mother spoke the language of the northerners quite poorly. The desperate mother didn’t take her pleading eyes off the chief. He gave her a cold, appraising look and shook his head.

  “No one will buy this wretch,” he thundered. “Finish it, trader. Don’t torture the poor mother. Let her go to her forefathers.”

  Even without knowing the language, the woman realized what was going on. She probably knew that she was worthless to them. The slave trader knew it too. At the fair, he’d bought the girl, and her mother had been part of the deal. Knowing that the northerners greatly appreciated young girls, he’d decided not to skimp and had taken both. The girl had felt more comfortable with her coming along, after all.

  “Mom! Mom. Mom…” The girl sobbed, trying to get out of the guard’s grip.

  “Be strong, Aisha, be strong!” The mother cried, seeing her end coming. “I love you, my dear girl.”

  “MOTHER!” Aisha yelled as the slave trader pulled a dagger from his boot.

  “Cover her eyes, Sankesh.”

  Sankesh couldn’t refuse a dying woman’s last request. Walking over to the guard, he cautiously reached out and, seeing that he wouldn’t be knocked away, covered the girl’s eyes. She screamed as if her soul were being dragged out of her. When the final wheeze of her mother sounded, Aisha went limp in the hands of the northerner. The girl had fainted. Perhaps that was for the best.

  The bidding was over, and the slave traders were already preparing for the trip back. Although slavery was a legal practice in the north, the slave traders weren’t respected here. No family was willing to house those who had soiled themselves with such a trade.

  The buyers took the slaves back to their houses, and those who’d been left empty-handed discussed the possibility of buying the first ‘litter’ — the children born from the slaves breeding. They would be treated the same as puppies. They would be taken from their mothers at birth and brought up at their new masters’ houses.

  “Do you know our language?” The chief loomed over Sankesh like a mountain.

  He was holding the unconscious girl in his arms. He studied her delicate face, her small, snub nose, her thick, black hair. It was too early to guess about her figure, but Sankesh was certain that Aisha would grow into an unprecedented beauty, one capable of sitting on the throne of the Pearl of the Sands and looking as beautiful as any natural born princess.

  “Yes, master.” Sankesh nodded.

  “That’s good. Teach it to her and make sure she isn’t hurt by anyone or gets too spoiled. If you make a mistake, San... Sank… By the Great Warriors, what an awful name!” The chief swore, pulled his fur cloak off his shoulders, and threw it over his slaves. “You’ll be Aril. To be honest, I didn’t need you. My grandchildren need a babysitter. I didn’t want to take her mother. It would’ve been a waste of money. She wouldn’t have survived the first frost. I bought you to keep the girl company. So, you are responsible for her. You will be beaten for her faults. You’ll do her share of the work. For this, I’ll give you double rations and let you sleep with the other slave girls. Do you understand me, you copper-skinned weakling?”

  “Yes, master.”

  “What’s your name, slave?”

  “Aril.”

  “If I hear San… Sank… Damn it! If I hear that accursed name again, I’ll whip you! Let’s go.”

  Sankesh followed his new master. Aril wasn’t such a bad name. In the language of the desert, it meant ‘sunshine’.

  Chapter 419

  “Aril, Aril, tell us a story!”

  Sankesh was sitting on a stool and carving a toy desert raven out of a plank. He was wearing a fur coat and trousers with a fleece lining. His boots had a white fur trim and reached almost to his knees. If not for his skin color, it would be difficult to tell that Sankesh was a slave. Besides, his slave collar had been removed three years ago. After all, he had nowhere to run. For nearly five years, Sankesh had lived in Brown Bear Village, located on the edge of the world, at the foot of the Icy Shield.

  “Why not!” Sunshine laughed. “What would you like to hear? A story from my homeland? Maybe one about the living sand and the Princess? Or a local one? Maybe the one about the girl and the spirit of Frost who took her as his bride?”

  After three years of cultivating without the slave collar around his neck, Sankesh had been able to reach the twelfth and final stage of the Bodily Rivers, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to reach the Formation level. It remained an insurmountable obstacle to his progress.

  “Tell us the first story!”

  Three children were scurrying around him, all of them about five years old. They’d been born only a few months before the chief had bought Sankesh and Aisha.

  The latter was their nanny. She helped their mother swaddle, feed, and walk them. Sometimes, she did all of it by herself, when the chief’s daughter went off to participate in the local wars. Although, according to what Sankesh had learned, it would be difficult to call them ‘wars’. In the autumn, men and women gathered in squads numbering several hundred warriors and went to the southwest, to raid the other provinces of the Empire. They returned in the winter, bringing back loot: weapons, jewelry, and grain. Grain was as valuable around here as iron and wood were in the Sea of Sand. And they also brought back prisoners, of course. They were the lowest caste in the local society. Since they’d been too weak to preserve their own freedom, they performed the hardest and most demeaning work.

  Compared to them, Sankesh and Aisha lived like kings and queens. At first, he hadn’t liked the local food, cheese and butter especially, but after five years, he had gotten used to it. A slave couldn’t choose what they ate.

  They’d fared better in the chief’s house than any other slave in the village. They were dressed well, not particularly burdened with hard work because there were prisoners to do that sort of thing, and because the chief occupied a dominant position. Why should he work, after all, if he managed those who did the work?

  Well, cleaning pots, cooking, and watching the children and Aisha was easy enough for Sankesh. Moreover, he’d begun to feel a certain affection for the three children lately. Among these eternal snows, surrounded by the mountains and forests, he had found his
peace. He’d long since accepted his new name, ‘Aril’, and rarely even thought of himself as a slave. Thoughts of escaping had ceased to haunt him four years ago.

  “The first story, huh?” Sankesh-Aril pretended to think about it. The two twin boys and the little girl, looking like little balls of fur, sat in the snow and waited. “Well, alright then, here goes: It happened so long ago that neither the mountains nor the snow remember it. Back then, the North was where the South is now, and the South was where the North is today.”

  “How is that possible?” One of the twins asked.

  “Haven’t you heard Aril’s story about the Sun Kingdom?” The girl protested. “You always do this! First you don’t listen, and then you ask him to repeat or explain something he already talked about.”

  “I just forgot about it, that’s all.” The boy sulked.

  “The Sun Kingdom once stood here instead of the Icy Shield,” his brother said. “Warriors who fought sea monsters lived in that kingdom. They worshipped the Light Spirit.”

  “But why is there so much snow here now?”

  Sankesh, sensing that things were getting heated (the younger twin was quite absentminded, which irritated his impatient sister a lot), reminded him:

  “Because it was a long time ago. Because of the wars that took place here back then, we now live among the snows, and not green meadows. In my homeland, there is only sand.”

  “What’s sand?” The boy asked.

  His sister rolled her eyes, “It’s yellow snow!”

  “Yuck,” the twins said, “that’s gross.”

  “I tried it once,” the absentminded twin said. “Ragar’s grandson and I made a bet, and I lost. Yellow snow is very yucky.”

  Sankesh managed to keep a straight face, but only just. The sister was so shocked that she didn’t say anything.

  “Well. As I said, it happened a long time ago. The North was-”

  “We’ve heard that already,” the girl interrupted him. “Tell us about the Immortal and the gods.”