It began as many a wanderer's life had ended; with chains.

The first thing Kat felt upon waking was the uncomfortable jolting of the manhunter's shoulder, and the dull ache of the bumps and bruises that twinged every time her captor's boots hit the sand. Harsh desert light forced its way between her unwilling eyelids, and as she peered at the ground through hazy vision, she could see the sand swaying and blurring. At one moment it would feel almost close enough to touch, but the next it would be as distant as the moons in the sky. Her eyes rolled back for a fraction of a second, and the searing brightness that had been in her retinas was punctuated with brief spells of darkness. She drew in a shuddering breath, forcing air into her lungs, which felt squeezed. The manhunter paused, feeling her stir on his shoulder, and unceremoniously dumped her onto the ground.

The hot sand burnt the palms of Kat's hands, but the pain barely registered through the fog in her head. A hard metal boot slammed into her ribs, demanding that she stand, but it wasn't until a hand grabbed hers and pulled her up that she realised she was even capable of standing. A muffled voice snapped, "You. Keep her walking."

Another hand took hold of Kat's wrist, draping her arm across a pair of broad shoulders. She stumbled forward, her legs barely capable of supporting her and the nausea rising with each sinking step she took. Slowly, however, the worst of the fog began to clear. She felt her heart contract like a fist, even before the thoughts and memories began to resurface.

Longstoat was dead.

Guilt and grief washed over her like a tidal wave, overcoming her for a second, but there was no slowing down, for the slave caravan had a pace to keep. Kat shivered in the hot sun, fitfully remembering her companion bleeding out from a half dozen wounds that had burst blood vessels and cut him to the bone. He had told her to run, and run she had.

She had run blindly in the darkness, tripping, stumbling, spraining her ankle as she fell down a sand dune. And then she had limped straight into a group of people in the dark, who she knew now were manhunters – self-hired men who took it upon themselves to hunt escaped slaves for profit. I am not a slave.

But she was now.

It was part of the manhunters' racket, assaulting and kidnapping vulnerable travellers. They knew they could get away with stealing a lone woman, dressed in rags and carrying nothing but a cheap, rusted iron club for defence. No-one ever asked questions, and she was insignificant enough that no-one would attempt to save her.

The shoulders Kat had been leaning on were shaking. Kat could feel the iron of a collar against her upper arm, and didn't need to look to know she was being supported by a fellow slave. Her head lolled out of her control for a second, her own heavy, chafing collar upsetting its balance, and she bashed heads with someone with a significantly harder skull than hers.

"Sorry." Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, dry and swollen as it was. Her jaw muscles ached. As she spoke her tongue caught against something sharp and jagged off to the side of her mouth, and Kat realised that one of the manhunter's spiked clubs had broken a tooth. Now she thought about it, she could feel dry, crusted blood on the outside of her mouth.

"Get a move on, or I'll feed you both to the skimmers!" A spiked club rapped Kat's back, directly over her spine. It was not enough to seriously wound her, but the impact stung. The slave who was helping Kat along hooked an arm around her waist. Exhausted from the pain and heat and desperation, Kat struggled on, the gritty sand sloughing the tough skin off the soles of her feet.

There was no stopping; the manhunters evidently wanted to herd their chattel along as quickly as possible. Only once was there any kind of respite. One of their captors moved around the group, passing the teat of a waterskin between each slave's parched lips. No-one was afforded more than a few precious gulps of water, and by the time it got to Kat, the bottle was almost empty. She gasped, her head tilting back. Warm salty sweat ran into her eyes, but she was barely able to think past the droplets of water on her tongue. She wished she still had her own waterskin, but that had been stolen from her along with everything else. She was pretty sure it was the one the guards were passing back and forth between themselves with little regard for conserving the water inside. It meant, thought Kat, that they couldn't be that far from civilisation. Her heart gave another squeeze inside her bruised ribcage.

It was nearly sundown. The air was cooling off a little, but it was still very hot. The Greenlander manhunters had to be sweltering in their uniforms, and their faces were red from the sun. Scorchlanders did not have the same problem with sunburn as those Greenlanders with lighter skin, but they still felt the heat in the same way, and Kat's skin was damp with sweat.

