Lions and Lambs

Chapter 5

Azli

Azli learned in less than two days that the sun at sea was a much kinder companion than the one in the desert. He lifted his face to the gentle sea spray and comfortable heat as Nisma pulled him anxiously along the deck towards the bow of the ship where it curved up in an impressive design. She and Eshmun had found an obsessive fascination with inching as close to the edge of the ship as possible and sticking out their tongues to catch the sea spray.

Azli had more self-preservation than them, so he opted to stand behind and judge who the winner was. Most of the time though, they forgot about him in the midst of arguing and he was left to study the crew bustling around and pulling at ropes and a million other things he did not know the name of.

None of them bothered talking to the Onkalov's children, but they did not mind it much when Azli perched himself in one corner far out of their way and watched. Most but Eshmun, Nisma, and Azli spent much of their time in the belly of the ship where they looked out the little portholes with green faces and a sour look at being sent far from home. They didn't know why they were forced to leave, but Azli had a good idea, just as he suspected his siblings did as well. Zair, the Onkalov's legitimate son, had turned sixteen a few weeks ago and it was time for him to begin learning alongside his father. Azli's nurse claimed that Teznun did not want his other children getting jealous, but he suspected it had more to do with Onklor Kit's protective glare. You had to be ambitious to even receive a place in Teznun's harem; ambitious and suicidal.

Azli could only imagine what sort of woman Kit might be if she managed to become Onklor.

Nurse spent many days griping to him about the pale haired Onklor. The foreigner, she said, the one with a crotch that must be made of gold.

"Your mother," she would say, fire burning in her eyes. "Now that was a woman who deserved to be Onklor." She would spit on the ground even if they were in his bedroom. "Not this Southern bitch with ice running in her veins."

Azli did not dare say that his mother despised her station, that she lacked the ambition vital to women living in such a poisonous court. Perhaps if power had appealed to her like it did the others she might not have died and his arm might not have been crippled.

Nurse would have slapped him hard across the face, tears burning in her eyes as she avoided looking at his left arm. Very few acknowledged it, and sometimes that made Azli want to scream and rage more than anything else in the whole world.

Someone cleared their throat to his right, and Azli's head whipped around to see the old weathered man from earlier. He was dressed in a long tunic and turban, both in a shade of brown that suggested it had once been white. His back was hunched and face filled with even more wrinkles this close, but his eyes were the same.

"Come with me," he said in a thick voice that sounded like he had just smoked a hookah. This was a man you did not refuse, so he followed his sluggish trod to another smaller trap door on the ship's floor. Azli rushed forward to help when the man slung it open, but he waved Azli off with an annoyed grump.

Azli's eyes traced the many white scars pocketing his arms as he lowered himself down and motioned for the boy to follow him. His burnt arm attempted to cling to the lip of the trapdoor, but he only managed in falling to the floor slightly slower. The old man looked at him out of one eye and motioned for him to step into the open room.

A lantern flickered in one corner, illuminating a small kitchen with piles of grain, potatoes, mead, and plenty of other foods in every corner. The man pulled out a thin knife and handed it to Azli along with a potato.