5. OLIRA
5
OLIRA
Several hours past midday, Olira and the slave had joined the crowd of people leaving the city.
City guards were taking their time, stopping and questioning some travellers and merchants, checking the contents in their carts randomly, but letting most people go without so much as a second glance.
One of the guards gestured Olira to step aside and asked for the slave’s sales papers. Olira handed them over and waited patiently as the guard inspected the slave’s physical description. He tilted the slave’s head to the side to study his tattoo. His quizzical gaze flickered between Olira and the slave. He even sized Olira up and down, taking in her plain dress and old travel cloak.
Olira scowled at the man, daring him to make a comment, but the guard kept his judgement to himself. Yet, he didn’t fail to investigate the genuineness of the seal at the bottom of the page.
“That’ll be seven Blues and five Greys, ma’am,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Excuse me?”
The city guard looked at Olira as if the Twelve Riders haven’t been generous with her. “That will be seven Chinderian Blues and five Greys, ma’am,” he repeated, slowly and clearly.
“Seven Blues and a half for what?” Olira asked after taking a deep breath.
The guard rolled his eyes. “Domestic assets tax, ma’am. You bought a slave and you’re exiting the city with it. You pay five percent of the slave’s value.” He shook the sales paper. “He’s worth a hundred and fifty Blues. So, that’s seven and a half—”
“ Domestic assets tax ?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The guard flexed his jaw, fidgeted impatiently. “Are you paying or not?”
Olira was having difficulty breathing. Rage coloured her face. She mouthed a silent prayer to Alunwea, demanding to know what she did to offend the Goddess of Mercy. This day was a nightmare.
“What happens if I don’t pay?”
The slave, who was scratching his neck lazily, stopped and brought his hand down. He didn’t raise his head, nor did he glance at Olira, but the muscles on his jaw twitched.
“If you don’t pay, we’ll confiscate your slave. You’ll have thirty days to pay off, or the city will repossess him.”
Olira rubbed her temples and took a slow, deep breath. She glared at the slave’s indifferent face, like this was his fault. She forced herself to look away. The slave was a mindless thing. He didn't ask to be sold to Olira. He wasn't to blame.
“Are you paying or not, ma’am?” The guard raised his voice. “I ain’t got all day.”
“Yes, I’m paying,” Olira hissed. She counted eight Blues. Two. She only had two Chinderian Blues left in her purse now. It almost hurt physically. The guard had to pry the coins out of Olira’s fingers.
“Wait here,” the city guard mumbled as he walked into the guardhouse with the slave’s paper. Twenty minutes later he returned with her change — five lousy Greys — and handed the paper back to Olira. She eyed the scribble at the bottom of the paper, confirming she’d paid the slave’s tax. After rolling it carefully, she placed the paper back in her bag.
By the time they left Kiore, the sun was stretching their shadows long. A fair number of travellers littered the road, some heading in the same direction while others going towards the city.
Olira followed the signposts pointing to West Kilrer. After every intersection, the well-maintained dirt road became less and less busy. When they took the narrow pathway leading south, they were the only ones left.
Olira’s head throbbed with an ache. Her face muscles were hurting from scowling and gritting her teeth. She wanted to scream her anger out. She wanted to yell at someone.
The slave walked on the other side of Warrior. He snuck his hand under his collar, scratching the irritated skin. He didn’t even look guilty for all the troubles he’d caused to Olira.
She exhaled through her nose and somehow collected herself. Taking her anger out on the slave would be wrong. Gladwiel was the one she should’ve been mad at. The slave merchant forced her to take the slave and didn’t even mention the tax. The slave didn’t deserve to be the target of Olira’s resentment.
Plus, it wasn’t like Olira wouldn’t profit from this either. The idea of trading a slave made her feel dirty, but the money… She couldn’t stop herself from imagining how much that money could help her and her brothers. The thought gnawed at her, a constant internal struggle between her morals and her desperation. She pictured her brothers' faces, their weary expressions, and what they had to endure last winter. She had to cave in and beg for supplies from Master Tholthus. She was supposed to pay what she owed to the man before the end of summer, and she had already delayed.
As she weighed her options, the sun continued its slow descent in the sky, casting long shadows on the road. It was only an hour before sunset when she noticed the slave was falling behind.
He dragged his feet behind Warrior, still remaining within the range of his chain. Warrior twitched his ears and let out a bray. Olira patted his neck. The animal was getting tired and hungry, but Olira didn’t want to stop yet. There was a roadside inn not too far from here. They could make it before sunset.
When she noticed the slave had been breathing laboriously for the last few minutes, she glanced over her shoulder. The man was stumbling after the mule, the chain stretched tight between them. He was walking crouched and his face remained hidden.
