Chapter 11: Whisked Away into Bondage

Igrud stood petrified at the carnage that unfolded in the island village. Her senses, instincts, and the terror that gripped her heart urged her to flee, but her eyes could not stray from the massacre.

Her parents. Where were her parents! Garos, Freyza, Jivril, the village leader, did they escape? Her thoughts were a whirlwind of anxiety and dread. If it was this bad here, then the village center was certain to be one of the pirates' first targets. After several moments of hesitation, she quickly moved to circumnavigate the fray. She had to reach the village center. She had to know what happened to her parents and friends before she too was killed. Let them be okay, she pleaded.

A maelstrom of fire licked its long tongues of amber and gold into the night sky. The center was in immolated ruins. The heat was too intense to even stand ten meters away from the longhouse structure, as its massive frame and composition of tropical leaves and lumber qualified it as rather combustible. Surely, they must have gotten away, she didn't see anyone there at all.

She rushed to Garos' hut. It was some distance away, and in between, there would assuredly be many pirates. She stayed the growing urge to run away and continued onwards toward her goal.

Igrud was halfway there, when she spotted her mother, hiding among the ruins of a hut that had been torn down manually, rather than by fire. She was alive!

A small sigh of relief escaped from her chest. If her mother had survived, then surely the others had too. She quickened her pace toward her mother. She waved her hands over her head, to get her attention.

The wave gradually slowed, and her hands dropped to her sides. Of course, that's why her mother hadn't responded to her gestures. She must have found out that she had gone to the beach without her permission, and was furious about it. That had to be it. There was no possible explanation, other than that. It had to be... no...

Igrud fell to her knees in front of the body of her departed mother. She had died of blood loss, having multiple deep slashes across the face and chest. Fur had been ripped out, as patches of bare, pink skin shone in the moonlight above. Though Igrud was unaware of it at her tender, young age, it appeared they had their way with the body, as some with rather despicable tastes might do to another race.

Blood smeared on Igrud's clothes. She had thrown herself on the body, tears rolling down the fur of her cheeks. Her mother was gone. Igrud wailed passionately. Her voice cried out to a night sky that would forever look down in apathy on the soon-to-be deserted island.

-

Igrud stayed there for some time, for how long she couldn't remember. The only thing she could recall was the rough hands of the pirate that had stolen up behind her and grabbed her by the neck. She struggled to breathe as he carried the young tigerkin away. The comrade that followed the pirate helped him to bind her hands and feet in thick ship cordage.

It was the decree of their captain that all of the children small enough to carry away were to be taken as slaves. The rest of the villagers that were too large, or old and sickly were to be butchered or burned alive, either method was fine so long as they were disposed of.

"This is a fine catch here, iddn'it?"

"Y'got that right. I'd wager she'd fetch five Azalinian golds back at port-side."

"How much y'wagerin'?"

"Two silvers."

"You're on!"

The two pirates shared a hearty laugh at their meaningless bet. They both knew that she would sell for far more than that at an auction. Their banter went unnoticed by Igrud, who couldn't understand the language they spoke.

They hauled their catch back to the shore, where a small flotilla of landing boats was beached to receive their precious cargo. With the greatest of care, they heaved Igrud into one of the boats, whereupon she struck her head against the hard, unforgiving gunwales of the boat. As you might expect, this sequence of events was not conducive to conscious activity by the young tigerkin. Thus, young Igrud's vision failed her.

-

She awakened to a pounding headache and the unintelligible yells of her captors. It was dark. So dark she couldn't see her hand in front of her face.

Running her hand on the back of her head yielded a warm, wet sensation. It smelled like blood.

Igrud was numb to it. The pain was nothing to her. She had already felt something far worse.

She lapsed into another fit of tears. Everything was gone. Her mother, her father, the village. Everything she had grown to love, was gone in moments.

The inky blackness of the still space she awoke in closed in around her. It pressed against her, crawled around in her clothes, sunk beneath her fur and into her skin. Throughout her body, it dominated her senses, her muscles, all the way to the root of her ringed tail. Though the darkness had no material being, its mere presence began to fill her with an insurmountable dread.

She hadn't noticed it before, but it was in the village with her too. It was there, goading the pirates to press the attack. It was there as she clung to the still corpse of her mother, taunting her grief, and berating her selfish desires to see her friends and family once more. It greeted her when she struck her head on the inside of the boat. And now, in this place, the foul, humid, suffocating plane of darkness that she found herself in, it would be her sadistic host.

Igrud's limbs shook. Her tail quivered. The urge to scream in terror caught in her throat by a lump engendered by the same pure horror. Yes. This is how the young tigerkin had learned to fear the dark, and a harsh, cruel lesson it was.

-

Time dragged by without a word in passing. The yelling on deck had plateaued into a low roar. The ship was departing the island.

