Page 70 (1/1)

At Canal Street, Luke reined Gallant in the opposite direction than the professor had taken the day before, away fros stretched in this direction as well They passed a wagon full of cotton bales and a pair of well-dressed e that spanned the canal and led to one of the ain all the industry that must take place in theoff the s And then theto bolt This time it took Luke’s help to hold him back

"Will you settle?" she de, then shook it But he settled

Karigan sighed in relief When the bells finished tolling and the last tone faded away, she had a moment orMen with cudgels and whips exited, followed by workers in worn garments with ankles shackled They shuffled out of thealmost musically The mill slaves were male and female Many were children, feere old Many looked Sacoridian, others had the skin tones and features of other nations: Hura-desh, the Under Kingdoms, the Cloud Islands, and even the desert folk of the Unclaiins had come under the empire’s rule, and the empire had not discriminated over who it forced to serve

"Hurry up!" one of the guards yelled at the slaves "If ya want yer midday rations, you’ll hurry up"

The slaves did not alter their pace Most just watched their feet to avoid stu

"The brown lung," Lukeall the cotton dust"

A guard prodded his group of slaves along none too gently with his cudgel A boy fell to his knees, looked too tired to stand again The guard grabbed hi worse obscenities at hian had ever heard on the docks of Corsa Harbor

Karigan touched the sleeve of the jacket she wore It was used and faded, yes, but ell-ht about how its cloth, and that of all the fine dresses she wore as Kari Goodgrave, were s As the line of workers e to the street, one of the guards waved his whip threateningly, causing Raven to sidestep and snort

"Best that weRaven nervous, and you don’t need to see this"

Karigan thought she did She did not want to see it, but she had to witness what the eht, what he’d done to his people, and those of other nations She couldn’t look away froaunt faces,as defeated as the adults No, they were not children The youth had been worked and beaten out of theed Gallant into a trot, and Raven was so eager to follow he burst into a canter Karigan had no choice but to look away and contend with the stallion

They passed only one more mill complex, and it was the same scene, with hundreds of exhausted, shackled slaves sha the street like soht, that she had to change

• • •

The canal dog-legged to the south and the hooves of the horses thudded across a bridge that spanned the dark, quiet water Only subtle ripples revealed that it floith any current Karigan felt herself ease, breathe more freely, as they left the mills and slaves behind Luke kept theh they were finally getting down to business

The city extended well beyond the canal, breaking up into neighborhoods of s area with sardens, and broken fences Trash rotted in the street It was not the tidy, well-kept neighborhood the professor lived in

"I don’t linger in this quarter," Luke told her "Most folk here aren’t bad, but the feho are won’t hesitate to murder you for a pair of boots"

And so they trotted on, crossing another bridge over the river, the water here gli with a swift current Once they were across, space opened up between buildings, and eventually habitation becarew freely, and the people had small plots of land to faran did likeith Raven While still energetic and eager, the stallion had calan tried to place the location in the context of her own tied They ell east of the city now, that much she knew "Where are we?" she asked

"Well, I like to take Gallant out to the Big Mounds where there is a lot of open space," he said "Good for riding, a breather froht with a thrill At least this one familiar landmark remained

But when they reached the ravel--and others that Luke pointed out, had been ravel Karigan used to ride Condor to the Scangly Mounds when she needed to get away from the castle She was dismayed by the destruction But even their remnants lent her some comfort, another link to the past, and several of the est, which appeared to be rew out of its crannies, and lichens studded the nubbly rock She gazed at the panorama that surrounded her While the landscape was fa beyond its current condition was out of place The mounds couldn’t have moved, could they? She scratched her head, puzzled Maybe she wasn’t re correctly, or perhaps the forces that had created a river where Sacor City once stood had also changed the topography