[Amanaduial the archer]

Rakin surveyed the slave for an instant, then sat back, his eyebrows arched cynically. "You must think me mad, slave. An 'ally in your position'? You have already tried to take my ship over, kill my crew and, naturally, kill me as well - and this is just counting the most recent twenty four hours." He raised one eyebrow, narrowing his eyes, and stood abruptly, turning away from the slave. "Oh yes, Chakka, a most inviting prospect."

"You cannot pretend, Captain, that it is not without appeal to you.”

Rakin turned sharply, his hand tightening on the knife as he searched for cheek in the slave’s face, but found it only impassive – not submissive, certainly, but then he had not expected it. The Captain didn’t make a habit of paying particular interest to individual slaves – maybe one might catch his eye and he might amuse himself with it for a few weeks, or a few months maybe, but eventually, inevitably, they would slip up in some way – try to escape, get to big for their boots, make an open attempt on his life. Poor fools. Sometimes the warder could allow the prisoner the sight of the sun from his tall tower, but when he tried to fly for it, the same fate always resulted. But this one, this Chakka…Rakin remembered buying him, not long ago, a slave fighter, one who fought for the entertainment of watching crowds, usually comprised of nobles. A mercenary of the masses. But one could not deny his strength – he was roughly the same height as Rakin himself, but built entirely differently, broad and thick in the chest where the captain was lean and muscular in a different way. In a fair fight, he mused, it would probably depend entirely on what training Chakka had with weapons, and on whose terms the fight came about… But idle musing was all it was. This was Rakin’s corsair ship: if there was to be a fight of any sort, it was very unlikely that it would in any way be fair.

“What did you do in your previous life, Chakka?”

There was a pause, then the slave replied, “I was a bodyguard.” He hesitated, then added, “I do not jest, Captain, to try to further my argument; I was a king’s bodyguard.”

“Maybe it is exactly that fact that worries me,” Rakin murmured in reply, raising an eyebrow although he was facing the window rather than Chakka. Raising his voice slightly, he replied, “You judge that to be your previous life, Chakka? What about before you became a slave?”

There was silence, not simply a pause this time but the adamant, stubborn absence of any forthcoming answer. Rakin nodded slightly to himself, then turned around, indicating one of the swords on the wall, an unusually long, two handed broadsword, pitted and scarred all down it’s extensive length. “You see this sword, Chakka? See it?” The slave nodded warily, his eyes never moving from the Captain. Rakin nodded once more. “It is a fine weapon indeed; it belonged to a warrior I fought once, on land rather than sea – a fine man, he fought exceptionally well but, rather than let us capture him, his last act of defiance against me and my crew was to take his own life with his very weapon. Pity, really – he would have been one who I would offer a place aboard my ship, for he truly was an excellent fighter.” He tilted his head to one side, his eyes dancing over the blade as if he was watching some movement across its silver blade. Behind him, Chakka didn’t move – wisely, bearing in mind the reflective nature of the metal surface that faced into the room. The Captain continued after a moment, “Anyway, some of my crew warned me against taking such a weapon on board – they said it would be cursed, that the man’s soul might be trapped inside it. Well, if it is, it would be an honour, I replied, for to be able to harness his strength within a weapon equally fine…a fine thing indeed. And this sword...it has been in many fights already, it is experienced and made specifically for that purpose, for it is superbly weighted so as to make the best of the strength of a strong enough man to wield it; and what’s more, it is intimidating enough, combined with the warrior who holds it, to make any adversary with any common sense wish to make for the open sea as fast as the winds will bear them.”

He darted forward, moving briskly across the room and grabbed the sword hilt with both hands, wrapping his long fingers around it and giving a sharp, hard tug. The blade didn’t move and, maybe for the first time, Chakka noticed the clever arrangement of screws and rope that secured the weapon almost invisibly, to the wall. Chained.

“An excellent weapon? Aye. But rather too heavy for me, as you might see – I could fight with it, I could use this weapon of a dead adversary for my own means, and make no mistake, I would fight well with it. But if I was to lose control for one second, this blade could be my undoing – too heavy, really, too long in the blade. It could slip in my grasp, the length could prove too unwieldy and be too slow to bring up in my defence, its weight could act against me, why, even the blade could finish me. And if the soul of its previous owner truly is trapped there, he would be laughing all the way. And so I prefer, rather than running the risk, to keep it here, where I can see it – but chained there.”

Rakin turned back to Chakka. “What do you say, Chakka? It is a perfect blade, really – but would the risk that I run be using it be worth what I could gain from it?” He paused, his eyes searching the slave’s. “Would you trust a thing made for the purposes of an enemy?”

Chakka did not respond immediately, and just as he was about to, Rakin waved a hand dismissively, looking away. “Call the boatswain – he takes my dismissals rather liberally, he will not be too far down the corridor, waiting to hear either your death cries or mine.” Turning to his desk once again, he slid the knife back into his boot and took his glass, selecting another bottle and pouring himself another glass. As for Chakka, the slave didn’t move immediately, frozen – his hands were still bound, but there was nothing between him and the door, in a room full of weapons that could potentially be seized for his own needs, and with the Captain himself currently not holding a weapon and with both hands occupied. After a moment, he moved to the door, then hesitated once more.

“Unless I am very much mistaken, or the breadth of this room has extended to at least three times its usual length,” Rakin prompted calmly, without turning. “You are both still here and not yet treating boatswain to an impending seizure at the sight of your face around my door. Go, shoo, get out.” He waved a hand lazily in Chakka’s general direction, taking a sip of the wine, his eyes still meditatively fixed on the sea. A second or two later, he heard the boatswain’s startled cry, his feet thundering down the corridor and through his doorway, and then the man’s feet almost comically skidding on the rug as he saw that Rakin was indeed still very much alive. He half turned his head to offer the other corsair his profile. “Takad, take him back to the oars and chain him back in his usual position. The other slave as well – the one who was with in him in the subsequently not-so-aptly named solitary confinement.”

“You will not punish him further?” the boatswain replied disbelievingly.

Rakin sighed, replacing the glass very slowly on the table, the clink of glass against wood somehow menacing. “Takad—”

“It is done, Captain, it is done,” the boatswain interrupted hurriedly, taking hold of Chakka and pushing him ahead of him through the door. But as he did so, the slave turned back in. “Captain Rakin, will you not…consider what I have said?”

Rakin didn’t need to turn: he could imagine the panic which would be glimmering, however faintly, in the slave’s eyes, although barely a hint of it was audible in his voice. Turning slowly, glass in hand, he smiled lazily. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous; why would I do a thing like that?”

Chakka’s face closed up like a clam, his teeth gritting, and, seeing the violence in the slave’s expression, the boatswain gave him an almighty shove that, without his hands, caught Chakka off-balance and stumbling through the door. But as they went, Rakin called the pair back suddenly. As Chakka’s wary face appeared once more by the doorframe, the boatswain standing out of sight, Rakin indicated the sword once more. “It is a very fine weapon indeed. A very useful item indeed to have use of – if I could be assured that it would not backfire. Certainly it is a prospect that I would need to…consider. Could go either way, really…”

As Rakin dismissed Takad once more, Chakka resisted the other man for a moment before he was pulled roughly away and all but thrown down the corridor towards the oars. But in the instance between calling to the boatswain to take him away and the order successfully being carried out, Chakka saw an extraordinary thing: briefly, roguishly, the Captain smiled and gave the slave a quick wink.

Hearing Takad’s stream of abuse and Chakka’s stumbling, resentful footsteps fade away, Rakin allowed himself another indulgent, wolfish smile. Now it was off to see the peacock, as the message had come to him – the mighty Sangalazin wished to play chess with him. Ye gods… Rakin stared ruminatively into the glass of wine, then threw his head back and drained it in one quick movement, the midday sunlight winking off the blood liquid through the crystal and scattering the refractions of the droplets across the weapons on the walls, before he strode out of the door to see his dear – unwitting – half brother.