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She sat on the grey dappled horse on a low hill, overlooking the smoky outskirts of Shelar. Even the fire from a thousand blazes, rising in inky clouds through the autumn air could not hide the darkness in that city, nor its danger to her. From the south they’d come, even as she had come, and there had been brief, lucid moments when she wondered if there was a connection there — whether she was the one who had brought death, sent it washing like waves against the walls of the great city, against and over, until all that moved within — were the gods merciful — was not life, but a mockery thereof.

She thought back to a similar hill, overlooking another city, Midpoint, away to the south. If she squinted, the mighty broken towers of Shelar, wreathed in flame and soot, might be mistaken for the far more modest buildings of Midpoint. The Thieves Gate. The Tower of the Cloudmaster. The Avenue of the Gods. Even the darkness of a certain hut.

And seeing one city, recalling another, brought back memories of yet a third, six weeks’ further caravan to the southeast of Midpoint, where the Grey River opened up to the Inner Sea. She thought, then, of Hraeme, and how it was different in those days, yet somehow the same.

"And what is this?" Aladris asked her twin brother, Aladrin.

The young brown elf male — too old for a child, yet obviously not yet an adult — slouched back in the worn wooden chair, a sulky look upon his face. "What does it look like, sis? It is silvers."

She scooped the coins — a mix of shapes, faces and symbols from throughout the North and South — back into the velvet bag. "I can see that, Aladrin. Where did they come from?"

He shrugged. Light from the window rippled across his shirt, a red silk. it was the brightest thing in the room, save for the silver. It certainly was finer than Aladris’ dingy blue tunic. "I do not know. Some friends of mine gave it to me."

Cold anger burned in her head. "Such generous friends," she said, coolly. "Tell me, did your friends work for a fence?"

He smiled. "No. They work for a dice-maker. But they do not know their product so well as I do."

"Damn you, Aladrin!" she shouted, throwing the bag at him. "After all I have done, these two years, trying to keep things going around here, working like a slave in that bastard Hartle’s armory, keeping this place presentable, you go and risk our money at the gaming table?"

Aladrin had caught the bag easily. His reflexes were as sharp as his sister’s, when he put his mind to it. Among even their brown elven brethren, the siblings were swift. Most often, though, he seemed to move more slowly than the sun in the hazy skies over the port city. "No. I risked my money at the tables," he retorted. "I have not taken any of the household money — not for gambling, at least — in over a month. But a risk it was, nonetheless — that dwarf Khargol runs a crooked game, and that you can bet on." He grinned. "Of course, I did, and I won."

As Aladris started to protest further, he held up a hand. "I am good, gelenri. Really good. Nobody can take me in a game. Nobody."

She shook her head with tears and rage, throwing herself down on the other chair in the ill-furnished house — little better than a hovel on the outskirts of the city. "And if Khargol decides you are winning too much and takes it back in blood? What then, brother? How could I lose you, after Father’s death these two years gone?"

Aladrin shook his head and laughed. "Khargol took that into his mind some weeks back. But my tongue is as quick as my hands, sister. I work for him, now. Anything I can take — well, most of it anyway — I can keep. I am good enough, I can win without his stooges throwing the game to me. That makes the marks all the more confident, be they dullard humans, greedy dwarves, or whatever. They see me win, they think they can." He laughed again, a chiming sound that both soothed and irritated. "But they do not. And Khargol makes back twentyfold what I win from him."

"I just —" Her voice broke. "I just know that Father would not have approved. Nor would Mother, had she lived past our birth. I so wanted to prove we could make it in this scummy town without becoming scum ourselves."

If Aladrin minded being called scum, he didn’t show it. Instead, he went over to where she wept, and sat on the floor beside her chair. His hand stroked her arm. "There is nothing wrong with it, gelenri, blue-eyes," he said, his voice as comforting as it ever was. When he spoke like this, he could calm her fears, quiet her worries. "I am just making money that would have lined Khargol’s pockets, anyway. And the marks — well, they deserve what their greed buys them. Do not worry." He lifted up her chin, met her eyes with his own, as brilliantly azure in the setting sun. "You have done so much for us both, since Father died, keeping things going, keeping us both fed. Let me do my part now."

As always, she could not say him nay. "All right," she said, finally. "Gods know we can use the money, what with taxes due and the rumors of pirates dying down." Pirates and raiders were good business for the armory she worked in, restocking the city guard, merchants, and travelers alike. It had been months since there had been raids anywhere near Hraeme, and with that lull had come a downturn in business, such that Hartle had been talking of laying off some of the help at the foundry, which meant, she was certain, her — even though she was as good at putting together a blade as even some of the true apprentices. "Of course," she added, "if you insist on running around with that crowd you do, drinking the best ale and buying gaudy clothes like that —"

That made him smile, something she enjoyed accomplishing. "Ah, good old practical Aladris. Old and wise beyond our years. Aye, and you are the strong one of us two, the anchor without which we would founder. Nothing can knock you down for too long, gelenri," he said, rising to his feet, and pulling her up with him. "You will see, sister. You will not have to worry about money, soon. Things are finally looking up for us."

It was Marketday, the 8th of Wind, and her childhood had but hours left.

She awoke in the stinking dark, pain wracking her body. She whimpered, tugging at the chains which bound her to the sticky wooden floor. Around her, she heard the moans of others, male and female, young and old. Beyond that sound, the creaking of the deck, the splashing of the waves across the hull of the sleek, dark ship.

