The Hidden Fire (Book 2) (9 page)

He
awoke at first light to the sound of a bell, thinking for a moment that he was
aboard
Calico
.  Then he opened his eyes and sat up, suddenly furious —
furious that this place existed, furious that Dorigano could be blissfully
ignorant that this was happening so near to him.  He was angry at Lerica for
coming along.  He was angry at Aiyan for letting them be captured.  He was
angry at Rolirra for guiding him here, and he was angry at himself for helping
her do it.

Aiyan
still sat on the stump, unmoved from when Kyric had seen him in the light of
last night’s moon.

The
remaining fish from the night before had been wrapped in leaves and set atop
the cooking table, and now everyone filed by the table to gulp down a handful
and get to the drawbridge before Guppy and Harlon finished lowering it.  Their
urgency made it clear that they would be punished for not being ready to go as
soon as it was down.

The
morning was moist and smelled vaguely of rotting leaves. The Terrulans shuffled
across the bridge, holding their irons up with one hand so that they wouldn’t
catch on the cross pieces.  Kyric wondered if crocodiles really waited below
the bridge.  He also wondered how well any of them could swim in a set of those
shackles.

The
slaves went to their assigned areas, where guards already awaited them.  Ral
and another man stood at the river, each shouldering a long pike, and Tebble loitered
near the tables.  Pacey and the other sharpshooter, a man with only one ear,
climbed to their posts in the trees.  Rolirra and an even older woman, the only
Ilven without shackles, apparently stayed on the island.  There was a latrine
to maintain, and soon, no doubt, more rays to prepare for supper.

Harlon
stopped the last slave across the bridge, signaled Kyric and Lerica to come
across, and escorted them to the stump where Thurlun waited with Aiyan.

“Here’s
the game,” Thurlun said to Aiyan, pushing the slave close to him.  “Kill this
man and you all go free.  No strings attached.  It’s as simple as that.”

Aiyan
raised his manacled wrist.  “With one empty hand?”

Thurlun
laughed.  “I knew you would say that.  Please don’t try to make me believe you
need a weapon.  We both know you could snap his neck in a second.”

The
slave looked at Aiyan and smiled cautiously.  He didn’t know a word of Avic.

Aiyan
met Kyric’s eye at last and said, “Is he telling the truth?”

“I
believe he is,” Kyric said.  “But I don’t understand.”

Aiyan
answered him, but he looked at Thurlun.  “If I murdered this gentle man, who is
guilty of nothing but being made a slave, I would have nowhere to go and I
would belong to nothing.  I would no longer be a Knight of the Flaming Blade. 
It would make me the killer he thinks I am, and I would be his once again.”

They
were all silent for a beat, then Lerica said, “I’ll do it.  I’ll do it and walk
away without regret — I’ll do anything you want to these slaves.”

Thurlun
smiled at her.  “Nice try, honey, but you’re a fighter, not a killer.  And this
is between Candy and me.”  He turned back to Aiyan.

Kyric
looked at Lerica.  She believed what she was saying, but he felt the lie.  She
was lying to herself.

Aiyan
touched the slave on the arm.  ‘
Go in peace
,’ he said-signed.

“I
knew that would be your first move, Candy,” said Thurlun.  “So here’s my next
one.”  He nodded to Harlon.  “Take the youngsters and put them to work hauling
net.  Treat them like slaves, but no shackles for now.  You may yet be working
alongside them.”

He
took Kyric and Lerica aside before handing them to Harlon.  “Let me explain
something to you,” he said quietly, deadly serious.  “The two of you are the
stakes in this game.  So if either or both of you run, it will ruin my good
time and I’ll simply kill whoever is left.  Do you understand?”

The
look in his eye said that he meant it.  “Yes,” Kyric said.

Thurlun
looked at the man Aiyan had knocked out the day before.  “Why haven’t you
started your patrol, Snaker?”  Under Thurlun’s glare, Snaker left camp at the
double.

