Work Text:
Clink.
Three-tens-and-six.
Clink.
Three-tens-and-seven.
Clink.
Three-tens-and-eight.
With a smile Jahadir swept the coins back into their pouch. It was scarcely the second hour after dawn, and already three slaves had been sold. And the great market of Ruzhdar would surely enliven even more before the punishment of the sun sent everyone scurrying for home and shelter. If trade went as well at the auction in a few suns, he might be able to buy his wives that silver looking-glass they had been teasing him for.
Jahadir was tucking the money pouch back into the cupboard of his desk, when from outside came the thudding of marching boots. He stood and went to the window overlooking the street.
Raiders! A smile crossed his face. He recognized the face of their leader—Sahag Ihja. The Sahag always had high-quality captives for sale. It was more than worth it to give him a little extra to bring them here to his shop first.
But why were their numbers so few? None of the raiders had been lost, from what he could see. No, what was smaller was the number of prisoners. Usually Sahag Ihja never returned unless he had many to sell. But here he only had two. Their heads were covered, so Jahadir could not see much. But their tattered clothes were not peasant robes, nor even robes at all. They were unlike anything he had seen before.
Jahadir hurried to the front of his shop to welcome the raiders. “The blessings of the Eye be with you,” he said with a deep bow to the Sahag.
Sahag Ihja gave an even deeper bow—unusual for a man who despised giving honor. “Indeed. And they shall surely be with you, my friend. My wares shall gladden your heart.”
“But why so few?” Jahadir asked, casting his gaze over the securely bound captives. Men, and strong ones from the looks of their lean bodies. And then he saw the pale skin beneath the tatters of their strange clothes.
“Not northmen!” he demanded in growing excitement.
The Sahag smiled, his teeth bared and white. “Indeed. But it is far better than that.” He nodded to one of his men, who pulled the head-sack off of one of the captives.
Beneath was a face paler than any Haradrim, and sweat-drenched dark hair that was long and tangled. He grimaced in the light, but Jahadir caught a glimpse of blue in his eyes. Blue like the sky, like gems at the bottom of a well.
Jahadir drew close to look at the captive, and for the first time in years he truly felt excitement about an examination. Sweeping the dark hair aside, he tilted the man’s stubbled chin up to face his. The man half-growled and twisted his face away. The raider holding him gave him a kick, which he took with barely a sound.
Such defiance was to be expected from a northern barbarian. Jahadir smiled. He took the captive’s hair in a firm grip and made him look up. His face was pinched, proud, bruised. But his eyes—truly they were as light and pale as the sea.
“I shall take him,” he said to Sahag Ihja.
“Of course you shall!” The Sahag laughed outright. “But wait until you lay eyes on the other!”
Jahadir had been in this trade for a respectable number of seasons, but never had he been so astonished as when the second head-sack was removed.
Hair as gold as the sun itself straggled in once-fine braids over the shoulders of the captive. Bright, gleaming, brilliantly yellow gold. And the fair face—so young yet so old! As if the eyes held the memory of the birth of the moon! It was all so wonderful that Jahadir almost missed the ears.
The gentle points of legend itself.
“Áva nahta nyë.” The words may have been an insult or an elvish curse, neither of which Jahadir had any concern about. Not in this land beneath the Eye. But the voice was truly incredible—light and yet deep, as though the words settled directly into one’s mind.
“Legolas,” the northern captive hissed out. “Áva ringa—”
Several things happened at once which Jahadir did not expect. As he reached out to examine the elf’s face in a daze of excitement, there was a quick snap of teeth, and a burst of pain in his hand. Sahag Ihja struck like a snake, holding a blade to the throat of the creature in the same instant that Jahadir staggered back. Blood dripped from his fingers to the floor.
For a moment Jahadir was occupied in trying to remember if elves in the legends carried venom in their teeth. He was more irritated than anything—he had work to do, and even if he hadn’t been poisoned it would be harder to sell a slave who bit like a mad dog, even if he was an elf—but a crunching thud brought him back to the sands of life.
