Free The Jewel of Turmish by Mel Odom

Haarn replied.
    “Because of me?”
    The druid gazed at her and said, “Partly, but if I hadn’t surrendered myself, these men might have tried to get away.”
    A chill spread across Druz’s shoulders and ran down her spine. She’d heard terrible stories about druids. Some sages maintained that the druids, including members of the Emerald Enclave, were good and honest men and women whose reverence for nature clouded their judgment and made them do things that didn’t fit in with civilized thinking. Others proclaimed the druids as savages, capable of torture and brutal killing.
    Most of the other people tied to the slaver chain slept. Druz counted twenty-seven men, women, and children other than herself and the druid. One woman held a small child to her breast. All of the slaves looked hard-used, as if they’d been on the chain for days, perhaps even as much as a tenday. Their skin was sunburned and their clothing, common and homespun at best, hung in rags.
    “Where did these people come from?” Druz asked.
    “A small village somewhere close by,” Haarn answered.
    “You don’t know where?”
    “Some of the outlying villages don’t have names. They learn to be autonomous, trading only occasionally with passing merchants or each other. Many of them don’t see the need to pay the taxes cities like Alaghôn levy on people who only try to survive.” The druid turned to her and added, “Living in such conditions, paying faceless tax agents of Lord Herengar and the Assembly of Stars, isn’t much better than living in the servitude they’re bound for now.”
    Druz bridled at the comment. Though she didn’t know Lord Herengar personally, she knew of him.
    “Lord Herengar is a good man,” she said, “a fair man.”
    “Before he was named as ruler of Turmish, acting on behalf of the Assembly of Stars,” Haarn said, “he was a leader of a mercenary band called the Call of Arms. He acted in his own interests then, and he continues to do so now.”
    “Those taxes you speak out against help make the city safe,” Druz insisted.
    In the back of her mind, she knew she should be more concerned about escaping, but there was something about the druid that challenged her and made her want to make him see cities the way they really were—as homes and havens. Maybe it was the dismissive way he treated her, and maybe it was because she’d never been around a man so arrogant and confident as the druid. Even here in the midst of the slavers he spoke as if he’d trapped them instead of it being the other way around.
    Haarn smiled and said, “So Herengar heads up a new mercenary band and demands tribute for his services— one that pays much better.”
    “Most people in the city wouldn’t know how to fight to defend themselves,” Druz argued.
    “And they lose themselves because they are not taught to do that,” Haarn said bluntly. Take away a person’s ability to protect himself, to know enough to survive on his own, and you only have a slave. A privileged slave, perhaps, but a slave nonetheless.” He took up the padded
    chain. “Maybe you can’t see the chains on those ‘citizens,’ Druz Talimsir, but they are there.”
    “Cities allow people to raise their children in peace.” Druz disliked the way the druid seemed to look down on eveithing about her. “I’ve fought, defending towns and cities during time of war.”
    “Against others who felt certain that whatever it was they were after from the places you defended rightly belonged to them,” Haarn stated angrily, “because they decided to own one section of a land or another.”
    “Territorial wars are the most common—” Druz started to go on, but the druid cut her off.
    “The land isn’t meant to be owned,” Haarn said. “It’s meant to be treasured and tended. The land will provide sustenance to creatures that understand its needs and its gifts. Cities are spawning grounds for maggots that reap what they will of the land and leave only a