Ship of Magic

It hurt, it burned like a red-hot leg-iron, and he screamed. Then the pain suddenly flowed away from him. A chill, delightfully numbing, chased the pain away as hot water purges cold from the skin. He felt it flowing up his body. Relief, such relief from the pain. He felt his leg relax with it, and then the numbness was flowing higher. His scream died away to a groan.

“NO!” The whore shrieked the word as she flew across the deck. Etta must have been watching from the deck of the Marietta. No one blocked her way. The deck was mostly cleared of live men; they had probably fallen back at sight of the serpent rising again. Some impromptu weapon, a boarding ax or a kitchen cleaver, flashed in the sunlight as Etta brandished it. She was screaming, a stream of gutter invective and threats directed toward the serpent that even now was lifting him up. Some reflex made him cling to the ship's railing with all his might. That was not much anymore. Strength had fled him. Whatever venom the serpent had put into his wound was already rendering him helpless. When Etta seized him in a wild embrace that also included the ship's railing, he scarcely felt her grip. “Let him go!” she commanded the serpent. “Let him go, you bitch thing, you slimy sea-worm, you whore's ass! Let him go!”

The enfeebled serpent tugged on his booted leg, stretching him out over the water. Etta hauled determinedly back. The woman was stronger than he had thought. He saw more than felt the serpent set its teeth more firmly. Like a hot knife through butter, those teeth sheared through flesh and muscle. He had a glimpse of exposed bone, looking oddly honeycombed where the serpent's saliva ate into it. The creature turned its great head like a hooked fish, preparing to give a shake that would either tear him loose from the railing or snatch his leg from his body. Sobbing, Etta raised her weapon. “Damn you!” she screamed, “damn you, damn you, damn you!” Her puny blade fell, but not as Kennit had expected. She did not waste the blow on the serpent's heavily scaled snout. Instead the blade cracked loudly against his weakened bone. She severed his leg just below the serpent's teeth, cutting it off a nice bite as it were. He saw blood gout from the ragged worried stump of his leg as she hauled him hastily backward, crabbing across the deck with him in her grip. He dimly heard the awe-stricken cries of his men as the serpent raised its head still higher, and then suddenly collapsed back into the sea, boneless as a piece of string. It would not rise again. It was dead. And Etta had fed it his leg.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded of her faintly. “What have I ever done to you that you would chop my leg off?”

“Oh, my darling, oh, my love!” she was caterwauling, even as the darkness swirled around him and took him down.

The slavemart stank. It was the worst smell that Wintrow had ever encountered. He wondered if the smell of one's own kind in death and disease was naturally more offensive than any other odor. Instinctively, he wished to be away from here. It was a bone-deep revulsion. Despite the misery he saw, his sympathy and outrage were overwhelmed by his disgust. Hurry as he might, he could not seem to find an escape from this section of the city.

He had seen animals confined in large numbers before, even animals gathered together for slaughter, but their misery had been dumb and uncomprehending. They had chewed their cuds and lashed their tails at flies as they awaited their fates. Animals could be held in pens or yards. They did not need to be secured in both manacles and leg-irons. Nor did animals shout or sob their misery and frustration in words.

“I can't help you, I can't help you.” Wintrow heard himself muttering the words aloud and bit down on his tongue. It was true, he assured himself. He could not help them. He could no more break their chains than they could. Even if he had been able to undo their fetters, what then? He could not erase the tattoos from their faces, could not help them flee and escape. Evil as their fates were, it was best if he left each one to face it and make the best he could of it. Some, surely, would find freedom and happiness later in their lives. This extreme of misery could not last forever.