The sun rose high, blazing down into the unprotected oar pit. The wind that hummed through the taut cordage aloft did nothing to relieve the heat down here. The men broiled like fish on a griddle, and so far neither food nor water had been forthcoming.
Carse watched with sullen eyes the Sark soldiers lounging arrogantly on the deck above the sunken oar pit. On the after part of that deck rose the low main cabin, the door to which remained closed. Atop the flat roof stood the steersman, a husky Sark sailor who held the massive tiller and who took his orders from Scyld.
Scyld himself stood up there, his spade beard thrust up as he looked unseeingly over the misery in the oar pit toward the distant horizon. Occasionally he rapped out curt commands to the steersman.
Rations came at last—black bread and a pannikin of water, served out by one of the strange winged slaves Carse had glimpsed before in Jekkara. The Sky Folk, the mob had called them.
Carse studied this one with interest. He looked like a crippled angel, with his shining wings cruelly broken and his beautiful suffering face. He moved slowly along the catwalk at his task as though walking were a burden to him. He did not smile or speak and his eyes were veiled.
Shallah thanked him for her food. He did not look at her but went away, dragging his empty basket. She turned to Carse.
“Most of them,” she said, “die when their wings are broken.”
He knew she meant a death of the spirit. And sight of that broken-winged Halfling somehow gave Carse a bitterer hatred of the Sarks than his own enslavement had aroused. “Curse the brutes who would do a thing like that!” he muttered.
“Aye, cursed be they who foregather in evil with the Serpent!” growled Jaxart, the big Khond at their oar. “Cursed be their king and his she-devil daughter Ywain! Had I the chance I’d sink us all beneath the waves to thwart whatever deviltry she’s been hatching at Jekkara.”
“Why hasn’t she shown herself?” Carse asked. “Is she so delicate that she’ll keep her cabin all the way to Sark? ”