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R
ed’s journey to Amoran took months, and afterwards he dearly wanted to forget it. He and the other prisoners stayed below decks, crammed into the cages for days on end. Every so often they would be taken up on deck in small groups, and allowed to take some fresh air while the floor of the cage would be given a quick scrubbing. They were fed every day – bad food, and not too much of it, and a hole in an internal ledge that jutted out over the water served as a toilet. It was enough to keep them alive.
But overcrowding, the heat, the stench, the constant lurching of the ship, and pure despair, was enough to wear down even the strongest of them. A month or so out to sea, Red saw the first prisoner die. He passed away in his sleep after days of illness, and Red and the others watched the guards drag the body away. Others followed. They died of sickness, or starvation, and one of the smaller women tried to escape by climbing out through the lavatory hole. They heard her scream and a faint splash as she landed in the ocean, and none of them ever saw her again.
The griffins fared just as badly. They were too large and powerful to go up on deck, so they stayed chained down, forced to lie on their bellies and relieve themselves where they were. At first, being griffins, they tried to fight back. But even Kraego eventually saw that struggling and threats couldn’t save him, and even he grew too weak to want to try. All of the creatures quickly lost condition, but the Amoranis seemed very concerned about keeping them alive. They started bringing in more food for the weaker ones, and letting them stand up and groom every so often.
Red would have expected Kullervo to be one of the fastest to weaken, but the shapeshifter proved to be surprisingly resilient. He lost weight and his feathers grew bedraggled, but he stayed alert enough, and he and Red would talk to pass the time.
Red, of course, asked one question very early on.
‘Why don’t you turn human again?’ He asked it in plain Cymrian, not wanting to draw attention to himself by using griffish.
‘I can’t,’ said Kullervo.
Red frowned. ‘Why not? I saw you do it before. You can switch back an’ forth whenever you like.’
‘Not always,’ said Kullervo. ‘I can’t now. They’ve made sure of it.’
‘How?’ asked Red. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Look around,’ said Kullervo. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that none of the griffins here have tried using their magic to escape?’
Red eyed the sulking, stinking creatures, lying in their rows. ‘I dunno...’
‘We can’t,’ said Kullervo. ‘They’ve drugged us. There’s a plant they call griffinsbane. It paralyses the magic gland, stops the griffin using its power. They’ve been mixing it in with our food. None of us can do anything now.’
‘Damn!’ Red swore.
‘Yes,’ Kullervo said in his slow, sad voice. ‘But there’s something I want to know as well.’
Red sat down on his bench. ‘What’s that?’
‘How do you know griffish?’ asked Kullervo. ‘You can understand me.’
‘Oh,’ Red grunted. ‘My dad was a griffiner, wasn’t he? He had to learn griffish, so I learned too, when I was just a lad. I was meant t’be a griffiner too, when I got older.’
‘You never told me,’ said Kullervo. ‘Why not?’
Red shrugged. ‘My dad was dead an’ I wasn’t gonna be a griffiner anymore. Common guardsmen ain’t supposed to know griffish. Could’ve gotten me into trouble. So I kept my trap shut. I figure it doesn’t matter now. I couldn’t be in any more trouble than I am now.’
‘And besides, you are a griffiner now,’ said Kullervo. ‘I always thought you and Kraego went well together.’
Red glared at the sleeping Kraego. ‘We ain’t partners. I thought we might be, but Kraego doesn’t. He’s a wild griffin an’ proud of it, an’ once this was over he was gonna fly back to the mountains an’ I was gonna go back to being a guard. If anyone still wanted me, anyway.’
Kullervo shook his head. ‘I have a feeling it won’t end the way anyone expects. Especially for you.’
‘No,’ said Red. He looked at his fellow prisoners, and could almost smell their despair. ‘I’m never gonna see the South again. None of us are.’
And, as the voyage dragged on, that came true for many of the prisoners.
Two of the griffins died as well, and their fellows on either side ate most of the remains before they could be hauled away. The air grew steadily hotter as the ship moved closer to Maijan – the island nation that was part of the Amorani Empire. The heat only made conditions worse in the cages. Food rotted, excrement stank, and flies crawled and buzzed. More people died. Red could see himself losing weight and muscle, but he didn’t care so much anymore. The days started to slip away from him as he slept and woke, ate and slept again, and dreamt of a rope that strangled him and a pair of icy hands that reached out to drag him into eternal darkness. He felt as if he were slowly resigning himself for what was coming, but he had no idea what to expect. What would Amoran be like, and what sort of life would he have there? He asked Kullervo, but Kullervo didn’t know.
‘You’ll have to be strong, Red,’ the small griffin said one day. ‘And you are strong. Your father was strong, your uncle was strong, and so are you.’
Red couldn’t find anything to say to that. He had tried to be strong for so long, had held onto hope for longer, but now...now he felt lost.
