Birthrights_Revisions to the Truth Page 21

  As he stood, grunting and the jangling of chains drew his attention toward the captives. He quickly turned away, not wanting to see. Murck’s at it again. Ard ate fast, lest the sounds spoil his appetite. He got along well enough with Murck during the day, but the evenings were a problem. That Murck used his horseshoe brand to ruin the artwork Ard had flayed on the slaves’ backs was bad enough. The sounds he made while doing it reminded Ard of childhood memories he’d tried hard to forget.

  “You like it?” Murck grunted behind the new boy—the one with the rust-colored hair and the hideous birthmark. The men to the boy’s sides were holding his face to the ground with their chains as he struggled against Murck’s thrusts.

  Boy’s too headstrong. The fight’ll just bring Murck back for more. The sounds sickened Ard. Not until he heard the sizzle of melting flesh—the signal Murck had finished and was marking his victim—could he relax. If the boy don’t learn, his back’ll be covered by horseshoes by the time we reach the mines.

  .

  .

  “Kutan,” Whym whispered. He’d tried all morning to get Kutan’s attention—as much as he dared without alerting their captors. I know you can hear me. Just look this way.

  Whym didn’t know what he could say to help, but had to try something. After the horror of the night before, he had to try. I’ll talk of escape. We must be ready to act when the opportunity arrives. We can’t lose hope. “Kutan.”

  Whym kept trying until they were lined up to be fed and watered. “If we’re going to escape, we must act soon,” Whym whispered to Tedel.

  Tedel, as well, ignored him.

  “There are three of us and three of them. If we catch them unaware, there’s a chance. We have to try!” Still no response. “Tedel, what’s wrong?”

  Tedel looked at Whym, the seeping horseshoe brand on Kutan’s back, then again at Whym. “There are three of us. You saw how the others held him down. There are many more than three of them.”

  Whym wanted to argue—he wanted to hope—but he knew deep down that Tedel was right. As long as they were chained to these other men, any attempt to escape would be futile. Worse, the punishment for such an attempt could be worse than what they already faced. Worse for me, maybe. I can’t imagine Kutan’s suffering being worse. Then he remembered the story Tedel had told about Damin cutting the foot off the man who’d complained of his infected sores. No matter how bad, there’s always worse.

  Colodor, Chapter 34

  .

  .

  .

  They bring as slaves

  the men in waves

  to sate the mine’s desires

  .

  For gems and gold

  the men are sold,

  more always it requires.

  .

  The miners weep

  in darkness deep,

  each to his death aspires.

  .

  —Excerpt from The Sorrows of Colodor

  .

  .

  Colodor

  .

  .

  .

  .

  “Miners comin’ through!” Murck’s voice galloped down the street, clearing a path before them. Ard spurred the men forward, snapping his whip at their legs.

  A few days earlier, they’d seen the snow-capped peaks of the Crags in the distance. It was a view Whym once longed to see. But he’d greeted it with resignation. His hopes of escaping the slavers had been shattered on only their second night of captivity. Tedel was a Faerie without magic. Murck had broken Kutan’s resolve.

  The days after were listless—spiritless. They’d marched—climbing mechanically toward those far off peaks—then stopped, then marched, then stopped, then marched. Whym barely slept, unable to grasp the slippery periods of rest while shivering against the cold.

  When the change in altitude had coincided with a sudden shift of the weather, Damin had ordered the horses’ blankets be used to protect his investment. The blankets did nothing to shield the men’s bodies from the bone-chilling and merciless cold that seeped from the ground below, but they did block the wind and, even better, prevented Murck from reaching Kutan at night. The count of the horseshoes had stopped at seven.

  “Step lively, Mother Hen.” Pain sprang from behind Whym’s knee, but he didn’t falter. In fact, with senses blurred from the sleepless nights, he hardly flinched. He’d accepted that they wouldn’t escape the slavers, but clung to the hope their fortunes might change once they reached the mines. Hope was all he had. The stories, songs, and poems all spoke of how the mines

  devoured miners. But the Fei escaped, so escape’s possible. Otherwise, why continue to place one foot after the other? Whym didn’t just want to believe, he had to believe.

