Free Dangerous Waters by Juliet E. McKenna

Hosh? Corrain hauled himself to his feet. He could wish him a fair festival for what little that was worth. The fool boy was sure to be moping and thinking of his mother so far away.
    They could not afford despair. They were oath-bound not to give in. They were Caladhrians, not cowards like those slaves who had killed themselves over the winter; eating berries which they knew to be poison, wading into the surf to let the currents take them, grinding a shell shard into a blade to open a vein.
    Corrain looked across the grassy expanse between the ragged and twisted trees fringing the shore and the long low houses built from the island’s coarse black rock. There was Hosh, lurking in a side doorway beneath the jutting eaves that shaded every side of the spacious dwelling.
    Ever since they’d first been brought here Corrain had wondered who’d built those houses. Craftsmen who knew this island, that was clear. The ruddy oiled wood staunchly resisted the nameless insects gnawing at the more recently built driftwood huts.
    He guessed the builders had fallen victim to the corsairs, their corpses slung into the brushwood now tattered by hacking blades greedy for firewood. Corrain had found bones and skulls when he’d been searching there for food, for shelter, for whatever might keep him alive until they were chained aboard the galley once more.
    He had to stay alive. If he died, or was injured, and injured was as good as dead here, Hosh would have no one to defend him. Then none of Lord Halferan’s men would survive to see that bastard Minelas pay for his treachery.
    Hosh raised a discreet hand and walked down the steps. All the houses had been built on raised platforms, to entice any passing breeze into their wide, slatted windows. He strolled casually towards a solitary nut palm.
    Corrain joined him a few moments later. He didn’t go near the house, not after that first beating to warn him that the galley master didn’t allow any slave rower within arm’s length. Not one as well-muscled as him. Hosh was clearly far less of a threat and had other uses besides.
    ‘I have a festival gift for you.’ With a twisted smile, Hosh offered Corrain a crude cup.
    It had been shaped from a nut palm husk. Such woody shells were harvested once the rains had come and gone, packed with nuts shaped like citrus segments. Naturally slaves only got the hardest, bitterest nuts or those softened with mould. These husk cups were sought after and prized.
    ‘Thank you, and fair festival.’ Corrain swallowed his irritation. How did the fool boy imagine he’d be able to find a festival gift for him?
    ‘The Red Heron has anchored.’ Hosh spoke quickly, in the coastal Caladhrian dialect. There was no one left alive on the island to share it with them.
    ‘How far did it sail?’ Corrain demanded.
    ‘To Relshaz and back,’ Hosh assured him.
    Who would have thought it? This lad, never travelling more than twenty leagues from the village of his birth, had discovered a ready ear and a swifter tongue for unknown languages. Hosh gave thanks to Trimon, god of travellers, the divine harpist whose music transcended all tongues. Corrain would have done the same, if he still believed in the gods.
    ‘They’ve landed a fresh cargo of slaves.’ Hosh’s face tightened with misery. ‘They’re to be put to the test and the survivors shared out to crew the galleys. They’re planning the first raids of the season.’
    The first attacks on helpless Caladhrians. Coastal hamlets looted for whatever coin or treasures the early spring trading had already secured, in return for wares and ornaments painstakingly crafted through winter’s enforced idleness. Whatever stores had outlasted the winter would be stolen away and those too slow or foolishly unwilling to flee risked murder, rape or enslavement.
    ‘Have you heard when the Reef Eagle will haul anchor?’ Corrain demanded.
    Then they’d be burdened with chains again. The only good thing about being ashore