“What’s that gabble?” came a raucous shout from the deck of the ship. The words were a choppy mixture of Isarran and badly accented Gelone. “Marsus, you lazy oaf! Can’t even carry your own load but must trick some half-grown boy? You there, gutter-rat!”
Zevaron looked up to see a hugely muscled giant of a man, dressed in outlandish colors, standing at the ship’s railing. “We were just—”
“Off with you! Work to be done! No time for talk!”
Marsus reached out for Zevaron’s rope. As it was passed it to him, he said, “Yesterday, the Silver Gull. Remember my name. Marsaneth.”
Zevaron stared at the old man’s retreating back. With the big sailor staring down at him, he dared not follow. The deck crawled with men. Some were obviously seamen, but others appeared to be shore laborers. He stepped closer, into the sailor’s glare.
“I want a job.”
“Get away!”
Zevaron took a breath. “I’ll work for my passage—carrying, hauling, scrubbing. Anything you say!”
“Row like slave?” The sailor’s mouth curved in a cruel line.
“If that’s the work to be done,” Zevaron insisted. “I must get to Gelon.”
“Ha! We have crew enough, too many! Bring money, I take you as passenger.”
Zevaron was about to continue bargaining when he glimpsed a Gelonian soldier heading their way, perhaps alerted by their conversation. He ducked his head in what he hoped was a properly naval gesture and hurried away.
Money? Where can I get money? He had no coins or anything to sell…or did he?
Scarcely daring to pause long enough to think, lest the audacity of what he was doing overwhelm him, Zevaron searched out the alley where he’d spent the night. The sword was still where he had left it. Now, in daylight, it did not look at all valuable, with its dried blood and nicked edge. He should have cleaned the blade better to prevent the blood from etching pits into the metal. Still, it must be worth something. These sailors might want weapons to use against pirates.
Trying to stay out of sight, he made his way to the poorest, most disreputable tavern he could find. He hoped it was the sort of place where a sword with obvious recent use and in none too good condition could be sold without questions. The room inside was dim and rank-smelling, with a row of ill-patched tables, one of which bore a line of pottery jugs and trays of coarse bread, dried figs, and olives. Flies buzzed around the food and the unwashed wooden bowls.
Zevaron slid onto one of the benches, rested the sword against his good leg, and tried to look calm as he surveyed the handful of men. All he had to do was display his wares and let them come to him. He wouldn’t take the first offer. He’d just sit here until he got a sense of how much they would pay.
One of the drinkers, a thick-bodied, grizzled man who had been sitting at the far end of the bench, glanced pointedly at the sword and then at Zevaron’s face. He heaved his bulk to his feet and began to walk toward the back.
Before Zevaron could follow, the door burst open and a handful of Gelonian soldiers rushed in. Swords drawn, they fanned out, pushing the tavern customers against the rough walls.
Zevaron grabbed the sword and leapt to his feet. A Gelon lunged for him, attacking with his own blade. Zevaron took a step backward, lost his balance, and came up flat against the wall. In a split instant, the Gelon parried, sending Zevaron’s sword spinning free, and jabbed the tip of his sword against Zevaron’s throat.
“What have we here?” A Gelon in the plumed helmet of an officer stepped into the middle of the room. A sword hung from his belt. He carried a short whip of the sort used on cattle.
“What do you want with us?” The bartender’s voice quavered so badly, his Gelone was almost incomprehensible. “We’ve done nothing!”
“This,” the Gelon picked up Zevaron’s sword, “is not nothing! I see a nest of criminals.”
“No! No! We are innocent men, quietly drinking!” the tavern host protested. “I know nothing of this, I tell you! Nothing!” The Gelon who held a sword to his belly shoved harder. The man squeaked, gulped hard, and swallowed any further protest.
“As I was saying,” the Gelonian officer went on, “in the interests of peace and order in this city, we cannot allow such dangerous men to roam the streets. That one—” He pointed. “That one and, oh yes,” he said, voice turning silky, “the boy with the sword. We can’t very well have him roaming around, threatening innocent civilians. Bring them!”