  Their arrival in Colodor had provided just enough of a boost in energy to pull Whym from his trance-like existence. He took in the views of the famed city as they marched. The poems spoke of streets paved with gold, but the road they walked reminded him more of the Dung—poorly maintained, more holes than stone, and littered with refuse. The shops looked abandoned, doors askew, the wall colors scrubbed away by wind and rain. The only part of Colodor that matched the poetic descriptions was the menacing mine opening far above the city. He stared at the steep narrow staircase that zagged toward the entrance to the mountain, and wondered how many had entered that void never to return to the light.

  As they jangled and clanked through the streets, Whym noticed how the reactions of the people differed from the other towns through which they’d passed. In the towns, people had gawked or moved away. In Colodor, they showed no emotion, as if slavery were a natural human condition. Whym knew from reading the speeches of his great-grandfather that early versions of the Truth had prohibited slavery. It made sense to him that a people newly rid of their Faerie oppressors would view the practice with disdain. But later, the Council of Truth had lifted the prohibition.

  “Halt!” Damin’s voice froze the men in their tracks. Whym leaned to the side to see why they’d stopped. He could tell by Damin’s gestures he was speaking with someone, but the other figure was blocked from Whym’s view.

  “Kneel!” The chains clanked as the men dropped to a knee.

  “Can you see?” Whym asked Tedel. They’d grown close during their captivity. The Faerie’s stories about the land and people beyond the Blight had provided Whym a temporary respite from facing their own reality.

  “Shhh, they’re coming this way,” Tedel responded.

  Damin walked down the lines of slaves with a man nearly as large as Salazar, his arms thicker than Whym’s legs. “Market’s not ’til the next moon,” the man stated. “I’ll lose my orders if I wait that long. I need two men now to meet my commitments.”

  “I must apologize, good sir, but these men are already spoken for.” Damin spoke with a smooth eloquence, far different from the vulgar vocabulary he used when alone with Murck and Ard. “I have a contract with the mine, and would face a most ruinous fine should I deliver short.”

  “The mine owners are my best customers,” countered the big-armed man. “I’m certain I could persuade them to waive the fine.”

  The negotiations sounded to Whym no different than the dickering that took place at the street market he’d sometimes visited with his mother. They could have been discussing common housewares, fruits and vegetables, or cuts of meat.

  As Damin and the man worked their way closer, Whym watched as best he could from the corner of his eye. The man would stop occasionally, squeezing the arms and checking the teeth of the captives.

  “These are fresh?” He dug his finger into the pus-filled lash-marks on Whym’s back. Whym, now inured to the pain, didn’t move. He wanted to scream out for help, but he had no proof to back his words. From the looks he’d received entering Colodor, he doubted the people were naïve about the origin of some
slaves.

  “One must maintain discipline,” Damin answered.

  “You’ve traveled from the Fringe and not yet instilled discipline?” the man replied.

  The tone of Damin’s voice ticked up. “Are you questioning my skill or my veracity?”

  “Come, my friend, I meant no offense.” The man pressed his fist into his chest. “I only wish to know the nature of the men I’m to receive. If an expert like you has been unable to break them, that will make it a challenge for me.”

  “Then don’t choose this one,” Damin shot back, momentarily dropping his polished veneer. “There are plenty of others whose scars have long since healed.”

  “You misunderstand me.” The man flashed an ominous smile. “I like challenges.” Whym had been hopeful to be selected and spared from the mines, but the smile gave him pause.

  As Damin and the big-armed man walked farther down the line of slaves, Whym could no longer make out their words. He was left to guess what was happening by their gestures.

  “Up!” Damin roared a short while later from the back of the line of men. The slaves rose in unison. “This one and this one.”

