“Home,” announced Zhuqa. bumping her in another good-natured shrug. She felt him shift again, heard the small scrape of a key turning in a lock, and then he took a few steps forward into darkness. “Not much, but better than wind and rain, even to fierce little snap-jaws like you. Did you note how many guards we passed on our journey to my chambers?”

Many. One at every landing. One or two at every crossways in the halls. Amber said nothing.

“I am going to put you down now and unbind you. Mark me, I don’t have to unbind you, but I choose to. You may get the idea to run. If you do, I swear before God the All-Father I will let you. You won’t get far and I will not come and get you for one full day and night because I will be rather cross with you. Do you hear me? Kick your legs twice if you do.”

She kicked sullenly. Once. Twice. And stopped.

“Good girl.”

He heaved her off and set her with a jarring thump on her feet, holding her at the waist until she steadied. Then he let go and moved away.

The door was open just behind her. She could see the red light of the torches in the hall. ‘If my legs were only free, I could run,’ she thought. Useless, suicidal thought, but it still had to take its tumble through her brain. Turn right at the second crossways, run to the end. Up one flight, run to the left. Up four more flights and out.

Stone scraped along metal. Sparks spat and caught on a narrow wick set in a mirrored bowl of oil. Zhuqa glanced over his shoulder at her, grunted, and walked away to light another lamp.

Amber didn’t run. She looked instead at the room around her, a room which had perhaps been office space in the years before the Fall. She could see an open cupboard heaped with furs to serve as a bed, a scattering of mismatched armor and other clothing, a few small trunks and one very large one, a small table set with an empty plate and a cup, a chair crowned artistically with a tachuqi skull, and on the cracked walls, a few shelves and some hooks, one supporting a large and well-stained leather flask.

Her eyes came back to Zhuqa in the end. He was waiting for it, waiting for her to see him when he reached out to catch the door.

And pull it closed.

She glared at him. The glare was stupid, maybe, but she couldn’t stop it from happening. She could stand there without running and she could keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t help glaring. It was too easy to imagine how it might be to snatch up that lamp and throw it, too easy to see him coated in oil, flailing, burning.

He saw it too. He glanced at the lamp beside him and, with insolent slowness, dipped his finger in the bowl and passed it over the flame. It didn’t catch.

“Animal fat is far too valuable to burn,” he told her. “We use xuseth oil here. It burns clean, as you see, but catches slow.” He dipped his fingers again and rubbed the wick itself; the light guttered and nearly went out. “Learning to make wicks and seeing that I have enough light in my chambers will be part of your duties.” He knelt to unbuckle the belt that held her ankles, the belt at her knees, the belt at her thighs…and there he stopped, gazing speculatively at the mound of her pubis.

“Easy now,” he murmured, raising his hand.

Her thighs clenched, but she made that be all as he worked his finger between her folds. Well-oiled by xuseth, he moved back and forth along her opening several times before finally pushing up and inside her. Amber heard the angry sound catch in her throat and made it be the only one; felt her body tighten in a vain effort to force the invader out and made herself relax. It was going to happen no matter what she did, and the harder she fought before she lost, the more weapons she’d give him in all the fights to follow.

Zhuqa grunted pensively, questing deeper but with caution, until he withdrew and simply turned her around to unbind her arms.

“I keep my promises, Eshiqi, do you see?” he said, and straightened up to watch her rub painfully at her wealed skin as he coiled his weighted cord and set it aside. “I am told I’m not a hard man to serve. I won’t hurt you unless you demand it of me.” He studied her for a moment. “Say something. When I speak, you answer.”

She rolled her eyes. “Four-score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty. Fuck you.” She turned away.

“I doubt very much any of that wished me well. Watch yourself, little one. The day I learn that tongue may well be the day you lose yours.”

Amber licked her bloody lips and was quiet.

“The fact has not escaped me that you must have learned our words from someone. And the things we found at your fire were man-made. Where is he?”

If they were asking, they hadn’t found him. Amber hesitated, then glanced back at him and drew her finger across her throat.

He grunted, eyeing her with a smile. “You are going to some lengths to convince me that you are a dangerous slave to hold, Eshiqi. I appreciate your efforts, but I do mean to hold you. So. Here we come to it, little one. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if that’s the only way you’ll have it.”

He began to unfasten his harness.

Someone knocked.

Amber didn’t bother to look around. It wasn’t word of Meoraq, she knew that already. If her man were killing his way through the lot of them, no one would bother with this hesitant triple-tap. But somehow, the fact that they knocked at all came with its own vague feeling of offense, as if knocking were some fundamental human behavior they had usurped.

Zhuqa finished removing his harness before he answered it, letting his half-nakedness make a silent point to whoever stood beyond. He gave no word of greeting, not even a ‘What do you want?’ He held the door and waited.

“I interrupt you,” said an unfamiliar voice, amused but not apologetic. “Shall I wait in the hall?”

“Do you have a report?”

“I have the seeming of one. The bones of it are: No change. How many did you—What is that?”

“That is what you are interrupting. Get on with it.”

The raider in the doorway visibly wrestled with a remark, then apparently decided not to test his leader’s good humor any further. “Our westward patrol encountered some of Ghelip’s men the day after you left. They denied they were sent as an attack party at first—”

“Attack party? From Ghelip? How many were there?”

“Three, sir.”

“And they were killed?”

“Yes, sir, after interrogation. Salahkthu will have their full confessions—”

“Three.” Zhuqa gave his brow-ridges a knead. “Tell Salahkthu to resume normal patrols and to make his miserable skin available when I come up. Any other deaths to report?”

“No, sir.”

“No?”

“Only slaves.”

“How many?”

“I…”

“Make Hruuzk available as well.” Zhuqa started to shut the door, then opened it wide again, catching the other lizardman just about to slink off. “Zru’itak.”

It wasn’t a word she knew and the answer was no clearer when the other lizard said, “Not yet.”

Zhuqa grunted and shut the door. He stood, deep in thought, then strode past Amber to collect the waterskin from the hook on the wall. He uncapped it and drank, glanced at her, then held it out.

She shook her head.

He continued to hold it, now beginning to frown. “Come and take it, Eshiqi. You are for my comfort, not I for yours.”

She started to shake her head again, but then just went over and put out her hand. She was thirsty. If that made her a coward or a traitor or a weak little girl, too bad.

She drank. It stung her lips badly enough to bring tears smarting to her eyes and tasted so fantastically bilious that her first swallow came retching explosively back out of her. She heard him cough out a curse as he snatched up the waterskin she’d dropped, but he didn’t hit her and he even grabbed her by the arm when she staggered, supporting her until she knew she wouldn’t fall over.