The next moment, Zevaron was spun around, his wrists bound in front of him in rings of rough iron, and shoved out through the door. The brightness of the day stung his eyes. A central chain linked him to a dozen or so men. Some had freshly bleeding wounds or swollen lips. When he stumbled, one of the Gelon cuffed him on the back of the head, almost sending him to the ground. The shackles on his wrists pulled him up.
The officer emerged from the tavern. “Get them on board. And you prisoners! A word of advice, which is the last anyone will give you. Pray if it comforts you, but abandon all thought of ever seeing your families again. You are no longer free men. You are the property of Ar-Cinath-Gelon, the Scourge of Isarre and Protector of the One True Land, may-his-power-ever-increase, to do with as he wills. And what he wills is that you spend the rest of your miserable lives rowing his ships back to Gelon. Your lives can be short and painful, or shorter and filled with agony beyond your wildest nightmares. The choice is up to you. Or rather, up to me!”
The sound of the officer’s laughter rang in Zevaron’s ears. Let the fool boast, he told himself, if it would mean passage to Gelon. He could keep his head down, do as he was told, and work as hard as anyone. Once he was in Gelon, he would find a way to escape. His Gelone was good and—
“Stop!” the officer shouted, and the train of prisoners came to a shambling halt. “That one—the boy with the sword and the smirk on his face. As an introduction to your new lives, I will now provide you with a lesson.”
One of the guards jerked on Zevaron’s manacles, dragging him forward. The officer took up a position in front of him, tapping his shoulder with the coiled lash. Zevaron forced himself to stand still. He kept his eyes downcast and his expression bland. After all, the Gelon could not read his thoughts.
Thwack!
The Gelonian officer brought the lash across Zevaron’s face. Shock took his breath away. Parallel lines of fire seared his cheeks. He hunched over and tried to cover his head.
Slash-thwack!
Backhanded, the lash struck again, this time striking Zevaron’s arms and shoulders. How could this be happening? He’d offered no resistance—maybe they thought he was someone else.
Thwack! Thwack!
He felt the individual strips of knotted leather as they rained down on his back. His shirt afforded him little protection.
“S-stop!” he gasped. “This isn’t f-f-fair! I’ve done nothing!”
“Silence!”
Zevaron tried to twist away, but the officer kicked his legs out from under him and kept hitting him, over and over again. Within a few moments, his back and shoulders had turned into a tangle of criss-crossed welts.
“The first law—”
Thwack! The blows fell and fell, too fast and heavy to count. More cuts lacerated his buttocks and the backs of his thighs, but the main force was directed at his back. The Gelon struck with such a vicious frenzy, it was as if he were hitting every slave who’d ever been insolent, every person who’d ever offended him.
“—of the slave—”
Thwack!
“—is that I will do whatever I wish—”
Thwack!
“—whenever I wish—”
The hiss and slap of the lash filled Zevaron’s ears. Tears spilled down his cheeks. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t draw a breath.
“—simply because I can!”
Where the flails overlapped a previous blow, the pain was unbearable. Blow after relentless blow landed, sheets of white agony, cold and burning at the same time.
His skin seemed to melt under the onslaught, so that each cut went deeper and deeper. Something hot and wet trickled down his sides. His back turned into a single pulsating mantle of fire.
He tried to crawl away, wriggling this way and that to protect his back from the worst, but he could get no traction on the wooden deck. Someone kicked his head. His vision whirled with the impact and the sickening, distant sound of laughter.
Then his throat opened and he screamed.
Chapter Twelve
ZEVARON drifted in and out of nightmares, of half-waking dreams of fire racing across his back, of the world dissolving beneath him as legend said would happen at the end of time, of voices weaving in and out in the distance, often in languages he could not understand. Of something cavernous opening up beneath him and a low deep thrumming, a sound below sound.
Gradually, the periods of consciousness lengthened. He became aware that he was lying on his belly on a rough wood surface, jammed between boxes or crates, he couldn’t tell. From time to time, a someone knelt beside him, sponged his back and face, and spoke to him.