Aiyan
cleared his throat.  “I ask one favor.  I would like to have my locket.  It is
the emblem of my knighthood, and it is important to me.”

Thurlun
ignored him, walking back to the huts mumbling something unintelligible, and
Kyric wondered how much time he had spent trying to open Aiyan’s locket the
night before.

Harlon
took them to the river where Ral directed the men laying net, then took his
post as the overseer of the pickers.  The two in the dingy moved hesitantly.  Ral
only knew a few signs in Cor’el and it took some time to get started.  He
thrust his pike into the water beneath the bank to make sure no crocodiles lay
in ambush there.  Kyric could see at least a dozen lying low near the opposite
bank.

The
net was long.  They anchored one end of it to a tree and payed-out the rest as
the dingy men steered a wide circle that went uncomfortably close to the
crocodiles on the other side of the river.  There were six other haulers along
with them.  They placed Kyric and Lerica at the back of the line, which seemed
to Kyric the safest place.

The
first ray out of the water was a female, with its thick swollen halo.  Two of
the pickers hooked it and tried to drag it out of the net, but its stinger had
a serrated edge that caught rather well.  Ral called to a man with long iron
tongs.  The tong man tried to pick the stinger out of the net while the ray
flapped and sprayed its poisonous secretion.  The greenish-white fluid got all
over his tongs.  One drop landed on his hand.

He
threw down the tongs at once and tore a broad leaf from a shrub, wiping away
the poison quickly.  Several buckets of river water sat evenly spaced in the
fishing area, and now Kyric saw what they were for.  The tong man ran to one
and washed his hand over and over.

They
finally got the creature out of the net, and the three pickers half carried,
half dragged it up the bank to the tables.  It was wider than a man’s arm-span
and very strong.  The three men could hardly control it.  Its stinger tail
whipped and jabbed, searching for someone who had come a little too close.  Its
wing fins flapping frantically, its slick glossy skin oozing more and more venom
as they went.

There
were lakka in the net, and they, with all the male rays, were thrown back into
the river, but not without hazard.  The lakka were some kind of prehistoric
fish, and aptly named, as their heads were little more than a seven-inch jaw
lined with razor teeth.  They flexed like slippery steel springs as they were
picked off the net, snapping at everything.

Dragging
a laden net ashore proved hard work, but they got momentary rests when the
pickers had to stop and untangle a ray.  They had to take care where they
gripped the net, as the ray secretion dripped from it in places.  It was hot
and steamy by mid-morning, and they began to sweat freely.  Kyric might have
taken his shirt off in another place, but here it felt like armor.  He was glad
Lerica had worn her buckskin breeches; he didn’t think the poison would easily
soak through them.

Noontime
came and went with only a brief stop for a drink of water.  Shortly after noon
they hauled-in a particularly big female.  When the first picker hooked it on
the wing fin and began to lift it, it jolted and flapped much more violently
than the others had, tearing out the hook and turning upside down, flipping in
the air, landing full body on the first net hauler.  The pickers leaped in and
secured the creature at once, but the hauler was covered in the greenish-white
ooze.

He
stood stunned for a brief instance, then jumped into the river, pawing wildly
at his chest and legs.  He chittered and called in the Ilven tongue, then
suddenly he was calm.  He stood there for a minute, his skin getting a purple
tint to it.  His eyes stayed open as he drifted backward and slipped under the
water.

Thurlun
came running from the huts, pointing to the pickers.  ‘
Get him out of there! 
Hurry!
’ he said-signed.  He turned to Ral.  “We lost two pairs of shackles
yesterday.  Can’t afford to lose another pair.”

The
pickers stood at the very edge of the river and worked the body towards the
bank with their poles.  They were careful not to hook his flesh.  On the
opposite bank, a crocodile slid into the river.

Guppy
arrived shortly, hammer and chisel in his belt, toting the thick iron plate
that he used as a portable anvil.  It took him a few minutes to cut the tails
off the rivets and remove the shackles.