The northern man screamed out in his strange tongue, bucking against the raider who held him tight; the elf was on the ground, still bound, and being rather ruthlessly kicked by several other raiders.
“Sahag Ihja!” Jahadir exclaimed over the cacophony. “Stop this!” He was horrified that the Sahag would risk damaging the elf before an imminent sale, even for punishment. “Sahag!”
But the Sahag made no move to restrain his men. He watched idly as one drove his boot into the stomach of the elf, who could not seem to be able to curl himself up. “Let your mind be at peace, my dear Jahadir,” he said. “The elf has much strength, more than any man I have known.”
Jahadir raised an eyebrow. The elf’s mouth was dripping crimson now.
“He will be well, I assure you. You may need to be harsher than you are used to, to keep him docile. He escaped from us thrice before we came to this city.”
Finally satisfied, the Sahag nodded to his raiders, and they quit the punishment of the elf. When they drew him back up, his chin was coated in blood, and his light breathing was raspy; yet he appeared far more alert than most would have been after such a beating. Jahadir felt a prickle of unease. His trade had little use for such resistance—usually such slaves served their short lives on the salt flats.
Sahag Ihja slapped a confident hand on his shoulder. “Do not worry about subduing him, my friend. He is very close with the northern barbarian.” He jerked his chin towards the other captive, who had ceased his useless struggles and was now speaking rapidly to the elf. “That is how we brought him back to our hands, after all was done. Ensure the man cannot escape, and the elf will obey.”
The eyes of the Sahag then turned downward, and narrowed in concern. “Is your hand whole?”
Jahadir looked down at his hand in sudden remembrance. His fingers were bleeding only sluggishly now; the nails were dented and the undersides of the fingers showed the broken line clearly made by dull teeth. “I will be well. You know there are less damaging ways of punishment, Sahag.”
His teeth flashed white again. “And yet how else can you find such pleasure?”
“Do you wish to get a good price, or do you not?” Jahadir said impatiently. Without awaiting a response, he moved back towards the battered elf, though with much more caution.
Setting aside the pleasure of touching the hair of a creature of legend, he tugged the face of the elf up toward his. “Will you bite me again? Hm?” How did one reach the mind of a slave whose thoughts ran in a different tongue? Harking back to the words of the Sahag, he nodded towards the pale-faced captive. “He is your friend? Then you will not wish him harm.”
As if discerning his thoughts, the raider holding the northerner slid a knife into his hand and touched its tip to the hollow of the man’s throat. The raider smiled. The pale-face stilled. The eyes of the elf—already great with fear and fury lurking in their blue depths—grew even wider.
“You understand that, do you not?” Jahadir said with an approving nod to the raider. He turned the head of the elf to the side, drawing back the tangled strands of gold to better see the pointed ear. “Now be still and let me look at you.”
The elf made no further effort to resist him. Jahadir could not hold back a smile as he ran a finger along the curve of the ear. To sell an elf! Not in his time, nor that of his father, nor of his, had he ever heard of such a wondrous opportunity! Truly would the name of Jahadir son of Zakir be renowned in Ruzhdar and beyond!
But first he would have to clean the creature thoroughly. His fair skin was rough with grime, not counting the blood still wet on his chin. The golden hair would have to be washed, and perhaps he could convince the elf to rebraid it after the fashion of his race? His clothes were beyond saving, but Jahadir thought he had a similar-looking tunic somewhere in the back, or else he could hire a tailor to copy the design—
“You are already planning the display, are you not, friend? I see it in your eyes.” The voice of Sahag Ihja was pleasant, but there was a note of impatient avarice.
Jahadir laughed to himself. The elf would prove more than enough to fulfill all their desires. “Forgive my fantasies, Sahag. Shall we settle the price?”