Chains rattled as I dragged the man behind me.

The ship was swaying a little wildly, but not because it was sinking or in sail. The waters were rough. A storm was beyond the horizon, and it wasn’t a gentle one.

“Grihh mah,” the man I pulled behind me tried to say something, but I couldn’t understand it. His broken jaw and missing teeth wouldn’t let him formulate a word properly.

Even if he could speak, it wasn’t as if I’d let it change what was about to happen.

Slowing to a stop, I took a deep breath as to sigh… and regretted it.

The stink was unbearable in this ship. The kind of stink that made my eyes water and not because of the smell itself.

Staring at the cages, I gulped as I tried to count them. Four… five… Seven. Seven cages. There seemed to be about five a cage… but…

“Shgop!” he yelled as my grip on his skull got tighter.

I understood that one. It made me only squeeze his skull tighter.

One of the women in the cages yelled out a word. One that at first made as much sense as the man’s… but after a moment my mind corrected itself.

“You all speak Glamour?” I asked them.

The caged women all went dead silent, and still.

They did. That meant they were from the far east. Wonderful…

That explained their blonde hair at least.

“He speaks our language,” one of them whispered.

“Forget that, look who he holds,” another pointed.

This explains the body I had seen them tossing overboard as I swam over to this ship. That hadn’t been trash, or a fallen comrade… it had been a woman. A woman who had been broken.

Just great.

Some metal clanked behind me… and it wasn’t the chains wrapped around the man’s legs I was pulling around. I turned a little and watched a familiar face hurry down the stairs. The young boy had a huge smile on his face as he hurried to me.

“Vim! We’ve captured the rest of them and the ship is ours! And…” he lost his voice as he saw the scene before him. Before me.

I kept my eyes on Ronalldo as he stopped a few feet from me. He carried a small hand axe, which was still clean of blood. He hadn’t used it. The axe lowered to his knee, going listless as he stared at the cages.

Studying his eyes, I noted the disgust within them. He didn’t see fortune or treasure, he saw something hideous.

Good. A good man. Or one who would become a good man, as long as no one corrupted him.

Maybe I really should let him join the Society.

“What is this…?” Ronalldo asked with an empty voice.

“What indeed,” I said.

The man I held squirmed and I remembered him. I released him, and as I did I noticed that my fingers had sunk a little into his skull. Not so badly that it had killed him, at least not yet, but they had broken and crushed most of what they had dug into.

I sighed at the sight of the man. It was the supposed captain of this ship, and the strongest fighter as well. He and his men had been very bold about declaring that I was no match for him. Especially with the whips of chains he had used.

Wonder if he had used those whips on the women…

Turning away from him and Ronalldo, who was now staring at the defeated captain, I walked over to the largest cage. The one that had the most women sealed within.

Kneeling down in front of the cage, close enough that the inhabitants could reach out and grab me, I studied the girls. They all hugged the other side of the cage, trying to keep themselves as far away from me as possible.

Most were naked. The few who had something to wear only wore light sheets and rags. All of them were blonde, the dirty blonde that was common in the lands to the east.

None of the girls were talking. A quick headcount told me there were thirty one, and all of them were staring at me with apprehensive eyes. Eyes without hope, I noted. They weren’t hopeful at my presence, but now worried. Terrified even.

To them I was just another abuser.

“Where you from?” I asked them in their language.

No one answered me, but I did notice most of them look at one another. They did understand me, at least. So there was that.

Hadn’t spoken their language in nearly a hundred years but it was working.

“Hoh jeez… By the seas Vim, I should tell mother,” Ronalldo finally found himself.

I glanced back at him and watched as he stepped closer. He was staring at the nearest cage. When some of the women turned to look at him, thanks to him speaking, he actually blushed and looked away.

“You do that. Before you leave, tell the men out there that not a one is to come down here until the Marshal shows up,” I told him.

Ronalldo quickly nodded, agreeing with me. “That’s for sure… I’ll be back,” he turned to go, but not before stealing one last glance at the man on the ground. Ronalldo spat at him before heading back up the stairs.

I heard the main door to the deck close behind him as he left, and I made a mental note to put him under Lawrence’s command when I placed him into the Society. Lawrence would ensure he became the good man that hid in that boyish exterior.

Looking back at the cages, I closed my eyes as one of the women spat at me.

They became noisy for a moment, as some cursed at me and as others yelled at those who did so.

Wiping my face as a few threatened to kill me, and others begged them to stop and hear me out, I wiped my hand and her spit onto one of the cage’s bars.

