Emaciated and with her regal locks shorn, the slave girl was unrecognizable for who she was. No one, except for those with sharp eyes, could suspect the girl was of noble blood, not that her former titles would be honored in the heathen township in one of the lawless regions of the continent. She huddled in the middle of the other slaves being taken to market. Currently, they were penned inside of an iron cage, one of many such in the district of Bowl Lake Town, as the natives called it, for the shape of the nearby body of water. The slave shivered in the damp air. She had been raised in dryer flatlands, not these mountains and hills filled with lakes and the rotten towns named after them. The air stank of cook fires, shit and wet hides. The towering mountains were topped with snow, although the winter had been warmer …show more content…
Silver will work, eh? I only need the one,” she clucked, rattling her purse. If the slaver was curious as to why an old woman, alone and with no apparent connection to any liege or clan to protect her, was wandering about the corrupted hills with hard coin, the slaver didn’t ask or wonder. It was usually best not to wonder too much into other people’s business, as the slaver had learned that it lead to a longer life. He took the coins without further ado, greedily pressing them together to feel them. The girls were worth hardly more than a few bits on a good day, he thought. They had been sickly the entire trip from where he had picked up the whole lot from auction further south from a bankrupt caravan, and the good wenches had already been set aside in his private quarters for direct sales. The slaver was not above testing his wares.
The slave girl hissed, but the boy had a metal prod he liked to use indiscriminately. She acquiesced as the boy pointed for the two young women to get out. The two held each other up as they stepped from the opened cage. The Shank women just stared at them dully, without emotion or