Gorgoroth (Haladras #2)

EIGHTEEN

Skylar woke with a start. The sound of gruff voices and squealing metal assaulted his ears. Had he actually been asleep?

The tortuous confines of his cell had rendered him virtually incapable of falling asleep. The whole night he had drowsed, unable to lie down, to sit, to crouch. All he could do in that vertical coffin was stand.

With bleary eyes, he tried to crane his neck and peer out through the grating above his head. He couldn't see anything.

"Time for the preparations already?" said Skylar's neighbor, who Skylar had learned was named Witum.

"Preparations?" responded Skylar in a half-daze.

"You'll see."

Soon, Skylar made sense of the ruckus. The slave wardens were pulling people from their cells. A realization which brought both relief and distress. Mostly relief. He didn't think he could bare another minute in his cell. When the guards arrived to yank him out, he welcomed it. As soon as his legs touched the grated floor, he collapsed to his knees.

"Oh, no ya don't" growled one of the wardens.

Skylar felt the thin lip of a flask forced between his teeth, and a warm liquid fill his mouth. Too exhausted to resist, Skylar swallowed the foreign substance. The warmth quickly spread through his body, all the way to the ends of his toes. The wardens lifted him back onto his feet, and he found that the strength to stand had returned to his legs.

The wardens hauled him over to a queue of other slaves. He heard the clanking of metal behind him and sensed someone's presence.

"Is that you, Witum?" he whispered, with his head slightly turned to one side.

"I wish it were someone else, but yes it is I."

Skylar tried to look ahead of him for any sign of Endrik, Grüny, or Kendyl. He saw none of them. They must be somewhere nearby, he reasoned. He took some comfort, though, in being near his new friend—however odd a character he was. Witum broke all of Skylar's opinions about the Tors and their slave traders. The man was neither coarse nor cruel. From what Witum had told Skylar the night before, the man never enjoyed slave trading. He wasn't good at it either. Which he attributed to his current unfortunate situation. Witum's career choices had been limited. Warrior or slave trader. He chose the one he disliked the least. Too much fighting and killing here, Witum had said, it sickens me.

It sickened Skylar too. But he felt glad to find at least one native of Gorgoroth who found fault with the ways of his people.

There was a shout that Skylar did not understand, which echoed through that chamber of slave holdings. The tone was one of command. In response, the line started moving forward, prodded along by the metal-pronged staffs of the slave wardens.

"Thus begin the preparations," said Witum.

Skylar didn't have to wait long to understand the meaning of that statement. Just like the day before, when they were bathed and tagged in preparation for being auctioned off, now came even more preparations. In a large chamber, populated only with male slaves, the humiliation began. First, dark makeup was applied around their eyes and onto their lips. Then their down to nearly just the skin of their heads. Their coarse robes were exchanged for loose-fitting short trousers, which Skylar found utterly ridiculous. No clothes were given them to cover their upper torso. Likewise, their feet were left unshod.

After the makeup application, Skylar ceased looking around for Endrick and Grüny. He neither wished to be seen by his companions, nor wished to see them in such a degrading state. Witum, who turned out to be a tall bony fellow with curly black hair, looked so repulsive that Skylar felt certain that the former slave trader would end up in the worst possible situation.