“Before anyone spits on me again, mind telling me where you’re from? Your language encompasses a very large landmass, and it’ll help me have an idea of how this happened,” I said to them.

“We’re from the Unglo Village. Near the canyon north of Brir,” one of the women said.

Ah, there we go. Someone reasonable. I stood and stepped to the cage on the right, where she was locked within. Although she had spoken, she still shied back like the rest of them upon my drawing closer.

“Yena, careful,” one of the other women in another cage whispered kindly.

“Yena? My name’s Vim. I have just taken this ship, as you can probably tell,” I said with a nod to the dying man a few feet away.

“More prizes, we’re to be? First Vikings, then merchants, and those pirates. What are you?” a woman shouted.

“Sounds like you’ve all had quite a journey,” I said. That meant they’ve been exchanged several times already. That made a lot of sense.

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This ship was big enough, and dangerous enough, to travel that far east and survive… but the men who had been sailing it had not been. They would have been eaten alive. The proof of it wasn’t just in the festering pool of blood nearby, but the fact that Ronalldo and only a dozen men had been able to capture and detain nearly thirty other men.

They hadn’t fought back too hard, after I had done to the captain what I did. All of their defiance withered and faded as they watched what I done. They had become... rather subservient, for sailors. Usually sailors, and supposed pirates, were a little more hardy and daring.

Though I had a talent for scaring such men.

“Poor prizes, if I’m to be honest,” I told the girls as I looked at them. Most were skin and bones now. Shells of their former selves… or well…

Maybe. A few didn’t look that dirty, honestly… yet they were still scrawny.

“How long have you been captives?” I asked them.

“How are we supposed to know?” one spat.

I nodded. True. That was a dumb question to ask them.

Tapping the cage, I wondered what to do with them. Releasing them now would probably just make them scatter. Then they’d just die. The ocean we were in right now was not the kind that women such as them could survive. None would make it to shore. Their chances would have been just as low even if they had been healthy.

And of course even if they had made it to shore… then what? They didn’t seem to speak the language of this land, and were obviously foreigners. If instead of this side of the continent they had instead been set free on the west, they’d at least possibly survive thanks to the churches. But on this side, where money was god…

Half the lands here dealt with slavery. They'd just be captured again.

“He speaks funny,” one of them then said.

“Do I?” I asked.

“Shut it Pram!” another yelled at the one who had made fun of me.

“Yea Pram, don’t be mean,” I agreed. She had the same name as Nebl's daughter. Interesting.

The women all looked at one another, and I could tell they couldn’t make heads or tails of me. But that was fine.

I honestly didn’t want them to make sense of me. For if they did then they’d be far too close. Too personal. Too attached…

“What am I to do with you all, I already have a woman I can’t get rid of,” I said in this land’s language.

They frowned, not understanding it seemed. “What’d he say?” one asked.

“Hey, let us go, please?” one asked me.

“Asking that of any of the others didn’t work either!” one of the women to my left shouted.

“He’s a brute like the rest. Look what he did to that man,” one said.

“If you won’t kill him, let me. He killed my sister,” one asked me.

“Oh?” I perked up at that and stepped back to find the one who had spoken.

A taller woman nodded at me. She had a scar on her face, and was naked. She was standing closest to this side of the cages, within my reach, as if to prove to me she was serious.

“How many of you have you lost?” I asked them.

“Twenty two,” several said at once.

I sighed, and now regretted accepting Grilly’s request.

Usually the Yin family didn’t screw me over this badly.

The door to the deck opened with a loud bang, and I wondered if I’d have to punish her men, or if the captured idiots had realized they outnumbered their capturers.

But no. It was Grilly. She walked down with Ronalldo, who had an odd expression on his face. Either he hadn’t explained it to Grilly, or hadn’t wanted to come back down here but had been told to do so.

“By the storms… What were you thinking Pratchet!” Grilly screamed at the man on the floor as she walked up to him. She was squeezing her pipe tightly, and started coughing. Ronalldo quickly went to support his mother, but she pushed him away. Feebly.

“Blasted fool. Shameful!” Grilly coughed the words out, and stepped around the bleeding man who moaned. He had recognized her voice in his final moments.

“You didn’t know about them?” I asked her.

“Obviously not! He must have… gods he must have sold the cargo and bought them in Tuckit. That’s the only slave port close enough for this idiot to get to,” Grilly said.

“Must have been some cargo, Grilly,” I said. Although scrawny, and filthy, these women weren’t cheap.

“It had been. It had been half the reason I wanted this ship back and…” Grilly coughed some more, making Ronalldo hurry over again. This time she let him support her.