Zevaron wanted Tsorreh more than ever. But she was gone, sent off to Gelon and slavery or death. All because he had failed her. Whatever happened to her was his fault, his misjudgment, his weakness. The pain in his back and the pain in his heart ran together and wet his face, a storm of tears.
“There now, boy,” came the man’s voice, rasping and curiously familiar. “Wilt live. Wilt mend. Though it might have been a blessing otherwise.”
Wilt live? Was he not dead already?
Uneasy sleep swallowed him up again.
He woke to the sound of a man’s voice speaking Gelone, a voice he ought to know. Instinct kept him motionless, pretending sleep.
“So the cub has survived, after all. Who would have thought he had it in him? Perhaps there’s more to this one than meets the eye. All right, I’ll allow him a share of rations. Put him on the oars as soon as he’s able. He’ll work his way, all right. When we reach Verenzza, we’ll see what else he’s good for. Too bad about the scars. He’s pretty enough to be a rich man’s ducky.”
Footsteps, this time leather over wood, receded into the constant rushing sound. Zevaron slitted his eyes open to glimpse a man in Gelonian clothing, wearing a bandolier of braided leather and a sword in its belted scabbard. He watched the man clamber up a ladder and disappear into a wash of brilliance. The world shifted rhythmically. Salt tang and the smell of fish hung heavy in the air.
“’M’on a boat?” Zevaron’s throat ached as he formed the broken words.
“Ship, not boat. Drink this.” A man, stout, with thinning white hair, helped Zevaron to sit up while carefully avoiding touching his back. “We’re three days out of Gatacinne. That’s three days closer to Gelon.”
Zevaron took the dented metal cup in both hands. The movement was awkward because his wrists were encased in iron manacles, joined by links of chain. Thirst swept through him, and he gulped down the tepid brew. It was some kind of ale, bitter and well-watered. His throat felt as if he’d swallowed sand or screamed himself voiceless, but he had no memory of it. There was food as well, dry flatbread, salt-cured meat, and boiled millet. Zevaron ate it all, even though his stomach rebelled at the smell. The old sailor brought rags and a thick, stinking ointment for Zevaron’s wounds. They were on the Wave Dancer, headed for Gelon with a load of slaves and booty, mostly from the governor’s palace and the Gatacinne treasury.
“That Haran, he meant to make an example of you, d’you see?” the old sailor told Zevaron. “He’d be just as happy if you died. Then he could feed your body to the fishes. You belong to the Ar-King now that we’re at sea, so he dare not. But he’ll make you wish he had.”
“Why—why are you helping me?” Am I to be your ducky?
In the half-light, Zevaron caught the glint of the old man’s eyes. He saw a secret recognition, an affirmation that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. A chance to defy Gelon, to wrest one small victory from their hands.
With food in his belly, Zevaron felt strong enough to move about, as the old sailor urged. The cuts on his face were shallow and had already scabbed over. The hold was cramped and dank, and the constant rhythmic movement left him nauseous and disoriented, but he persisted as if his life depended on it.
Although every movement sent fresh spasms of pain through his back, Zevaron gritted his teeth and clambered onto the rowing deck. Here he joined the rows of oarsmen, one above and offset from the other. The Wave Dancer had previously been crewed by free men, so there were no bolts on the floor to attach the leg shackles. Instead, the Gelon knotted a loop around one ankle of each prisoner and anchored the ends to the bench brackets.
The old sailor left to attend to his own work. “Do your best, lad, keep your nose out of trouble, and the others will look after you.”
When the ship moved easily under sail, the oarsmen rested. After a short time, however, the wind fell off, and Zevaron took his place with the others on the bench, who were mostly Isarran, newly made slaves. Some had sea experience.
Zevaron grasped the oar as he was shown and did his best. After a short time, the barely healed cuts on his back broke open and began bleeding. He felt wrung out, exhausted. He kept going, telling himself that the only way he was going to get strong enough was to push himself.
