Historical Setting: An unknown time in a cold land
An apprehension shadows me as I walk toward the sunset unprepared for nightfall. I feel like I’m being stalked. I no longer fear wolves or any sort of wild thing seeking prey. And how often is this feeling of another presence discovered to be the comfort of answered prayer for God’s closeness?
But maybe this isn’t a feeling of someone near so much as it is little hints I can sense – a waft of a human scent — a vibration of footsteps through the snow coated sand — a little stirring among leaves caught side-sighted. But why would a person hide from me? I’m nothing to fear. I have no weapons. I’m dressed only in deer skins. I have no torque or breastplate, no armor.
“Hello? Is someone out there?”
I Catch a glint of steel shining orange in reflection of the sinking sun.
“Who’s there?”
I awaken in the dark, chained on a sled along with supplies of firewood, venison and hides. We are sliding through the darkness, leaving that sled trail I had hoped would take me to humankind. Men are shouting in a language I don’t know. It sounds like grunts and curses more than growls or words. Every syllable has a hard edge. These words start with a breath but end with a cough. Not knowing of this language, it seems wise not to call out in my own. So, I am silent for a long ride. We end at a hovel made with boards laid on arches of saplings, with hides laid over for a roof to cover a door. It takes both hefty men to toss me into this place while I’m still bound in heavy chains, then the men leave with the sled.
Here, there’s a rock hardly a hearthstone, but on it, a fire burning with only a few glowing ashes. The smoke rising is released through gaps between the boards. In the smokey cold of this little space I see someone else also here.
“You are a thrall?” a voice of woman asks me in my own language, but I don’t know what that means.
“Thrall?”
“Trael is their word for it. You are a slave?”
“Judging by these chains I can guess that is so.”
“Mostly they kill the men when they capture a people. They sack the cities and kill the men, and make the women thrall.”
“Who are they?” I ask.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 