Topiara - Prologue
The girl lay on her side, naked and shivering in the damp darkness of the unfamiliar stone building and staring into the blackness around her in total shock. Her bound feet were drawn up as far as they could without putting any more pressure on the tight bonds that held them. Her hands, also bound together, were cradled close to the girl's chest as if the proximity of the knees and thighs would help keep them warm. The straw on which she lay prickled and itched at the bare skin of her back, and the thin grain sack that had been thrown over her did little to pre vent more shivers.
There were no more tears; they had all fallen long before coming to this dark and frightening place. The girl shut her eyes tightly, as if this would lock out the horrifying visions of her father staring at the point of an enemy Talandri spear protruding from his chest. Nor could it stop her from seeing yet again the sight of the many Kauwlut tents blazing while the screams of those still caught inside echoed through the night with the many bodies of friends and fellow clansmen laying skewed and obscene in their frozen gestures.
So many tears had fallen in the nights and days that had followed spent in terror of these light-haired Talandri demons that had ridden into a peaceful camp and left death and destruction in their wake. They cruelly and tauntingly displayed trophies gathered from the fallen bodies of loved-ones -- one of which was a braided silver belt that had been a badge of honor belonging to the girl's father. The nights were times of total terror, when men who felt nothing but pleasure from the pain and degradation that they caused in every female captured committed unspeakable acts.
Her final tears had fallen on the day she had watched as her mother's body was dragged from the pen where the captives were held and cast aside like garbage, to be left for the wolves and carrion birds to consume. Bereft of a husband and forced to watch her daughter endure the same abuse she herself was enduring, the older woman had somehow managed to strangle herself with her wrist-bindings. She was not the first, nor would she be the last to seek the peace of death over life as a slave.
A hole opened in the cold blackness and a torch was thrust into the room, followed by the huge silhouette of a light-haired woman. All around her in the straw, the girl could now see several of the other clansmen captured from her camp the same night she had been — all of them bound as she was and all cowering back from the intrusion of torchlight. Words that meant nothing to the little dark-haired Kauwlut captive cascaded down, but the tone of those unintelligible words carried obvious threat. The woman was apparently unmoved by the terror in the face of the captive, because reached out and gave a rough jerk on the leather wrist-bonds that hauled the trembling girl to her feet. The frightening vision of Talandri corpulence deftly loosened the wrist-bonds so that a thin, long tunic could be pulled over the girl's head, and then she again bound the wrists tightly. Then the woman leaned over and just as deftly untied the thong that held the ankles together. Another rough and painful jerk on the wrist-bonds pulled the girl from the darkness of the stone-walled room into the painfully brilliant light of many torches.
In the middle of the stone hall filled with jostling light-hairs of all shapes and sizes and ages was a raised wooden platform that had brightly burning torches around its perimeter. The girl was prodded from behind to move forward, and she tripped several times mounting the shallow and worn steps to a raised platform in the middle of that well-lit open space. A stern-faced light-haired enemy looked up from his book at the top of the steps at the dishev eled girl and asked in halting Kauwlut "Name?"
The dark eyes darted from one calculating and leering face in the crowd below to another as the whisper "Lyara," broke her lips. The heavy woman then pushed at her so that she was forced to walk to almost the edge of the platform — where each and everyone in the crowd couldn't help but see her better.
Immediately the light-hair on the platform turned to the mass of people around the platform and began to shout what sounded like gibberish, while several of the men below surged forward to get a better look at the newest item up for bidding. The young Kauwlut girl tried vainly to back away from them but was held firmly and implacably in place by the ungiving hand on the back of her neck.
The hands of the men in the crowd went up and down, and the constant drone of the stern light-hair seemed to direct the ebb and flow of the shouting. After what seemed a long time, the man walked over to the table near the steps to the platform and struck a small block of wood with a small dark metal mallet. The huge woman grabbed the wrist-bonds once more and dragged the girl abruptly down the steps and off the platform.
With little ceremony, the girl was dragged partly through the crowd, many of whom reached out to her with all-too-familiar intent in their eyes, until she was brought up before another smaller table near a heavy planked door in the stonework. There, another older light-haired man was giving the man seated behind the table some of the sparkling metal that she sometimes saw as spoils of a raid her father had led many cycles ago. Almost as soon as the yellow metal had fallen into the outstretched hand, the girl's bonds had been thrust into the hands of the man who had handed over the treasure. Terrified, the girl would have begun struggling to get free, but one look into quiet and firm blue eyes had informed her that there would be no escape for her from this one.
Since his attendance had been the idea of his steward and not his own, Sea Master Vandor had watched the auction of the newly-captured Kauwlut slaves only slightly interested, that is until the young girl had been brought out on the platform. Never had a Kauwlut been known to tolerate being on the ocean -- and why else would a Sea Master be at a slave auction but to acquire a Kauwlut slave for his hall? Still, there had been brightness and intelligence about that young girl that had caught his eye. Palina, his wife, could always use another kitchen hand if the girl didn't work out learning the art of seamanship.
Once the bonds of his new purchase were in his grasp, he took the time to study the condition of his property. The child could have been no more than twelve years old at the most, and she was covered in filth that only barely hid bruises that must have been very painful. Vandor determined to have her to the nearest healer before starting the journey back to his hall.
A tug on the wrist-bonds got the girl moving slowly toward the exit. Only once did the girl falter in her steps, and Vandor followed her gaze to where several of the heroic raiders were displaying trophies from the raids. The girl's -- Lyara's, he reminded himself again so as not to forget -- eyes seemed to follow for a few moments a rather striking belt of plaited silver that was being passed around and shown off. She noticed that the man holding her bonds had paused as well, she glanced up into those stern blue eyes and found them watching her closely. Embarrassed and deeply frightened, she looked back down at the ground.
Vandor's eyes narrowed; and he leaned over to murmur a few words at his steward, who nodded and left to do his bidding. One never knew when a small gesture might unlock the loyalty of a slave or bondsman, and the price of a belt might well be a good invest ment.