She gasped as the officer unexpectedly pulled the medallion from her neck, snapping the chain. He slipped it in a pouch on his belt. “Quite the brave little amazon, aren’t you? And you are little, for an amazon. You’re about the same size as one of their eunuchs.”
“Er, we thought we’d put a claim on her ourselves if no one else wants her,” said ‘second voice’ hesitantly. “See if we can sell her to one of the slave guilds.”
“I see no problem,” said the officer. “Though I’d expect a percentage.”
“Oh, of course, sir,” said ‘second voice’. “Goes without saying, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said the officer dryly. “Now finish with her and rejoin your unit. We’ll be pulling out soon.”
“Yessir.” They made her remove her gloves, boots and weapons belt, then ‘second voice’ ran his hands over her clothes, presumably searching for any hidden weapons. She recoiled at his touch, fearing that this might be a prelude to rape.
The bomb was still there inside her. She could feel it tightly secure within its cloth wrapping. She wished that she had somehow lost it during the battle, or when she was unconscious.
But the search was quickly over and then she was being pushed towards an entrance in the side of the cage that one of the Sky Warriors had opened. She was shoved through it and heard the door swing shut behind her. “Make yourself comfortable with your friends while you can. Very soon you’ll be going on a very interesting ride,” said the officer and laughed.
Thankfully Jan sat down between two of the women. She felt very weak and her head still throbbed with appalling pain. As the officer and the two Warriors walked away, one of the latter carrying her breast plate and other equipment, the woman on her right said, “You’re the daughter of Headwoman Melissa, aren’t you? The one responsible for all this.”
Jan looked at her. She was vaguely familiar but Jan didn’t know her name. For a moment Jan was about to deny being Melissa’s daughter but decided against such a cowardly action. “My mother wasn’t responsible alone. The majority of the Council voted with her on two occasions.”
“All the same, it was her idea to defy the Sky Lord. And look what it’s gained us.” The woman raised a limp hand to indicate the smoking ruins of the town.
Jan sighed. She didn’t have the strength to argue. “Why didn’t you tell the Sky Warrior who I was?”
“I wasn’t sure at first. Now I am.” The woman’s glazed eyes regarded Jan with a cold contempt. Jan remembered the way Anna had looked when she’d attacked her. If it hadn’t been for the distraction afforded by the arrival of the Sky Warriors Anna would have surely killed her. Jan felt the weight of her despair increase even further. Not only was she in the hands of her enemies but she was hated by her own people. She glanced around the cage. Those who had overheard the woman’s words were staring at her with the same contempt, even the men. She closed her eyes. Let them do what they wanted.
It wasn’t fair, she reflected bitterly. It wasn’t fair that she was still alive. By all rights she shouldn’t be. She had been certain that she was going to die in the final battle at the hospital. The defenders had been swiftly overwhelmed and she had suddenly found herself alone in a sea of Sky Warriors. One of them was in front of her, raising the butt of his gun to club her, and she had lunged. After that she couldn’t remember anything. She presumed the butt had hit her as he fell, knocking her unconscious. With his body and blood covering her she’d been taken for dead until the heat of the battle was over and the Sky Warriors had started thinking about prisoners. She wondered what had happened to all the helpless wounded in the hospital, and then shut her mind to what she knew must have occurred. …
After about half an hour the rain eased off. She opened her eyes and looked up. The Sky Lord was still concealed in the grey murk but she sensed it hovered very low above them and she fancied she could hear the hum of its many engines. There were very few Sky Warriors in the square now and only one loading cradle remained. She guessed it wouldn’t be long before they would be leaving. She was puzzled why the cage hadn’t yet been hauled up into the Sky Lord. She looked again at the single rope tied to the top of the cage. It was thick but frayed. She didn’t relish the idea of it having to support twenty-one people, even for the short trip up to the Sky Lord.
A short time later the remaining loading cradle lifted off, carrying with it the rest of the Sky Warriors and their loot. But the cage continued to sit there in the bomb-ravaged square. Jan found this disturbing. What was in store for them?
With a protesting creak the wicker cage finally rose into the air. Jan and the others had to grab quickly for handholds as the cage began to rotate back and forth on the end of the rope which was also making creaking sounds of protest. One of the men cried out in alarm. Jan didn’t blame him.
Very soon they were enveloped in the greyness of the low cloud. Jan couldn’t even see the woman next to her. She clung harder to the wicker bars as the rotating got worse. She felt dizzy and shut her eyes but that didn’t help. As much as she feared having to go on board the Sky Lord she prayed to the Mother God that the journey up to it wouldn’t take much longer.
After what seemed a very long time the cage emerged from the cloud. Jan opened her eyes and looked up. Overhead, as frightening as ever in its sheer immensity, hung the Lord Pangloth. It was some two to three hundred feet above them. The rope attached to the cage looked as substantial as a piece of cotton trailing from the belly of the vast airship. Then Jan realized something that nearly made her void her bowels in terror.
The cage was rising as the Sky Lord continued to rise but it wasn’t being winched upwards. The cage was being allowed just to dangle at the end of the rope. A look down at the receding surface of the cloud layer below the cage confirmed this fear. They were rising rapidly above the cloud but not getting any closer to the Sky Lord.
The others had begun to notice this as well. “What’s wrong?” wailed one woman. “Why aren’t they pulling us up?”
The cage, still spinning back and forth, continued to make its alarming creaking noises. Jan wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole thing fell to pieces around them. The woven floor, through which she could see the clouds below, looked especially insubstantial. She decided to climb a short way up the side of the cage and hook her arms and legs through the gaps of the weave. It wasn’t very comfortable but she felt more secure.
“We’re still not moving!” cried someone. “What are those bastards up to?”
“They’re going to cut the rope! I know it!” cried another, her voice rising in panic. Someone else, a man, began to sob.
Jan had been thinking the same thing. Either that or Sky Warriors intended leaving them down here in the cage until they died of thirst, hunger, exposure or all three. But what had been all that talk of selling her into slavery?
Her teeth were chattering. It was getting colder the higher they went and she, like the others, was soaking wet. Oh well, she told herself, I’m going to get my wish after all. I’m going to die. …
But when, a few minutes later, the woman who had recognized her said: “One of us should climb up there and untie the rope. Better to die at our own hand than at the hands of those male monsters”—Jan had quickly objected. She still wanted to die but not that way. She couldn’t bear to think of the long drop down through the clouds to that final awful impact far below.
The woman sneered at her. “So much for the honour of Melissa’s family. Her daughter is a coward.”
“I’m not! You don’t understand … it is for the honour of Minerva and my mother that I must reach the Sky Lord alive.”