  Whym tensed and held his breath, waiting to see which slaves had been selected. Be me. Be me, he repeated in his mind. The man’s smile had unnerved him, but Whym figured anything would be better than the mines. He vowed that, were he chosen, he’d find a way to escape and free Kutan and Tedel.

  “Mother Hen.” Whym exhaled at the sound of Ard’s voice. His greasy-haired captor smiled as he stepped forward with a metal restraint. “Looks like you won’t make the climb.” Ard unlocked the shackle around Whym’s neck and clamped shut a new one.

  Whym risked a glance up to see who else had been selected. His knees almost buckled in relief when he noticed Murck unlocking the shackle around Kutan’s neck. His relief was short-lived, though, when he saw Tedel, distraught, to his left. Gone were the last vestiges of hope the Faerie had retained.

  Soon, the clunky restraints the man had brought were locked around their necks, and their ankles were bound with rope instead of chains. As Whym was being led away, he looked back over his shoulder, hoping his expression could convey what he was unable to say aloud. Tedel, I’m so sorry! Tedel was staring at his toes.

  “Tell ya what,” their new owner said, not taking the lead Murck held out to him. “I only brought two restraints, but I better take a third. The orders keep coming and I’m already behind.” Damin looked as if he was about to object until the man added, “Same terms, of course.”

  Damin was quick with a solution. “We’ll bind another in between these two with rope. That should suffice until you get a proper collar.”

  The man pointed at Tedel. “Just give me this one. He’s scrawny, but looks in fair health.”

  This is too good to be true! Whym couldn’t believe their luck. He waited for the twist—conditioned to expect the worst. Kutan stood beside him, emotionless, as Ard linked them together. Whym’s friend—no, brother—hadn’t looked at him since that second night of captivity.

  Damin and the man stepped to the side to wrap up the transaction while Ard and Murck finished the binding. The man searched his pouch, pulled out a few coins, then slipped them into his pocket. Then he handed the pouch to Damin in exchange for three slips of parchment bearing wax seals—ownership papers.

  With the transaction complete, Murck handed the man the lead. But before returning to the other captives, he leaned in to whisper into Kutan’s ear. Kutan’s peeling, sunburnt face maintained its expression, but reddened further, the birthmark turning a darker shade of purple.

  “Get on with ya,” the man yanked the rope, sending his three slaves lurching forward. Murck had bound their feet so close together they couldn’t even shuffle in comfort. Whym lost his balance, falling on Tedel’s back, who then fell into Kutan, knocking them all to the ground.

  “Yens heard the man!” Ard hollered as he sent his lash once more to meet Whym’s back, slicing it open a final time.

  Whym struggled to his feet. “Hurry up!” their new owner bellowed and pulled on the rope as soon as all three were standing. They followed as fast as they could—yanking against each other until they synchronized their gait. Before long, they were again moving in unity. Then they reached the stairs.

  With the way they were tied, one person couldn’t descend a step without tugging the other two to the ground. It took several steps and an unwieldy pile of bodies before they devised a strategy to deal with the challenge. Unlike earlier, the man showed patience as they hopped sideways down the stairs. He even paused between the sets of stairs to allow them to rest, though he continued to study them as if he were assessing the worth of his investment. Kutan, in particular, seemed to draw the man’s gaze like a magnet would a nail.

  After what seemed to Whym like a hundred sets of stairs, they finally turned onto a larger street marked with painted signs and the occasional flower box suspended below a window. This area of the city was as different from where they’d entered Colodor as the Dung was to NewTown. The buildings were well-maintained, and the busy road was lined with hawkers on both sides. The streets weren’t paved in gold as in the poems, but the area was vibrant and thriving. Whym noticed, as well, the people shot them uncomfortable glares as they passed.

  “Best squirrel stew in town.” A nearby vendor raised the lid of the pot he stood over to release a greasy waft of smoke.

