Chapter 1.

 

She crested the dune on a dead run and tripped. Over and over, like a nut rolling down the sharp bank of the river Sang, she fell, her hair whipping sand back into her eyes. At the bottom she pitched into the riffled surface head first. She spit and blew hot grains from her nose with what little mucous remained and swore as she had once heard her father.

Get up, Franseza, she ordered herself, willing the sand from her eyes. Get up, Franseza, soon they will be upon you. Move your sorry tail, slave!

She struggled up, forcing herself from the burning sand that sucked at her and against the burning sun that beat on her. There she stood, or sort of stood, bent over at the waist, breathless, precious drops of sweat still rolling from her nose and her nipples, the dark thatch of her mound still damp. Water from her body wouldn't last long now with no way to conserve it.

Shouldn't worry, Franseza told herself again, they'll be on you sooner than not anyway. The lances will finish off what the dogs leave. She laughed at herself and then choked. Yes, soon enough, slavers would pour relentlessly over the tops of dunes like the wisps of sand that blew on persistent desert winds.

They would come on their animals, the strange ones with sometimes as many as three humps and the great broad feet that floated them where she only sank. They would spot her, but no cry would go up. Unless one of them had taken a rare liking to her sex, they would loose the desert hounds. Kennel masters had once forced her to feed hounds; she held the great roasts of beast by the bone at arm's length. Shivering, she had shut her eyes against the sight of the monstrous slobbering jaws that ripped the meat from her grasp when they reached the end of the chain. Slavegirls had whispered to her about the time a link snapped, but then they would say nothing else.

The hounds would range about the feet of the slaver's mounts as she had seen them do before as the slavers left the oasis fort. They might or might not smell the wet scent of slave across the blown sand. Once they had seen the quarry, it made no difference.

Franseza started to run again, stumbling. She cursed her feet when she tripped over the tiniest speck. Franseza, the fleetest girl in the village, fleeter than almost any boy, the girl whom the old people said ran with deer, Franseza reduced now almost to being blown about like a grain of sand itself.

Her mind wandered even as her tongue swelled up against the roof of her mouth. She imagined that she still ran down those dusty roads and through the tall pasture grass. How she had ran with her skirts pulled up to her thighs, at least until the day that misbegotten alchemist Edern had claimed her alongside the spring.

Franseza seldom ran after that day; a smart slave heels the master. Yet she had walked endless furlongs of forest and swamp, her legs retaining their spring. The bitter climb through the Forsaken Range kept her thighs conditioned. Yes, she could run.

Her eyes glazed and she almost stopped sweating. Perhaps she could run herself clear into the dark space on the other side of life. How disappointed the slavers would be to find the quarry dead of thirst, her eyes staring uselessly at the sun. Better to die in visions of orchards and green fields and laughing neighbors than to be dragged down from behind by snarling hounds. Franseza pushed her wooden legs harder.

She tripped once more, toes smarting from collision with something hard. Her befuddled mind struggled with the reality of something hard.

Franseza twisted sideways as she fell and her shoulder and flank landed on rock. She lay stunned, a knot in her solar plexus threatening to suffocate her. Rock. Her mind cleared enough to know that she had made it as far as the Saldos foothills. Rock. Any slavegirl that ran as far as the Saldos rock consumed the slavers with rage. The strange animals they rode would not walk on rock unless they were beaten and then not far. Slavers hated to walk and if they didn't, they would miss the kill. None would save her now but herself.

She squinted under her palm back behind her into the dunes. Her eyes were dry now; even tears were sucked out of her. Still she could see the silent cloud of dust that trailed the slavers and their hounds.

You haven't caught me yet, you fucking bastards! You haven't got me and you haven't got the nushadir. If there is any justice under any sky, you won't either.

As soon as she thought of nushadir, she thought of Riisaren. If any tears had been left, she would have wasted them on her master and lover. She made the futile attempt to master herself. There was no time before in the run to think of Riisaren and there was no time now, not if there was still some hope to live. He wouldn't be there to save her.

Franseza started the mad climb, one hand over the other with no strategy, fingertips and toes raw and bloody. She glanced over her shoulder once at the shout echoing up from the desert floor. Robed figures pointed up and shook lances at her. She would have spat down at them, but there was no spit left. She did laugh, a strange cackle that sounded like the hysteria of an old crone in her ear. She laughed until she saw the hounds released. Adrenalin ran raw along her nerves; fear bridged the broken nerves that would not carry her will to her muscles. She climbed.

A great baying rose up to her as the pack ranged beneath, searching for a point to climb after her and finding it. Acrid urine dribbled down the inside of her thigh as she strove to drive her throbbing heart over the brink into failure, maybe to break something crucial in her head so that blood would flow out of her ears and nose, lose consciousness and plummet like the hawk.

If she had more time to think, Franseza might have considered leaping from the rock face. She might have laughed hysterically as she swooped down, aiming to land on as many dogs as she could or maybe even a slaver. That would teach him. If she only had more time. She climbed higher.

She didn't dare look below her; she could hear the panting of hounds intent on reaching her. They didn't care that they might pull her off the face of the rock and maybe crash a few of themselves with her amongst the boulders. They only cared to snap jaws across thighs and cheeks convulsing in agonizing throes.

Blind in the heat, her hands and feet blistered, Franseza reached to her left and tried to find one last purchase to pull herself out of reach. She slipped her arm into a sizable crevice when something happened that did freeze her heart. Her hand went through into an open space and another hand grabbed her wrist.

She tried to pull back, the instinctive human reaction to the hidden grasp. Her sun-dazed mind recognized a cool draft of air that tickled the hairs on her arm before the hand pulled her through the crevice. She wanted to leap into the cool darkness despite her fright. Her mind cried yes and then no and then the blow struck her behind her head. She fell into outstretched arms and she smiled. Home at last.