Chapter 2:

chapter2: The Slave Market

King of Chains

Falaar kept walking, his head bowed. Lorin stumbled beside him, and whenever he slowed to let her catch her breath, the rope tightened around her wrists.

Her fingers scarcely left his sleeve.

"Hold on to my sleeve, Lorin. I'm right beside you."

She did not answer. She clutched his shirt and walked on.

The glow of the fire lingered beyond the trees. Falaar looked back whenever the road turned, but after a few hours, Amraj was lost from view.

A soldier's voice reached him.

"Stop looking back. Keep moving."

He turned to face the road.

The men carried no banner and spoke of no battle. At every stop, they counted the prisoners and checked the ropes, just as his father used to check his nets before setting out to sea. Falaar strained to catch a name, a destination—anything that might explain what had happened. But all he heard were orders to keep moving.

Some distance farther on, Lorin looked up at him.

"Falaar… do you know where they're taking us?"

He looked at the muddy road.

"No. I haven't heard them mention a place."

Her grip on his sleeve tightened.

At first light, they were halted in a hollow screened from the road by rocks. Some prisoners sat where they stood; others fell to their knees before sinking to the ground. One guard remained on the rise, watching the way they had come.

Falaar and Lorin shared a piece of stale bread.

"Falaar, take half."

"This is enough for me. You eat."

Lorin looked at the small piece in his palm, then broke some off her own share and placed it on top of his. He did not argue. They ate in silence, and after a while, she rested her head on his shoulder.

Once she was asleep, he bent over to examine the rope. He recognized the knot; he had tied the same one countless times in boat ropes. But the man had pulled it so tight that it dug into his skin.

He looked up at the guard, then at the bushes behind the rocks.

If he could undo the knot, he might reach the bushes before the guard noticed. He imagined slipping out of sight among the branches. Then he looked at Lorin. Her rope was tied to the same long line.

He stopped working at the knot.

Throughout the first day, he kept waiting for someone to appear on the road. He listened to every sound and raised his head whenever he heard voices in the distance. But he saw only the men of the caravan and heard only the prisoners' footsteps and the ropes rubbing against their wet clothes.

When evening came, Lorin asked quietly, "Will anyone go back to bury Mother?"

His fingers stiffened around the piece of bread.

She waited for his answer. He looked into the darkness beyond her.

"Maybe… maybe someone is still in the village."

She was silent for a moment, then wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

"And if there's no one left?"

His lips moved, but he could find no answer. He laid his bound hand over hers, and she leaned against him, stifling her sobs.

By the second day, hunger hurt less than walking. Lorin's shoe kept sticking in the mud until one side tore open, and she began to tread carefully to avoid the stones. Falaar chose where she should step, drawing her toward him whenever he spotted a sharp stone before she did.

When she stumbled and fell, a soldier raised his whip to strike her.

Falaar sprang in front of her.

"Wait! Let me help her. She'll get up."

"Get away from her. We're not stopping the caravan for her."

An older man walking near the front called back, "Let the boy help her. If you break her leg, you can carry her the rest of the way."

The soldier lowered his hand, muttering, "Tch. Filthy slave."

Falaar pulled his sister to her feet and waited for her to regain her balance. Then he tore a strip from the hem of his shirt and wrapped it around her foot to cover the wound.

"Try standing on it. Does it still hurt?"

She put her weight on it cautiously, then nodded.

"I can walk. Don't worry."

He did not quite believe her, but that strip of cloth was all he had.

By the third day, he had stopped trying to judge how far they had traveled. Now he kept track of how long his sister could walk before she began to slow, and how many men remained awake whenever the caravan stopped. He no longer had the strength to wonder where they were going.

When the third night fell, the smell of the air changed.

He raised his head.

He knew that smell: salt, damp, and ropes left too long beside the water.

The sea!

The road opened between the hills. Below, a few lamps swayed above wooden piers. Beyond them, a ship's mast rose over a low building. Beside the road stood a stone tower, with torches burning above its doorway.

The guards pointed toward the tower and discussed the arrangements for getting through. From their conversation, Falaar gathered that they had reached a crossing on the kingdom's northeastern border. He had no idea how far they had come from his village, but the men seemed to know the place. Their pace quickened, and they began shoving the prisoners into a neater line.

At the tower, their leader exchanged a few words with a man carrying a lamp. A small pouch passed from one hand to the other. Then the gate opened.

Falaar watched the man with the lamp. The light swept over the prisoners' faces, then over Lorin's wrists. The man turned away and ordered the barrier across the road to be raised.

No one asked where they had come from.

They were made to sit beside a warehouse that reeked of filth. Lorin leaned against Falaar's arm and closed her eyes. A soldier stood a few paces away, behind some coils of rope.

"Three days in the mud, and we get the same pay?" one of the soldiers asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"You get your share for the raid, and extra for every prisoner sold. What more do you want?"

"I want to know how much extra. Every time I ask someone, all I get is, 'When we arrive.'"

"Ask the Black Harbor's agent when we reach Silmar. He has the money, not me."

The first soldier fell silent, then said, "If they hadn't burned the houses, we could have taken more."

"And if we'd stayed until dawn rounding them up, we might have left without our heads. We took enough."

"What about the ruler of Dorth? If he finds out what happened in Amraj…"

"Let him bring his soldiers back from the north first. If there had been a garrison in the village, the Black Harbor's traders would never have chosen it."

Falaar sat motionless.

