Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 11

My feet shuffle after Tug into a labyrinth of food stands behind the regular slave cages. Men fry meat dishes in breadcrumbs and brown powder. Sellers move around with nuts, teas, and berries. I wander blindly, the spicy smells making me nauseous. I have abandoned him. He didn't turn around because he no longer counts on me. He's stopped believing I can save him.

We climb steps and clang across a metal walkway. I glance at the smoke roiling above us, glimpse the network of cages suspended overhead. Tug pushes me into a chair and sits down beside me.

A man arrives with a tray of mint tea, pine nuts and a long, cone-shaped object. He places a cloth beside Brin. In red on the cream linen, as though written in blood, is the number five. I stare at it. For a second, I cannot rip through the emotional haze to grasp its meaning.

Tug's look brings me back from the numbness. I clench my teeth, and take in where we are seated. The eating house is made of metal barriers and arched walkways, reminiscent of a mammoth monster skeleton. Bounty hunters with greedy faces and satisfied sneers guzzle the offerings laid on their tables while they wait. Wealthy men in bear furs press cone-shaped objects to their starward-gazing eyes.

I slide the cone-shaped eyeglass off the table, and hold one end to my eye and the other skywards. The glass magnifies the platforms above the food maze. Our position is ideal for viewing the caged children. As I adjust to one-eyed vision, a girl with sparkling gold and green irises, wearing a frilly dress, comes into focus. Her hands clasp a shiny purse. She stares forward, motionless. She is terribly young, three or four years from her eyes changing. My airway closes making it harder to breathe, a sensation intensified by the cooking smoke.

The girl has been dressed like some rich person's pet toy. Perhaps for a spoilt daughter to play with, until she is six or seven and can be used for more treacherous tasks or be resold. I bite my inner cheek, anger flooding back. When I spot the number five painted across Kel's new blue tunic, the crush in my throat leaves me choking. Suddenly, the eyeglass is being ripped from my hands. It disappears inside the bulk of Tug's furs.

"Draw any more attention to yourself," he says, "and I'll lock you back in the room until this is over."

I have attracted the gaze of a man sitting by a table three feet away. He appears neither old enough, nor wealthy enough to be a buyer, neither brute nor mercenary enough to be a bounty hunter. I catch his eye for less than a second, but it is long enough to worry he might have realized I am no boy. I twist away and grab a handful of nuts before Tug or Brin can stop me.

Making Tug suffer is not enough. He and Brin didn't snatch the three-year-old girl dressed like a doll. They aren't responsible for turning us into fugitives, for the hundreds of Uru Ana families hiding in the Sea of Trees, for the thousands more working in the tundra mines until they die of exhaustion. I will get my revenge on Tug, and I will kill the man that buys Kel if I have to, but every low-life scum who has sat in this dive, should know the fear of the children they trade here.

Pa's voice rings in my head. "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the courage to do what we ought." His answer when I once asked why he didn't resent Kel and me, or more importantly our mother who never told him about her Uru Ana blood until I was born, for taking so much away from him.

Pa's answer had annoyed me and seemed evasive. But now his words seem apt. Someone ought to fight back, breed fear into the bounty hunters roaming the outland forests, attack the tundra mines. If the Uru Ana want freedom, they have to start thinking like they're free. Stop running and hiding.

Minutes pass, the attendant serving our table goes to and fro with folded pieces of cloth. From the conversations that ensue, it is apparent the two cloths Brin receives are offers for Kel. Tug is in no hurry to accept, but Brin is keen to do business and leave.