He was shaking all over when a halt was called. His hands were scoured and blistered, and the salt from his sweat set his back on fire. They rested, drank a measure of water, and returned to work. He wanted nothing more than to crawl back to the belly of the ship. He sat, staring at the oar and wondering where he was going to find the strength to pick it up.
Haran, the whip-bearing Gelon in charge, spotted him. Glaring, the Gelon made his way on the planking between the banks of rowers. Terror overcame exhaustion as Zevaron hastily grabbed his oar. He thought of that whip laid over his torn, oozing back. He ducked his head, throwing his weight into the next stroke. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the Gelon come closer, the gleam in the man’s eyes. The whip uncoiled.
Slash!
Zevaron flinched at the sound. His muscles tightened reflexively. His throat clenched, and bile rose to his mouth. No lash of fire bit into his flesh this time. He hauled on the oar, his heart pounding. The whip snapped again and a voice cried out, but not his. The Gelon cursed aloud in his own language, something about lazy scum.
Shivering in the close, hot air, Zevaron rowed.
Stroke…stroke…
He tried to settle into the rhythm, but the oars required coordination and the skill was slow in coming. As minutes built one on the other, his muscles ached and the palms of his hands burned and swelled. Each torment added to the next, until he felt he could bear no more, do no more. Then he would catch a glimpse of Haran and his whip, the gleam of those eyes, remember the sound of the lash laying open his skin, and he would row. And row.
As the eastern sky grew dark, the wind came up again. The oarsmen rested. Zevaron slumped over, hands hanging limp between his knees. As soon as he stopped rowing, the agony of salt on his open wounds sprang up again, assailing his back and his torn palms. The man with the water bucket came around, but Zevaron did not have the strength even to reach for the cup. The man who rowed in front of him held it to Zevaron’s mouth and coaxed him to drink. No one protested the delay, although the other rowers must have been thirsty, too.
The water had been dosed with wine and something else, some restorative herb. It brought a small measure of renewed strength. Zevaron felt the ship gliding under him, and looked up with the others as someone on the top deck called out the approach of land.
The old Isarran sailor brought a pot of ointment and rags, and set about tending to the abraded hands of the new rowers. As he worked, he told them what was happening. They had made land, one of the islands in a chain called the Sea King’s Necklace, where they would pass the night at anchor, rather than risk straying from their course. It was along the route to Verenzza, and the Wa
ve Dancer had stopped here many times before. The island provided a sheltered cove, as well as inland springs and wild goats.
A shimmering twilight hung in the western sky as the ship dropped anchor. Zevaron heard the change in the waves and the shrill cries of the sea birds. Haran had taken ashore a party of seamen, the old Isarran among them, to hunt and to refill water casks.
The Gelon on watch untied the slaves, several at a time, so that they might move about and relieve themselves over the side of the ship. Zevaron could not imagine any of them having the strength to rebel. He certainly didn’t. He patiently waited his turn for the ration of water and boiled grain that was his evening meal. When he started shivering, one of the sailors gave him an old shirt, stiff with sea salt.
Full dark had fallen by the time Zevaron was allowed to move about. He had been dozing fitfully in his place when the rower behind him touched his shoulder gently. Lantern in hand, a Gelon stood guard while another untied the ankle loop. The muscles of Zevaron’s arms and back were so stiff, it hurt to breathe, but he forced himself to follow the others to the main deck.
“Something’s going on,” someone said. “There—on shore.”
Zevaron was too tired to care.
Still, it was good to be on deck. The night was unusually clear, and the moon, barely past full, was so bright it cast faint shadows. Sounds carried above the gentle plash of the waves: shouting, the rustling noise of bodies moving through brush, then a scream. Zevaron saw the darker shadow of a small boat heading toward them.
“Ambush!” Haran’s voice sliced through the night. “Pirates! Flee! Flee!”
“Sir? What about the others?” one of the Gelon onboard asked, glancing wild-eyed toward the shore. “Shouldn’t we—”
“Never mind them!” The slave-master hauled himself up the knotted rope and onto the deck. He was alone. “All men to the oars! Row! Row for your lives!”
The Seven-Petaled Shield Page 15