  “Dumplin’s,” called the next. Whym’s stomach growled at the mingling of smells. They’d eaten bread and bugs for half a moon.

  Eventually, the road opened, and the hawkers were replaced with sturdy elms that dangled over the cobblestones. “Papa!” A young girl Whym guessed to be seven or eight turns of age rushed from the doorway of the shop to their left. She dashed toward their new master, her curly brown hair—cropped to her chin—bouncing as she ran. The big man lifted her with his free arm, and she hugged his neck.

  The storefront was unpretentious—two small, shuttered windows and a single frame door. Above the door was a sign in the shape of an anvil with script letters—Tarried Tinker.

  Riverbend, Chapter 35

  .

  .

  .

  Men, like gods, entered the desert.

  Scions of Jah, they came to conquer,

  but the sun baked the prayers from their throats,

  and the sands buried their buildings

  and the bodies of their dead.

  Scions of Jah, they came to conquer

  but were themselves conquered,

  claimed, then purified by the Fire.

  .

  —Translated inscription above the entrance

  to the Temple of Sands

  .

  .

  Riverbend

  .

  .

  .

  .

  When Kira’s grandmother had discovered the letter Kira had written detailing the abuses she’d endured from the tailor and her father, she’d pleaded for Kira to accompany her to the Sanctuary of Jah’s Truth to ask the Faith for guidance. Kira had nodded assent, taken back the letter, then sneaked away when her grandmother had left for the market.

  I know whose side the Faith would take. Vernis Thrump’s a generous donor. Kira stepped onto the first stair leading from the square up to the Temple of Sands. Her grandmother had warned her not to believe the stories depicting the Sect of Sand as a last resort for the innocent to seek redress.

  The Faith now operated all the religious buildings in the city, including the temple. But rumors persisted that the Sect still operated in secret, delivering ruthless justice to the corrupt and those who would use their power to exploit. Kira chose to believe the rumors and ignore her grandmother’s warnings. She took another step, then another, then another, her swollen body tired and sore.

  Her resolve wave
red when she reached the top step and stood in front of the temple’s only entrance. The hinges holding the heavy door were thick as her arms, the windowless structure designed to keep the world out. “Go away,” it instructed. “You are unwelcome.”

  Kira fingered the letter. If they asked questions, her shattered jaw would prevent her from answering. Grandmother’s right. I should go back. I could write more—state my case more clearly. She turned to leave just as the bells tolled to announce the beginning of services across the square. Men, women, and children hustled out of the cold morning and into the open doors of the Sanctuary of Jah’s Truth.

  At one time, the religions represented by the two buildings facing each other across the square had competed for followers—against each other, and the many other beliefs the people of the Lost Land had once held. The founding of the Council of Truth, though, had effectively ended the competition. As the Council’s influence spread, the other religions were absorbed into the Faith. Although a few minor faiths survived in secrecy in the lightly governed edges of the realm, of the larger faiths, only the Oracle of Bothera, whose adherents followed the Allyrian Code, still resisted absorption.

  The Temple of Sands had housed an old faith, predating the Allyrian conquest. It was broad and squat, with a cone in the middle that rose barely to the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Its only natural light entered the dreary and windowless structure from the open tip of that cone.

  The Sanctuary of Jah’s Truth, on the other hand, had been constructed much later. Its location across the square provided the people with a stark visual comparison of the two religions. It was tall and angular, with two spires that bracketed the belfry and stretched skyward to tower above the neighborhood. There were many windows, most framed by colorful hangings that were rotated with the change of seasons.

  Kira compared the view of the Sanctuary to the forbidding entrance to the temple. No surprise which faith prevailed. Why would anyone want to worship in such a place?

  “You’re leaving?” Kira turned at the sound of a man’s voice. The door to the temple was cracked open—wide enough for a single person to pass—and a temple priest moved toward her. His face was partly hidden beneath the hood of his tan robe, but his dour expression mirrored the structure’s message. “Go away. You’re not welcome.”