Empire of Avarice

by Tony Roberts

  “Nah,” Lalaas shook his head, “too much. C’mon.”

  He thought Amne was going to argue, but then meekly followed, not wanting to he left there amongst the crowd of strangers. Theros, on the auctioneer’s block, opened his mouth to shout his disapproval, but got another slap, this one even harder, and he fell to the wooden surface heavily. “Any more takers?” the auctioneer demanded.

  The crowd chuckled amongst themselves. Clearly thirty was way beyond the value of such a slave, and everyone knew it. The laughter was directed mainly at the man on the right hand side with the receding hairline, who was looking bemused. He turned and stalked off angrily, pursued my sniggers.

  “Hey,” the auctioneer shouted, “you’ve bought this slave! Stop him, someone!”

  Lalaas turned and watched from the back of the square as willing onlookers barred the man’s route and turned him about, propelling the protesting man to the front. He put up such a struggle that two rather tough looking men picked him up and carried him to the front.

  “Wha’s goin’ on?” Amne demanded, looking up at Lalaas in vexation.

  “They go’ that fool who bid ‘gainst us, an’ e’s been carried to the front!”

  The auctioneer glared at the struggling red-faced man. “You bid, you buy! Thirty! Pay up, you idiot!”

  “Got no money,” the man muttered.

  “Then why bid, you cretin? You waste my time!” He turned to two of his enforcers. “Break this fool’s face, then throw him out of here!”

  Screeching in protest, the man was hauled up onto the stage, dragged off out of everyone’s sight, and then all heard a sickening blow and a cry of pain. The auctioneer glared at the crowd. “Anyone else here want to bid and not pay? If you haven’t got no money, then don’t bid or push off!”

  Lalaas grinned and took Amne’s hand and pulled her back through the crowd. The onlookers parted for them, knowing they had been wronged. Lalaas went up to the stand and pulled out ten furims. “My bid?”

  The auctioneer looked at him, then sighed and nodded. “You’ve the right. This slave is yours. Got a collar?”

  Lalaas produced the collar he’d bought and the auctioneer took it and slipped it round Theros’s neck. He locked it and allowed Lalaas and Amne to come up onto the platform. Money was handed over and the auctioneer pushed Theros over to Lalaas. “He’s all yours. Leave by the back way.”

  There was a set of unsafe looking steps leading down to the back of the square and the three looked around for the way out. Off to the left there was a trampled path and Lalaas nodded in that direction. “That way, I think.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a short length of rope.

  Theros went to push past but Lalaas caught him by the neck and swung him round. “What are you doing?” Theros demanded.

  “You’re a slave,” Lalaas stated, taking hold of the front of the collar where the ring bolt was. He threaded the end of his rope through it. “So you’re going to remain one until we’re out of Bukrat.”

  “Are you mad?” Theros demanded, looking at Lalaas with undisguised hatred. He looked at a silent Amne. “Your highness –“. He got no further as a backhander from Lalaas knocked him to his knees.

  “If you say that again I’ll cut your tongue out,” Lalaas said evenly but quietly. He glanced around. The nearest people were taking no notice but they were within hearing range of normal conversation. “You will not speak until you are spoken to. Do you understand – slave?”

  Theros fingered the red welt on his face. He looked up at Amne who was looking at Lalaas with her hand to her mouth. “Your….”

  Lalaas slammed a fist into Theros’s jaw, sending him falling back onto the ground. He lay there, dazed.

  “Lalaas!” Amne gasped, shocked.

  “If he blurts out…” Lalaas took another look around and leaned closer to her so he could whisper into her ear. “If he blurts out you’re a princess here, we’re all finished. Do you know how much they’d get for selling a princess?”

  Amne stared at him, her eyes wide in horror.

  “You wouldn’t be sold here, that’s for certain. No. They’d take you to Krom or somewhere like that and sell you to the Epatamians or Tybar. They do a roaring trade there! You want to end up one of those chieftain’s slave-wife’s? Then he,” and Lalaas jerked his thumb at the sitting up Theros, “will keep his mouth shut!”

