Page 127 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“Wake up, elf,” he grumbled and listened as the translator spell he used to deal with traveling merchants converted the words into the silver hairs’ strange speech.

When that did no good, he lightly kneed the creature who lay beside him on the trundling cart and who, amazingly, had been sound asleep. Yet still he snored on as if he rested on the feather beds he probably had at home instead of cold iron bars covered with straw, and as if he had a full meal in his belly instead of the gnawing hunger Rask felt. He hadn’t eaten in three days while watching his captors feast each night by the puny fire they made.

And listening as they joked, after slinging his fellow captive in beside him, that perhaps Rask would eat him. As if his people were the barbarians here! They did not steal women and children, they did not enslave, they did not—

His thoughts broke off because the added outrage had lent strength to his struggle, and he had felt the cuffs pop and loosen. Now, all he needed was to finish the job and wake his companion, who had turned over muttering something and dragged some straw over his head like a pillow. What was wrong with the creature?

Perhaps he had been spelled as Rask initially had, or possibly his sleepiness had more to do with the crust of blood covering one side of his head, where his fellow silver hairs had beaten him. It had formed a dark welt that looked like a skewed hat and had splattered his cheek. But it did not appear to be bleeding anymore, which Rask took as a good sign.

For his part, he hadn’t slept in days, as the cage was too small to allow him to lie down without the cold iron of the side bars torturing him. He wondered if that was deliberate, to wear his people out and make them more docile. They would see how docile he was when he got loose!

Fortunately, he could go for a long time without sleep with few ill effects. He had thought the silver hairs could also, but this one seemed to be the exception. He was the exception to many things, as his fine clothes showed.

Most of the slavers came from the surrounding villages and dressed like it. Not in the hides his people wore but in rough homespun and scarred leathers. But this one. . .

He was dirty now, after being hit many times and falling into the muck of the road, but underneath all that were fine clothes of a soft blue. There wasn’t a patch on them, and all were woven stuff, not animal hides. There was also pretty stitchwork around the neck hole, as Rask had seen only once before, on the edge of a cloak owned by one of their nobles.

Rask had been just a boy when he came through their village, but he still remembered how it had flashed like silver fire in the moonlight and the awe he had felt just looking at it. He’d edged close enough almost to touch it when the nobleman noticed him. And, to Rask’s surprise, swung him into his lap to see it closer up.

It had been Rask’s finest moment, not least because he’d been allowed to trace the edge with his finger, feeling the embroidered designs against his skin. He was almost surprised they hadn’t burned him, but they felt cool. And slightly rough, as if they truly were made out of tiny filaments of silver.

“Took it off one of their magic workers,” the noble had said. “The symbols around the edge are supposed to be a protection spell.”

“Didn’t protect him, did it?” One of the elders commented.

“No, but the cloak’s all right,” the noble shot back, and they all laughed.

Rask had made himself a similar garment when he was old enough, although nothing like so fine. Gathering enough pelts had taken many hunting trips, and his mother had tanned them for him and stitched them together herself. The silver hairs had stolen it, leaving him only his hide loincloth.

He supposed he couldn’t complain as his people took trophies, too.

And would again, he thought, sensing movement in the trees on either side of the road, movement that the silver hairs seemed oblivious to. His people were quieter than that, moving silently through the forest when they wished, but they wanted him to know they were there. Wanted him to be ready.

They would save him if they could or avenge him if they could not. His captors would pay a price for raiding their village. All those with silver hair would die this night, which was why Rask was bleeding.

He had to protect the one at his feet. The one who had been captured for trying to rescue him and the others, although he did not know why. Why put himself at risk for those his people had killed for time out of mind? And fight his kin to do it?

Rask did not understand, but he knew he owed him a debt, one that he would repay, even if he had to fight his own. And he might, for his rescuers were likely composed of many tribes, the scattered remnants of which had bonded together after losing so many fighters, and they might not be ones he knew. He twisted his wrists harder, using the blood as a lubricant to try to slip his hands out of the smallish openings.

They were the largest cuffs the silver hairs had had, as they had been hunting women and children the day he was taken. Those made better slaves, as the women could be forced to accept almost any treatment to save their young, and the children would thereafter know nothing but servitude. The silver hairs hadn’t come equipped for the males of his kind, as they were too cowardly to enter any of their cave systems and face them.

They did not like the dark, where his people could see and they could not. They liked even less the many twists and turns in the system, as they provided opportunities for ambush. No, they did not like that at all.

So, they had attacked a group of bathing women and playing children, laughing and splashing in what was supposed to be a hidden pool, and brought only smaller chains.

They had not expected him to be there or understood that, by his people's reasoning, he was only a child himself. But he was older than the others, already knowing how to hunt and fish, which was why he had been there. His young cousin had begged to learn how to search for worms, how to thread them on a hook, and where to drop that hook to make the best catch.

Rask would never teach him that now, as he had hidden him in a bush when the attack came so he would not be caught. He remembered his huge eyes and small hand clutching Rask’s cloak, begging him not to go. But no bush was big enough for him, and he would not flee.

He was not yet grown, but he was old enough to know.

A troll does not run.

But he had almost wished he had when the silver hairs jumped him, and he saw the knife one of them held flash in the sunlight. It would have been the last thing he saw, but another had stayed his attacker’s hand. “No! Not ‘til he’s checked!”

Rask had not understood that, not even when a gray-robed figure pushed through the group and knelt by his side as six silver hairs held him down. It was hard for them even then, for Rask had struggled and done so with all his might. But the gray cloak had murmured a word, his limbs had gone temporarily numb, and he had found his face pulled up into the sunlight.

The gray cloak had searched it for a moment, then made a sign over top of him, burning brightly in the air. Rask did not know what it was, but he felt the strangest sensation, as if all his blood suddenly leaped in his veins. The gray robe smiled and looked up at the one holding the knife-wielder’s wrist.

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