Krozair of Kregen Read Online Free PDF Page B

nothing of the disturbance.”
    “Duh — Dak—” said Duhrra.
    “Quiet, you fambly. Tell me later.”
    Rukker, the Kataki, said, “You think fast, Dak, for an apim.”
    “Shut your black-fanged wine-spout, Rukker. Here come the guards.”
    We all stood there, in our chains, and looked suitably stupid. There was a considerable quantity of confusion lower down, and shouting, and the sound of the whips lashing. Some of the slaves were too stupid in all reality to run off. When order was restored and we were sorted out, the six of us were herded back into
Green Magodont
and chained down in the middle tier. We were to be zygites, six to a loom, and if the oar-master of the swifter discovered he had two slaves too many, he would give thanks to Green Grodno and smile. As for the swifter from which Duhrra and the lad had come, her oar-master would curse and rave — and I felt damned sure that the oar-master of
Green Magodont
would continue to say nothing and smile even more broadly. As the quondam first lieutenant of a seventy-four I knew only too well the avariciousness of shellbacked sailormen in the matter of ship supplies — and in the Eye of the World of Kregen, ship supplies included slaves.
    Green Magodont,
as I had previously observed, was broad enough to accept six oarsmen abreast on a loom. Above our heads on the thranites bank the men were arranged to push and pull, the eight men forming a convenient pattern. This tended to cramp them a little more than us lower tiersmen; but the shipwrights of Magdag had done their sums well so that the leverage and power required on the differently sized oars evened out. So we sat at the loom of the zygite oar. The six of us, from the apostis seat, the outer seat, were: Lorgad the Rapa, Fazhan ti Rozilloi,Vax, Dak, Duhrra of the Days, and Rukker the Kataki.
    “Duh — master,” Duhrra had said to me as we sorted ourselves out, “I should take the rowing frame.”
    He was fractionally bigger than Rukker.
    I said, “Fambly! With that newfangled claw of yours! Next to the gangway! Where you will get lashed more easily!”
    “Yes, master.”
    “And, for the sweet sake of Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I am not your master!”
    “No, master.”
    As always when arguing with Duhrra on this point — for he had attached himself to me on the southern shore, when he had lost his right hand, and since then we had had a few skirmishes together and were good comrades — I gave up the argument in a kind of helpless mirth. Even an oar-slave may feel that at times, in the ludicrousness of his position; for, to all the names of the gods in two worlds, it is not a position a sane man can regard without recourse to the black humor of absurdity.
    Some bustle attended our departure, and we were forced to throw our backs into the work. The captain was evidently in the devil of a hurry. The stockades and the cooking fires were left on the shore so we guessed we’d be back tonight. We pulled. We heaved up on the oar, those on the gangway sides of the long rows of men shoving up, standing up, and then with all the weight of the body and bunched muscles, hurling themselves frenziedly backward onto the bench. The hard wood had to be covered by the straw-stuffed sacks and the ponsho fleeces. Had they not been we would have been red raw in no time, and unfit for rowing. This is not a luxury the overlords of Magdag extend to their oar-slaves, in the matter of ponsho fleeces and sacks; it is a matter of economics and slave-management.
    The swifter squadron pulled about, it seemed to me, quartering in different directions. I guessed the courses were not set at random. We either searched for another ship, or we wasted a deal of energy. Nothing — apart from the eternal damned pulling — occurred, and we eventually and to our surprise heard the terminal whistles and the final double drumbeat. The oars lifted and were looped and held, locked in the rowing frames, and we slaves slumped, exhausted.
    Before