Alchymist by Ian Irvine Page A

it.
    Fumbling
with the straps of the harness, Nish took several more lashes before he was
fixed in place like a beast of burden. Go away! he prayed. Go and flog someone
else.
    Eventually
the overseer did, the cries and wails of the whipped echoing down the line.
Nish could feel no pity for them, though some of their groans were
soul-wrenching. All that mattered was that the lash fall on another.
    The
man beside him at the head of the team, on his knees in the muck, was a scrawny
old fellow whose back and meagre legs were crisscrossed with scars. He must
have been a slave for a long time. It did not look as though he had much life
in him.
    'Just
what I need,' Nish said to himself. 'Useless old coot will never pull his
weight. He'll die in the muck and I'll be whipped for that too.'
    The
slave turned his emaciated, mud-coated head. Nish did not recognise him, nor
even recall Jal-Nish's words, until the man spoke.
    'How
quickly they forget,' said Xervish Flydd, looking him in the eye.
    'Scrutator!
Surr!' Nish gasped. 'I'm sorry. I did not recognise —’
    'You're
just doing what you must, to survive,' said Flydd. 'Don't call me scrutator.
Nish. That honour has been taken from me and, gossip tells me, given to your
lather I'm Slave Flydd now. What brings you here?'
    Nish
told Flydd of his latest failing, in the smallest number of words he could. It
hurt nearly as much as the lash. All his dreams were dead. He must face up to
what he was, a worthless human being.
    'We
all make mistakes,' Flydd said out of the corner of his mouth. 'Get ready to
pull.'
    Nish
looked around to see the overseer advancing, whip at the ready. The fellow
caught Nish's eye, grinned and flicked the lash at him. It caught him on the
nipple so painfully that Nish screamed. It felt as if his breast had been torn
open.
    'No
talking!' rapped the overseer, lashing him again. 'Pull! Pull until your hearts
shudder and your bowels groan or, by the powers, I'll make you suffer'.'
    Nish
threw his weight against the harness. Flydd did the same. The leather creaked;
the rows of slaves behind them groaned. The whip cracked again and again, but
the clanker did not budge.
    'Pull!'
roared the overseer.
    Nish
strained until his boots skidded in the mud, to no more effect than before. The
overseer stormed back and forth, lashing and cursing them. Nish strained again
until his heart felt about to explode in his chest. It made no difference. The
clanker was irretrievably bogged.
    If
Nish had hoped for a respite, he was disappointed. While a bullock team was
being brought up, they had to pull as hard as ever, and once it was harnessed
in place the slave team was put beside the beasts. For every lash that fell on
the haunches of the animals, the slaves felt three or four. All across the
battlefield the scene was repeated: with soldiers, with other teams of slaves,
with all the peasants and camp followers Jal-Nish had been able to round up,
and with beasts of every description.
    After
hours of the most brutal labour Nish had ever experienced, the clanker began to
creak and groan out of the mud wallow, though before it had gone a hundred
paces it ended up in another, and many more lay ahead before it could be
dragged to solid ground.
    By
that time it was well after dark. Each of the slaves was given a gourd full of
sour water, a slab of black bread as hard as a brick and a mug of something
which, with the most charitable will in the world, could only be described as
slops. It had a sweet, off taste, as if it had begun to rot in the summer heat.
    Nish
took one sip and spat it into the grass. It was far worse than the food he had
eaten in the refugee camp in Almadin in the spring. He was about to heave the
mug of slops after it when Flydd said quietly, 'I'd advise you to eat every
mouthful, and lick out the mug afterwards.' 'It's disgusting!'
    'Aye,
but you can't work without food. If you can't pull, the overseer will whip you
into jelly and drag the clanker over you.'
    'If
this is