Chapter 1 part 3
     Laughing Coyote woke up feeling worse than he could ever remember feeling in his life. His mouth both tasted and felt as if toads had taken refuge there. His temples pounded and the light that filtered through the blanket over his head seemed painfully bright. Ugh, why won’t the room stop lurching? He ached all over and his arms were stiff, he could scarcely feel his hands behind his back. Wait a moment. He tried to move his arms and felt rough rope bite into his wrists. He struggled franticly for a few moments but froze when he heard the heavy thud of feet nearby, very nearby.
     Bright sunlight pierced his eyes as the blanket was pulled suddenly off. He winced away as cruel hands seized his arms and pulled him roughly upright. It was the surly fellow with cornsilk hair from the night before. He seemed disgustingly cheerful this morning.
     “Skraeling! Sun up, you too!” Cornsilk hair bellowed in an over-loud voice and shook him for emphasis. I think I’m going to be sick he thought and then almost immediately was. That dampened the blonde’s cheer right away and he half dragged and half carried him to the ships edge and hung him over the side.
     Nothing but sea and sky met his startled eyes. Cornsilk hair was yelling, holding him by an arm and a painful fistful of his own black hair. The hard wood of the railing dug painfully into his already rebellious stomach causing another outburst. The blonde let go and jumped back with a cry of disgust leaving him teetering on the edge, helpless with hands bound behind him.
     There was a deeper bellow and more yelling and hands seized the sash at his waist and hauled him back to sit with a thump at the feet of the older one who’d spoken well but infrequently and smiled too much. He wasn’t smiling now. His blue eyes seemed brighter and colder than the cloudless sky above.
     Laughing Coyote looked up at what was obviously the leader, squinting in the bright morning light. He was short, dressed in plain leathers and horsehair pants. There was grey in his yellow hair which was oddly shaved in a sort of reverse warrior’s que; a bald spot on top with the hair around flowing down instead of a lock of hair at the very top and the rest clean-shaven. Cornsilk hair stood next to him covered in vomit and grumbling in aggrieved tones until a curt gesture silenced him.
     “Are you quite done with that?” His voice was as cold as his eyes. The scarlet-clad giant from last night stood at his side along with another he didn’t recognize in blue. Behind sulky Cornsilk he could see several others lounging against the ships sloped sides and against the lashed tarps covering barrels and crates of cargo down the middle. More than just several more like a dozen.
     He smiled weakly at the elder “I don’t think that I like drinking very much after all.” This got a smirk from the old one and a furiously unamused glare from Cornsilk. The fat one in scarlet and the thin one in blue sniggered. There was a sniffle behind him and he glanced briefly over his shoulder to see six young men and boys in a miserable huddle. The youngest looked barely old enough to have his name and he was crying.
     The old one watched him with a faint sneer, he met it with a look of earnest confusion. “I seem to have gotten tangled in rope somehow.” He offered with a shrug of his arms. This got a short bark of laughter from the old grey-hair.
     “I’m not going to have any trouble from you.” It was more a statement than a question.
     Laughing Coyote nodded vigorously, winced and then nodded again with exaggerated care. “I try my best to stay out of trouble.”
     That earned him a long cool look before the grey-hair said something to the one in blue who came forward pulling a knife from his belt. My knife! From my belt! He hadn’t noticed their absence until now. A proper steel blade that is and a gift from uncle Iron Crow.
     The rope around his wrists parted and he brought his arms around and rubbed them before putting his hands flat on the deck and starting to push himself up. The knife-stealer was still behind him. With his hands as a base he lashed out both feet in a switch-kick knocking the thief flat. He brought his legs back and rolled quickly to his feet intending to grab his knife, but the thief hadn’t dropped it when he fell and slashed viciously at him with his own blade.
     He backed up but also glanced back to see Scarlet and Cornsilk advancing on him. He backed up again, almost into them as though unaware of their presence then suddenly dropped and kicked one leg out. Scarlet’s huge bulk went crashing down sideways onto Cornsilk-hair. He spun out and up, hopping away from the sprawl of flailing limbs.
     The knife-thief was on his feet and coming towards him and the leader was shouting the others forward while staying away from the fallen pair who struggled to untangle themselves while simultaneously fighting each other to be first to get up.
     The only place to go was up the pole in the middle of the boat so he leapt and grabbed and shimmied up it as fast as he could. He climbed up to the place where a woven nest of ropes held a small pair of crossed bars that seemed made to stand on. Certainly the red and white sail wasn’t attached to it in any way. He stood on the crossbar with the pole at his back and looked down on the figures below. The squat leader looked even shorter from this height and the wind tore away whatever he was shouting as he shook an impotent fist up at him.
     He took a look across the horizon hoping against logic that a higher vantage might allow him to spot land, but there was nothing but sea and sky all around. He looked down again to see Scarlet and Cornsilk fighting to be first up the pole after him.
     Laughing Coyote became aware suddenly of a most inconvenient need; he had purged the last of that foul liquid from his stomach, but there was yet another reservoir that needed to be emptied. He looked down to see Cornsilk starting to climb and Scarlet standing just below him waiting impatiently.