I looked away from the old Yin descendant and to the women in cages. They were staring at her with strangely… concerned looks. They felt for her. Odd, but maybe it was their way of keeping hope alive. Maybe they thought a woman would rescue them, if no man would.

“Do any of you know her?” I asked them in their language.

“No. Is she sick?” the scarred woman asked.

“Very,” I said.

Most of them tried to step away, but couldn’t. They were already up against the other sides of the cages.

Even the scarred woman who had a backbone had stepped back a bit.

Well… if they did know her they weren’t acting it. Several of them were no longer staring at her with concern, even though they had been moments before. Now they just saw her as something else that could hurt them. Something else that could kill them.

The east knew disease well. It was obvious they’d be weary of it.

Grilly finally got her coughing under control, and took a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry Vim. I had not known,” she wheezed.

“I can see that. Yet now they are in your possession. Per our agreement, the one I made with your ancestor, you are free to pirate as long as you never deal in slaves. Yet now that I have officially retaken this ship for you… so too is its cargo yours. Thus…” I stopped talking, since my point was made.

Ronalldo went white in the face, and he hurriedly looked at his ailing mother. She though held my gaze.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Why ask me?” I asked back.

“I fear you’ll slaughter us if I don’t handle this properly,” she said.

“I appreciate your honesty. For that I’ll be honest in return…” I looked at the cages, and the women staring at us. Most didn’t even have tears in their eyes. Their lives had become such hells that even this wasn’t enough to make them cry. “I don’t care what you do with them. However… the company I am contracted under, the Animalia Corporation, is headquartered in Telmik. Under the banister of the Cathedral of Songs. I’m sure you can imagine how they’d feel about it,” I told her.

Grilly sighed but nodded. “Of course. Well, at least I’ll get some kind of payment for returning them to their embassy,” Grilly said. She stepped towards the cages, as if to study them. I noted the way she stared at the one with the biggest breasts.

“Embassy?” I asked.

“They have one in Lumen. The nations of the east made it for this very purpose. They pay a gold coin per head, on the return of any of their kidnapped peoples,” she said.

“Interesting,” I said, but frowned all the same.

So they tried to combat the slave trade by aiding it. A single gold coin wasn’t a fortune at all… not for a slave. Especially if one had to take into account that one had to go over there, capture them, and then bring them back alive. The food and time alone was far more than a single coin… but there were ways around that.

Like making several port stops along the way. Letting other people capture them, and sell them to another port a short distance away. And so on and so forth, until one could buy a bunch of slaves not too far from here for a smaller sum.

You didn’t pay such evil away. You had to burn it. But who was I to tell the humans how to handle it.

Odds are those who participated in slavery simply tossed the ones not able to be sold, or old and sickly, at the embassy. These women were worth far more than that here.

“What’s one of them worth in Lumen?” I asked.

“Thirty six,” Ronalldo said with a low voice.

“And why would you know that?” Grilly asked for me.

Ronalldo panicked and shook his head. “I hear things, mother! Hard not to, with what we do…” he said quickly.

Grilly scoffed at him and went to puff on her pipe. “He’s right. About thirty five a head for the blonde ones. Younger are more,” she confirmed it.

“I see,” I said.

“What are they talking about?” one of the women asked.

“How to split us, likely,” one said.

“The boy won’t stop staring at me,” one of the longer haired women said.

“You’ll be lucky to get him, Tonya. At least he might be gentle.”

I blocked out their voices as they started to get more depressing. “Well Vim?” Grilly got my attention.

“Well what?” I asked.

“Will that be acceptable? For your company, I mean,” she said.

Ah… she meant the embassy thing.

Maybe. I’d have to look into it.

“I’ll look into it. For now let’s just assume so. You take care of them. Make your boy handle them. We can deal with them when we get back to Lumen,” I said as I turned to go.

“Very crass of you, Vim. I honestly expected you to be much more gentle with them,” Grilly said.

“I’m only gentle to those who belong to me. They don’t,” I said as I headed for the stairs. I ignored the groaning man who was still bleeding on the ground. Especially since his eyes had gone dusty and hard, and most of the blood was pooling from his head. He was moments from death, and was no threat anymore.

“I promise on my flag, Vim! They’ll be safe until Lumen!” Ronalldo shouted.

“Careful boy, such promises are dangerous. Especially with him,” Grilly hushed him, but I noticed did so with a smile. She was proud of him.

“Yet they’re profitable… when fulfilled,” I said to them both, and headed up to the upper main deck. To question the men who lived… and maybe toss a few overboard while I was at it.