Ressa Ch.4-5

Chapter 4

Ressa pushed her thoughts of Kila away. She wouldn't cry. Kila wasn't... Ramir had never... and Bruz, Chlora, Choff... A heavy bubble rose in Ressa's chest and she swallowed, choking it back down and feeling nausea in her throat. She shook her head wildly to force back her feelings. Crying or being sick would do her very little good right now.

The trail of slave wagons ground to a halt. Ressa lifted her head to the sounds that Murlth's castle had sheltered her from for two long years.

“Twenty silvers! Good mortal, real hard worker, not too bad on looks either! Twenty silvers here!”

“Only forty coppers, folks! Name of Garven, nice for entertainment, brute work and such. Real good for a mortal, don't miss out, folks!”

“Twenty, twenty-seven coppers for that half-breed!”

“Thirty-eight for the Garven kid!”

“Fifty-nine, no, sixty for that 'un!”

Ressa rubbed the chafe from her her ankles as soon as the were free. It seemed that the chains grew tighter every time she was sold. She watched some of the slaves with a dull smile. She could see the ideas forming in their heads, because they were the same that had entered hers when the slave catchers had first dragged her in. These auction sites were made for slaves who tried to escape. There were some called slave hunters among the crowd, combined with the horrible terrain where the auctions were held. Running away was as good as death.

Ressa was herded towards a snide-looking man in a bright yellow suit. Long brown hair hid all but the cold smile he aimed at Ressa. She was pushed into a squalid cage, barred with thick metal and floored with grimy wood, and shackled to cuffs hanging from the ceiling. Ressa couldn't help but overhear the conversation of the man and the catcher who brazenly watched her.

“Her? A slave? She's a pretty one.” That was Yellow Suit.

“Pretty maybe, but watch 'er. She's wild as a beast.” That was the slave catcher.

“Again, her? She's broken!” Stupid Yellow Suit.

“Ha! Make that mistake at yer own risk. Girl has more spirit than most my slaves.” Ah, the genius among slave catchers.

“Well, we'll see.” Yes we will, Yellow Suit. “I'll get her sold, spirit or not.”

And the slave catcher was walking away. His last words came back in a shout. “Yeah, well, luck to you. Don't try anything with her, she'll hurt a prettyboy like you, Kurchas.”

“Sure, sure. Old fool gives too much credit to these slaves.” Kurchas walked to the front of Ressa's cage, sweeping back his hair to give her a good run-over with beady brown eyes. “Too much credit, beauty. You're not the wild type, are you? You're a nice, kind, docile dear...”

Ressa gave him the most innocent look she could manage. Nice, kind, docile. Huh. Two steps more, I'll docile you, I promise. Ressa took a deep, calm breath, feeling strength in her body. Sleeping had done some good after all.

Kurchas stepped up to Ressa's cage. He wrapped his fingers around the bars. “There'll be good pricing for you, beauty. I might even buy you myself, now that I think of it. Would you like that?”

Ressa growled, her voice starting low but quickly rising to threatening tones. She came forward in the blink at an eye, her chains stretching taut as she flicked her head forward, lips curled back. Kurchas jerked away from the cage howling curses that made everyone in earshot turn. The slaver cradled his right hand in his left while blood seeped through his fingers. Ressa's bloody toothmarks framed the fingers that were suddenly bent at odd, painful angles. Ressa smiled grimly.

Chapter 5

The slave-seller left then, returning shortly with his right hand in tight-woven bandages. Kurchas glared at Ressa, his suave and good humor vanished. The seller could see, now, that he had underestimated his product. There was a scary and dangerous look in the girl's eyes that only years of this work steeled Kurchas against.

“That catcher was right, you know,” the seller declared dryly. “You are as wild as a beast. A beast that's gone dumb, that's mad, that's lower than dirt.”

Mentally, Ressa laughed. That laughter never reached her glaring eyes. “Are you going to sell me or not?” Her voice was a snarling taunt. “If you are, I suggest you start trying now.”

Kurchas' lip curled with the challenge and he turned his back on Ressa in a fury. “New arrival, lads and lasses,” The slave-seller raised his arms, beginning to pace a confident half-circle around the cage front, “just celled, I assure you. You who know me know my deals, and this one's a beauty!” As the crowd gathered around him, responding to his sonorous tones, someone handed Kurchas a scroll and pen, the tip wet with ink. Kurchas touched the pen to the page, and bright red scrawl split its surface.

“Well, folks,” Kurchas bellowed on, “this one's so fresh, I haven't even written her vitals yet!” He gave the crowd an overplayed wink. “That's right, I said her, she's a female and quite a one. About five foot eight, let's say, and look at this hair, red as you please it! Lightly peached skin, I'd sure like that tone; isn't it lovely, folks?”

Staring silently at the crowd, Ressa dared anyone to buy her.

Kurchas continued, oblivious. “Lovely, lovely, of course it is.” He tipped his pen's feathery end to the crowd. “A simple house slave we've got here, everyone. No pesky special abilities or magical powers to worry about. Grade A human being, I say. And a house slave too, if you missed it. She's approved for cleaning, mild cooking, and other such labor. Menial tasks, you know the sort.” With a last splatter of ink, Kurchas finished Ressa's stats and pinned them to a metal needle welded to the top of her cage.

A stocky man with sparse brown hair stumbled up to Kurchas. He stepped close to the cage, and Ressa smelled beer - the air around him reeked of it - and she tensed. The startings of a snarl twisted her face and made it unpretty. It was clear to anyone with an eye or nose that this man was more body than brawn, and still more brawn than brains.

"'Ow is she," he slurred, "on thee... uh... entahtainment trip, me ould sella'? I need me some entahtainment, y' see. Me ould... I need me some, yiss..." He swayed on his feet, showing Kurchas a leer with lips as sloppy as his speech.

Kurchas scoffed. This wasn't the type of person the seller enjoyed doing business with; so low and common, and usually quite poor. But it was the type of person who was notoriously foolish with what little coin he had. "Wouldn't know firsthand, sir, but I have heard..." Kurchas dropped his voice to a whisper - "...that some say she's first-rate." Of course, no one had ever said anything of the kind, but if it helped him make a sale... Well, what consequences would fall on him? "Let us say, thirty-six silver for her?"

The man leaned over and spit, never noticed how close his spittle landed to Ressa's bare feet. A slobbery line dangled from one jowl as he straightened. "Thireesix... silva? Tha's a lot o' jaw, me ould sella'..."

"Surely not enough to you, though, sir, nobleman that you be!"

Ressa shook her head as the fool's barrel chest swelled. That seller had the tongue of a golden snake. "Nobl'tee? Yiss, yiss, ah'm nobl'tee!" He strutted, drunken swagger echoing a chicken's, up to Ressa's cage and grinned crookedly at her. "Yiss, me ould sella', ah think ah'll take-"

He couldn't finish his sentence. No one near could, easily drowned out by the inhuman howl that poured from Ressa's lips at just that moment. The defiant girl let loose a torrent of shreiks, yowls, roars, and guttural cries so savage and enraged that the portly drunk and several others scurried away, taking their considering eyes from the mad slave. Saying, as they went, that Ressa was too much an animal to be bought. Too much a beast to be controlled.