Across the Midnight Sea

Prologue : At The Docks

The young slave's limbs were still shaking with fatigue as he lowered himself out the back of the cart. The chains around his wrists and ankles jangled loudly against themselves as his bare feet met the solid cobblestone of the harbor. 

Imre squinted against the light and was shoved forward roughly, if he wasn't so used to being manhandled he might have stumbled.

"Move along," a nameless master told him. It didn't matter who it was this time, just another in a long line of driver's for the canal.

Imre was a slave, his job was to obey.

The scars on his back were proof of how poorly the occupation suited him.

Still, he kept his head down biding his time. He didn't have the strength to fight now. The six weeks it had taken them to pull their last ship up the canal had brought him to his knees more than once.

Imre did not know if he would make it through another journey north.

His hands were still bloody, the bandages tattered from holding the ropes that were fastened up and down the sides of the boats to allow the slaves to pull them up through the canals. Up-hill, upstream all so that the the rich could enjoy the fruits of HIS peoples labor.

Four of his fellow Shaynari had fallen never to stand again.

Four of his people who would not see the shores of their homeland again.

Four tongues that would never taste the sweet nectar of the Kirini flower, never smell the sweetness of the dune grass.

To him it was four lives lost needlessly.

To the Tamerian it was a weeding off of the weak.

Shaynari were expendable, worth less than the horses which could have done the job with fewer numbers and less strain.

Imre hissed as the blunt end of a whips handle shoved against the back of his shoulder purposefully pressing into the raw mark from where the rope had rubbed repeatedly against his skin.

The other slaves had been given leather pads to wear over their shoulders to help null the pain and save the skin.

There were no such luxuries for him, thanks to Verek.

Verek, the overseer of their hellish journey, who knew Imre's past. The only Tamerian who seemed to know  or remember the truth and never let Imre forget it.

"I know your secret," Verek would often whisper. Sometimes he would add: "Shall I tell them?"

It was a threat he used to keep Imre in line. One of the only threats that held any sway anymore.

"Think of what they will do when they know..."

Imre shuddered at the memory of the man's rancid breath hot in his ear, whispering promises of dark and pain to him.

Imre had learned long ago: things could always be worse.

The group trudged forward, each slave doing their best to slow the procession without being centered out for doing so. They were headed to another ship that would carry them home. It would mean a week in the damp and the dark, the stink of sweat and dirt filling their nostrils more and more each day.

This was their last chance for fresh air and none of them wanted to waste it.

A different scent caught Imre's attention as he tried to take in as much air as his lungs would allow.

Perfume.

It wasn't the thick kind that so many layered on to hide behind, rather a soft smell that Imre was not familiar with, so faint he wondered if he had imagined it. The wind swirled around him. No, not imagined,  just soft. North flowers perhaps?