Chapter 1: Welcome to Hekhenden
I woke up in a large cabin that smelled like dead rats.
My legs were chained. My hands weren't.
There were about fifty other children around me, scattered across the floor like someone had dumped a sack of puppies and forgotten to feed them.
"Bloody hell," I muttered, rubbing my head. It throbbed like I'd been hit with a club. "What's going on?"
"We've been taken," the boy beside me said.
He had blond curls, chubby cheeks, and big round blue eyes that looked too soft for this place. His face was damp like he'd been crying for hours.
"What do you mean taken?" I tried to sit up. The chain on my ankles scraped. "Taken by who?"
"Bad men," he whispered. "Black sheep cloaks. They said we're slaves now. Said they're taking us south in their big ships."
"Black sheep cloaks… slaves… ships…" I repeated.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember.
And the memories came rushing in like cold water.
****
I was kneeling next to my grandfather, sobbing, the blacksmith's sword clenched in my right hand.
There was blood all over my face. I didn't even know whose it was anymore.
"You killed two of my best men, boy," a deep woman's voice said.
I looked up.
A woman stood there with half a dozen men behind her. She wore black plate armour. Her cloak looked like it had been cut from a giant reptile's skin. In her left hand was a long sword.
Her men wore boiled leather and black sheep cloaks.
"I would kill them a hundred times over if I could," I said.
I tried to sound brave. Scary, even.
My tiny voice betrayed me.
The woman tilted her head. "Who taught you how to fight like that?"
She spoke the common tongue, but her accent was strange. Too sharp in some places, too smooth in others.
I forced myself to stand. "No one. Who are you, and what do you want?"
She removed her helm and shook out her hair.
A scar ran horizontally across her forehead like someone had tried to split her head open and failed. Her hair was black. Her lips were thin and pink. Her nose slightly crooked.
I couldn't tell the color of her eyes from that distance.
"I'm Rowanda of Ilana," she said. "I'm here for slaves and riches."
Then she smiled like she was enjoying herself.
"And you, boy, are not important… because you're about to be my slave."
"Oh yeah?" I lifted the sword. My hands shook, but I didn't let her see it. "You'll have to catch me first."
I ran left.
Two of her men stepped into my path.
I turned right.
Three men blocked that way too.
I spun back and raised the blade. "Stand back! I don't want to kill you. And I don't want to fight a woman either."
My grandfather's voice whispered in my head.
Never underestimate a woman, Leno. Avoid fighting one at all costs.
Rowanda walked toward me slowly, like she had all the time in the world.
"You can come peacefully," she said, "or we can do it the hard way."
"I choose the hard way."
I lunged at her without warning.
Somehow… I was five times slower than I'd been when I killed her two men.
She swept my strike aside like I was swinging a broom.
Rowanda shouted something in a language I didn't understand. Her men stepped back at once.
She wanted this alone.
She came at me, blade flashing toward my neck.
I ducked under it and tried to cut her legs.
Before my sword could even touch her, she punched me hard in the cheek with her free hand.
Stars burst behind my eyes.
I nearly fainted.
The warrior in me—the one that killed her men—was gone.
Or maybe I was just too tired.
Either way, this fight was hopeless.
Alright, Granddad.
Let me try it your way.
I threw the sword at her.
As she deflected it, I shot under her legs and ran.
I didn't make it twenty feet.
My foot caught something. A rope. Weighted with stones.
I hit the ground hard.
"Get this thing off me!" I yelled, scrambling, panicking, trying to untangle myself.
I looked up.
A mail-armoured fist smashed into my face.
And the world went black.
****
When I came back to myself, I was on the slavers' ship.
It had been three days.
They forced us—children—to clean every inch of the decks and cabins. The grown folk rowed until their hands bled.
There were four huge ships, each with three masts.
Each ship had at least two hundred slavers aboard.
And at least one hundred and fifty slaves.
Rowanda—the lady with the reptile-skin cloak—had taken my sword.
But she let me keep Grogan's book.
She could speak my language, but she couldn't read it.
And the men in black sheep cloaks took orders from her like she owned the sea.
At night, they made us hop like rabbits back into the cabins and fed us raw fish and onions.
I hated onions.
"Where are they taking us?" I asked after forcing down the last bite. "What's in the south?"
"South?" the blond boy said. "We can't be sailing south. There's nothing in the south."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Martin," he said quietly.
"Martin," I said, "no one has travelled every inch of the world before."
"I've seen maps," he insisted. "There's no land in the south."
"Then we'll see sooner or later," I muttered, lying down on the blanket.
Martin stared at the chain on his feet like he wanted to bite through it.
"Yeah…" he whispered.
And for the first time since Ennox burned, I understood something.
It didn't matter what was in the south.
We were going there anyway.