“It’s
a blessing when they get done over like that,” said Ral, to no one in
particular.  “They go fast and don’t suffer.  Much better than lingering for
hours in agony.  You have to say that that was a good death.”

“Alright,”
said Thurlun, “throw the stiff on the cart and get back to work.”

They
watched as the Terrulans carried the body up to the tables where a two-wheeled
cart sat.  It was piled high with dead rays, and they had to jam their dead
friend between the carcasses and the side wall of the cart.

Lerica
leaned close to Kyric.  “We have to get out of here,” she whispered. 
“Tonight.”

“You
have an idea?”

“Yes,”
she said.  “I’ll tell you after supper.”

It
was less than an hour later when they heard screaming from the tables.  One of
the younger woman lay on the ground thrashing.  A couple of men were trying to
pin her while the others poured buckets of water over her face.

“It’s
nothing that concerns you,” said Ral.  “Keep hauling.”

When
at last the day was done, and they stood waiting to cross back to the island,
Kyric tried to sign with Aiyan on the sly.  Aiyan still sat motionless on the
stump.

‘
What
is the plan?
’ he signed.  ‘
What should we do?
’

Aiyan didn’t respond right away.  He
seemed deep in thought.  Finally he made two simple gestures.  ‘
Stay alive
.’

“Perhaps
he means to wait until your uncle comes looking for us,” Kyric said.  “Surely
he will.”  His stomach felt bad.  He tried to belch.  Fillet of angel ray hadn’t
tasted so good that night.

“We
could all be dead by then,” Lerica said softly, as if the Ilven could
understand her.  “Delays happen all the time in the shipping business.  And even
if we did wait and Uncle Ellec tracked us here, he would be looking for us to
be lost or injured and wouldn’t bring many men.  He could be killed by one of
those traps, or end up as a slave himself.”

Somewhere
in the darkness, the young woman stopped crying.  She was the one who had been
sprayed in the face at the tables.  He had gone over to see about her after
supper.  A fellow hauler had explained that sometimes the poison came out in a
jet when they cut the halos off.  The woman had been in great pain, often
retching in an attempt to vomit, but nothing would come up.  Kyric wondered if
she had died.

“I’ve
been thinking,” Lerica said, “that if I could get across the moat, I could
sneak into the tool shed and use their own tools to get Aiyan out of his
manacle, like they did with the dead guy today.”

He
shrugged.  “Banging on a chisel would make noise.”

“They
might have other tools.  Maybe a hacksaw.”

“Might
work,” Kyric said.  He thought for a moment.  “If we could get Aiyan’s sword
and locket to him he could break his chain in one stroke.”

“What’s
in the locket, vials of acid?”

“Something
better.  And once done we could take all these slavers prisoner, or get away at
the very least.”

The
moon had begun to rise, and she shuddered with a chill, even though the night
was warm.  “Here it comes,” she said.

He
cocked his head.  “Are you one of those people who get a little wild when the
moon is full?”

“You
have no idea,” she whispered under her breath.

She
rose straight to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest.  She bounced
nervously on one foot.

“Have
you noticed that they only raise the drawbridge about halfway up?” she said.  “It
overhangs the water quite a bit.  I’m pretty sure I could make the leap.”

“You’re
out of your mind.  You would have to jump twice your own height.”

“On
this night, I can do it.”

“There’s
no need,” he said.  “We can just swim it.  I doubt that there’s really
crocodiles waiting at every shore.”

Lerica
went to the cooking table and returned with a handful of fish.  She tiptoed to
the edge of the island where the bridge touched down and tossed it in the
water.  Nothing happen at first, then there was a sharp splash as something large
lunged in the dark.

She
leapt back from the edge.  “Damn, that was a big one.”  She pulled him away as
well.  “With the way they dumped all the rays and that body in the swamp today,
it’s little wonder that the crocs are all around this island.”