Oberon's Dreams - By Aaron Pogue Page 0,1

would be surprised how many can.”

“But all my coin is with my camel.”

“I will come along,” the guard said amiably. “I do not mind the effort.”

Corin moved as if to leave, and at last the guard released his shoulder. But Corin hesitated, one hand on the tent’s flap, then threw a last look back over his shoulder.

His eyes were finally adjusted, and in a glance he saw what he had come for. Iryana. She knelt in a corner, all alone. Even the other slaves would not go near her. Her dark skin still showed the bruises from her mistreatment at the slavers’ hands, and all the filth could not conceal the stain of blood.

But she was undiminished, staring straight at Corin with eyes bright and harsh against the gloom. There was no pleading in them, no forgiveness or accusation, not even hope. There was only an unyielding, unspoken demand. Rescue me.

Corin rolled his eyes, then turned back to the guard. “Listen…may I ask your name?”

“I am called Razeen.”

“Of course you are. Razeen, the agreement is already broken. If I must pay three pounds of silver, will you at least allow me the transgression I am paying for?”

“You have already stayed here far too long.”

“So moments more will barely count at all. I might yet find another pound of silver…”

The guard glared for a long moment, then he grunted. “Two more.”

Corin nodded right away. Razeen nodded back and tapped Corin’s shoulder. “Five pounds, then. One way or another.”

Razeen returned to his place just inside the tent and stood watching his new benefactor. Corin licked his lips and turned away, pretending to survey the whole crowd of waiting slaves. At last he made a show of noticing the girl alone. He cocked his head in curiosity, then drifted her direction. The unfortunates he passed did not cry out to him. They shrank away, trembling, and he was grateful for that. He had no wish to meet their eyes.

He couldn’t have met their eyes. Iryana held his gaze. Her eyes were dark and commanding. Corin stopped, standing over her, and spoke under his breath in the civilized language of his homeland.

“I warned you not to run away.”

She shrugged one shoulder like a queen, despite her chains, and answered in imperfect Ithalian, “I am a prisoner either way.”

Corin looked around. “I kept you better than this.”

“A slave is a slave. At least this way I will earn someone some silver.”

“We would have found far more than silver at Jezeeli.”

“You are a fool for thinking it. Jezeeli is a place of tragic loss. It is not a treasure trove.”

Corin grinned. “Care to prove me wrong?”

“You do not have wealth enough to win me from this place!”

He shrugged. “I know a trick or two.”

“You cannot beat these men with tricks. They only answer to violence and gold.”

Corin turned in place, feigning one last measuring look over the slaves there, but the guard Razeen beckoned impatiently with one hand and made a vicious chop with the other. Corin’s time was spent.

“I’ve paid in gold enough to learn my tricks,” Corin said, almost offhand. “And more than a little violence. I think I can handle a few slavers.”

Iryana laughed in dark contempt, but Corin wasn’t listening. He was counting time, waiting for his cue.

In the distance, someone screamed.

The guard spun, concerned, and Corin acted fast. He knelt by Iryana, hands searching for the locks that bound her. He found them open, dangling from the loose ends of her shackles. Iryana raised her hands, showing off, and said, “You are not the only one with clever tricks.”

He grinned. “That’s why I came for you. Now close your eyes.”

“What? Why?”

Instead of answering, he swung his heavy cloak around them both, dragging her head beneath it. Then he stabbed his free arm up, scattering a cloud of silvery dust that hung suspended in the air. The powder glowed with a brilliant light, soft and clean and beautiful as it drifted out to fill the wide tent.

Then it exploded with a roar like thunder and a searing burst painful even in the shadow of his cloak. Corin didn’t wait. He caught the woman’s wrist in one hand and drew a dagger in the other.

Two quick slashes carved an exit in the tent’s fabric, and Corin and the girl emerged in sunlight nearly as painful as the silver flare. The shouts and screams that had been Corin’s cue still rang within the camp, but for the moment they were distant, near the auction