  Amne moved back from the two, too frightened to say anything. Lalaas stood over Theros, staring down at him. “We’re going to leave Bukrat shortly. But I want to tell you that you’re only with us because of her, and if you open your big stupid mouth again and endanger her future then I’ll cut you up into little pieces and leave you all over this blighted region. I want you to understand how close you are to being killed by me. I don’t like you. I don’t care for you one tiny bit. You’re a liability. I don’t need you and I don’t think Amne does either. So shut up and do as I tell you. Or else.”

  He looped the rope, tied a slip knot in it and then jerked Theros to his feet savagely. The diplomat stumbled after him as he led the princess away from the slave auction, but as they rounded a corner, from beyond the canvas side of a tent the slaver and his stooge came into sight, right across the track. Both turned and saw them.

  “Oh, no,” Amne drew in her breath and stepped behind Lalaas. Theros shrank away in fright, recognizing the man who had maltreated him so over the past couple of sevendays.

  What was more, the slaver recognized them. “Damn you, I’m owed money on him!”

  “You’re owed nothing, slaver,” Lalaas said. “You tried to cheat us and you failed.” He looked at the stooge who was nursing a broken nose behind a wad of blood-coloured cloth. “And it cost him his good looks.” The man hadn’t been comely in the first place.

  “Don’t get smart with me, you cocky porcine,” the slaver snarled. “Nobody bests me. I’ll have that slave back and you can get lost out of Bukrat.”

  Lalaas handed the rope to Amne. “If he tries to run, pull hard,” he muttered to Amne.

  “Hey, what happened to your accent?” the slaver suddenly demanded.

  Lalaas wasted no further time. One mighty blow under the slaver’s ribs sent him sinking to the ground. Lalaas followed up with a blow to the back of his head, his fist half open in a curious looking blow. The slaver crashed to the dirt, out cold. The stooge turned and fled, still holding his cloth. Two guards, standing close by, drew their swords and came for Lalaas, their faces twisted in fury.

  The scout hauled out his own weapon and faced the two. “Amne, get to the tavern now, and get the equines ready! If Theros tries anything, tie him to the nearest available post and leave him for the Bukratians to find him.”

  Amne dragged an unresisting Theros after her, leaving Lalaas blocking their way to her. “So who’s first then?” the Kastanian scout asked softly.

  The two men were similar, being big, strong and dark haired. They may well have been brothers. They both were swinging gently large straight-bladed swords with leather covered hilts. Lalaas thought the brothers and their weaponry to be Risanian, that province to the south which was challenging Kastan as the spiritual leader of the gods. With the decline of Kastan, Risania had declared themselves to be the last true believers of the gods. But Risanians were big, brutish, boorish, arrogant and the opposite of the cultured Kastanians.

  Lalaas didn’t know any Risanian, but their body language spoke enough. The first growled and came at him, blade swinging up ready to come back down on his head. Lalaas feinted to the left, then went right. The blow passed through clean air and Lalaas thrust forward quickly, then back and skipped aside as the Risanian staggered forward, clutching his wound. The big man slowly fell forward onto his face. The other guard said something guttural and brief, and Lalaas was in no doubt that it was something one wouldn’t repeat in front of one’s grandparents.

  The guard might have been big and strong, but he had no martial ability beyond the straightforward brutish enforcer type, and h
is throat-high slice left himself wide open to a riposte that Lalaas took full advantage of. The second man was left coughing up blood from a lung wound. Lalaas skipped over the fallen men and ran hard after Amne towards the tavern, wiping his blade on a cloth and then sheathing his weapon. It wouldn’t do to be seen running through the streets with a bared blade.

  He caught up with her and the unhappy Theros by the tavern. Theros had been complaining; Lalaas had heard him even before he caught up with them. As he passed the diplomat he slapped him across the back of the head, shutting him up once more. “I’ll go get our stuff from the room if you saddle up the equines. Tie this idiot to the post in the courtyard; he’s worse than useless and would only get in your way.”

  “I’ll make my own decisions, Lalaas,” Amne said sharply. “Remember who I am and who you are!”

  “Not here,” Lalaas snapped. “Here we’re equals; walls have ears,” he pointed to the tavern, whispering fiercely. “And keep this idiot quiet; half of Bukrat could hear him!”

  “He deserves to be whipped,” Theros growled, and then was on his knees clutching a bloodied nose as Lalaas smashed a fist into his face.

