Sir Bevier, hopeful future priest of the Elenic Church, Viscount of the Court of Arcium, Champion of the Cyrinic Order of Church Knights, renowned equally for his courage and his piety, had to relieve himself.

He had been riding along the border with Rendor through a vast wasteland for the past week, and despite the nigh-on unbearable heat, the poor quality of food and the careful rationing of water between himself and his horse, he had born his sufferings in stoic silence. Until now. Having managed to oversleep, he had forgone breakfast and instead gulped two water rations in the hope that it would calm his hunger for long enough to catch up the lost distance. It had been a rash move, but he had still been only half awake, and to make things worse, it had been a futile one.

Finally acknowledging the desperation of his current plight, he carefully scanned the Rendorish desert to his right before glancing cursorily at the Elenic land to his left. Dismounting, he looped his long-suffering horse’s reins over its head and firmly attached a length of rope to the bridle. Then, turning away and walking a few steps further into his homeland, he proceeded to appease the warning pressure in his bladder.

Sighing, he murmured an apology to God for his public offence. The sun was rapidly rising to its peak and Bevier could almost feel its angry glare. Despite this, his relief that he hadn’t been forced to embarrass himself in a place more populated was what proved to be his misfortune, or his good luck if you would regard it as that, which he later came to do.

The first tug on the rope in his fist was ignored; he presumed his horse was getting restless. The second, however, was more violent, and he began to make himself more presentable, muttering about the beast’s impatience. The soft whisper of fabric on skin, followed by the chilling rasp of steel on steel, made him look up, caught in possibly the most awkward position of his not-quite thirty years. The sight of the unfamiliar, presumably Rendorish tribe encircling him, savage, curved swords drawn was all that had time to register in his mind before pain shot from the back of his skull through every limb in his body, fizzing through his arms and stinging in the tips of his fingers.

Dimly he felt his valiant horse struggle, recognising the strangers as something to fear, but the creature’s resistance soon ended. Somewhere overhead – and how had he got onto the ground, Bevier wondered incoherently – there was the harsh, guttural bark of a foreign tongue, and he had the brief thought that this was not in any way a good thing, then the pain intensified and there was blessed oblivion engulfing his senses.

When the knight woke again, it was night. He was heartily grateful for that; the throbbing behind his eyes and his slightly blurred vision told him that daylight would have been agony to endure. His first few moments of wakefulness were occupied by trying to subdue the pain, with a moderate degree of success. Then, he finally dared to look around at his surroundings, and two things immediately struck him.

One was, of course, the darkness; to confirm his first impression, his ‘prison’ was lit by soft, flickering candlelight emanating from rough, cheap candles strategically placed around the circular room. The second thing that struck him was that, rather than being in a solid, fortified cell as he had at first supposed he would be, he was in fact in a tent.

As far as tents went, it was nothing elaborate. A simple, squat, round construction, it was furnished with a stack of coarse but plush pillows (he had been in worse conditions in the past), a single flap currently closed, which he assumed was the entrance, and the thick pole to which he was currently tied by a rope around his wrists. When the implications of that sunk in, his full memory returned with a vengeance, and he cursed violently.

“Rendors! Brilliant, Bevier. It’s not like anyone would have stopped them crossing the border, but do you think about that? No. You just assumed that they wouldn’t dare to taint Elene territory with their filth. Heathens! Barbarians!”

His bitter outburst was abruptly cut off by the sound of the tent flap rustling. Squinting, which made his head give a spiteful throb of pain, he made out the silhouette of a person in the murkiness at the entrance to his prison. Tensing warily, he brought his bound hands up in front of him, prepared to strike out. However, when the person came into the light in a strange, shuffling gait, he found himself catching his breath sharply, the air hissing in through his teeth.

The intruder was a woman. He knew that straight off; despite being totally shrouded in a shapeless, cloak-type garment, her size gave that away. She was, in a word, tiny, standing at not much over five feet if he had to guess. Her veil revealed none of her face but her eyes; it was her eyes, however, that made his heart skip a beat before settling into a restless, jerky rhythm. They were almond-shaped, thickly lashed and such a rich dark brown that he could have sworn they were black.

When she paused in the light, it took him a moment to realise that she wasn’t looking at him, but somewhere over his right shoulder. Frowning, he glanced that way, but only empty air met his eyes. Hearing her move, he lifted his arms again defensively, but found that she had merely knelt to his level. Silent, she offered a bowl of water towards him, bowing her head submissively. Utterly bewildered, Bevier reached out to take it.

When his hands briefly touched hers, she flinched away as though it had been unexpected, the bowl of water tipping precariously. Hearing her soft gasp, he caught it before the contents could escape, seeing her beautiful eyes close in relief. It wasn’t until she opened them and the pupils didn’t adjust to the light that it finally clicked; she was blind. Sorrow welled in him, mixed with fear. It was one of his greatest, most secret phobias to lose one of his senses, preventing him from maintaining his place in the Order, making him a dependant.

Realising that the girl was still kneeling beside him, he looked at her quizzically, only to find that she had almost prostrated herself, still on her knees but with her head bent low, lowered almost but not quite to the floor, arms steady where they were raised towards him. Confused, he handed her back the bowl. She sat up again gracefully, keeping it steady, but when she felt the weight of the water still in it, she hurriedly bowed again, offering it back to him.

Understanding, Bevier accepted the offering and drank gratefully. Until she had given him a means of relief, he hadn’t realised quite how thirsty he was. Carefully leaning forward, he placed the bowl firmly in her grasp, and when she went to move away, he rested a hand on her arm. It was almost as though he had struck her: her entire body flinched hard away from him before she froze, her enchanting eyes wide with shock and what he recognised in surprise was fear.

Releasing her arm, he was glad to see her relax slightly, although she remained still. Taking a deep breath, he spoke clearly and slowly. “I know you will not understand me, but thank you. I shall remember your kindness.”

It was, therefore, to his great surprise that those soft, doe-like eyes blinked and she rose to her feet. “You are… welcome.”

Her voice was quiet, hushed as though she was afraid to be overheard, and though her words were slow and slightly stilted, it couldn’t disguise the hypnotic quality of her speech. Her accent was totally alien to him, a musical hum not unlike that of the Tamuls, but lighter somehow, as though she were laughing inside. Her voice itself was surprisingly low-pitched for a woman of her stature, making a pleasant warmth suffuse the air between them.

She bowed in a manner that was as unfamiliar to him as her accent, her arms crossed over her chest, palms flat against her shoulders. Holding her bent position, she began to back out of the tent, head bowed in servile humility. As she finally turned to lift the tent flap, he regained his ability to speak.

“Wait!”

She winced again at his sharp exclamation, turning her head quickly to whatever lay outside. When nobody seemed to have heard him, she tilted her head in a strangely bird-like gesture, waiting. Bevier swallowed, not sure why he’d called out to her. After a moment, he shook himself angrily.

“Are you one of them? The Rendors?”

Her expressive, unseeing eyes were liquid with sorrow. “Not Rendors.” Her whisper barely carried to him, and as she bent to leave, a glimmer of light around her feet caught his attention. Squinting, he made out a delicate silver chain that was wrapped tightly around one of her ankles, spanning the distance between her feet with hardly any slack before it twined around her other ankle.

Realisation hit him like lightning and he looked up into her beautiful, pain-filled eyes with dawning horror. “You’re a… slave. They aren’t Rendors. They’re slavers.”

The only response he got was the gentle swish as the tent flap closed behind her, leaving Bevier to his uneasy thoughts.