The Crown of Treason

Chapter 5. Pugnata (part 1.)

'Awwww, that hurt.' Salina felt dizzy.

Shadowy figures, dancing in the fog of her head were slowly coming back to clarity. A bump the size of the Ilah Amuld stung like a knife under her the skin of her hair every time she breathe. The flat of the spear had struck her like a club. Muscle by muscle consciousness returned to her.

'How long had she been out?'

Pain stabbed her legs. Cramped muscles ached from the stone floor, like laying against Welands' bony back, but worse.

Knitting together at the spot where her head had hit the wall, a clot of warm blood stained her hair. Salina took a moment to check herself mentally. Outside a cut to the skin of her head and a blow to her pride, she didn't seem to have any serious injuries. For the first time in a very long time, she felt relieved about her status of a woman in Hassan's Keep. Soldiers wouldn't have hesitated in finishing her off if she had a tail and a couple of balls between her legs. A woman wasn't worth the soiling of the steel.

'Doshfathi courtesy,' for once she didn't mind. Today it had saved her life.

A nauseating smell lingered in the hall. She didn't know where it came from but it didn't bode well. A feeling inside her told her not to get up. She kept lying on the floor, still so as not to draw attention to herself. With her eyes barely opening to slits she carefully gaze around the room.

Salina realized her clothes had been ripped and partly torn from her body. Her left breast lay bare to see. Not much was left of her white tunica, another courtesy by the soldier that had struck her.

Courteous wherever they went... A stab of pain shot through her lower leg. A leather boot, studded with steel, had kicked. She bit her lip. She knew better than to get up and argue. A second time, the soldiers wouldn't be so courteous with her.

About a dozen pairs of boots followed the first one. None of them made the effort to step around her. In the world behind her eyes, Salina crushed every foot that hit her under the Jalwah Sûl. The thought of revenge kept her going. It helped her banish the pain to the deepest dungeon of her cling. In the world around her, she kept still. If she put all her strength behind the blade she could pierce Doshfathi lamellar with the slender dirk she kept in her stockings. She could, but she wasn't prepared to sacrifice her life for the attempt.

A pair of naked feet was dragged outside with the column. Salina let her head roll to the side. Through her eye slits, she tried to sketch a picture of what had happened. Two soldiers robed in the green and white cloak of the city watch drove a naked man in front of them. The man hung on to a rolled-up bedsheet in his arms. Golden hair curled between his legs, and on his head, they huddled together in a short, befuddled coiffure. Salina felt his greyish-blue eyes search for hers.

'Weland!' a childish voice shouted from behind her eyes. The last of the haze inside her head had disappeared. 'I have to protect him!'

'Think, you stupid goose!' a stronger voice from her gut scolded.

'You saw he still lives. In this moment, there is nothing you can do.'

Fatma and Chaya came running from the slaves' quarters. Soldiers clubbed them down with the butt of a spear. Broken pieces of teeth spat on the wall. Chaya fell to her knees. the slave woman howled a wordless cry of pain. Sobbing she reached for her bleeding mouth.

Fatma was the luckier of the two, the tail end of the spear hit her in the stomach. A second strike, this time with the flat of the spearhead, hit her on the side of her head. She collapsed, almost with the poetic grace of a fallen black swan.