The evening light glinted off tiny fragments of metal in the sand. Desert diamonds, they were sometimes called. They were remnants of broken swords and forgotten structures and sometimes the glistening shells of skimmer exoskeletons. Kat tried to avoid these, but sometimes it was impossible, and she would wince as they dug into the soles of her feet.

"Move faster, you bone-headed idler." Kat's helper was poked in the back with the spiked club. Kat, feeling guilty, tried to pick up her pace so she wasn't holding the other slave back, but it wasn't easy. Her ankle was swollen inside its shackle, and lightning bolts of pain shot up her leg every so often. She glanced at her fellow slave, who was a female Shek of about Kat's own age. The bony plates and the horns on her head typical of her race explained why colliding with her had hurt so much. The other woman didn't seem to notice her looking, and was instead staring straight ahead of her with a grim expression.

Kat followed the Shek's line of sight and saw, far off in the distance, the metal walls of a settlement. The moons were just off to the side, vaguely illuminating it from behind. Now that dusk was setting in, it was getting harder to see where they were walking, and Kat's bare feet trod on more of the hot and sharp shards of desert diamond. She screwed her face up but did not make a sound.

None of the slaves were speaking. Kat got the sense that the manhunters wouldn't like it if they did. If she'd had more courage and the capacity for speech, she might have sung to keep her spirits up. A song had come into her mind from her childhood in Shark, and her hobbled feet marched as best they could to the silent beat. So long as she focused on the words and the tune, she could just about stop herself from thinking about what was going to happen next.

"Got some slaves for you," one of the manhunters said as they reached the gate. The slaves stared sullenly at him but remained silent. "Ten of them."

"Excellent," said a guard. "Bring them through."

The manhunter at the front of the group shook his head mulishly. "I want to negotiate payment."

"Fine. Four hundred for the scrawny-looking ones and five hundred for the Shek."

"I want at least a thousand for the Shek. She put up a good fight."

"Fighting skills are of no use here," grumbled the guard, but he waved his hand to let them through. "Negotiate with the boss, I'm just here to stand at the gate."

They passed the guards and entered the slave camp. The grating sound of many pickaxes chipping away at stone was barely audible over the sound of a rising wind behind from them. Kat's eyes began to feel gritty. A sandstorm was brewing.

As the leader of the manhunters haggled with the slaver boss, the slaves were brought – or dragged, in some cases – to their cages. Kat was forced to her knees while scissors dragged at her long hair, sending it falling to the ground in white chunks. A razor blade was then scraped roughly across her scalp, removing the last traces of her hair and shaving her bald. The cage door was then slammed shut, and Kat was left kneeling on the floor of the cage, surrounded by iron bars and her own hair trimmings.

In the next cage over, a struggle was happening. A second slaver was called up to hold the Shek down as her horns were sawn away. She fought and scratched and bit and was only subdued when the slaver threatened to saw her "less useful" fingers off as well if she did not comply. They left her curled up on the floor of the cage, her hands covering the stubs that had once been long and beautiful horns. Kat had heard bar-talk of a custom among some slaver-groups in the United Cities, where Shek horns were considered good luck, and were used as charms. Her hair did not have the same significance, either to herself or to the slavers, but she no longer felt quite like herself now it was gone. She sat on the floor, dully picking up clumps of hair and letting them fall through her fingers.

The wind was picking up even more now. Kat's cage was covered by a canvas sheet suspended on sticks, but that was only useful for shade, and there was no longer any sun. The wind howled and blew sand across the rooftop, and Kat turned her back so the sand was not in her eyes. The world outside the slave camp was now completely lost in darkness and swirling sand. Kat could only just make out a few lights down below in the camp, and see figures milling about. Distantly she was aware of the manhunter leader, still arguing over his pay.

After that the temperature dropped significantly, and the minimal clothing that Kat had appreciated earlier in the day was now not enough to keep her warm. Last night had been spent by a campfire, with Kat and Longstoat huddled together against the chill desert temperatures – until the skimmers had got Longstoat and Kat had been forced to make a run for it.

I'm sorry.

