"Girl! Get up! If you make me late, I won't even bother selling you!" The shouts wafted into the small ragged tent. "I'll just let you wander in the desert and be killed! Girl! I'm serious! Mamluka, you will be the death of me!"

The flap of the tent was thrown open and a small, deeply tanned man stood there, fuming. "Mamluka, I am giving you ten minutes to get together and then we are leaving, whether you be clothed or not!" He stormed out again, the flap of the tent floating a bit in the breeze he created. Only when peace had resumed did the girl poke her head out from under her blanket.

"Ay!" she moaned to herself. "Does Akil think I want to go to another auction? Does he think that I want to be paraded around, poked and prodded by strange creepy men?" She rose, draping the blanket over her for it was early yet, and the cold night air was lingering on.

"Mamluka, mamluka, mamluka! That is all he has ever called me..." Mamluka continued to grumble to herself as she dressed, wrapping herself in worn red linen. For she was Mamluka, slave girl, and she had known no other name in her memory. Her old garb fell as a long skirt, covering her legs to the sandy floor. The top covered her torso and ended draped across her upper body and over her right shoulder.

On her head, Mamluka wore a simple headdress also of red linen that covered the top of her head and trailed down her back. If need be, she could twist it over her face so only her eyes peeked out. Lastly, she fastened on her feet light goat-hide sandals, hand-me-downs from Akil's sister.

Ducking out of her tent, she was immediately grabbed by Akil. "Mamluka! Why did you not wear the new linen that I brought you? You look like, like, a desert tramp in this!" he exclaimed, outraged.

"Because I chose not to roast in the sun under that heavy second-hand rug that you shoved off on me!" Mamluka replied indignantly. "If you think that I did not recognize it from your market loot last week you are mistaken."

She ignored Akil's gaping stares and went about saddling the two horses tied outside her tent. Inside she gloated at having spoken back to her master. Mamluka knew that Akil would not dare hit her on the morning of an auction.

"Come along now, Master", she called sweetly. "Or we will be late, and get a bad post, and you will be stuck with me for another three months." Mamluka smirked as Akil finished loading their supplies onto a packhorse and mounted his own strong steed. Her own was slightly underweight and definitely would not win any derbies. He was, as herself, of the North. But he had taken to the sweltering heat much worse than she had. This was likely to be one of his last rides before he found his final resting place in a pot and a tanning tent.

"I will be glad to get rid of you, girl," said Akil, looking her once over. Without waiting for her response, he rode off swiftly before Mamluka was even on horseback. He had no fear of her not following. A brand on her wrist clearly marked her as a slave and to be a slave riding unaccompanied or without special documents was warrant for death in this desert land. Mamluka just grinned to herself and rode on behind him. As her horse moved beneath her, Mamluka's thoughts wandered, as they were prone to do.

Her most recent master did not quite fit the definition of a Man of Harad: tall, strong, built to be a warrior from the swaddling clothes. Akil was, on the contrary, short and a bit overweight, as well as highly greedy... though that was characteristic of the Corsairs of Umbar, his forefathers. He had picked her up further north, not twelve months ago, when he had decided to try his luck in the desert. Mamluka credited her own behavior as reason why he had given up and was headed back to the coast.

Really, Akil hadn't treated her so bad. He had actually been too afraid of her and too proud to be insulted by her wit and pretty much let her be. Before Akil though, there had been many others: her first was a Captain of Haradrim who brought her to be a plaything for his daughters. She had been only five then and had stayed with them almost a full two years until they tired with her. The Captain was a wealthy man, having no need of money. Instead of selling her at auction, he gave her to one of his men, a reward for years of service and loyalty. Mamluka still shuddered when she thought of how she had been treated as a material item all of these years.

That man had been cruel and her almost pleasant life with the Captain's family had not prepared her for what lay ahead. Nothing that she did seemed to satisfy him. Mamluka was forced to work from before dawn to long after dusk every day for three years, her longest stay with any one master. Her biggest job was working with the other slaves to pack and unpack tents and possessions every few days when the family moved. The nomadic lifestyle exhausted her and the other slaves even made it worse.

Though all were slaves, the others, except for one, were dark-skinned, dark-haired and dark-eyed Haradrim. They had been captured through wars with other tribes, punished for criminal acts or had been sold into service by poverty- stricken families. Mamluka stuck out like a vibrant flower against a background of death-ridden desert. Her hair was light brown, her skin still pale in comparison to the deep tans of the others. Worst of all, her hazel eyes isolate her from the pack, encouraging pointing, rude gestures and spitting in her direction. Whenever something went wrong, Mamluka was the one that was blamed for it. Her Master himself carried out the punishments, beating her bare back and legs with a slender bamboo rod, made all the crueler by its sharp thorns. The wounds never fully healed while she remained with him, being reopened time and again before finally settling into disfiguring scars after she left his service.

