Kadi took another step, her bare foot sinking into the burning sand. By now, she hardly noticed it. She’d taken so many steps already, across the burning dunes of the Junkar desert. It was said the sands stretched over 200 hundred leagues, as the caravan routes went. She forced herself to move the other foot in front of it, another step, crossing another infinitesimal part of that endless distance.
She staggered, jerked forward briefly as the rope at her neck went taut. She’d slowed and the young woman in front of her had gotten too far ahead. Kadi picked up the pace, only to be jerked backwards as she outpaced the one behind her. She gave a pained groan, muffled by the wooden bit between her teeth. Her arms fluttered behind her back, useless, bound at the wrists with leather cords. Eventually, she managed to find the pace again and staggered forward, head bowed.
When she raised her head, as she did to scan the horizon, praying to see green and blue ahead of them only to be disappointed, Kadi could see the girl ahead of her line, the rope between them swaying back and forth as they both shuffled along. Beyond her, another two score of women marched in the long slave coffle and though she couldn’t see them, she knew a similar number were led along behind her. Like her, they had their hands bound, bitgags in their mouths and like her they had been stripped naked.
Some Kadi knew, women and girls from her village who had been swept in the sudden raid. They’d been taken to a trading post and sold to the slavers, along with women and girls from half a dozen other raided villages and roped together into the long slave coffle.
On either side of the women, their captors rode slowly atop their camels, occasional sparing a glance at their prisoners. They didn’t need much more then that. To attempt escape would only mean certain death in the Junkar desert and their only hope of survival was to keep moving, to reach the next oasis, the next well and the life saving water there.
Kadi’s mouth felt as dry as the sands, even as water poured off her darkly tanned skin in rivers of sweat. The slavers gave their captives a small mouthful of water in the morning, another when the rested out the hot noonday sun and a final one in the evening. If they were slow to reach the next watering spot, this would be rationed even further. Each captive knew, and feared, if things got bad enough the slavers would not hesitate to abandon some, or all of them, to stretch what water they had further. More then once on the march they’d passed the bleached bones of caravans which had come to misfortune in the deserts.
Another step, biting the wooden bit as her bare sole burned on the hot sand. Kadi didn’t know how to calculate how many more lay ahead of her before they stopped for the night, to huddle together in their bonds against the chill night air. How many more days of scorching sun lay ahead after that. Eventually, though, they would cross the desert. Beyond it lay the coast and the great port city of Huntar, with its busy slave markets. And then their real ordeal would begin...