Kat had been feeling almost emotionless ever since that initial flood of fear at running into the manhunters. Now, some of the numbness was starting to wear off. Kat had never been one for self-pity, but this was a good time to indulge in it. She bowed her head and felt hot tears spring to her eyes. As the wind suddenly changed direction and blew sand into her face, she was glad of the fact she was already crying.

She became aware that the Shek had not moved since the slavers had left. She reached a tentative hand through the bars and laid it on the cold iron of the other woman's cage.

"Are you asleep?" she whispered.

The Shek did not reply.

"Thank you for helping me back there. I know you had to, but… thank you."

The Shek uncurled herself slightly and turned to look at Kat. It was difficult to make out her expression in the darkness and sandy wind, although the latter was dying down. But she did crawl to Kat's side of the cage and place her own hand on the other side of the bar.

"What's your name?" Kat said.

The Shek looked surprised, like she didn't expect anyone really cared to hear the answer. "Rei," she said hoarsely.

"I'm Kat."

Rei tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth dropped quickly. At such close proximity, Kat could see the utter defeat in her eyes. She had already given up.

"It'll be OK," Kat said hopelessly, though she wasn't sure she believed that.

"It won't be. Not for me." Rei leaned her head against the side of the cage. She felt the stubs of her horns. "It's our culture."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm nothing to other Shek now. The manhunters defeated me in battle and they cut off my horns. It's what my people do to punish transgressors, usually cowards. Even if I somehow escape, I'll always be a slave."

Kat wasn't sure what to say. She sat and hugged her knees and watched as Rei retreated back inside herself, curling up on the floor of her cage with her back to Kat. Kat wasn't about to let hope desert her. She had experienced setbacks before, though admittedly nothing quite as dire as being kidnapped and caged in the middle of a harsh and unforgiving desert. Despite her best efforts, her thoughts were not much cheerier than Rei's as she fell asleep.

"And when I'm lifted away by the wind in my hair, I will fly away, and fly free."

The old woman sings from her stool as she sits on her porch and watches the world go by. Her dark skin is unwrinkled in spite of her age, a product of the lack of sunshine in the swamp regions. Kat is beside her, perching on the low wooden rail that has saved many a customer from falling into the water. The stool and the railing are both rotting with the constant damp and will need to be replaced at some point. Technically Kat is supposed to be manning the turret on the corner, but there hasn't been trouble all day and she's more than ready to spring to action.

"Grandma," Kat says, "have you ever been outside the swamps?"

The old woman purses her lips and shakes her head in regret.

"Not even in my younger days. And at my age, it's too dangerous to leave. Old lady like me'd stand no chance. Want to buy any drugs?" she calls out suddenly to a passer-by. "Any fish or drugs?"

The passer-by, who is clearly not a local by the looks of him, looks offended and moves away.

"I know that's what I'd want if I'd crossed all that swamp and avoided those ninjas and spiders," the old woman says with a resigned tut and a shake of the head. "A good full stomach and some hash to take my mind off it."

It's slow business sometimes. Today is one of those days. The old woman lights up a pipe and the smell of burning hash fills Kat's nostrils. She doesn't much care for the high that hash provides, and she moves upwind so the smoke doesn't blow into her face.

"Don't be like me, Kat. There's more to you than just a simple fish-and-hash seller. You could be anything. Go and see the world. Learn to fight." She draws in a little too much hash smoke, and coughs. "And most importantly, never let yourself be owned by anyone. Metaphorically or not. You are your own person, and you belong to no-one."

Kat woke up with the early morning sun burning her face. Rei was not in her cage and for a confused moment Kat thought she had escaped, but then she peered over the edge of the roof and thought she could see the Shek down below, working away at a stone mine while a slave-driver occasionally yelled and cursed at her. There were so many slaves down there that they were barely able to get the elbow room to lift the pickaxes above their heads. Evidently, those surplus to requirements had just been left to sleep in their cages. For that, Kat was extremely thankful.

Her stomach growled loudly, and she realised that she had not eaten anything since the gohan she and Longstoat had shared around the campfire a lifetime ago. At least her hunger was her main source of discomfort now. Her ankle was feeling much better after a rest, however fitful, and she could think more clearly than she could the day before. Her broken tooth still bothered her as it had been knocked sideways and was jabbing into her tongue, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

If I ever get out of here, she thought to herself, the first I'll be doing is finding a way to rip this damn tooth out of my head.