Olira tugged Warrior’s bridle to stop the animal. She walked around him; her eyebrows drawn together.
“We’re not stopping yet,” she scolded. “You need to—”
She covered her mouth with her hands to stifle a scream at the sight of the slave. She flinched a step back, trying to comprehend what she was seeing.
The slave dropped to his knees. He let out a gasp that sounded more like a cough.
“Merciful Alunwea!” whispered Olira. She drew the Twelve’s sign in the air and touched her fingers to her forehead.
The slave wheezed. His fingers clawed at his collar, pulling it futilely. His neck was red and swollen to the size of a watermelon. The collar was cutting deep into his flesh until his chin had disappeared. His neck looked like a second head, only redder and uglier.
“What… What’s happening…?” Olira babbled.
The slave’s fingers left bloody trails all over that bulbous globe which used to be his neck. He coughed. He was staring at Olira’s bag as he tugged his collar desperately.
Olira snapped out of her shock. She dipped her hands in her bag and started searching for the key to the collar.
The slave sucked a rough breath in and coughed again. His face was turning dark. The collar was choking him. Olira turned her bag upside down and spilt the contents to the ground. She fumbled through her belongings with trembling hands until she found the small iron key.
The slave opened his mouth, gasping for air. His face was an ugly tone of blue now. Olira kneeled beside him. The collar, slick with blood, had almost disappeared under the swollen flesh. She searched for the keyhole. The slave’s eyes shut as he swayed on his knees. Olira grabbed his shoulder to steady him. She found the keyhole and pushed the key in. The collar snapped open.
The slave opened his eyes and took a raspy breath. When he swayed forward, his forehead touched Olira’s shoulder. The collar had cut his skin deep and left a bloody mark around his bulging neck. He was breathing easier, but his neck was still swollen, and it seemed to get bigger by the second.
Olira grabbed the man’s shoulders and pushed him back. “Look at me,” she said, still fearful. “What’s happening to your neck? What… What happened to you?”
“Pem…” the slave gasped, but was interrupted by another cough.
“Pem what?”
“Ton…” He collapsed on his back, wheezing and coughing uncontrollably.
“Pem... ton?” she mouthed desperately. “Pem… Pemitoin ?” She paled, shifting away from him. “ He gave you pemitoin?”
The slave didn’t respond, couldn’t respond. Olira took her head between her hands. She felt dizzy, and she struggled to breathe. “He gave you pemitoin !” she repeated, more an accusation than a question now. A cold shiver ran down her spine as the weight of the revelation sank in.
The slave was going to die.
The man’s skin was already stretched tight over his neck. It was going to continue swelling, and the worst was yet to come.
She was familiar with pemitoin . It was made from Oxeron roots – the same ones Olira sold to Gladwiel – it dulled pain and boosted strength. But its effects were short-lived, lasting no longer than half a day, and it required an antidote from Crastic root. Without the antidote, the aftereffects could be devastating. And Olira was looking at the start of it.
Olira went through the spilt contents of her bag and picked up her purse. She took the two blue coins out of it and stuffed it into one of the saddle bags. Folding the leather purse in half, she kneeled beside the slave and slid it between his teeth.
“Bite this,” she instructed. “Don’t spit it out.”
The slave stared at the sky, his eyes displaying no sign of comprehension. He gaped his mouth, trying to breathe around the purse. He coughed it out. Olira pushed the leather back in, pulled its strings, and tied them around the slave’s head.
“You have to bite this, or you’ll lose your tongue in a few minutes.”
She wasn’t sure if the slave understood her and she didn’t have the time to make sure he did. She jumped up to her feet, pulled her skirt up, and started running back the way they came from.
She found the stream a couple minutes off the road. She’d remembered hearing the gentle sound of the water as they walked past it before. The stream flowed carelessly through rock and mud, dragging dead leaves and small pebbles with its current. She looked around frantically until she spotted the bright green squiggly leaves of the plant on the other side of the stream.
Not caring about getting her feet soaked in the icy water, she walked across to the other side of the bank.
Etegon Thorn.
The plant commonly grew near water. All she needed was a handful. She used the hem of her travel cloak to rip the thorny leaves off, making sure not to touch them directly. The thorn was poisonous, and although it was not deadly, it could severely numb the skin, and that was the last thing Olira needed right now. After sparing a moment to secure the precious leaves inside her travel cloak, she ran back to the road.
Just as she’d feared, the aftereffects of the pemitoin had progressed rapidly. The convulsions had started. The slave’s arms and legs jerked in every direction, his muscles twitching as he spasmed violently. His back arched, his heels dug into the ground. His eyes had rolled back in his skull as his teeth were clamped tight around Olira’s purse.
