The Voyage - Edmund Pevensie

7

It felt like I had just closed my eyes when I was awoken by the sound of our captors shaking and even hitting some people awake. I quickly shook Lucy and Eustace awake next to me and we watched as they began separating people apart and pulling some people off of the wall. With the rising sun, they were all pushing and shoved until everyone the men had grabbed were loaded into a wooden wagon pulled by two draft horses. When they'd finished, the wagon began heading towards the port which just confused me. 

There wasn't a large ship to transport tons of people like I thought there would be if they were taking people in the direction of the water. All there was were a couple of small boats much like the landing boats we'd used to come from the Dawn Treader. For a horrible second, I had the feeling that they were going to take these poor people out to sea just to drop them in the water and leave them there. 

I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of yelling. 

"Elaine!"

"Mommy!" 

As the wagon continued it's path towards the water, a man appeared out of nowhere sprinting towards the wagon and the outstretched hands of one of the women right at the edge. I assumed it was his wife and the mother of the little girl who was running behind, doing her best to keep up. The man managed to grab his wife's hand for a split second, but soon there were several slave traders on him, one punching the man in the jaw so hard his knees buckled and he fell. The traders paid him no more attention as they ran to keep up with the wagon.

"Stay with Daddy!" the woman cried as the little girl finally managed to reach her dad.

"Don't worry!" the man called out. "I'll find you!"

I wanted nothing more than to help them, but I could only watch as all of the people were unloaded and forced into a small boat. My hear dropped to my stomach as I feared I'd been right about our captors dropping people in the ocean. Instead, the traders didn't get on any boats themselves, only pushed their prisoners off of the port and towards the open water when it was full. It didn't take long for the boat to get a far distance from shore, and to my horror the sky began to darken and thunder sounded in the distance. Like something out of an old maid's tale, a deep green mist appeared from seemingly the sea and air itself. It rolled on top of the waves effortlessly and quickly advanced on the boat surrounding it in seconds. I could hear their screams from even where I sat, and I felt as if I was going to throw up. 

Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, it was gone. It evaporated leaving no trace it had even been there as the boat full of people was also gone. 

For several seconds, the entire city seemed to go silent. Eventually, I couldn't stand all of my questions bouncing around in my head. 

"What the hell just happened," I whispered. 

"There's two ways off of this island if you're a prisoner," Nik whispered back. "Either as a slave forced to work for a new master, or as a sacrifice to the mist. I suspect that man and woman were one of the few families still left living here but couldn't pay their taxes this morning, so they took his wife as payment."

"That's horrid," Lucy said quietly. Eustace was just staring at Nik with wide eyes.

"It first showed up in the East when sailors and whole fishing boats started going missing. That's when six of the Lords left to try and find the source of it, but they never came back. With only one elderly Lord left to protect the entire Lone Islands it was easy for the slave traders to move in." There was a deep sadness to his voice that made me wonder if he'd lost someone to the slave trade, the mist, or both. But I wasn't going to ask him about it here. 

It angered me to no end that our uncle Miraz had never sent help to the Lone Islands when Caspian and I were younger. Not even a few guards to help protect the islands when the reports of the slave trade had reached him, as I was sure it did. For not the first time since the Telmarine war, I was happy he was dead as awful as that was. Because if he were still alive, I would have killed him myself.