The rooftop was covered in sand from the previous night's storm. To stave off the boredom Kat drew patterns in it and wrote her name over and over again. A former slave had once come to buy drugs off Kat's grandmother, and he'd told Kat that a name was surprisingly easy to forget. After a year or two of imprisonment, of being referred to by a number or simply as "slave", it had taken him weeks to be able answer to anything else. When the guard looked over Kat hurriedly scuffed the sand and pretended to be staring at the floor. Passive. Like a good slave.

"Hey, slave!"

With a jolt of fear, Kat realised that the guard was coming towards her, and she braced herself for a beating. But the guard simply reached through the bars, dropped something on the floor, and shoved a bottle of water into the cage. "Drink."

Kat's lips felt cracked; she could feel the dryness becoming sores around her mouth. So she drank. The teat of the bottle tasted salty, and it occurred to her that it was probably some other slave's sweat. It barely mattered to her; she needed the water. But her thirst was barely quenched when the guard yanked the bottle away and moved off. The removal of the bottle left a few drops of moisture on the floor of the cage. Kat stuck her finger in it and put it to her tongue. It was as she did so that she saw what the guard had dropped.

She picked it up. It was bread, stale and dry in the hot desert sun, and barely amounted to more than a few crumbs, but it was food. She ate it hungrily, ignoring the crunch and grit of the sand in her mouth. Maybe the sand would fill it out a bit.

The time dragged. Kat counted the bars on her cage, the tufts of hair on the floor, the number of bootprints the guard had left in the sand. She dozed. She hummed to herself as loudly as she dared. She fiddled with the shackles on her wrists and idly wondered if there was some way to pick the lock. She thought about her grandmother, and of Longstoat, not without a pang of sadness. She thought of the Hub, her first major port of call on her way out of the swamps, and her journey through the Holy Nation and across the desert. The Holy Nation had left her with a bad feeling and a bitter taste, although at least they had not abducted her.

It was not pleasant, being left with no company but the stoic guard and her own thoughts, but there wasn't much she could do. So she sat and sighed and waited for Rei's return.

Rei was brought back to her cage with her face tight and the skin under her right eye bruised and puffy. She was thrown in unceremoniously, and the slaver who'd brought her stalked off without a word.

"Are you all right?" Kat whispered. "What happened?"

It was twenty minutes before Rei replied.

"I hate them," she muttered. "I hate them."

That was all she said for a long time.

Eventually Kat managed to coax the story out of her. Apparently a noble slave master lived in the camp who had a particular preference for Shek women. The Shek slaves, who all knew this, tried their best to look out for each other, and would pass on any fragments of rumour or gossip that they had heard. It was in this way that Rei had found out the master had his lecherous eye on her, and was thinking of taking her to his bed that night.

Kat's stomach roiled. "He didn't…"

"No," Rei said flatly. "I back-chatted one of the guards so he would make me less desirable." She held a hand up to her swollen eye. "I guess it worked."

Impulsively Kat reached through the bars and grabbed Rei's other hand.

"It doesn't even mean I'm safe. When this heals up…"

Rei let out a dry sob. Kat was utterly lost for words. She lay down in the gritty sand with her hand stretched out towards Rei's, and the pair of them linked fingers. They would almost certainly get a beating if the drunken guard noticed, but Rei seemed to take some comfort in the physical touch.

"We will be free," Kat promised.

Rei did not respond.

It had been months since they had arrived in the slave camp.

Kat was frankly surprised she was still alive, or even had any lingering desire to live. Her muscles ached constantly, her arms and legs felt weak, and she'd lost so much weight she'd had to tie knots in the waistband of her filthy loincloth to keep her modesty intact. Rei was a little less skeletal, but she barely spoke at all these days. Nobles always – always – got what they wanted.

Kat wanted to kill Lord Slave Master Haga. She had never hated someone with as much burning passion as she did him. She had never seen him, but from Rei's faltering descriptions, she thought she could pick him out of a crowd. She hated him for Rei, and she hated him for the empty shells of the slaves he worked to death in his quarry. That little knot of rage and hatred kept her going. She had not given up. Would not give up.