Olira didn’t waste any time checking on him. She had to hurry. Grabbing a bowl from one of her saddle bags, she crushed the thorn with a rock. The thorns released a sharp, peppery smell, and she added a dash of water to turn it into a soggy paste.
The slave’s arms jerked uncontrollably and hit Olira when she sat beside him with the paste. The skin around his throat looked so tight, Olira was afraid it might pop under her touch. The purebred’s tattoo had stretched and the dog-like shape was distorted. Dodging the jolting arms, she dabbed the hem of her cloak into the paste and rubbed it all over the slave’s neck.
The slave’s thrashing grew so violent, he could hurt himself. Olira had to keep him safe until the paste started working. She caught one of his arms and pinned it under her knees. She reached over his chest and grabbed the other arm.
She smelled urine and wasn’t surprised to see the crotch of his pants glistened wet. The spasms had caused him to lose control of his bladder. She turned her head up, breathing through the mixed odour of urine, sweat, Etegon paste, and something else…
Rotten flesh?
She placed all her weight on the slave’s torso, yet barely restricted his convulsions. His legs kicked the ground with such force that she feared they might break. She pushed down on his thighs as hard as she could. The slave’s skin was too hot to her touch. His body radiated heat. Sweat trickled down from Olira’s face and mixed with his.
There was nothing else she could do, other than pray for Alunwea’s mercy, and hold him down.
The slave’s neck deflated and returned to its normal proportions, but the convulsions continued violently until the last light of the day. When they finally weakened, Olira sat back and rubbed her aching muscles, breathing heavily.
The slave’s eyes fluttered. He took shallow, raspy breaths as he blinked at his surroundings, looking confused. His muscles still twitched, though not as hard as before.
His grey eyes met Olira’s.
“Aftereffects of pemitoin are swelling in the neck, difficulty breathing, and violent muscle contractions,” Olira listed. “Fever is not among them.”
The slave swallowed.
Olira untied the strings of her purse and pulled it out of his mouth, but the man remained silent. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. He averted them from Olira’s gaze.
“Don’t touch your neck,” Olira muttered when the man took a trembling hand towards his neck. She went to fetch her waterskin. After wetting the hem of her ruined travel cloak, she wiped the leftover paste and the dried blood off his neck.
She helped him sit up and held the waterskin to his mouth while he guzzled. He was both burning with fever and trembling visibly. His eyes were half-closed, his head sagging forward, exhausted.
Olira stepped back. “Get up,” she ordered.
The purebred blinked his eyes open. To his credit, he attempted to comply without delay. Yet, it took four tries to climb up on his feet. Olira watched each failed attempt with increasing frustration. He held back a moan and slanted awkwardly to his left. He swayed on his left foot, favouring his right.
“Pull your pants down.”
The slave untied the strings with trembling hands and dropped his pants down to his knees. Olira stared at the bloody bandage around his right thigh. The sight of the hastily tied, dirty cloth left Olira teetering between the urge to cry and the need to scream.
She took a deep breath before ordering: “Untie it.”
The slave picked on the knots with clumsy fingers until the bandage came loose. The putrid odour of the infection struck Olira hard. She gagged, pressing her palm over her mouth and nose. One glance at the red, inflamed wound and the yellow puss spilling out of it, and she knew what she was dealing with.
“Why haven’t you said anything before?” she said. “Why haven’t you said anything about the pemitoin while we were in the city?”
The slave swayed on his feet. “You haven’t asked, Owner.”
His tone was neither arrogant, nor audacious, but it still flushed Olira’s cheeks with hot rage. She curled her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms.
“Are you kidding me?”
She hadn’t intended it as a question, but the slave answered anyway: “No, Owner.”
Olira ran her hands through her hair. She turned her back to him, because the slave’s mere presence was filling her with fury. She started packing the contents of her bags, hoping she hadn’t missed anything in the dim light of late afternoon. She unrolled the slave’s sales paper and held it up, forcing her eyes to read the neat lines in the faint light. She found the statement she was looking for:
I was given a chance to inspect the property before purchase and I accept the property in his current physical condition.
She felt a burning sensation in her stomach, fury churning inside her. She scrunched the paper in one hand and almost threw it away, before collecting herself and stuffing it back into her bag.
The slave stood where she’d left him; his eyes on the ground, his pants still down, trembling and swaying wearily.
“Pull your pants up!” Olira snapped.
The man complied with resignation.
“Walk!”