Mamluka was forced to count herself lucky, or at least be thankful that she was still too young to be any good to men. The other Northern slave struck her as familiar, but Mamluka could not figure out where she was from. She was tall and pretty, with hair the color of the roaring fires keeping thieves and cold away. Mamluka looked on for a year and a half as the young woman was kept as a personal "servant" to her Master. Finally, she was put out of her misery, dead from her labors of birthing the stillborn son of the Master.

After long years of traveling from place to place, never settling long at any location, her Master grew annoyed at Mamluka and sold her so that he could get a better, more cooperative slave. And so, at age ten, Mamluka was taken to her first slave auction. She had been mounted on a bamboo- fashioned box, tied at the ankles and forced to stand stock-still while tall Haradrim with moneybags mulled around, looking for a slave that caught their eye. When someone did come to take a closer look, Mamluka had to let them inspect her, feeling her bones, examining her teeth and sticking their grubby hands in her mouth. She had no choice but to obey with her Master's beady glare fixed on her.

She had been sold for thirteen silver coins-a fair price for the skimpy Northerner that she was. When the deal was completed, Mamluka had just been relieved that the auction was over and hoped nothing more than that her new master would keep her and she wouldn't have to experience this ordeal ever again, but unfortunately it was not to be. Until she was sixteen, Mamluka went from master to master, never spending much over a year with any of them. All together in those six plus years, Mamluka had been shuttled off to nine slave auctions and had nine different masters-some cruel, some fair (though these were few); some single fortune-seekers, some with large families of proud sons and beautiful daughters. Ever since the Captain though, her masters had all been nomads and she had traveled hundreds and hundreds of miles in her short life.

Akil was the tenth master since her Master, whom she had known by no other name. Despite his shortcomings, her time with him had not been as bad as some of his countrymen. He had made sure she had sandals that fit, linen that covered her, a horse to ride.

Mamluka shook herself back to the present. Noise grew ahead, and the abundant tents, people and mounts that were common to a slave auction drew into focus. Akil slowed down and she did the same.

Akil and Mamluka dismounted, passing the horses off to a slave to tie up. Akil drew near to Mamluka. "Cover yourself", Akil hissed in her ear. Mamluka did not argue; she wanted nothing more than to blend in, and she quickly fashioned her headpiece to cover her face. Soon, her features were limited to two hazel green eyes peeping out of red linen.

Akil had already started off and Mamluka hurried to catch up. "Keep your eyes down... and make sure you keep two steps behind me at all times", Akil demanded.

Usually, Mamluka would have argued with Akil (it kept the days interesting) but not here, not surrounded by so many others. Even if Akil hadn't told her to look at the ground, she would have of her own accord. She did not care to look upon the awful auction sites any more than she had to: slaves being forced to stand uncomfortably in the heat, men with roving hands, young children gawking and playing tricks on the slaves. In addition, she hated drawing stares for her eyes. From her dozen years living in the Southlands, her skin had become deeply tanned and her hair was covered with her headpiece. If it were not for her eyes, she could pass as a Haradrim girl... but her eyes were always there green, piercing, ostracizing.

"Mamluka, up here!" Akil spoke sharply after nearly ten minutes of shoving through bustling crowds, the noise of which hurt Mamluka's ears.

"Yes, Akil," Mamluka sighed and stepped up unto the bamboo box, a vantage point that had become all too familiar.

"I am sorry I have to do this," Akil whispered as he tied her ankle loosely to the box, "but you know that those are the rules." Mamluka just shrugged. Akil did have a heart underneath his greed and Corsair chest.

As she stood, now two feet above her normal height, Mamluka surveyed her surroundings. She noted that for the first time she was in the woman's section, composed of girls of around her age to those in their mid-thirties or so. The last time she had been on auction was only a year ago, but she had been scrawny with barely a figure to speak of (Akil's better care had led to a much postponed growth spurt). They had stuck her in the children's section where she had been the oldest there-though she had been chosen early and did not have to stand all day in the heat as the others did.

Mamluka shook all thoughts out of her head. She had learned from her previous experiences that thinking only made the heat pound worse and the knees go weak quicker. Instead, Mamluka fixed her eyes at a spot on the ground some ten feet away and shut off her mind. If this time were anything like the others, she would still have a long wait ahead.