At first he and the men he had been brought here with had stayed together. They were all survivors of Dun Kellen, a bond in a strange place. One of them he remembered from the battle on the walls, though he did not know his name. A lean, wiry man with a pockmarked face. The others in this place had greeted them with silent stares. Maquin had studied them the next morning as the sun had risen, most of them sun darkened, a mixture of ages from little more than boys to old, though he guessed that he numbered amongst the oldest.
At first their captors had returned every evening. Maquin recognized some from his first night, one especially – a wide, barrel-chested man, with an abundance of rings bound into an oily black beard. They brought with them a great trough of food. Or what passed for food. It was mostly a brackish liquid, with unidentifiable items floating in it. Their captors had handed out wooden bowls, ensuring that everyone had one, and then left. Maquin had not eaten on the first day, but by the second he was famished, and knew that abstaining would only result in him losing the strength he had gained in the latter part of his journey. So he ate. It was disgusting, but he found that if he did it quickly, and when the guards first brought the food, before it had had time to ferment in this ferocious sun, then he could manage to keep it in his stomach.
The last time they had seen their captors, or anything resembling food had been five days ago, though. The first day Maquin thought it was just a mistake. By the third he knew it was intentional. Yesterday two men had fought over a rat that had scurried across the courtyard. One man had died, and the rat had escaped. They were all weak, becoming desperate now. But why were they being starved like this? Had the corsairs just decided they did not need them, and so were just going to let them starve to death? Lykos’ words from the beach still rang in his head – One day soon you shall be thrown into a pit. Others will be thrown in also. Only one will come out alive – and as yet he had no answer to them. All that he knew was that, at this instant, he was not ready to give up and die.
And death was in the air. Already he could tell that some of those in the courtyard were succumbing, even if they did not realize it. Forty men had been in the courtyard when he was thrown in. There were thirty-eight now.
Initially there had been an unspoken organization to the courtyard. There had been an area at one end that had become the midden heap. All had used it, and although the pile was high and stinking, constantly swarming in flies, at least the rest of the courtyard was relatively clean. Now, though, people were starting to defecate where they lay. Maquin could smell it, could see urine staining the hard-packed red earth. Death is going to start coming more quickly.
The sound of chains rattling in the gate brought him sharply out of his thoughts.
‘On your feet,’ a voice shouted, the barrel-chested man.
At first no one moved, but then other men came through the gates. They spread about the courtyard and began hitting people with clubs.
Maquin stood, feeling lightheaded. His stomach growled and he steadied himself against the wall, putting a hand to his head. His fingers brushed the lump of flesh that was left of his ear. It had healed well enough, and he could hear as well as he ever could. At first it had felt strange, as if his head was unbalanced, but he was used to it now.
With much staggering and grumbling the men in the courtyard were formed into a line and marched out.
‘Where are we going?’ one man called out. Maquin heard the dull crunch of a club breaking bone.
No questions, then. I do not need to ask, though. I can guess where we are going.
They marched through streets bordered by houses of sun-dried brick, roofed with reeds. Children chased along behind them, some throwing things – bits of food, stones, sticks, until they were chased away by one of the men with clubs. The children laughed as they went, and soon reformed, like a swarm of flies.
Broken walls loomed ahead of them and they passed beneath an archway carved from white stone. More Vin Thalun stood before them with short, curved swords in their hands. They were standing guard before a wide and deep stairwell, leading steeply down, beneath the ground. Silently they moved down, the walls closing in about them, the shuffle of their feet echoing, the air thankfully cool after the unbearable heat.
Soon the stairwell opened up into an underground chamber, with large iron bowls crackling with fire attached to the walls. There were crowds down here, all gathered around holes in the ground. Big holes, and lots of them, too many to count – forty? Sixty? Many of the men about them were holding torches high.
The fighting pits.
Maquin saw other men, under guard like him, being pushed to the edge of the pits and thrown in. For a moment he thought he saw Orgull amongst them. The same thing was going on all around the chamber: groups of men thrown into different holes, crowds closing about them, bags of coin waved in the air, changing hands.
The barrel-chested man who had entered the courtyard first turned and looked at them.