Sabit thrashed against her bonds with every jot of vigor she could summon. She bowled over the thralls to either side of her. But her legs had been hobbled with thick rope. Sabit didn’t make a dozen steps before she was dragged back.
The sativa-keeper laughed with triumph. “Indeed, you will be a fine addition to our growing tribe. Your skill will lead my raiding parties to far greater booty. And your strength will invigorate our blood. Oh, the mighty sons you will bear me! You bragged to the merchants of a captaincy in Ghabar. You will train our army into a proper phalanx …” He looked down at the white flower in his left hand, and the red-stained tips of the fingers of his right hand. “No. That is not the way of my grand sativa. It can give me your body or your mind, but not both.”
“Both my body and my mind will find a way to kill you,” Sabit spat.
The man pondered Sabit’s fate a long time. Finally, he dropped the white flower to the ground. “Your body is a grand thing, Sabit, but so are the bodies of others. What you have seen and smelled and done and hoped and dreamt—those are prizes worth claiming.”
At the sativa-keepr’s gesture, the thralls forced Sabit to her knees before the mound of broken heads. A pale-robed figure stepped from among the thralls, heavy sword in hand. The sativa-keeper himself lifted the frizzy, dark hair from the back of Sabit’s neck.
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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