Sabit strained against her captivity, but the ropes were too thick to snap, the knots too tight to squirm free. That coward-prince Allamu was nowhere to be seen. Her gaudy captor had instructed his thralls to yoke Sabit to her own spear, the sharp iron point also bound up in thick leather. Even if she could break the spear’s thick wooden shaft, the effort’s cost would be her own weapon.
With a thrall at either side of the powerful spearwoman, the gaudy man was satisfied that Sabit had been rendered helpless. Stepping carefully out of his place among the leaves, the man regarded his prisoner with wild, pink eyes.
“At the crossroads you bragged of your talent with a spear, your skill with the ways of violence. I see now those were not empty words. The merchants should have hired you to guard their caravan. Their shrewd, petty minds might not be feeding the hungry roots of my grand sativa if they had done so.”
The thrall whose teeth Sabit had loosened, a scrawny young man with patchy beard, staggered away from the clearing, rubbing his jaw. The sativa-keeper called to him, “Return to me, Woq!” When the man hesitated, the gaudy man dispatched two other thralls to drag him back to the plant. Woq’s struggles were clumsy, but grew more desperate as they approached the low-hanging white flowers.
The sativa-keeper brought the white trumpet to Woq’s face. The stamens were thick with sticky green pollen. “That’s it, Woq. Breathe, my boy. There is nothing to fear. No reason to flee. There is only the pollen.”
Woq inhaled deeply. His limbs grew still and compliant.
The sativa-keeper turned back to Sabit, another white trumpet laden with pollen in hand. “You are a strong woman, Sabit. Strength like yours truly needs to be harnessed.”
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Wayfarings of Sabit: Blossom of Ruin is copyright (c) 2016 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every weekday. You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller