Барб Хенди - Dog in the Dark

Her jaws began to ache under a fury-fed hunger. She wanted to kill someone for what had been done here.

A hand latched down hard on her shoulder and jerked her around.

“You keep yourself whole!” Leesil whispered. “If we have to kill, we do it cold and quick ... my way! You understand?”

Magiere looked into his amber eyes. He was right. The last thing he needed now was her losing control.

“Yes,” she got out in a stuttering breath.

Leesil released her and looked about the hold.

“We not guards,” he whispered loudly, struggling with his Numanese. “Any here know Paolo?”

Magiere was unable to help him for a moment, and he went on as best he could.

Someone shifted in the hold’s dark rear. “Yes,” a young boy’s voice answered. “Is he all right? He didn’t come back after they took him up.”

“He with us and safe,” Leesil answered. “He sent us to you. Any here from Drist?”

No one answered. The man with the woman between the casks and hull eyed Magiere with open fear, as if she and Leesil weren’t to be trusted. Leesil didn’t appear to notice and had already cast about for anything that might be used as a weapon.

“It is ... all right,” Magiere struggled to say, hoping no one saw her eyes in the dark. “We came ... to get you out.”

“Get us out?”

This voice was stronger. She half turned to see a tall man standing bound to the hull’s right wall. His wrists and ankles were tied separately, and his face and dull gray eyes were calm. Leesil turned from scavenging, holding a flat-bladed shovel pulled from a crate filled with tools.

“Yes,” he said. “We free you ... to leave.”

The gray-eyed man shook his head. “I will not.”

Magiere’s shock made her anger grow.

“The village chieftain agreed to forgive my debt if I worked for seven years,” the man went on. “If I break my word—that contract—my wife and children will be homeless.”

An unbound young woman stood up. “The captain paid my father’s tax upon our farm. If I run, my father will be guilty of theft.”

Leesil looked about, as if searching for anyone to deny what the man and woman had said, but no one spoke up. “This ... wrong!” he insisted harshly. “No one ... own you!”

“I signed myself over,” a young man added. “I’ll not be branded for escape if we get caught. I could end up working more years, if not worse.”

There were more who began murmuring—not all, but most. Magiere watched in frustration as Leesil’s eyes filled with pain. Of all that might go wrong, this wasn’t something either of them could have imagined.

“I’ll come.”

Magiere’s head snapped around as Leesil spun toward the voice.

A filthy man with no shirt and dark hair down to his shoulders rose from the floor. His eyes were so dark that their irises could have been black. His shoulders were wide, and he was well muscled all over, unlike the others, who were mostly withered.

“They took me out of a prison in Sorano,” he said, “charged and locked up for something I didn’t do. I owe no one anything.” He pointed at a small boy huddled behind him. “But he comes, too. He was brought in with his mother, and she died a half moon ago. I won’t leave him.”

Magiere saw panic drain from Leesil’s face at those words. This was what he’d come for. She stepped in before he even moved, and hacked straight through the thick rope binding the man’s ankles to the floor.

“Any other?” Leesil called a bit too loudly.

Several more stood up or reached out.

Leesil drew a winged punching blade and hurried among them as Magiere rushed the other way through the dark hold. In the end a dozen or more gathered around Leesil at the ladder. The shirtless man used the shovel Leesil had dropped to pry open several crates before stopping at the third one.

“Here,” he whispered.

Leesil went to the crate and began lifting out more tools to hand to the others as weapons.

Magiere stopped short of joining him and looked to the shriveled man hiding the woman behind the casks. The man lowered his eyes and curled away from her. She wanted to drag them out of this place whether they wanted to come or not.

“Dirken, you’re going to bring trouble down on us.”

Magiere turned toward the tall man lashed to the hull wall; his eyes were looking upward toward the hatch’s opening. The shirtless one, now holding a pickax, took a step toward him.

“Shut your mouth! You call out to the guards, and those’ll be your last words.”

Leesil grabbed the shirtless man and pulled him back.

“You lead ... take fighters,” Leesil ordered him, and then gestured to the women and children in their small group. “They stay middle. Magiere and I ... rear, fight guards who follow.”

Dirken nodded, gripping his pickax.

“But you must run,” Magiere got out. “We cannot ... protect you all, so run to the city guards.”

A half-starved woman blinked at her. “City guards? In Drist? There ain’t no such thing here, and anyway, holding us here ain’t no crime. The captain’s got papers on all of us.”

Dirken nodded, turning his dark eyes on Magiere. “I’ve been here before. There’s no law in Drist. This ship was taking us all up to the Northlander coast to work in some shipyard. We’re indentured workers, not slaves, so it’s legal. Even if there was a constabulary, they’d turn us back over to the captain.”

Leesil went quiet at this, and Magiere knew his desperation was growing again. Something else Dirken said bothered her enough to clear her mind a little more.

The Northlanders that she’d met used only longboats. Why bring so many to build longboats? It didn’t make sense. Unless these slaves were to build something else, something that required a good deal more labor, in a true shipyard?

Leesil appeared to waver, looked to her, and switched to Belaskian. “I’m not sure about this now. I won’t break them out just to get them killed or imprisoned again. Where can we send them?”

Magiere didn’t know, but she wasn’t leaving anyone who wanted out. Quickly she counted those willing to try to escape.

“We only have fourteen,” she answered, “and Wynn said our hotel is safe.”

“For anyone who can pay,” Leesil answered bitterly, and then he grew too quiet again.

Magiere knew he was scheming and, desperate as he was, that could be trouble.

“What about the Cloud Queen ?” he said. “Bassett may be hard, but he’s no slaver. Maybe he’d offer them a short refuge, hide them in his hold until the next port.”

This was possible, but Magiere still felt trapped in not having a better answer. The scant light above, shining down upon Leesil, suddenly grew slightly brighter.

Magiere barely looked up when ...

“Down!” Leesil shouted.

She caught a glimpse of a glint before he shoved several prisoners aside. A thrum in the air caught in her ears, and then a shriek of pain pulled her eyes. An arrow stuck out from the leg of a half-starved woman, who crumpled right beside her.

“Hide!” Magiere called, backing away from the ladder. Any who weren’t chained or tied scattered as she stepped in front of the wounded woman.

Leesil was nowhere to be seen.

Falchion in hand, Magiere crouched, reached back for the woman, and then heard someone else behind her drag the woman off. Her hand slipped up to the small of her back, and she pulled out the white metal dagger.

Unless she stayed near the ladder, there wouldn’t be enough room to use her sword, but she could be easily picked off from above. She sidestepped, inching around the open crate of tools, and crouched lower.

At another thrum, she shifted left.