  “I’m all for leaving you behind. What about it, Amne? He’s a liability and will get us killed.”

  Amne opened her mouth and then shut it. The sheer violence Lalaas was displaying towards Theros shocked her. She composed herself. "I'm in charge here, Lalaas. Nobody is going to be left behind! Now go get our equipment and don’t tarry!”

  Lalaas grunted and eyed Theros who had got shakily to his feet. His eyes showed hostility but also fear. Lalaas pulled a face at him, then plunged into the maw of the tavern’s open doorway, taking the stairs two at a time.

  Amne tugged Theros after her around the corner and through the opening that led to the courtyard and the stables. The diplomat was moaning, clutching his face, trying to stop the flow of blood that was dribbling through his fingers and dripping onto the ground. His nose throbbed and ached, and the other blows he’d received were competing for which could hurt the most. He felt miserable and afraid. His only chance was to keep close to Amne and hope that savage she was with left him alone. He would get his revenge in time. He would see to it that Lalaas hung high when they got to civilisation.

  Amne left Theros to feel sorry for himself by the stable entrance while she identified the four equines that belonged to them. Three would be ridden now and one would have to act as pack beast; she wondered which one would, and what they would do with the equipment; there was too much for one beast to carry.

  She got the saddles and tack onto two of the equines by the time Lalaas reappeared. “Hurry,” he panted, “there’s a crowd gathering out the front; they heard him shouting out too much. He called you ‘highness’ again and now there’s a rumour running round there’s a princess here.”

  Theros cringed as Lalaas passed him but the scout was too much in a hurry to bother with him. He began fitting the equipment to the two other equines. “What about Theros?” Amne demanded, tightening the saddles and putting packs on the saddles of the ones that were to be ridden.

  “What about him?” Lalaas said.

  “Which one is he going to ride?”

  “This one,” Lalaas slapped one of the saddled equines. “Tell him to mount up now. I want to be away in a few moments.”

  Amne looked cross, her cheeks staining red. “You tell him!”

  “I’m not speaking to that fool; you want him with us – you tell him. Or I’m off and I’ll have you across my saddle and he can take his chances with the mob.”

  Amne gasped. Theros staggered to the side of the equine. “I’ll get up, ma’am,” he mumbled.

  “Amne – mount up,” Lalaas snapped curtly. He now had his bow slung across his back and a quiver of twenty arrows hanging from a baldric slung across one shoulder. “This may be pretty rough; you head out of town to the south east. There’s a road that leads that way. I’ll follow on foot. Now go!”

  Amne got up and settled herself. She was furious with Lalaas but was level-headed enough to know he was talking sense. She would reprimand him later. Leading one of the pack animals, she led Theros out of the courtyard and onto the street. Lalaas had been right. A crowd had gathered and was being spoken to by one of the armed leaders of the town. Cries went up of ‘there she is!’ as she came trotting onto the street, and she dug her heels into the side of the beast. It sprang forward, forcing the pack beast behind to break into a gallop too. They swept past the crowd which parted to allow her to ride through, and they shook their fists and shouted insults in her wake, then jumped back in fright as Theros came lumbering past with his pack beast at about half the speed Amne had managed.

  Lalaas kept Theros in sight, an arrow in his left hand, the bow in his right. “That’s a slave!” someone shouted, pointing at Theros’s collar. “Stop them!”

  The armed man drew his sword and Lalaas fitted the arrow to his bow, brought the bow up and loosed off all in one fluid motion. The arrow smashed into the man’s shoulder, spinning him round, and he crashed to the ground, his sword clattering noisily across the side of the street.

  As the townsfolk turned in surprise, Lalaas nocked another arrow to the bow and ran out across the street to the other side with a sideways motion, keeping the crowd fully in his sight. “Anyone who comes after us dies,” he said clearly. “If you don’t believe me, then try, and I’ll show you all that I’m deadly serious.”

  Nobody moved, except the wounded man who sat up and snapped the shaft of the arrow from his shoulder, then stared furiously at Lalaas. “You’ll not get away, I promise you!”

  “Yes we will; who wants to die for a lowly slave and a Kastanian scout?”