And then, at last, Maijan came. Red felt, and heard, the ship dock. He waited in silence, with the other prisoners, and after a while their jailers came down and started to empty the cages. The prisoners were taken above decks, cage by cage, and didn’t return.
Red was in the last cage, and his turn came last. A group of Amoranis came and made them stand up, and one by one the prisoners were shackled onto a long chain and made to shuffle out in single file.
Red didn’t resist when his turn came. He was too tired and besides, what was the point?
‘Goodbye,’ he called back to Kullervo. ‘An’ good luck!’
‘And to you as well, Kearney Redguard,’ Kullervo called back. ‘Be strong!’
Kraego raised his head to watch his friend go. ‘Red! One day we will see each other again! One day we will fly together again, and our enemies will fall.’
‘They will!’ Red yelled back defiantly, before one of the guards smacked him in the head and the column moved out.
They walked up a wooden ramp and onto the ship’s deck. The sunlight hit Red’s eyes in a painful flash, and he grimaced and turned his head away. Around him the other prisoners were blinking and groaning.
The Amoranis urged them on, across the decks and down another ramp onto the docks. It was the first time in months that Red had set foot on a surface that didn’t lurch or sway, and it made his stomach give a queasy jolt. He winced and straightened up, doing his best to keep steady.
The sun here was blazing hot – at least as hot as the strongest summer back in Cymria. As Red and the other prisoners went on shore, it heated up the chains holding them together and made Red wince. He hoped they wouldn’t have to stay out of the shade for too long.
The locals had gathered to watch, and Red looked back curiously at them – he had never seen a Maijani before. He’d expected them to look like the Amoranis, but they weren’t. Their skin was even paler, and most of them had flat or beakish noses. Their eyes were dark, and they had black hair. They stared at the prisoners with open curiosity, and talked among themselves in their own language. Red wondered if they’d ever seen Southerners before. Some of them had definitely noticed him – he saw them staring at his red hair with fascination.
He had expected to be put onto another ship – after all, they were supposed to be going to Amoran. But instead the column marched on and up into the harbour-side town – it was too small to be called a city. The buildings were unlike any Red had ever seen; flat roofed, and painted in bright colours. But he saw the market stalls and the people going about their business and his heart swelled painfully. Some things may have been different, but the sight of it made him desperate for home. He thought of Liranwee, remembered its grubby streets and the houses, the Eyrie tower looming above everything else. He remembered the markets, colder and dirtier than this, but full of the same buying and selling. He remembered patrolling with his partner, Ranulf, chasing thieves through the marketplace.
A terrible sadness filled him, and he looked away to stare at the ground. This market might have reminded him of the ones at home, but he wasn’t home, and in this market, one of the things for sale would be him.
And that was exactly what happened. He and the others were taken to an open square, surrounded by stalls, and placed in holding pens not that different from the ones on the ship. The prisoners from the other cages were already there, along with more brought from the other ships that had come from Cymria. Some Maijani and a handful of Amorani prisoners were there, too.
They even sell themselves, Red thought. He wondered if they were prisoners of war like himself, or criminals being sold as punishment. He knew his own people had once sold their Northerner vassals into slavery for similar reasons.
He stood patiently in his pen, crowded in with the others, and waited to see what would happen next. The Amoranis who had brought them were talking to some of their friends, who had been waiting in the square, but of course they were using their own language, and Red had no idea what they might be saying.
To occupy himself, he stretched his legs as well as he could and looked around to see if he recognised any of the others.
His eyes widened. ‘Lady Isleen!’
The woman who had once been Eyrie Mistress of Liranwee didn’t look like a city ruler any more, or a griffiner. She wore a stained and torn wool dress, and her wrists were shackled just like his own. She had lost weight, and her bland, square face was downcast and pathetic.
She looked up at the sound of her name, and showed a brief moment of surprise. ‘Captain Redguard. You’re alive.’
‘Yeah,’ said Red. ‘Didn’t think I’d see you again.’
‘I didn’t think to see you again, either,’ said Isleen. She turned away and pressed her forehead into the bars. ‘Did you succeed?’ she asked. ‘Did you warn the other Eyries?’
‘I did,’ said Red. ‘Kraego an’ me did our best.’
Isleen smiled weakly. ‘I’m sure you did.’
‘But it wasn’t enough,’ Red added, half to himself.
‘No,’ Isleen mumbled. ‘Nothing could have saved us except Gryphus himself.’
Red nodded grimly.
‘Alaric could have saved us,’ Isleen muttered to herself.
She obviously hadn’t intended for Red to hear that part, but he did, and pulled a puzzled expression. ‘What, Alaric the Dashing? From them storybooks?’
Isleen reddened. ‘Never you mind!’
‘Did you say Alaric?’ said a small, sad-looking man from beside her.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Isleen snapped, obviously embarrassed.
