It was morning. The crimson sails of the Corsair ship caught the first light of dawn as it sailed through the dark waters along the rugged coastline of Harondor. A salty breeze carried the scent of distant shores, mixed with the smell of tarred wood and damp ropes as the crew moved about their duties. Below the deck the air was thick with sweat and desperation. Chained prisoners from a raided Harad village huddled in the dim light among crates of plundered goods. Their whispered prayers drowned beneath the ship’s relentless creaking. The hazy outline of Tolfalas’ southern shore began to emerge in the distance. The captain was standing at the bow, his eyes locked on the horizon.
The dark-skinned child rubbing the deck near the captain saw, heard and smelled all this and savored the experience. He was not afraid. Few things scared him anymore. He had slept a few hours on the deck during the night, but the coarse curses and barked orders of the captain and the crew had woken him up before first light.
The child, Khirih, closed his eyes to see his mother. They had told him in Umbar Baharbêl that he would get to see his mother again at the end of the trip and go live with her again. Khirih yearned to ask the captain if it was true, but he could not. They had told him in Umbar Baharbêl that it was a secret. He was not allowed to talk about his mother to anyone, not even the captain. Should he spoil the secret, he might never see her again.
Khirih opened his eyes. Two ships had sailed from Umbar’s port. The ships had sailed north until they had reached the mouths of a great river. They had journeyed along the great river and raided a village, taking prisoners. It was the same river they had sailed two years ago, when Khirih and his mother had been captured from their home village. And just like two years ago, most of the prisoners went to one ship but the children went to the other. This time Khirih sailed with the adults, but he was not put in chains with them. On their way back the ship with the children sailed south, towards Umbar, like it had done two years ago with Khirih on board. This time Khirih was on the other ship, the ship that sailed north, like the ship that had taken his mother away from him.
But soon the long journey, the long wait would be over. For days the Corsairs had drifted in restless idleness, but now, with the silhouette of Tolfalas’ shores rising in the distance, the ship hummed with new purpose again. Iron was sharpened. Armor was adjusted. Sails were trimmed. One grizzled raider with fierce mustache tightened the straps of his leather bracers and grinned at the prospect of chaos and loot. Khirih shivered in the cold morning breeze, but he felt like smiling. He was a little scared too, but he felt happy all the same.
Khirih stared the shore, trying to absorb everything, filling his eyes and his mind with the sights and the colors and the sounds. He had never seen anything like it before.
The dream had been brewing for two years, but the wonderful events has started to unfold during the past two weeks. Two weeks ago they had come to fetch him from the fortress in Umbar Baharbêl where he had lived for two years.
The guards had told him that they would take him to a pirate ship and that he would have to obey Captain Tamruzîr in all things. The ship would take him to Gondor, where his mother now lived, and if he behaved himself and obeyed the captain, he would be reunited with her at the journey’s end. But, they had stressed, he could never mention his mother to Captain Tamruzîr or any of the crew. It was a secret, and revealing the secret would spoil his chances of reuniting with his mother.
When the Corsair raiders had taken his mother away from him and brought him to Umbar Baharbêl, the lord of the fortress had told him that he would see his mother again after two years of imprisonment.
Two years is a long time. It felt like forever. Khirih rarely saw the lord of the fortress again, but he had made friends with some of the guards. He had his own chamber, and the guards kept him fed and clothed. Sometimes he was allowed to walk in the yard, but always under supervision. There were other prisoners in that fortress as well, most of them children like Khirih. He had seen them in the yard sometimes, but he had not been allowed to approach them or talk to them. Nobody had hurt him or abused him, and some of the guards were nice to him and played with him. They had taught him the language of the Corsairs. But he could never forget his mother. She was always on his mind. There were days when he had so much fun that he almost forgot to think about her and miss her, but most days were just days, neither fun nor miserable, just days to be endured. He considered some of the guards his friends, but still he was very lonely.
He was now ten years old. He had been only eight when they had taken his mother away from him.
There were days when he hated his mother, hated the memory of her, hated her for leaving him to the Corsairs. Why had she not fought for him? Some days, and those were very bad days, Khirih forgot what she had looked like. He could remember some things about her, he could remember her eyes, but he could not remember how her mouth arched when she smiled. But he never forgot her scent. It was the scent of his mother, and nothing in the world compared to it.
The journey with the Corsairs had been very difficult for him. Captain Tamruzîr did not like him, and the Corsairs were mostly mean to him, not friendly like the guards in the fortress. The captain did not understand why he had been burdened with a ten-year old boy from Harad or why it was so important that Khirih was to be kept alive and healthy throughout the journey. Tamruzîr had thought that perhaps they wanted him to train Khirih into a Corsair. Such things happened sometimes. So Tamruzîr had given him the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous duties on the ship, because that is how Corsairs were made. Not all of the young boys who were trained in Corsair ships survived to adulthood, but the life of a Corsair was hard, and the weak had to be culled.
Khirih had wanted to tell them that he was not going to be a Corsair, he had wanted to tell them that he was going to Gondor to see his mother, but he could not explain it to them. It was a secret. Had he not learned to be brave during his two years of captivity, he would have cried many times over.
Khirih thought about the long voyage along the great river again – Harnen, as the Corsairs called it. It had evoked painful memories in Khirih to see the riverside again. Somewhere there had been home – the village where he had lived with his mother when the Corsair raiders had attacked with two ships full of bloodthirsty pirates two years ago and burned his home down. The riverside was dotted with Harad villages here and there. The village they had raided this time was not home, but it had looked very similar. The Corsairs had killed, burned and pillaged, but some of the villagers were spared and taken as prisoners. They took some children too – not many, only two or three – and brought them to the other ship. The rest were killed. Khirih remembered the desperate screams of the mother as she was dragged to the ship. Khirih had been rubbing the deck, unable to look at her as she was thrown in the cargo hold. Had his mother screamed like that when they had taken Khirih?
Captain Tamruzîr’s cloak fluttered in the wind as his sharp gaze spotted a distant sail on the horizon. His chin tightened and he turned to look at Khirih, who was rubbing the deck nearby.
”You, boy!” Tamruzîr barked. ”Get up the mast, quickly! Tell me what you see!”
Khirih swallowed and nodded. His fingers grasped at the cold rope. He started climbing. His bare feet tried to find support on the slippery wood. He had climbed to the mast before, he knew its swing and breathed evenly to keep the rhythm steady. But the gale was merciless today, disruptive and wild, and the ship was swinging harder than he had expected.
Khirih tightened his grip and climbed higher, but then something happened. Perhaps the rope slipped in his sweaty palms, maybe the gale yanked him out of balance – he had no time to understand before he could feel the wind rushing beneath him. The fall was quick, merciless. His body crashed against the hard wooden deck. All air was punched out of his lungs. There was pain – crushing, white-hot pain. His vision blurred. His body refused to move, refused to obey. Voices shouted above him, figures loomed, and the deck beneath him seemed to tilt and spin.
”He will not survive”, he heard a voice say above him. ”He will perish before nightfall.”
”Toss him down with the others”, answered Captain Tamruzîr’s cold, indifferent voice. ”And you there! Get up the mast and tell me what you see!”
Such things happened at sea. There was no room for the weak among the Corsairs.