She'd gotten used to everything by now. How much she ached, how much she stank, how little she cared about such things. The only thing that brought her comfort was watching the skimmers skitter about on the sands outside. Sometimes she superimposed the imagined face of the master onto Longstoat's, and relived the painful memories of his death just to satisfy her own hatred.

The tooth had come out at last. She'd been hit in the face one too many times, and the dislodged tooth had been knocked onto her tongue and had almost choked her. She'd looked at the small white thing that had caused her so much pain for so long, and had felt nothing but relief.

To pass the time when her labour was not required, she would inspect the locks of her shackles, peering at the mechanism, trying to work out what shape of key would turn the lock. If she had a long hook or a pick, she might be able to push the pins in just the right way, and if she managed thatshe would be able to remove the shackles. On the other hand, the cage lock was of a significantly higher standard, and she wasn't convinced she'd manage to get out of the cage even if she somehow could take the shackles off. She had the feeling she would take any chance at all to escape, however slim it might be.

Her chance finally came when the skimmers attacked the gate.

For their size, the skimmers were stupid. Really stupid. But they had insectoid brains, so perhaps that was to be expected. Usually they just roamed around in the desert wastes, searching for things to eat, and left the well-guarded towns well alone. But on occasion they would try and attack the stone camp, sensing food inside, and guards would be dispatched to deal with them.

On this particular day, Kat and Rei were working side-by-side on a huge chunk of stone, trying to break into smaller pieces. The sun burned in Kat's eyes and her vision kept blurring, but she worked through the discomfort and the sweat dripping down her face. It was only when she heard a shout that she looked up and saw, off by the gate, the giant form of a skimmer attempting to force itself into the camp. One of the guards was already down.

The onslaught of the other guards' attacks drove the skimmer backwards, but at that moment another skimmer came from the opposite direction and also began to attack. The slave-drivers were distracted, some of them running of their friends' aids. At this, Kat saw one of the slaves drop his pickaxe and charge for the gate. She stared for a second, then grabbed Rei's wrist and said, "We're going."

Rei simply nodded. She made no effort to resist Kat's grasp, and kept pace with her as they followed the other slave.

Three slaves charging at the gate gave far better odds than just one, and the guards were too preoccupied to notice that the figures who ran past were not their backup at all, but their own runaway slaves. Then the man stumbled and fell into the sand. One of the skimmers, which had retreated, went after him. Kat grabbed Rei's hand, pulling her around the side of the wall. There were no people on the walls, and if they stayed in the shadows the guard on the rooftop of the slave's storm-house would not see them.

"How did we…" Rei's eyes were huge.

"I don't know." Kat could barely believe it had worked and they had not been cut down trying to get through the gate. The confusion of the attack had just been enough. She knew she couldn't leave Rei to the clutches of the noble master, but if they'd failed, and she'd dragged her friend into danger… She realised she was shaking. "We have to go in case they send anyone out."

Rei followed Kat like an obedient child. They hurried across the exposed sands and hid behind a sand dune. Kat's heart was beating fast. Now all they had to do was stay free. They'd never had a lot of reason to believe in Okran in Shark, but now she sent up a silent prayer and searched the sand for a fragment of desert diamond. It was the time to test her lockpicking theory.

She found a shard that was the right size and shape for easing the lock. It must have come off an ancient broken machine or maybe even a Skeleton. She eased the makeshift pick into the lock on Rei's skinny wrist, holding her breath and hoping. They wouldn't get far shackled. They would immediately be recognised as runaway slaves and turned back in for the bounty.

"You should do your own first," said Rei.

"Yours will be easier." Kat didn't have much hope of taking her own shackles off. The heavy collar around her neck would have to be done without being able to see anything, and she wasn't sure Rei had the first idea of how to pick a lock.

As she was working, she suddenly became aware that Rei had tensed up.

"What is it?"

Rei pointed behind her. Cursing, Kat spun around. A skimmer had appeared out of nowhere, as if it had risen out of the sand. Kat fleetingly remembered that skimmers sometimes buried themselves and lay in wait. Had they unknowingly walked over a skimmer ambush?