     Smirking he reached down and pulled his manhood out of his breechcloth and let the impure water flow out of his body with a great sigh of relief. Pain in his lower back ebbed away, a dull ache he hadn’t noticed beneath the cacophony of other complaints.
     There were shrieks and bellows of outrage from below and he looked down one last time as he was finishing and started, then very quickly tucked himself back into his clothes. He turned and started climbing the pole even quicker than he had before. Who knew a fat man could climb so fast?
     He climbed up the pole towards the top crosspiece which swayed alarmingly with the tossing waves and the wind which tore at his hair and clothes. He could hear Scarlet snarling in a most bear-like fashion below him. He was nearly to the top and wasn’t sure at all what he was going to do when he got there.
     Then he was there, swaying at the topmost point as bereft of ideas as he was places to go. He might’ve crawled along the horizontal pole and jumped into the icy water and made a swim for it but he couldn’t see any land at all even from the top. He might also have tried to slide down one of the many ropes, but he was a musician among other things and cared more for his hands than that.
     A hard angry hand seized his leg and yanked savagely downward. He yelped in fear and clutched the thick pole tightly, wrapping arms and legs around it lest the fat one pull him off to fall to his death. But that wasn’t Scarlet’s intention; he pulled on his legs then his sash then shoulders pulling and then pushing him down the pole, down past the sweaty bulk of his stomach down to the even angrier hands of Cornsilk.
     Cornsilk seized his legs and yanked hard pulling him down while Scarlet started kicking him from above, obliging him to let go of the pole to protect his head, which then of course caused him to slide very quickly down onto Cornsilk hitting him on the shoulder and nearly knocking him off. Fortunately they hit the nest of ropes and the crossbars at that point and stopped quite suddenly.
     Rather, Cornsilk stopped suddenly with a shrill scream and he stopped a moment later when he slid into the blonde’s arms and onto his lap. This caused only a repressed grunt and Laughing Coyote quickly extricated himself from Cornsilk’s stunned arms and climbed down till he was just above reach of anyone on the deck.
     The grey-hair was looking up at him with eyes like glaciers “Come down” he called.
     “I come from a very important family you know.” He informed without moving.
     “Really? What kind of important?”
     “The kind of important that is wealthy and connected and fond of kin.” He returned the icy look with a cool and lofty stare of his own trying to ignore what sounded like Scarlet climbing over Cornsilk above him.
     “Come down and we’ll talk.”
     After a pause to consider and to sneak a glance up the pole he nodded solemnly and climbed the rest of the way down. They waited until he’d let go and was firmly standing before they seized him and threw him face down on the deck.
     “Wait!” He struggled fruitlessly, there was a man pining each of his limbs down. “My grandfather is one of the three Elders in charge of Okmulgi!”
     They were pulling his jacket and his shirt off together while still holding his arms down. Scarlet had gotten down and came and sat on him with a rib-creaking thump. He could scarcely breathe as they tied his hands together over his head. When the fat one finally got off of him at a shout from the leader all he could do was gasp air.
     “Skraeling! You walked free into my gamebag yet already I think you are worth more trouble than I paid for you.” He held a length of knotted rope in his hands which he thoughtfully folded twice.
     “My family will want me back unharmed.” He emphasized the last word while twisting against the ropes and hard hands holding him to look up at their leader.
     Grey-hair crouched down next to him balancing easily on his heels even with the constant reeling of the ship and ran a callused hand up his naked back pushing his long hair over his shoulder.
     “Oh, I’m not going to harm you. I’m doing you a favor. Clearly you were not beaten enough as a child. I will correct that.”
     Laughing Coyote wanted to protest that his father had beaten him plenty but knew this would likely only inspire greater efforts. The knife-stealer held his wrists and unseen others held his legs. He tried to prepare himself but the first stroke came quickly, Grey-hair wasted no more time in ceremony or speech but simply stood and started lashing his bare back with the knotted rope.
     He didn’t cry out but his breath shuddered with each blow that rained down on his unprotected skin. He buried his head in his arms and prayed the oldster would tire quickly. But when he finally did declare his arm fatigued it was only to hand the rope over to Cornsilk who delighted in laying hard strokes in quick succession all up and down his body. He was grateful he had on thick winter leggings but they still left the tops of his thighs and sides of his hips bare.
     After being told several times to stop hitting him in the head Cornsilk was backhanded and the rope was taken away and given to Scarlet who pounded him with hard steady strokes. When he still refused to cry out the ones holding his legs pulled them apart and with Cornsilk’s shouted encouragement Scarlet hit him right in the spot where no man could resist crying out.
     He couldn’t repress the shrill scream that tore its way out of his throat anymore than he could fight the pain that overwhelmed his senses. They all laughed and Cornsilk shouted something and Scarlet hit him again. Whether he screamed again or not he didn’t know, pain and nausea rose up in a wave that washed consciousness away.
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