The man blushed. ‘B...but you did say it.’
Isleen ignored him.
‘I’m sorry,’ the man added. ‘I just thought you were talking to me.’
‘What?’ said Isleen.
The man’s blush deepened. ‘I... I’m Alaric. From Withypool.’
Red rolled his eyes. ‘She didn’t mean you. She meant Alaric the Dashing. Y’know, the one what rides a golden griffin called Sunfire an’ saves the world from evil an’ gets the prettiest women.’
Alaric cringed. He was indeed a small man, and might have been pudgy once as well. His curly hair was a dull brown, and he had a bad squint that suggested he was short-sighted. ‘Oh. But I...I mean, I...’
‘What is it?’ Isleen said irritably.
‘I wrote those books,’ Alaric said meekly.
Isleen stared at him. ‘You did?’
‘Yes,’ said Alaric. ‘I put myself in them. I never wanted to be a hero, though, I just wanted to tell stories.’
‘About you bein’ a hero,’ said Red.
‘I just liked to pretend,’ said Alaric, looking as if he wanted to sink into the ground and never be seen again.
Red looked away, faintly amused, but behind him, he could hear Isleen and Alaric talking. The world had gone mad. Alaric the Dashing was a real person...more or less. Isleen had found her hero. And now she and him and everyone else were about to become somebody else’s property.
A short time later, the buyers began to arrive. A small group of Amoranis, and two Maijanis, all richly dressed and accompanied by personal slaves. The slaves were easy to spot. They wore iron collars around their necks, and identical clothing – plain pieces of white cloth wrapped around the hips, with another piece for the breasts if the slave was a woman. All of them, even the women, had shaved heads.
The buyers stood by in a loose group, while the prisoners were brought out for their inspection. The buyers picked out the ones they apparently liked the look of, and Red saw money changing hands. The sight of it made him feel sick to his stomach. How could anyone be treated like this? How could this even happen? Was this really what his parents’ generation had done to other human beings?
Once again Red thought of Caedmon and his followers, and the hatred and malice in their faces. And he saw, now, what they had seen when they looked at him. They had seen, not a human being, but a slaver. A piece of scum no different to the people here, busy prodding and poking at the prisoners as if they were oxen for sale.
Red’s head drooped, and a terrible shame and humiliation came over him. And, just for a moment, he found himself wondering if he deserved this. Not for what he had done, but for what his people had done.
Maybe, in the end, they had brought this on themselves.
His own turn came, and he stepped out of the pen in line with the others and stood with them while the buyers came forward to look at them. Just as the Amorani lord back in Cymria had done, they inspected Red closely – felt his muscles, made him flex his arms and legs, roughly patted him down to check for injuries. They even checked his eyes and ears to see he had all his senses. When they saw the guard tattoo on his shoulder they paid close attention to that, and before long one of the Maijani buyers had pointed at him and given a nod.
Red stood still, gripped by a sense of numb unreality while they inspected him. One man, a native Maijani with a lined and arrogant face made note of his guard tattoo and nodded at once. Red’s guards unshackled him from the line and pushed him over to stand with the others who had been chosen. Isleen and Alaric were with them, and several other former guardsmen.
They weren’t chained up again, but none of them tried to run away. Running now would mean death, and on an island, there was nowhere to go. The Maijani’s personal guards herded them away, and Red went with them, still feeling numb.
Their new master took them to a rich-looking building made of mud bricks painted white and blue. Inside, the prisoners were put into a plain wooden room and made to wait, while a pair of guards came in every so often and took them away one by one. Red stood in silence, head spinning. He felt close to vomiting.
He didn’t have to wait long. Soon enough, two Maijani guards gestured at him to come with them. He went quietly, and they escorted him into a room where a group of three male slaves waited. There was a large bucket of steaming water on the floor between them, and a fire burned in an open brazier.
The guards stood aside and waited, keeping a close eye on Red.
One of the slaves nodded briefly at him. ‘Take off,’ he said, and tugged on Red’s tunic.
Reluctantly, Red took off his tunic. But that didn’t satisfy the slave, and he realised that he was expected to strip. He did, and stood there embarrassed while one of the other slaves there gathered up his clothes and his boots and unceremoniously threw them onto the fire.
‘Hey!’ Red yelled. Nobody listened. He watched as the tattered remains of his guard uniform went up in smoke.
The slave who had made him strip gestured at the bucket of water. ‘Wash.’
Red was happier to do that. He splashed the water over himself – it was hot and soapy, and two of the slaves gave him a scrubbing brush to help him get the dirt off himself, and fresh water to rinse off. He washed himself all over, and once he was finished one of the slaves picked up a razor.
