Leslie Moore - Griffin's Shadow

Joktan dismissed the slaves, who began dispersing, women to their side of the yard, men to the opposite. Ashinji remained standing in place while the others drifted past.

Leal swung in close and bumped Ashinji hard enough to stagger him. “Watch your back, tink,” he growled. The human’s voice dripped with menace.

“Leal’s insane,” Seijon said quietly as the big man stalked off toward the barracks reserved for the veterans.

Ashinji shrugged. “He does not scare me.”

“Well, he should. I saw him beat a girl to death ‘cause she wouldn’t do what he wanted. One of the girls who comes for pleasure. The mistress was furious! She had to pay off the girl’s owner for the loss. Leal spent a week in the hole for that one and lost all his points for the month.”

Ashinji didn’t know what “the hole” was, but he guessed it to be some form of punishment. He looked down at Seijon’s face and saw a flicker of raw emotion pass across it like a cloud across the noonday sun.

“Was your mother a prostitute, Seijon?” he asked, his voice gentle.

The boy nodded. “She died when I was a little kid. Some man hurt her bad…so bad she spit blood before she…well, it was a long time ago.” He refused to meet Ashinji’s eyes.

“Not so long ago, I think.” Ashinji laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed, thinking about Gran’s request. “When do we get fed around here?” he asked.

Seijon looked up and smiled. “Soon! The food’s real good here, and we get all we want. When I first came, I couldn’t believe it, so I used to hide stuff, like when I lived on the streets. I don’t do that anymore.”

The food proved similar to typical elven cuisine, though a bit heavier and oddly spiced. The main course consisted of a thick stew, rich with fatty meat. Boiled root vegetables and grain, baskets of coarse brown bread, greasy yellow cheese, and jugs of decent quality, dark beer rounded out the meal.

While they ate, Seijon kept up a steady stream of questions, which Ashinji did his best to answer. Appalled at the amount of falsehoods the hikui boy had been fed concerning elves, he determined, if nothing else, to serve as a living rebuttal to all the lies.

The other men in the newcomer’s barracks proved more curious toward Ashinji than hostile. He could see their interest writ large on their faces as he spoke of Alasiri and his former life. In the company of the new slaves, at least, Ashinji felt the first stirrings of a strange kind of camaraderie.

After the evening meal had been eaten and the remains cleared away, Ashinji took a stool outside to sit and savor the cool evening breeze. Seijon followed and hunkered on the ground with his back against the wall.

The sounds of muffled laughter and a snatch of song drifted on the dusty air. Somewhere in the compound, a man sneezed. From across the yard, in the direction of the women’s barracks, a female voice cried out, whether from pain or pleasure, Ashinji couldn’t tell.

“Ashinji,” Seijon murmured, “D’you think you’ll ever get to go back home to Alasiri?

“I was not so sure a short while ago, but now…Yes, I believe I will see my home and family again,” Ashinji replied, and he surprised himself with the surety of his resolve.

“Will you take me with you?” In the waning light of dusk, the hikui boy’s eyes looked like huge, dark stones in his lean, humanish face.

“When the time comes, Seijon, we will speak of it. It is too soon now.”

The sound of approaching hoofbeats heralded the arrival of Aruk-cho. The akuta greeted Ashinji in Siri-dar. “Good evening, my friend. I have come to find out how you are doing.” He halted just beyond the awning and stood with one back foot flexed, horse-like. His long black tail swished gently to and fro.

“I’m as well as can be expected, I think,” Ashinji said. He glanced down at the fresh mark on his right shoulder-a stylized lily flower seared into the skin by a red-hot branding iron. “Gran’s salve has eased the pain of this burn quite nicely…By the way, I must compliment you on your command of Siri-dar.”

“Can I have a ride Aruk-cho?” Seijon jumped to his feet, bouncing like an eager toddler.

“Not now, young one,” Aruk-cho replied. “I have work to do. Perhaps tomorrow evening.” The ghost of a smile played about the akuta’s fierce countenance. “Gran instructs me in your tongue when time permits,” he said to Ashinji. “She has attempted to school that one as well,” he indicated Seijon with a lift of his chin, “but he is very impatient, as all young ones are.”

“Joktan has made me swordmaster for the new slaves. I am to train every one who needs basic instruction,” Ashinji said.

“So Joktan told me. He is a man who sees very little to praise in this world, but he praised your technique when he spoke to me. This is a good thing, Ashinji. Your usefulness will keep you out of harm’s way much longer. Slaves with skills that are needed in the yard face far fewer lethal matches.”

“I made an enemy through no fault of my own,” Ashinji said with a rueful shake of his head. “The human called Leal seemed to expect that he would get the job. He has threatened me already,” He tugged at his bare earlobe, missing anew the feel of the rings he used to wear there during his old, lost life.

“Yeah, Aruk-cho! You’ve got to do something about that crazy shithead!” Seijon cried. “Give ‘im nothing but lethal matches ‘til someone finally guts ‘im!” Ashinji no longer wondered at the boy’s obvious hatred for Leal, given that a man like Leal had murdered his mother.

“I do not fear Leal, Seijon,” Ashinji said reassuringly. “He is a good swordsman, but I am better.”

“He won’t come at you with a sword. It’ll be a knife in the back, in a dark corner,” the boy muttered.

“The young one is right. Leal is treacherous, and much more clever than he looks. Watch yourself at all times. Now, I must go. The mistress has tasks for me to complete before I can seek my bed.”

Ashinji bid the akuta goodnight, and watched as he melted into the darkness.

“Get Leal before he gets you, Ashinji,” Seijon whispered.

“It is time for bed, Seijon,” Ashinji replied.

That night, Ashinji dreamed of a faceless man, standing over him with a knife, poised for the downward stroke that would end his life. Ashinji opened his mouth to scream, but his tongue froze, unable to form any sound. Just as the glittering blade began its descent, a huge black shadow blotted out the light and the faceless man vanished.

Ashinji woke with a start. The vertigo that always gripped him after a prophetic dream left him queasy. He lay back on his bunk and stared at the ceiling, drawing in deep breaths to slow his galloping heart.

Perhaps Seijon is right; I should get Leal before he gets me…No! I will kill only in self-defense.

He covered his face with his hands.

Jelena, my love, I miss you so much!

He slept no more that night.

The march of days passed inexorably onward and, as Gran predicted, Ashinji soon settled into the rhythm of life in the de Guera yard. The weather gradually cooled as fall melted into a winter so mild, Ashinji barely noticed the difference.

Ashinji’s job as swordmaster to the unskilled new arrivals kept him out of the lethal matches, as Aruk-cho had promised, but after about a month at the yard, he found himself on the regular roster for the many points matches run each week.

On the day of his debut in the Grand Arena, he caused a sensation. The Darguinian public had never seen anything like him before, and they responded with immediate and near frenzied excitement. He beat his opponents in all three matches, and left the blood-stained sands with only a shallow cut across his sword arm and the thunderous applause of the crowd ringing in his ears.