This story is about how Belac escaped from the slavers. It will feature in Part Two of the Legend of the Hunter entitled Belac and the Staff of Power.
Since Belac had been captured four years ago by the slavers, his body had packed on the muscles with a vengeance. He had also unexpectedly grown taller than any slaver his age. At sixteen, his shoulder muscles rippled like thick cords; his biceps bulged with unrestrained power while his burnished chest was rock hard. His flat stomach was the envy of many an overweight slaver.
On Niminimi, his island home now seemingly lost to him forever, he had usually gone bare chested and bare feet, only wearing knee-length leather shorts. On the slaver ship he continued this attire, which caused his skin to acquire a deep bronze hue that bordered on golden. Consequently, the slavers all took to calling him Golden Boy.
He was descending the rigging after having furled and tied off the main sail when he was harshly knocked to the ship’s deck by the iron-hard fist of the captain. The man seemed to hate Belac for reasons known only to him.
“You’re too slow, island scum!” the captain said in his language, which Belac had learned expeditiously to prevent more than the usual beatings. He was still not fully conversant in the slavers’ secret sign language, but he was making steady progress.
“Look at Gratch there. He’s so nimble that by the time you’ve tied off the first sail, he’s already done three! Islander scum!” the captain swore and moved off towards his cabin.
The slaver ship had anchored off one of their many secret coves dotted along the Western Ocean coast of the continent of Wrochcia. The captain would soon disembark with some crew members to convey their loot and some bartering supplies to their hidden but guarded cave. Although they were slavers, they often captured valuable goods along with the slaves. None of the slaves was ever taken along to shore.
“Never mind him,” Reethan said, startling Belac slightly, for he hadn’t heard the light-footed youth approach. Reethan was an Islander like Belac, but they had never met on the island, in spite of how small Niminimi was.
“He’s irritated because the First Mate has taken a liking to you and placed you under his protection.” This was true, and also the reason why Belac’s body still remained unscarred from whippings. First Mate Daayij had expressly forbidden it.
“But surely that can’t be the only reason why Captain Hilston hates me so much. I try to be faster and stronger and more agile, but nothing I do is good enough,” Belac lamented.
“Golden Boy, you’ll never please that man. Trust me. He carries hatred and dislike within his body like other men carry a healthy, beating heart. Forget him. Come, let’s visit the galley for some grub,” Reethan suggested. Belac made to follow him when the anchored ship bucked high into the air, throwing both young men and other crew members on deck about like weightless toys.
“Giant squid!” shouted Reethan in absolute terror, but it wasn’t the squid that caused his horror. It was the squid’s masters that sent wave upon wave of white dread through everyone on board. The giant squid was a harbinger of their presence. The slavers and slaves knew they were doomed.
“We must get to the stern,” Belac shouted at Reethan, who was about six feet away from him, near the gunwale. “Follow me!” Belac instructed the young man, but before Reethan could take a step towards Belac, something grabbed him from beyond Belac’s view and pulled him overboard. Reethan’s fearful screams would haunt Belac’s dreams for months thereafter.
A sinister, muscular figure clambered aboard to stand a few paces away from Belac, waiting for others of his kind to follow him. He resembled a man in shape, but everything else about him was alien. His elongated face had deep, visible gills on each side; huge eyes protruded under a smooth brow. The mouth gaped as the creature adjusted to breathing air, clearly displaying two rows of neat, tiny and needle-like teeth. The creature’s upper body was covered in silver scales that glistened brightly as water droplets streamed off him. His muscular arms and legs had the brownish colour of seaweed; they were what frightened Belac the most. They ended not in normal hands with fingers or feet with toes, but in clawed hands and taloned feet. The merciless Thrith locked eyes with Belac; instead of attacking the youth though, the creature simply blinked its huge orbs and looked away from Belac.
Belac wasted no seconds on staring at the Thrith. He made a mad dash for the stern of the boat, for the rest of the Thrith were clambering over the vessel from the port, starboard and bow.
“Golden Boy!” someone hailed him just as he reached the back of the ship. It was the First Mate, Daayij. The man threw something to Belac who deftly caught it. It was a light leather pouch.
“Swim for the shore, and use that to start a new life. May the Sweet Spirits be with you,” the kind man said before he was engaged in battle by the Thrith. None of the creatures paid so much as the slightest attention to Belac. Stashing the pouch in a pocket of his shorts, Belac dived into the ocean. It met him like a mother welcoming her son home.
When Belac reached the shore ten minutes later, he was exhausted. He lay on the sand, spent but exhilarated at having regained his freedom. Then curiosity about the pouch roused him.
“What could Daayij have given me that would allow me to start a new life?” he wondered. He gently pulled apart the strings tying the top of the pouch, then upended the sack over his cupped hand. He was stunned to his core when he saw what lay glistening like dazzling diamonds upon his palm.
It was the silver bracelet which his mother, Rashda, had found upon the beach on Niminimi four years ago. She had claimed it would change their lives forever, just before a slaver had knocked her senseless to the ground with his club, and kidnapped the twelve-year-old Belac.
“Sweet Spirits!” Belac breathed in awe.
Image: Michael Dam (www.unsplash.com)