Red froze. ‘No—,’
They didn’t listen. Two of the slaves held him still, and despite his protests the third one took the razor and silently shaved him. They took everything – his hair, the beard he’d grown on the voyage, even the thatch of hair on his chest and back. Red could only be grateful that they left his groin alone, but before long the rest of him was as smooth and hairless as the day he was born.
After that they gave him a white cloth to tie around his hips, and some leather sandals for his feet. And the collar. It was big and heavy, made of solid iron with some kind of writing etched into it. Red tried to pull away, but they held him still again and the collar snapped shut around his neck. He tugged at it once they let go of his arms, but it wouldn’t budge. It rested on his collarbone, heavy as shame.
Then they let him go on into the next room. He shuffled off, awkward in his new sandals, feeling the air on his bald scalp. He felt naked and defiled, helpless as a baby.
But there was something worse to come.
In the next room, two more slaves and two more guards waited by a brazier. An iron rod poked out from among the glowing coals. Red knew exactly what that meant when he saw it, and he turned and tried to run back out of the room. But the two guards had been prepared for this. They took him by the shoulders and twisted one arm behind his back, just as he would have done in an arrest back home. They pulled the other arm out in front of him, and pressed his right hand down on a tabletop while one of the slaves took the rod out of the brazier.
On the end was a strange symbol, glowing red hot.
‘No!’ Red yelled. ‘Stop!’
But the brand pressed into the back of his hand, and his throat went raw with the sound of his scream. The smell of burning flesh hit him as the brand lifted, and when he returned to his senses he found himself shaking between his captors.
The other slave, the one who hadn’t branded him, slapped some gritty ointment over the burn and turned dismissively away.
The guards took Red out of the room, and he went meekly, feeling his hand tremble. Among all his fear and pain and humiliation, he found himself remembering the cold hatred he had seen in the face of King Caedmon. He remembered the sneering mockery of the Northerners.
Once we did this to them, he thought.
He had always known that, but he had never thought of what it might have been like. He had never imagined the humiliation.
Shivering, he let himself be shown to his new quarters. It was a simple long room full of bunks, but at last he had a place to lie down. He chose the nearest bunk and flopped down on his back. Immediately the collar pressed into the back of his neck, and he winced and tried to adjust it. It fitted so tightly that he could scarcely move it, and when he pulled, it crushed his windpipe. For an instant – one horrible, sickening instant – he thought he could feel the chafing of the Hangman’s rope around his neck. Panic-stricken, he yanked at the collar, desperately trying to make it come off, but the more he pulled the more it throttled him and the worse his terror became.
‘Stop!’ A pair of hands tugged his away from the collar. ‘Stop, now.’
Red lurched upright, banging his head on the bunk above him, and tried to pull away from the stranger.
The hands let go of him. ‘Breathe deep,’ said their owner. ‘Breathe!’
Red made himself breathe deeply and slowly, and his panic subsided. ‘I thought it was gonna strangle me. I thought...’
The stranger was another slave – an older slave, a Maijani. He smiled, showing brilliantly white teeth. ‘Collars are not made to strangle. Dead slaves are no good,’ he said, in thickly accented Cymrian.
Red made himself relax. ‘I’m never gonna sleep in this thing.’
‘Then you never going to sleep,’ said the Maijani.
‘I’d rather die,’ said Red. He clenched his good fist. ‘I’d rather die than live like this.’
‘So many men say, but they live on,’ said the Maijani. ‘You come from Grephe, yes?’
‘Red,’ Red muttered.
‘You come from Grephe, Yes?’
‘What’s that?’ asked Red.
‘The land of griffins.’
‘Cymria,’ said Red.
‘Yes, that is Grephe,’
Red sighed. ‘Doesn’t matter; I’m never gonna see it again. What’re they gonna do with me now?’
‘You will not stay here,’ said the Maijani. ‘You and the new slaves will go to Amoran tomorrow. To the markets in Instabahn. My master is a seller, not a keeper.’
‘Who’d want to buy me?’ Red wondered.
‘You have no fear!’ the man grinned and slapped Red’s tattooed shoulder. ‘You have this. Strong arms and the mark of a Grephe guard. My master is pleased. In Amoran, a man like you is worth much.’
Red looked at him curiously. ‘Why? Ain’t slaves just meant for mining an’ building an’ whatnot?’
‘Some. But in Amoran they have many uses for many kinds. Soldiers, guards, teachers and speakers to make one language another.’
‘Oh,’ said Red. In Cymria, slaves had never been used for anything but unskilled labour. No wonder the Amoranis who’d brought him here had asked him if he could read or write.
‘Yes,’ said the Maijani. ‘You will be a guard or used for fighting. If you have other things you do, tell them so. More value to them means a better home for you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Red. ‘I’ll remember.’
‘You remember!’ the Maijani said cheerfully. ‘And see what life brings to you next. Always there is surprises.’
‘You can say that again,’ Red muttered.