"The Black Harbor…"

The Black Harbor traded in people. They bought captives and slaves, and paid men to bring them more. He turned the words over in his mind, waiting for them to mean something else. He had imagined a war he had never heard of, or an act of revenge against someone in the village, or a crime someone had kept hidden. He had never imagined that people would one day haggle over his price as fishermen haggled over a basket of fish.

Lorin stirred against his arm.

"Are we done walking?"

He looked at the ship behind her.

"We're going aboard that ship."

She opened her eyes and looked at the mast. "Where is it going?"

Before he could answer, they were ordered to stand.

The guards herded them onto a narrow gangplank leading from the pier to the ship. The wood shifted beneath Lorin's feet, and she shrank back. Falaar turned to her.

"Hold on to my arm. Put your feet where I put mine… that's it."

He knew how to balance with the movement of the water; he had spent enough of his life in boats. But he could not keep his legs from trembling when he saw the hatch the prisoners were being forced through, and the ladder descending into the hold.

He hesitated at the first rung.

The guard shoved him between the shoulders.

"Hurry up. There are others waiting."

He climbed down, holding Lorin's arm. The ceiling was low, and the air smelled of damp wood and sweat. The prisoners sat pressed together and were ordered to draw in their legs to make room for the others.

Once they were all below, the hatch closed above them.

A strip of light still filtered through a crack in the wood. Falaar watched until it began to sway across the floor. Then he heard ropes striking the deck and sailors shouting.

The ship began to move.

Lorin reached for him in the darkness.

"If they call for me… don't let them take me alone."

He tightened his grip on her fingers.

"I won't leave you, Lorin. I'll stay with you."

• • •

Falaar did not see Silmar when it appeared on the horizon.

He saw it only after the hatch opened and the guards ordered them up. The light hurt his eyes. He lifted his gaze a little, until he could make out the ships moored side by side, the wooden cranes, and the rows of white buildings climbing above the harbor.

The city teemed with life. Laborers carried barrels, a boy ran after a cart, and a woman argued with a fishmonger over his prices. A man stopped chewing to look at the prisoners, then went back to his meal.

Falaar searched the faces as he passed. His gaze caught on a guard with a clean breastplate and a spear. But the guard stepped aside for the armed men, then shouted at a laborer whose cart was blocking the passage.

Falaar lowered his head before the man could catch him looking.

They were taken into a building with a courtyard enclosed by high walls. There, their ropes were exchanged for iron shackles. A clerk examined their hands and faces, making marks on a board in front of him. Falaar stood beside his sister.

A hand reached toward Lorin's face.

"Move aside. I need to see her face," the examiner said.

"Keep your filthy hands off my sister."

"Then take your hands off her and stop holding me up."

A guard pushed Falaar aside by the shoulder. The examination lasted only a few moments, but his helplessness bore down on him like a weight on his chest.

They were given water to wash their faces and coarse clothes to replace the garments torn on the journey. Lorin hesitated to give up her old dress.

"Can't I keep it?" she whispered to him. "Mother mended this dress…"

He looked at the seam. He recognized the small stitches she was pointing to. The edge of the sleeve had torn a few days earlier when it caught on the wooden door.

"You have another dress," the guard said. "Put that one with the rest."

That night, she slept with her hand wrapped around Falaar's wrist.

He lay awake, listening to the locks in the corridor.

In the morning, they opened the door.

"Get up. Into the courtyard, one at a time."

• • •

The slave market was a rectangular courtyard with a wooden platform at its center. Awnings stretched over rows of seats. Soldiers stood along the edges, watching the prisoners and talking to the brokers. Behind the platform were water jars and small stools for the men conducting the sales.

The prisoners were lined up against the wall and brought onto the platform one by one.

Falaar heard questions about age, strength, and illness. The buyers studied shoulders, hands, and teeth. Then one would raise a finger, the clerk would write something down, and the prisoner would be led away.

Lorin moved closer until her arm touched his.

"Tell them we're brother and sister. Maybe they'll take us together."

"I'll tell them," he said.

Only moments earlier, he had watched two men who had arrived tied to the same rope being led in different directions. No one had asked whether they knew each other.

He reached for her hand, but the guard seized his arm.

"You. Up there."

Lorin clung to him.

"Move!"

Blows landed.

The guard pried their fingers apart and took him up onto the platform.

The faces in the crowd turned toward him. He set his feet a little farther apart, trying to hide the trembling in his knees.

The seller took his hand and turned it palm up, showing them the callused skin at the base of his fingers.

"Who needs a pair of working hands? A healthy boy, used to hard work since childhood. Look at his hands."

"What kind of work has he done?" Lord Maron asked from beneath one of the awnings.

The seller turned to Falaar.

"Answer his lordship. What did you do?"

"I used to go fishing with my father."

Maron cast a brief, appraising glance over his arms. He wore a dark coat with fine embroidery, and a clerk sat beside him holding a small ledger.

"I'm looking for woodcutters. Has he ever held an axe?"

The seller smiled.

"He's used to hauling nets, my lord. Those arms are strong enough to split wood. If he doesn't know how, he'll learn. And you won't find a grown man at this price."

The bidding began.

Falaar paid no attention to the bids. He was looking at Lorin over the guard's shoulder.

The seller struck the platform with his stick.

"Sold to Lord Maron!"

The clerk approached the platform. Falaar took a step forward before the guard stopped him.

"My lord."

The words came haltingly. The man in the dark coat raised his head.

Falaar pointed to Lorin.

"My lord, that's my sister. Let me take her with me. Please!"

Maron looked at the little girl, then at his clerk.

"Pay him. We're leaving."

"Please. I'll share my food with her," Falaar said. "I'll do whatever you ask. She's only little… she won't be a burden. I'm begging you!"