Then the woman's face contorted into something between grimace and snarl. "After the Small Masters were sorted, I set about finalizing the deal to sell the Slave Legion to the Rags. A bit up front but mostly any booty taken after. Slaves are extra-valuable now since so many menials died to the Wretch Plague, but most of the damned Small Masters' people deserted after we killed their bosses so we were struggling to even keep them all fed. Who knew a cadre of bloated, self-important slavers could inspire so much loyalty in their people? Anyway, was everything we could do to keep all the slaves alive much less trying to sell them in small lots so Ijran and I settled on just handing the whole lot over to the Rags."

Ghulen waved his finger in an onward-pointing motion. "Slave Legions, Mother of Exiles shows up to ruin the party with some destructive magic, etcetara. Yes, I heard all that. Less on your concerns, more on Hassani."

The other slaves finally wrangled the body enough to slip it through the bars. It spun downstream in a cloud of viscera to lodge against the bars on the far side of the long cage.

Fatma nodded. "I think the Mother of Exiles is the one who freed Hassani and she's working for the barbarian Dynast now."

Ghulen's eyebrow quirked at the surprising assertion. "Justify."

"I was in the Arena as the Rags were taking possession of the Slave Legions. Then, right as the Mother of Exiles made herself known and started wrecking everything, I spotted Hassani. That wily bitch somehow got free from where we'd stashed her-" she glanced up to the mostly-empty cages dangling like strange plant growths from the cliff faces above "-and showed up not far from the Mother. When the Mother used her Mon-spawned sorcery, I was knocked half-senseless. I wasn't fully conscious for awhile but when I became cognizant again Hassani was dragging me through Berujat with slaves running amok all around us."

"And she brought you here right from the start?"

Fatma shook her head. "No. At first she threw me to the cage I'd put her in up there. She demanded I tell her where her daughter is or she'd leave me there to starve."

"So you gave her Avani?" Ghulen said, part of his mind attaching each little piece about Hassani onto the internal model he was building of her. He couldn't wait to meet her, orders or no.

"No, I never actually had the kid," Fatma said, crossing her arms and slumping down. The chill water told her quickly that was a bad idea so she grabbed the overhead bars and pulled herself as far out of the water as possible. "I found a Pale little blond slave about the right age, powdered her to make her even more pale, and died her hair white. Enough that she could pass for the real thing from across a canyon."

"And Hassani didn't believe you when you said you'd made her daughter up."

"She didn't believe me."

"Then she dragged you here to convince you to tell her the truth."

Fatma pounded a fist against a bronze bar. "I told her that if she let me out I'd tell her exactly where my 'Avani' was stashed. She said she'd let me out when she returned from getting her."

Ghulen smiled. "You never had her so she didn't get her and so she never returned. Didn't break her promise."

The woman smoldered. "I told you everything. You promised you'd let me out."

"Didn't learn the first time with Hassani I guess." He sighed. Tilting his head, Ghulen looked her up and down, assessing. "I only promised to think about it."

"Damn you to..." she bit her lip hard enough it bled.

"Ah, learning now. Excellent!" Ghulen said, clapping his hands. "I'll think about it harder if you can remember anything actually useful to me. So far you've given me past, but to find her I need future. I don't suppose she happened to mention where she was going by any chance?"

Fatma glared at him with an absolutely-delightful look of pure hatred that Ghulen savored while it lasted. "After she locked me in here, she told the shaggy dude with the spear who is traveling with her that she would try to get a message by wyre to a friend of hers to see if he'd heard anything about her. The small joy I can take is how dejected and lost she must have been when she found out I never had her spawn."

"Where was she wyring to?" Ghulen said.

"Is that enough for you to let me out?" Fatma said, almost whining.

Ghulen smiled indulgently. "It's certainly a step the right direction."

She thought for a long moment, then slumped down. "Libriam."

"Excellent. And did this friend in Libriam have a name?" Ghulen said, tilting his head.

The woman bit her lip. "Are you actually going to let me out?"

"That depends rather strongly on you."

"I'm not giving you another word unless you let me out."

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Ghulen weighed it for a moment. Mostly deciding if he had the full measure of this slaver or if some twist or mystery remained to be worth prodding at. "What if I said I'd leave you here if you didn't give me the name?"

"I'd say you're just as likely to leave me if I do. So let me out now."

"Then all these others will fight to get out too. How do your kind usually get them to stay in while adding to the local population?"

"Usually put them all in at once then wait to add more until the rains come and drown the last lot. If someone must be added, half-a-dozen guards with spears escorting them usually does the trick even if a few who were in here a while always choose to die on those spears rather than stay any longer."

"So how do you propose we keep these others in if I open the cage?" Ghulen looked at said others, all watching and listening with intensity born in misery plus tiny scraps of hope that they might find some release from it.

Fatma raised her voice to address all of them and talked half over her shoulder. "Because I promise to let them all out after we're done. Have your archer and Venger over their kill anyone who tries to get out now."

"It shall be as you say," Ghulen said, looking down at the cage. "How do you open this?"