Olira tugged Warrior’s lead behind her. The mule twitched his ears nervously as he followed Olira. The slave stumbled after them. He stifled his groans and kept up for the first twenty minutes, until his legs started trembling too violently. More than once, he had to clutch at Warrior’s saddle to regain his balance. The mule brayed crankily each time.
“There’s an inn just behind that hill,” Olira said. “We can get help.”
Of course, the slave wasn’t done ruining Olira’s day. He tripped and fell unconscious only a couple of minutes later.
“Get up, you piece of meat!” Astaldo’s whip lashed at his face and neck, sending waves of pain through his body.
“Get up!”
“Get up!”
A haze of brown hair hovered over his face. A cold glimmer lit up her brown eyes. His new Owner was relentless.
Furious.
Cruel.
Astaldo struck again.
She struck harder.
The slave flailed his arms. His eyes bulged in their sockets, frantic.
“Calm down,” Olira frowned. “Stop. Calm down.”
He rolled to his side, thrashing, trying to climb up on his feet. He was disoriented. He accidentally smacked his injured leg and doubled over, crying in pain. Nevertheless, the pain snapped him out of his confused state. He shook violently, blinking at the dark road.
Olira gave him some water. “We can’t stop yet,” she said, hating the apology in her voice. “You have to keep walking.”
She helped him up and told him to hold on to Warrior’s saddle. It was past sunset, and the road seemed different in the dark, but she was sure the inn was just behind the next hill.
She was wrong.
It wasn’t behind the next one either.
The slave collapsed again.
“Were you looking with your eyes, or with your mind?” Badimar asked.
“With my eyes, Master.”
“Then what was your mind looking at?”
When he told him, Badimar ordered him to kneel and take his shirt off. The whip cracked at his back. Blood and sweat mixed. Pain was hot. His muscles burned.
His new Owner with cruel brown eyes snatched the whip off Badimar.
She flogged him until his flesh fell off his bones.
She struck harder and harder…
The slave cried out hoarsely. Panic flooded his eyes.
“It’s okay! It’s okay!” Olira repeated.
His fever must have been getting worse; he was talking to himself. He’d said something about his eyes. Olira gave him some space until he calmed down.
“Your fever is getting worse,” Olira said. “But I have nothing on me that could help you.”
She knew a few herbs that could be useful to break his fever, and although they were common enough to find, it was too dark to search. She frowned ahead. The next hill was barely visible in the darkness. She wasn’t even confident if the inn was behind that one, or the one after.
Desperation sucked up all her strength.
She helped the slave up again, but this time, she didn’t let go. Her feet ached. She’d been up since early morning, walking with little rest. Her battle to keep the slave safe during his convulsions had left her muscles sore. Her stomach growled. Yet, she supported the slave as best she could, while pulling Warrior’s lead with her other hand.
She led them out of the dirt road, searching for a sheltered place to set up camp for the night.
When the slave collapsed one more time, Olira knew he wasn’t getting up again tonight.
The bear reared on his hind legs. His muscles rippled under his thick brown coat. He was full grown, the largest he’d ever seen.
Fierce.
Enraged.
Bloodthirsty.
Marzul’s furious roars mixed with their laughter.
Curious.
Excited.
The bear threw himself against the bars of his cage. He gnawed at them, clawed through them, relentless.
Dark shadows sneaked inside the cage. They filled it until the bear disappeared behind them. Marzul’s roars faded. The laughter quietened.
The bars of the cage turned silver. They shone bright. Blinding. Shadows twirled inside; like a thick, black smoke trapped in the cage.
Imprisoned.
“Slave,” whispered the darkness behind the bars.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am what’s left after death.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing you do.”
Olira locked her arms under the slave’s arms and pulled.
Her back hurt. Her feet hurt. Her whole body hurt.
The slave reeked of death. Olira breathed through her mouth and pulled again. The slave’s heels left a trail on the soil as Olira dragged his unconscious — and considerably heavy — body under a scrawny tree.
She lowered his head gently, then stood and rubbed her back. This place wouldn’t be her first preference to set up camp, but she’d tried — and failed — to wake the man up again and she couldn’t have dragged him any further.
She unsaddled Warrior and fed him, before fishing a handful of bread for herself and sitting down. She ate enough to quieten her growling stomach. Exhaustion still surged through her body, though she felt a pinch of her strength returning.
She reached out and felt the slave’s forehead. Her hand recoiled immediately. He was burning hot. His eyes fluttered beneath closed lids, and his lips moved silently. Dreaming, or having a nightmare. Sweat drenched his shirt. He trembled.
He was dying.
He had been dying since Olira bought him, maybe even before that. She was in the middle of nowhere, with no resources and no clue how to save him.
He wouldn’t make it through the night.