Falcon Heart: Chronicle I

Chapter 3 Slaves

A sail rippled with a loud pop above Kyrin. It could wrap the ship around with canvas to spare. Near the far end of the deck squatted a small structure, so rough-hewn the cracks showed. She turned her throbbing head. Behind her rose another shelter of weathered, tight-joined planks with a low door.

Boisterous men called excited questions down to Umar. With his feet braced against the hull, he climbed the side of the ship and stepped over the rail to the deck. Shouts of triumph rose.

Kyrin shrank back from the edge, straining at her bonds. Any moment Umar did not see her was a good moment. The rest of the raiders arrived with more noise, fending their boats from the heaving swell that sought to drive them against the ship's side. They passed sacks of dry goods, furs, weapons, and small handbags of gold and silver jewelry up to their companions who pulled the goods over the rail, across the deck, and through a hole into the ship's belly. The pigs of cast lead swung in their coarse sacks, giving the men trouble.

Their curses made Kyrin's mouth curve. Her mother's blade was solid and warm against her under her tunic. She drew a breath; the falcon had stayed with her.

Umar slapped the back of the man with the silver hoop earring and walked toward Kyrin, smiling. She gripped her cold fingers together. Please, not the dark hole. Father would never find her there. Umar slung her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of barley. Her head pounded as with an anvil inside. Kyrin clamped her lips shut. She must not be sick; he would kill her.

Gripping her ankles in a large hand, he bore her through the cargo hole, stepping down a ladder, his lamp shining on wood wall. It fled past her face as he moved down the passage. The ship squeaked around her with the high pitched voice of a sea creature. Blackness and pain crowded out her vision.

Umar stopped, and a stench of old sweat and pain coiled around Kyrin. Hoarse breathing echoed around them, impossible to tell where it came from. Umar shrugged his shoulder from under her and dropped her.

She landed on a body that twitched with a hissing grunt. She bit her tongue on her own cry, twisted about, and jerked back from a man's face a hand-span from her nose. Pain dizzied her. When she could see again, he grimaced, but made no further move, staring at her.

Thin ropes tied to posts stretched him an armspan above the floor, racking his wrists and ankles with his weight and hers. Blood wove down his arms from his purple hands. His rye-dark, round face was stark against Umar's paler length. Sweat-beaded skin crinkled around his almond shaped brown eyes. His short hair of straight black bore the first frost of years. He gasped a gentle word she did not understand, and his full mouth tilted at the corners.

Choking, suddenly aware of her weight against his wrists, Kyrin twisted to roll off him, but he pulled up on one side and heaved his shoulder in the way. She slumped back, without strength, and the man clenched his jaw, slowly letting himself pull on all four limbs again, breathing hard, his eyes briefly closing. Slanted eyes . . . and bows—a nomad Steppes' archer. If they did this to one of them, what of her?

Through a terrible ringing in her ears, Umar laughed. "She is yours to keep alive, one of the people of the Book, an unbelieving Nasrany. You filthy hwarang—fighter for flowers and undying spirits! See if you can obey our master in this. Keep her life."

A knife rasped on rope. The man's feet thudded to the floor beneath Kyrin. She slid and opened her eyes, grasping with her bound hands at the man's tunic. The cloth pulled through her weak fingers. He raised his knees with a grunt, halting her fall.

Umar cut the man's hands free, his laugh biting as vinegar. The man worked his arms under Kyrin without using his hands and pushed himself to his feet, panting. When he swayed, the floor dipped under Kyrin with a sickening lurch. He turned from Umar's satisfied smile, and a door gaped before them.