Harag howled in fury. “Filthy swine! I’ve just cleaned that!” He raised his whip and Anvar cringed, awaiting the blow.
“Stop that, Harag!” Abuz bellowed. “I don’t intend to lose my bonus through your temper!”
Harag turned, his whip still raised, his face livid with rage. “You mind your own business, you lumbering ox!”
Abuz laid the massive drumsticks down on top of the drum and rose to his feet. He was so huge that he had to bend beneath the low ceiling. The slaves ^topped rowing immediately, relief on their pain-wracked, sweat-drenched faces. “Do I have to come down there and deal with this, Harag?” Abuz said. “Because you’re beginning to make me angry—and you know what happens when I get angry!”
Harag’s swarthy face paled. Slowly, he lowered the whip.
“What in the name of the Reaper is going on down there?” The captain’s angry voice bellowed through the open hatchway above. “Why have we stopped?”
Abuz flinched. “Sorry, Captain. Just having a little problem with the new slave.” Without waiting for a reply, he sat down hastily and picked up his drumsticks, resuming a rapid beat. Harag, taking his temper out on the gasping, glassy-eyed slaves, strode up and down, lashing them into greater efforts.
Anvar curled around his bruised stomach and abandoned himself to utter misery.
A cascade of cold water awakened him abruptly, washing away the pool of vomit in which he had been lying. He heard the captain’s voice rising in anger. “I thought I told you to clean this place up!” There was the sick thud of a fist striking flesh.
“But I did,” Harag whined. “The mangy dog threw up again!”
“Never mind,” the captain sighed. “Just get on with it.” A stinking sack was thrust over Anvar’s head, and he was lifted by rough hands. As they bundled him through the hatch, he heard the hubbub of what must presumably be the docks. The sun’s heat hit him like a hammer blow as he was carried down a sloping, bouncing gangplank and thrown down roughly, with all the breath knocked out of him. Suddenly he was in motion—from the jolting, it seemed that he was in a cart, and the multitude of sounds around him seemed to indicate a town or city of some sort. He thought he understood why they had put the sack over his head—if he should escape, he would have no idea where he was, or where to run. Unfamiliar with the customs of this land, he failed to realize that it was also to hide the fact that the captain was bringing an illegal foreigner into the slave markets instead of turning him over to the city’s authorities, as the law demanded.
The cart bounced along, jarring Anvar’s aching head. The motion made him feel £ts though he would be sick again at any minute. His body was baking in the heat of the sun, and he w,i nearly suffocating inside the smelly sack. But at last the sui heat vanished abruptly, and the faint light that filtered throu; the weave of the sack dimmed. The cartwheels echoed hollow on smooth stone, then stopped.
“Greetings, Captain.” The light voice dripped false honey “You had a profitable voyage, I trust? Are we buying today, or selling?”
“Selling, Zahn. Just the one this time.”
“Only one? Tut tut, Captain. You are usually one of my more dependable suppliers.”
“Be reasonable, Zahn,” the captain said irritably. “What could we possibly gain from two months’ duty patrol up the coast? We are the Khisu’s Corsairs, you know. Sometimes we must do our duty, and forget profit for a while.”
“Your loyalty does you credit, Captain,” Zahn replied smoothly. “Shall we inspect the merchandise, then?”
The bonds were cut from Anvar’s feet, and he gasped with pain as blood ran back into the numbed tissues. He was pulled from the cart and hauled upright by strong hands, and the sack was wrenched from his head. A short, wizened man with a face like a steel trap stared at him openmouthed.
“Reaper of Souls!” he gasped. “A Northerner. How dare you bring an illegal slave into my premises!”
“Spare me your righteous protests, Zahn,” the captain said impatiently. “I know how desperate you are for slaves—any slaves—just now.”
His words seemed to deflate the Slavemaster. “Where did you find him?” Zahn asked with a frown.
“Washed up along the coast. Shipwrecked, by the look of it, in that freak storm. We saw some corpses and floating wreckage. They must have been blown far off course. Normally, they have more sense than to venture into our waters.” He grinned wolfishly. “Anyway, enough of this. Do you want him, or shall I turn him over to the Arbiters like a good little Corsair?”
The Slavemaster pursed his lips and began to walk around Anvar, looking him carefully up and down with an occasional pinch and prod. “Strip him,” he ordered, and one of his handlers drew a knife and began to slit away the ragged remains of Anvar’s clothes. Anvar struggled wildly—then, feeling the bite of cold steel against his naked flesh, he froze, swallowing hard .is he realized where his guard had positioned the knife.
“What are you doing?” the captain protested.
Zahn grinned evilly. “Don’t worry—I can sell him just as well as a eunuch—but there will probably be no need. He may not speak our tongue, but I think he understands!”
Sweat broke out on Anvar’s brow. He froze in position, hardly daring to breathe. Though he was sickened by the touch of Zahn’s overfamiliar hands on his body, there was nothing he could do. His hands were still bound, and there was a burly handler on each side of him, one holding the knife in its perilous position. Anvar clenched his fists and shuddered. To take his mind off the examination, he concentrated instead on his surroundings.
He was in a large, circular chamber built of stone, with a domed ceiling. In the center was a raised, roped-off platform, to one side of which stood a row of large iron cages, empty at present. The walls of the chamber were pierced at regular intervals by a series of shadowed archways. Only one of them was filled with the glare of bright sunlight, leading to the outside world.
“Well . . .” Anvar heard Zahn say, and snapped his attention back to the slave merchant, who was eyeing him thoughtfully. “He’s in fair condition, considering,” he told the captain, “and he seems strong enough, with that height, and those lovely broad shoulders.” Zahn was eyeing him in a frankly speculative fashion that made Anvar shudder. “Unfortunately,” the slaver continued, “I cannot sell him to a private client—those eyes would put people off. Besides, there would be too many questions. But as you know, the Khisu is desperate for more laborers. The Reaper only knows how they go through so many slaves out there! Sheer mismanagement, if you ask me. Still, this summer palace is the best thing for trade in years, and His Majesty pays well. I think we can come to an arrangement. Of course, he will not last long in our climate, but that is not our problem. Come, my friend. Let us discuss the price over a glass of wine.” He snapped his fingers at the two husky men holding Anvar. “Take him,” he said.
To Anvar’s utter relief, the knife was taken away. He was dragged through one of the shadowy archways, and forced down a long, echoing corridor lit by lamps that hung from chains set in the ceiling. Bars of sunlight filtered through a latticed wooden door at the far end. His captors unlocked it and Anvar was thrust out into a dusty yard edged with open-fronted workshops. A potter sat in one, turning a rough clay bowl on his wheel. In the next, a draggled woman stirred a caldron of vile-smelling swill over an open fire, pausing only to flick away a myriad of great black flies that swarmed around her greasy face. Outside another booth, a man was plaiting long, thin strips of hide into a whip. Anvar turned his eyes away, not liking what it portended.
On one side of the courtyard was a smithy. A skinny, sweating little boy worked the bellows, keeping the forge at white heat while two dark-skinned men in leather aprons hammered out chains and manacles. There was no mistaking the smith himself. A squat black man, his skin tanned like wrinkled leather from the heat of the forge, he was twice as broad across the shoulders as Anvar, his muscles standing out like rough-hewn rocks. The two guards approached him with respect. The smith’s eyes widened at the sight of Anvar. “Reaper take us!” he growled disgustedly. “Zahn is getting desperate!” He advanced on Anvar, holding a hinged metal collar that looked like a child’s bracelet in his great hands. One of his assistants followed, bearing a glowing, white-hot iron.