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Fen stumbled in surprise as she went through the tunnel of light and into the strangest barn she had ever seen. It was made entirely of a gray-blue metal, with metal grating under her feet and small metal pens that each slave was being directed into.
One of the cat-helmed guards gestured to her, and she stepped inside the nearest one. Before she sensed him move, he locked a metal collar around her throat.
The guard said something to her, but seeing her blank expression, he reached out and fiddled with the band of metal.
"Can you understand me now, slave?" the guard demanded, and Fen nodded.
"Good. It means your collar is doing its job and translating. Take off everything you are wearing and place it on the grid in the back. Don't step on it, or you'll regret it," the guard instructed.
Fen didn't hesitate. The gods hadn't saved her. She didn't expect them to do it now. She unclipped her blue seiðr cloak and pulled off her sodden boots, tunic, and trousers. The guard gestured at the leather ties in her hair, so she unraveled her filthy braid and placed them on her boots. The only item she hesitated over was the Thor's hammer amulet hanging around her neck.
"He's not listening to your prayers either," she said miserably and dropped the necklace on the grid.
As soon as she was naked and shivering, a blue flame leaped up through the holes in the grid, burning all that remained of her past. Fen didn't have time to mourn her possessions. She yelped in surprise as warm water shot out of the small holes in the walls, hosing down all the mud and blood from her hair and body.
What magic are they using to make this happen?Fen couldn't imagine.
There were so few stories of the Sand and Sky people, and those that went through a Sky Bridge never returned to tell anyone what they had seen.
The water stopped only to be replaced by a floral-smelling air jet that dried her off. The guard tossed her a tied bundle, and Fen dressed in an undyed linen dress that came to her knees and tied around her waist. She pulled on the leather sandals as the door to the pen opened. The guard thrust a small amphora at her.
"Drink this and don't spit it out, or I'll have you whipped."
It was sticky and thick, like drinking a herbal tree sap. She gagged twice, but Fen managed to finish it. Her stomach turned as the potion hit it. She doubted they would take her this far to poison her. A dead slave wasn't any use to them.
Not that it mattered anymore. If Odin had really abandoned her, there would be no place in Valhalla for her anymore.
"This one is de-contaminated and ready to be taken out," the guard called, and Fen was hustled back into another line of clean slaves.
"Where do you think they are taking us now?" a small man whispered beside her.
"Probably to work until we die," someone muttered in reply. "A slave life is never one of value. I doubt these people are much better than the fuckers that sold us."
Fen touched the collar at her throat, feeling an engraving stamped into the metal. She looked sideways at the shivering slave beside her and saw that the engraving was of the same type of big cat as the guard's helms. A mark of ownership.
You're lucky. They could be branding your ass like cattle right now.
The slave next to her started sobbing, and Fen stepped away from them, straightening her shoulders. She was a shield maiden; she wasn't going to snivel over the fate the gods had tossed her into, even if she didn't understand it, and she felt alone for the first time in her life.
"Get ready to move out," one of the guards called to the assembled slaves. The blades of their spears lit up with crackling orange light, and several slaves gasped in horror.
"Look at these dumb barbarians! They panic like animals as soon as they see something sparkle," said the guard closest to Fenrys. She fought the urge to take his magic spear and show him just what a dumb barbarian could do with it.
What would be the point? You don't know how to get the Sky Bridge opened anyway.
Fen didn't have time to contemplate it. A roar of metal scraping against metal filled the air as the front of the barn opened to the dazzling sun outside. She had thought the barn was impressive, but nothing could have prepared her for the city outside of it.
They walked out onto a long pier, the broad river full of boats on one side and a city of stone on the other. Fen tilted her head back to stare at the imposing walls and the guards patrolling them.
"Any of you try and run, and you will be executed," the guard leading the column shouted back. Not one of the slaves looked like they would dare.
They crossed through the wooden city gates, following the lead of their guards. The streets were paved in stone, and the houses on either side were two-storied square blocks with mud walls and roofs thatched with reeds.
Brown and black people dressed in colorful robes and loose dresses stared and pointed them out to inquisitive children. One of the bolder boys asked a guard if they were ghosts or monsters. The guard laughed loudly.
"No, child. They are Amun's half-made. That's why they are so small and ugly," he told him.
Fen had never heard of Amun, but she stored the name and information away at the back of her mind, out of habit and training.
