Read Online Spectyr by Philippa Ballantine - Free Book Online Page B

to him, and suddenly the slavers found their mettle was being tested by people who could fight back, sailors and soldiers trained in combat, and not shackled villagers.
    The crew of the Dominion set to their work with relish, and for a little while the deck heaved with grunts and groans. Blood madethe deck slippery, but Raed barely noticed—caught as he was in the delight of good, honest combat.
    It didn’t last long, however. Raed wiped his blade clean on the cloak of a fallen slaver. In truth he was glad they had put up a fight. He had no mercy for their kind, and yet he couldn’t have brought himself to act as they had. As his crew brought the Sweet Moon to a dead halt in the water, Raed found the ring of keys on the chief slaver’s body.
    Gently he touched the woman on the shoulder. She looked up, tears streaking a face that was twisted with fear. “Please,” she whispered through a strained throat, “make it quick.”
    Raed bent and unlocked her shackles. “We are your rescuers, not your killers, my lady.”
    The look she leveled at him was not just filled with gratitude—it also contained a fair amount of anger—not at him but at a world in which people could be sold like cattle, a world in which you could be tending your fields in the morning and find yourself shackled in the bowels of a slave ship in the evening. Outlying islands were treated like farms by certain principalities.
    Raed didn’t know what he could do to dampen that rage. With a gesture but not a touch, he indicated she should go forward to where the crew of the Dominion were flinging open the hatches.
    The slaves clambered out, reeking of sweat, urine and terror, unable to even move to have their shackles struck loose. This was a small consignment on a ship designed to stick to the coast and bring slaves right into the Empire via the river systems. They must have spent weeks in a holding pen before being shipped out on this vessel.
    Aachon strode up to his captain and looked down at the pitiful scene without uttering a word.
    “With everything we suffer, why do they have to add to this?” Raed muttered. “How is it that I thought the geists were the worst affliction of the Empire?”
    His first mate sighed. “It is not a perfect world, my Prince.”
    Wiping her blade on a portion of fallen slaver’s coat, Tangyre joined them. Her expression was one of distaste. “I had forgotten that such filth had returned to Arkaym.”
    It was not his friend’s fault, but Raed knew that in his father’s sphere of influence many things about those left behind had been forgotten. In the Coronet Isles it was easy to forget the world beyond their shores. “Unfortunately, I cannot fix the ills of the Empire, Tang.”
    As they had planned, they shepherded the slaves—who flinched from even the kindest hand—over to the Dominion . Aachon stood on the gunwales and looked between the crew and those ten men chosen to remain with Raed.
    The Young Pretender stepped closer to his friend. “You are to return these people to their homes and then take shelter in the islands off the Bay of Winds, Aachon. Plenty of places to hide there, just in case the Emperor decides to raise the price on my head. We will look for you there when we have Fraine safely back.”
    “My Prince”—the first mate put up one final protest—“there is still time to reconsider this.”
    Raed also felt the wrench, but this was the only sensible thing to do. “You swore to protect me, old friend, but you also have a duty to the crew. I will not sacrifice their lives for mine, and I cannot take all of them into Chioma. You’re the only one I would trust to keep the Dominion safe.”Dominiondiv width="1em"> Aachon sighed. They had argued long the previous day, and it had taken a direct order from Raed to finally get him to obey.
    “Look”—the Young Pretender clapped Aachon on the shoulder—“Tang is here, and you have always been my friend, not my bodyguard—despite what my