  “The princess is worth it,” someone answered.

  “Which is why I’m prepared to kill you all and burn this worthless dung heap of a town to the ground if you try.” Lalaas trotted off in the wake of Theros and headed for the town limits, leaving the crowd moving after him slowly, wanting to get their hands on Amne but too afraid to risk the arrows of Lalaas.

  The scout used an old trick of rapid cross-country speed; he ran four or five paces, slowed to a fast paced walk for ten steps, then repeated the run, and back again to the walk. By this means he kept well ahead of the crowd and came out of Bukrat, seeing ahead of him the four horses and the two Kastanians waiting for him. He had the distinct impression that Theros wanted to ride on while Amne was the one waiting for him.

  Amne indeed had shouted at Theros after he suggested they kept on going, and the diplomat lapsed into a sullen silence. She looked over Lalaas’s shoulder at the crowd who were coming their way, armed with clubs, sticks and no doubt stones.

  “Right,” Lalaas breathed, slinging his bow over his shoulder, “let’s be on our way.”

  “Lalaas,” Amne began, but the scout shook his head.

  “Ma’am, you wish to speak to me on my conduct; that is clear to me, but I suggest we wait till we’re clear of the lynch mob there. They won’t pursue us very far.”

  “Very well,” Amne nodded, looking sternly at the scout, “but don’t think I’m going to forget by the time we stop.”

  “I wouldn’t think of such a thing, ma’am,” Lalaas said gravely, and, casting a look over his shoulder, jog-trotted alongside the equines as they all set off once more, heading away from Bukrat and the crowd. Lalaas was right; the crowd soon gave up and dispersed back to the town, and the three made their way onwards for half a day until darkness was approaching, then Lalaas had them move off the dirt road down towards an outcrop of rocks to the right. Chuckling alongside the rocks was a brook and they all drank from this, the equines included, and the beasts were unladen and hobbled so they couldn’t roam too far, and they happily set about cropping the grass.

  As they sat down around a small fire set in the rocks so it couldn’t be seen from the road, Amne faced Lalaas. “Now we’re away from that beastly place, and we no longer have to masquerade as those commoners, you’ll rem
ember who I am. I do not take orders from you, Lalaas.”

  “Certainly, ma’am,” Lalaas bowed. “But please remember this is my environment; I am the expert here and I would strongly urge you to accept whatever recommendations I do make while we are in the wilds.”

  “Perhaps, Lalaas. But I will tell you; you will never strike this man again, you understand?”

  Lalaas eyed Theros with ill-concealed contempt. “So what happened to the other two then after you deserted this sick princess?”

  Theros looked sharply at Amne. She just waited for his reply, not reacting to Lalaas reminding her of Theros’s cowardly desertion. “Uh – we got lost and then before we could know what was happening, bandits sprang at us and we were separated; I don’t know what happened to the others. I was sold to a slaver and sent to Bukrat; the rest you know. Ma’am, may I please be freed of this collar? It chafes and I really don’t think it’s appropriate for me to wear it anymore.” His voice was nasally, his nose being swollen and blocked thanks to Lalaas’s blow.

  “Yes, Theros,” Amne nodded, “I can’t see why you should wear that beastly thing! Lalaas, the key.”

  Lalaas reluctantly handed it over and Amne opened it after a few moments of fumbling. Theros looked relieved and threw the collar as far as he could into the darkness. “Thank you, ma’am. I am eternally grateful.”

  Amne bowed in acknowledgement. She turned to Lalaas. “Now, how far is it to the Mazag border?”

  Lalaas looked thoughtful. “I really don’t know. I’ve never been this far before. If we keep heading south east and make for the mountains, then we’ll get there sure enough. We’ll have to watch for bandits and brigands of course, but with luck we should be there before the winter. I don’t know if the mountain passes are blocked in the winter, so I think we ought to try to get through them onto the Branak Valley before the snows come.”

  Amne digested that, then looked hopefully at the meal Lalaas was preparing. “All this excitement has made me hungry. What is it you’re cooking?”

  “Something I bought in Bukran,” he said. “Spiced herd beast. They like using a hot spice here with most of their cooking. I’ve thrown a few vegetables in and am boiling them in a herb flavoured water.”