By this time, Igrud had fallen into a state of half-comatose, half-conscious convalescence. The melancholy one feels after grieving for so long after a heavy loss had set in. If there was one thing Igrud would have chosen to do, given the option and the ability to do so, it would be to end her life right there and then. There was nothing more she wished to do. Even if there was something, she would have readily set it aside for the sake of her immediate demise.

In a more sober state of mind, Igrud may have been able to deduce where she was currently held captive. However, she hadn't the presence of mind to do so. She might as well have been in the underworld, for all she cared.

She barely reacted to the sound of footsteps, and the sudden light that appeared in the darkness. A guard was coming. In his right hand he carried a lantern, and in his left arm was a still form.

He opened the door to Igrud's cell. He threw the body into the cell with her. It landed with a muted thud alongside her.

The guard left after a brief peek inside the cell, locking the door behind him. He returned into the dark corridor he had come from.

During the moment afforded by the guard's lantern, Igrud's eyes had caught a glimpse of her cell and the immediate vicinity around it. It was a small one and a half by two-meter cell, with iron bars and an equally iron-like door sealing all entry and exit to and from the cell. Beyond the cell's iron bars, she could see the opposite side of the corridor. There were cells there too. It was too dim to see their occupants, but it was certain she had neighbors, most likely to the left and the right of her cell as well.

Igrud lay motionless upon the floor, unmoved throughout the entire visitation. She hadn't the will to ascertain who or what the guard had left in her cell. All she could do was dwell on the vivid imagery that was permanently burned into her memory.

-

The tigerkin was pulled from her stupor by a rustling sound that came from the thing the guard had left behind. It groaned.

"Ow ow ow... that hurts..."

Igrud started at the voice. It was familiar.

"Jivril, is that you?"

"Who...? ...Is that you Igrud?"

For the first time since she had wound up on the ship, Igrud's heart leapt for joy. She had given up all hope on ever seeing the missing friends and family she had been torn away from.

"Jivril, is that really you!? I was so worried!"

"Yeah... it's me... ouch..."

"Jivril, what happened to everyone. Where is my father. Where is Garos? Where is everybody?"

Jivril paused for a moment to groan again in pain. He took a deep breath.

"I don't know anything about anyone else. All I know is that a lot of the neighbors went missing once the fighting broke out. But..."

He choked. Igrud waited anxiously for him to continue.

"Igrud... Garos...he's dead!"

The joy that welled in her heart after reuniting with her friend departed as quickly as it came, if not faster. She felt like she had already cried all the tears she could, so none came from the sudden news. She replied, her voice flat and emotionless.

"How did he die?"

"He...protected me...sniffle...our huts are close to each other, right?"

Igrud grunted to the affirmative.

"We... when we went outside to see what was going on, somebody grabbed me and started choking me... Garos jumped on them, and bit into their throat..."

His sobs started to overcome his ability to speak.

"B-b-but there was another one behind him... a-a-and he stabbed Garos with a sword..."

He broke out into a wail.

"HE DID IT ALL TO PROTECT ME!"

Igrud smiled. The tears she thought she had run out of returned once more. She wasn't wrong to admire Garos. She still does, but forevermore she would treasure his selfless bravery. If she had to describe the feelings she felt for him now, she would have said it was love.

"Thank you for telling me, Jivril. T-thank you."

-

Over time, the sound of the crew's voices on the deck above increased in volume. Something was happening.

The dark cell was tolerable with Jivril there to talk to. Though they hadn't any small talk that they could share, they would still quietly call out to each other.

"Are you there."

It wasn't much, but the solidarity those words conveyed was more than enough to lift their spirits. Igrud had told Jivril about her mother's fate, which caused him to burst yet again into tears. They shared their sorrows, which gave them some amount of comfort in their wretched situation.

Activity on deck quickly increased. The sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the corridor of cells. A lantern's glow could be seen cast against the floor of the corridor.

The door to Igrud and Jivril's cell opened. The face of an especially horrid individual leered in at them. He eyed them both up and down, as though to appraise them for their health.

He motioned for a trio of comrades to enter. They hoisted the bound Igrud and Jivril onto their shoulders and carried them out into the corridor.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Igrud could see a number of the cell doors down the line were opened too. Other groups of pirates were hauling out various creatures the likes of which she had never laid eyes on before. Some bore an uncanny resemblance to the pirates that carried them, yet they possessed limbs and appendages of animals. Tails, claws, fangs, ears, and many others with wings. Apparently, the tigerkin wasn't the only race these pirates dealt in.

Igrud and Jivril were carried out into the blinding sunlight onto the deck of the ship from below. Crew members scurried about the deck and many others who also carried with them their precious, live cargo. Their foot bonds were loosed, and they were beaten into a huddled group at the center of the deck to await offloading.

Igrud and Jivril both looked beyond the deck railing to see where they were. The dazzling view of the port at which the ship was caught their eyes, which were sensitive after months spent in the darkness of their cell, off guard.

Azaline, the port town situated on the southern edge of the human continent, lay before them.