It was all a blur. She’d awakened to the city bells, tolling the alarm. Raiders! She could hear screams in the street outside, roars of pain and triumph, clashes of steel, pounding of hooves.

She sprang up, throwing her tunic over her, and ran to Aladrin’s room. As usual, he was sleeping soundly. She was just rousing him when she heard the front door crash open. She yelled then at him, pushing him, shoving her brother out the back window half-asleep, when she felt the rough hands on her shoulders, the shouts and the waves of pillaged ale rushing with the raider’s breath over her.

She struggled, screamed, and then a great pain filled her head and she lost everything.

Well, the one out back didn’t get no further. Here now, no time for that! Th’ captain’s comin’ round, sayin’ we’d best back to the boats.

Aw, just a minute it’ll take — ‘tis too long since I’ve had a bit like her.

Huh, whyn’t take her with the others. She’ll fetch a fine price in Tandrik, and if she’s the worse for wear by the time she arrives — well, who’s to say what she was like afore we grabbed her?

And so she was, trapped, caged like a beast, utterly helpless. What could be worse than this, she thought.

And then the hold door opened, and she recognized the raider who’d captured her, and his friends behind. And she knew what could be worse.

And so it was, for four long weeks, or so she counted from the sun filtering through the cracks in the deck, just enough to see, but not enough to see with. That was not her last visit by Kell and his cohorts, not by many. And just when she hoped they had lost their interest, they would return. They were too strong for her, even when she struggled. Indeed, her weak, pathetic struggling in their hands seemed to arouse their brutality even further.

And when they reached Tandrik along with the rest of the raiding ships, they knew she was cowed, was but a whimpering fragment of what she had been. Most of the crew went ashore that night, to spend their earning sin advance, whoring and drinking.

But not Kell. No, not Kell. He was on watch, one of the skeleton crew. Someone had brought him a wineskin, though, for he was drunk with it when he came to where she lay, chained, ignoring the cries and pleadings of the other captives for something to drink. They’d not been well-treated, any of them — slaves were not worth so much that more than the minimum of stale food and brackish water were to be spent on them. But Aladris could not — would not — listen to their cries, their howls of pain, or the long and permanent silences that one after another had lapsed into, never to stir again. There was just enough of her left to hold onto her own life, to cry piteously herself to the gods who had abandoned her, to stay just on the living side of the chasm of despond which yawned before her.

Kell’s eyes burned only for Aladris. "Come here now, wench, y’know what to do," he said, fumbling, pawing at her.

You are the stronger of us two, the anchor without which we would founder.

She looked at Kell, half-crazed in her fear. She saw him as the ravening monster who had caused her so much pain, who had torn her away from everything she had known and dreamed of, who had destroyed her. Who was the strong one here, Aladrin, she asked herself.

Nothing can knock you down for too long, gelenri.

She shifted around, trying to get away from him in the cramped corner of the hold where she sat. He tried to stand, and smashed his head against the low ceiling. "Damn your eyes, girl! I’ll teach you t’still be struggling!"

"I — I —" Say it, fool! she shouted at herself. "I — I think there would be more room — out there. On the deck."

"Eh? he grunted, blinking, his hand on his belt. "What’s that?"

She gestured, her wrist manacles jingling sadly. "Out there. O-on the deck. Out of this smelly hold. I could —" She forced a smile onto her terror-frozen lips. "I would — be very grateful."

"Huh? Yeah, well maybe y’would, little she-elf." He lurched forwards, pulling out a ring of keys and undoing the chains at her feet. "We’ll just leave those others on y’r hands, though, just so’s y’don’t try anything —"

She crawled past him, brushing the keys as she went. They slipped out of his hands to the cell floor.

"Damn it, wench, whyn’t you — urk!"

She was on him, on his back from behind, the chain between her manacles wrapped as tightly as she cold hold it. He roared — or tried to, but his windpipe was clamped tightly. He reared back, staggered, tried to slam her against the bulkhead behind. Her head smashed against the ceiling now, and stars filled her vision, but she held on, and on, and on, and —

In a daze, she realized Kell was not moving — that he had not for some time, lying limp on the floor of the cell. Slowly, painfully, she unlocked her manacles, let them fall to the ground. Her wrists were bloodied and bruised. She manage to get the long dagger from Kell’s belt, and slit the pirate’s throat, so that there would be no chance he would awaken. She looked down at the body, then thrust the dagger into his back, over and over, until her hands would not work any more, and yet, even then, she kept hold of the weapon.

Part of her, deep inside, cringed at what she had done. But another, now in the fore, smiled. She was no longer helpless, no longer a prisoner. She held a knife, a weapon, and she swore that nobody would ever take her captive again, so long as she held onto that.

She managed to slip off the ship with little difficulty. Even in her debilitated, half-starved state, her quickness and senses were more than a match for the drunken sods who were still aboard. She hoped the captain laid into them with lashes ‘til their bones could be seen midst the blood. Aladris looked back and noted the ship’s name: The Talon of Hindor.

She found food in an alley behind a waterfront tavern. So strengthened, she fled Tandrik.

And of the other captives aboard the Talon, who had fallen silent with the violence of her attack on Kell, she never gave a second thought.

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Copyright © 2001 by Dave Hill

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