Frentis sheathed his sword and strode towards the group, seeing how they tensed at his approach, his eyes picking out the scars they bore. It appeared none had escaped injury, either from the whip or whatever torments the veterans had suffered in the spectacles. He halted ten paces short, scanning for some semblance of recognition among the faces but seeing only suspicion.
“Are there any here from the Unified Realm?” he asked in Realm Tongue. The response was mostly a series of baffled glares though one did stir at the words, a light-skinned man slightly older and even more scarred than the others. Like all of them his head was shaven and he wore a loose shift that revealed a body honed to the kind of leanness that only came from years of hard training.
“Last of the land-bound died two days ago,” he said in a Meldenean accent. He cocked his head at Frentis, mouth twisting in faint contempt. “They rarely last long.”
One of the others spoke up, a short but well-muscled young woman holding a wooden spear level with Frentis’s eyes. “Tell him if he intends to sell us, he better be prepared to bleed for the privilege,” she said in Volarian.
“I speak your language,” Frentis told her, raising his hands, palm open. “And we come only to free you.”
“For what?” she replied, her glower losing none of its intensity.
“That,” he told her, “is surely for you to decide.”
• • •
In all some two dozen of the freed Garisai opted to leave, the Meldenean among the first to depart. “No offence, but a pox on your rebellion, brother,” he said in an affable tone at the gate, hefting a sack laden with sundry valuables and provisions. “Done two spectacles and that’s enough blood for any life. I’m taking myself to the coast where I’ll find anything that floats and sail to the Isles. Expect my wife’s probably found another willing prick by now, but still, home is home.”
“Your people are allied with us,” Frentis pointed out. “The Ship Lords have agreed a formal treaty.”
“Really? Then a pox on them too.” He gave a brief grin of farewell and started off towards the west at a steady run.
“Coward,” Lekran muttered.
The young woman from the practice ground had been elected to speak for her fellow Garisai and named herself as Ivelda. Frentis divined a certain tribal enmity from the hard looks and similar accent she shared with Lekran. “She is Rotha,” he had advised, his gaze darkening. “They cannot be trusted.”
“Othra means ‘snake’ in our tongue,” she replied, her hand closing on the short sword she had claimed from the pile of captured weapons. “They drink the piss of goats and lie with their sisters.”
“If you intend to kill each other,” Frentis said as Lekran bridled, finding himself too weary to intervene, “do it outside.”
He turned his gaze to the map Thirty-Four had laid out in the luxurious apartments where the Varikum’s chief overseer once made his home. Much to the annoyance of the freed Garisai they had failed to take him alive, though great play had been made of his corpse, his head now adorning a spear thrust into the centre of the practice ground.
“The Volarian garrison will no doubt have word of our activities by now,” Thirty-Four said, tapping an icon some fifteen miles north-west of the Varikum. “It won’t be hard to follow our trail here.”
“Our full strength?” Frentis asked.
“Two hundred and seventeen.”
“Not enough,” Lekran said.
“Craven sister-fucker,” Ivelda said with a scornful laugh. “Each Garisai here is worth ten Varitai.”
“He’s right,” Frentis said. “We need more fighters.”
“If they come here, they’ll have to assault the walls to take us,” Draker pointed out. “Evens the odds a bit.”
“We can’t linger, much as I’m tempted to. Besides, putting this place to the torch gives a clear signal of our intentions. Perhaps even a rallying call to those in bondage.” His finger tracked to a cluster of hills thirty miles north-east, the route liberally marked with plantations. “We’ll turn to face them there, hopefully in greater numbers. Be ready to march in an hour.”
• • •
They raided four plantations in as many days, their ranks swelling with every attack. The landholdings were larger farther inland, richer in slaves and ample evidence the overseers indulged in a level of cruelty even greater than they had seen on the coast. The bulk of their new recruits were still Realm folk, those born into bondage proving the least willing to forsake a lifetime of servitude, in some cases even striving to defend their masters. This had been particularly evident at the fourth plantation where the most loyal slaves had formed a protective cordon around the owner, a tall grey-haired woman dressed head to toe in black, standing with straight-backed and flint-eyed defiance as her villa burned around her. The slaves protecting her were unarmed but had linked arms, refusing to budge despite Frentis’s entreaties.