"Opens here," Fatma said, wading over to the center of the cross-barred cage top. "Key goes in that big brass lock there then pull this bar to open it. Key is kept in an alcove just inside the tunnels there."

"Kass," Ghulen shouted, turning to where the woman splashed water at a retreating Balmos. "Bring me the keys just inside there. Balmos, bring your axe and chop the hand off anyone who tries to climb out aside from our friend Fatma here."

"Whatever you say, boss," Kass called back, joining him a short while later with an over-sized brass key. Balmos walked the bars gingerly, but hefted his still-bloody axe and spared a viscous grin for the prisoners. After twisting the key in the lock, it took Kass and Ghulen working together to push the bar and pry the cage's top hatch open.

Fatma immediately grabbed the bars to pull herself up, struggling against the weight of water in her clothes, the slipperiness of the bars, and the tug of the current. Others gathered around sullenly, a couple visibly twitching with the desire to climb to freedom.

"Shoot anyone else who comes out," Ghulen said.

Kass nodded, walked carefully across the top bars to the walkway, and restrung her bow. Balmos tossed his axe from hand-to-hand and looked among the sodden people beneath him as if hoping, daring them to try something.

Despite her desperate struggle to climb out, Fatma couldn't find enough purchase to pull herself free. Clinging to the bars, she glared at Ghulen. "Help me out."

"I already did my part," Ghulen said, smiling benevolently.

She stared hard at him for a moment, then turned to her fellow prisoners. "Lift me up and I swear on my life I'll help every one of you to get out of here after."

That none of them did told Ghulen much about how little this woman was liked before all this and also how much they trusted her now. She repeated it as an order, then a plea. When none of them moved to help her, she struggled again until she trembled with exhaustion.

Ghulen squatted down and tsked. "What's the matter? Don't have a dozen slaves to do it for you? Can't imagine you've used your arms to do anything more strenuous swing a lash."

"You know nothing about me," Fatma snarled back. She turned and bared her shoulder, revealing the brand of a cage.

"A slave turned slaver? The cruelest type of master, I hear, for they know exactly how to maximize their slave's suffering. Don't know how you could do such a thing after experiencing it yourself, but what would I know?" Ghulen said, nodding. "I stopped by your estate as I was tracking you down and see you've taken your former master's brand as your own. Very interesting. Whatever happened to the previous owner of that brand I wonder?"

About her, her miserable occupants glanced between the opening, Ghulen, Balmos, and Kass standing casually on the bridge with an arrow nocked and ready at her bowstring.

"You're welcome to try," Ghulen said, glancing among them. "If you worked together, perhaps one or two of you might make it out before an axe or arrow finds you."

For a moment, he thought some of them might try, but then they all caved in and looked away. "Hm... disappointing."

"Are you going to let me out?" Fatma said, her voice trembling with exhaustion.

He gestured at the open hatch. "I thought I already did. What was this scribe's name?"

She held her breath for a moment, then finally sank in defeat. "Goboro. Some scribe or minor bureaucrat I gathered. Please, let me out."

Ghulen drew his knife, catching a glint of sunlight on the blade. "Would you cut your face or hew a breast off it meant I'd pull you up?"

"What? I thought you..." she trailed off as he gave her his mildest smile.

"Yes. I'll do it!" Fatma shouted. She strained against the bars, reaching for the knife. "I'll do it right now if it means I get free of this sewer. Please, whatever it takes."

"Hm... you know, I think you would." Ghulen tapped the flat of the blade against his pursed lips. He looked at the dozen-odd other probably-slavers shivering around her. "New deal. If any one of you agrees to let the others kill you, I'll let the rest go free."

"What?" they all said at once, suddenly alert. They looked among each other, some with fear, others desperation, still others calculation. Fatma was in the last camp, between shooting looks of burning hatred at Ghulen.

"You have one hour," Ghulen said. "When I return, one of you will tell me they are willing to die, then the rest of you will kill them. Do so and I'll set the survivors free. Otherwise, I'll lock this again and leave you to whatever fate the Ascendant have decided for you."

The hatch clanged as he tipped it shut, but he didn't re-lock it. He made his way carefully across the cage top and paused next to Kass, speaking loudly for the prisoners' benefit. "Shoot anyone who even touches the hatch."

"You got it boss," she said, way over-loudly. "I'll feather them up until you think they're a duck if they try anything."

He rolled his eyes as he walked the narrow walkway back to solid ground. The hour he'd given them wouldn't be wasted. Time to think, to plot out his next move while the prisoners weighed their dilemma. Hassani was close, so close he could almost smell her but rushing off without a plan was the action of an amateur.

If she'd already left for Libriam, he'd be unlikely to get there before her with her head-start.

However, the Vale Legions controlled most of the Thorns in Berujat so she'd have to either find a Thorn too remote for the Legions to consider strategic enough to bother protecting or hope to risk using her Inviolate status to bypass them against the likelihood that they were still on the lookout for her after what she'd pulled on Ziggurat. No, she was probably still in Berujat somewhere looking for a way out.

If he moved quickly and precisely, he might be able to find this Goboro first. And with the scribe as bait...