However it had happened, they had to get away and fast. Kat grabbed Rei and ran, giddy with adrenaline, her shackled legs feeling like they were made of iron themselves. Please no. Not like this.

She soon realised that she was no longer dragging Rei, but the other way around. Lack of food caused the world to spin around her, and it occurred to her that Rei was now the stronger of the two. She tripped over a rock and sprawled in the sand, grit flying into her face. Rei let out a desperate scream and threw herself over Kat.

"Run, don't worry about me, just run," Kat gasped, more from the impact than anything else.

"Go away!" Rei cried desperately, her shackled hands laying heavy iron weights into the creature's side. It might have worked had she been stronger, and not preoccupied with protecting Kat, but she was in a vulnerable position. The skimmer hissed and struck out at her.

A wild, crazy idea came to Kat. She grabbed Rei's shoulder and threw herself sideways. They'd been hiding on the slopes of the sand dune, and now they rolled down that slope, straight between the creature's legs. The momentum covered Kat in sand; it went into her mouth, choking her, and her eyes, blinding her. Then they crashed into something solid, and all went silent.

Kat lay with eyes squeezed shut, feeling Rei's ragged breathing beneath her. Nothing happened. She sat up, sand clinging to her eyelashes, and saw the skimmer disappearing over the top of the dune. She was momentarily confused, then she realised that a big drift of sand had blown up against a large erratic rock formation, and the momentum had buried them. The skimmer, not having the mental capacity to realise that its own trick had been used against it, and having little object permanence, had decided its prey was gone and had wandered off.

Skimmers really were stupid.

She pulled Rei out of the sand-drift. The girl retched and spat sand out of her mouth.

"Are you…" Then Kat noticed the blood. "Oh."

Rei put a sandy hand to her bare abdomen. The skimmer had slashed her from her navel to her side. The wound was neat, like the work of a skilled sabre user, but it was bleeding profusely. Red drops of blood were splashing onto the sand.

"It's fine," Rei said stubbornly.

"It's not fine, you're bleeding and…" What if another skimmer came? How would she be able to stop the bleeding? Rei had her hands pressed against the wound, but blood was seeping out between her fingers. "We need a first aid kit. Steal one if we have to. Look, I – I'll try and get one from the camp."

"No! Neither of us are going back!" Rei was trying to put on a brave face but Kat could tell she was in pain, and the fear in her voice was very real. "Maybe we can find a trader." It was a desperate shot, like dropping a string of cats in the desert and retracing your steps hoping you'd be able to find it again. The chances were miniscule. "They might not be hostile to us."

They struggled through the sand, hampered by their hunger, their shackles, and in Rei's case, her injuries. They altered their route to avoid two people in the desert; with their dark clothes, there was a high chance they were hostile farmers and they certainly weren't in a trader caravan. But the people had seen them. One of them shouted something, but their words were snatched away by the wind. Kat wasn't stupid. She knew enough about the desert to know that it was either a demand for tribute or a demand for them to stop and be recaptured.

"Fuck."

A tide of panic and despair washed over Kat as the two people burst into a run, heading straight for them. They were armed; one of them was holding a giant sword in their hands. Outlaws. Outlaws would not even deliver them back to the slavers; they would simply cut them down for possessions they did not have and leave them to bleed out or be eaten by skimmers. All was lost unless they could somehow lose them, like they had lost the skimmer. But outlaws were generally not fooled by hiding in a sand-drift. There was only one possible course of action open to them, and it was one doomed to failure.

But they had to try.

"Rei," she said urgently, "we have to run."

Rei did not respond. Kat got a strange wrenching feeling in her gut.

"Rei?"

Rei was swaying on the spot. Kat could see nothing but the whites of her eyes between her half-closed lids. Suddenly the Shek folded, like a skimmer that had had its legs cut out from underneath it.

"Rei!"

Blood was seeping into the dry sand, expanding and sinking and making the ground harder and firmer. Kat no longer had the strength to try and run. This was all her fault. She had dragged Rei out of that stone camp, and if Rei had to die for it, so did she. She cradled her friend's limp body in her arms, heedless of the blood that covered them both, and waited for the end.