I growled and began kicking, futile strikes for sure, but violently nevertheless.  I was almost on my feet when one of the workmen kicked my feet out from under me.  This was followed with a kick in the stomach from Cordis, followed by a wallop to the face that sent me reeling against the stall wall.

Laughing, Cordis said, “Grab him and spread him.” 

Those workmen clearly knew what they were about, and they grabbed me in such a way as I couldn’t get free.  My rear end was up in the air and my legs pulled wide apart, each human with a thigh secured in their grip. 

“Roll him over!”  Cordis said with sadistic savagery, “I want his spike ass to see it comin’.  I been waitin’ for this a long time.  I always wondered what a spike nut looked like.”

Despite my panicked fighting, they got me turned over amidst much laughter.  I managed to break one of their noses and got three or four hard fists for it, but in the end they had me spread open in front of Cordis. 

Waving that knife a couple of times in front of me he said, “Careful now, whelp, you ain’t careful and you won’t have anything to piss with, either.”  They all laughed and one of the workers said, “Hold still you damned slink,” as Cordis grabbed the cuff of my left legging and slid the knife inside.  I could see the cruel glint in his eye as he slowly glided that blade up the calf and to my knee … when a voice in the barn sharply yelled, “Cordis?!  Where in Hades are you.”

“In here, Felder, I was busy, damn it!”  Cordis held his poise with the blade at my knee.  This was tedious work, and he clearly wanted to enjoy every moment of it.  At that moment, I was liking Felder, a whole lot … at least for the moment.

Felder, if I remembered correctly, was sort of an errand boy in the main house, only he was more like thirty of forty and balding.  I had seen him a few times in the past, this time he anxiously opened the stall door wide and breathlessly asked, “Have you cut him yet?”

Looking past the hands and what not, we all just froze in place as Cordis turned red in the face and spewed out all kinds of profanity while asking, “Does it look to Hades like I’ve cut him yet?!”

“Lord Herrol wants him saved, says there have been breeding successes with half-breeds before and he wants to try with this one.  He says he wants to work with that wizard from Charlamae.”

Cordis was furious and said, “He WHAT?!  Damn, his arrogant ass.  He’s not even been …”

Calmly Felder said, “Yes sir.  Would you like me to pass your comments along?”

Cordis whipped his blade out from my leggings with a snap of fabric and his demeanor suddenly changed, “No!  No, you don’t need to do that.”  He put his knife back in its belt holster, “I just …” he passed me a violent look, “… I just think he’s makin’ a mistake is all.  Let’s have a drink and you tell me what I’m supposed to do with him.”  He gave some kind of glance to the workmen and they set me down.  I was fairly well relieved, but still afraid for my momma.

___________________________

 

Fel’Caden had seven counties and I worked them all.  I threw hay into stacks, picked beans and corn, shoveled manure, dug ditches, carried sacks of seed, and pushed wheelbarrows.  My muscles became hard and the calluses on my hands became thick and tough.

When Cordis was angry, which was often, I was his favorite to blame mishaps to and lay a strap on.  I tried to escape more times than I can count and was regularly beaten with a cane or belt for the trouble.  But as time went on I learned not to cry, instead I kept all emotions in and learned to hate. 

I slept, ate and worked.  There were no friends, no companions, only human brat children who called me the mule, spike-eared, and half-breed.

Over and over I tried to reach out to my momma by thinking real hard.  How was it she said she heard me that time?  Every kind of bad thought entered my mind that could be happening to her.  I cursed myself for not having the thought of stealing Dahnté long before, we might could have been gone away long before.  My thoughts of Roveir again slid back to a smoldering dislike; he was human, he was Fel’Caden, he had been an old man who wanted to keep his elf-woman around.

Why, he could have let her, us, go anytime he wanted to.  Those people were afraid of him.  How did I know, really, that he had nothing to do with what was wrong with my momma, with whatever it was inside of her, keeping her from leaving.

It mattered nothing to me that I was half human, I hated them all anyway.  Humans were all filthy parasites, like locusts, consuming whatever they saw; dirty creatures that should be wiped off the face of the world.  And there were the elves … I resented the Itahro Elves in general and Ml’Shain in particular.  It seemed to me he was a weakling, a wielder of a wooden sword and an unstrung bow, unable to protect his family.  It struck me he deserved to have been slain, but those damned elves should have come after the granddaughter of Kn’Yang, regardless. 

About one year after I had been put into the field I was in the upper region of the Kel-tok County, close to Brakstein Ridge which was on the eastern border and close to the wild lands.  A rider came to the sleeping shed where several of us slaves were living the season.  In tow, he had a string of horses that were to be used for pulling wagons.  It was early and I had been to the outhouse to tend my morning business. 

Walking back to the shed dragging my leg-irons I noticed one of the horses look over to me.  It took a moment and then I recognized Dahnté.  Those people must have really hated Roveir to treat his horse like they had.  Dahnté had whip marks all about him, but his head was still high.

The rider had gone in to talk with the quartermaster, so I sauntered up to the stallion and whispered in Elvish, “I know how you feel.”  He dipped his head to me and I found myself rubbing his nose, and I liked it.  Suddenly I remembered Roveir saying he had trained Dahnté in Elvish.

A mischievous thought entered my mind and nobody had noticed me with the horses, at least not yet.  I had a thought to jump on and go, but he was way too big; so I did the next best thing.  I pulled Dahnté’s lead rope down so I could grab his halter and the choke chain tied to it.  Unbuckling the whole contraption as fast as I could I then said in Elvish, “Free, Dahnté, free.  Run, boy run!”

He looked at me as if surprised, and then with a bolt he turned and ran a short distance.  I heard yells of surprise as anyone not outside came running.  Dahnté stopped and looked at me and pawed his forefoot down three times while throwing his head.  Was he asking me to join him?

The quartermaster grabbed me by the arm and that liver chestnut stallion with the flaming mane and tail bucked high in the air and took off for the highlands.  I was smiling even as the quartermaster clouted me on the head. 

For two weeks I was put naked into what they called the box, a small wooden crate with a small hole for breathing, and was fed only water with a little bread, but to me it was worth it.  They never did catch that horse and I can still remember watching his tail like a flag waving for freedom.

My resentment of elves and humans grew to bitterness and I became a child of quiet, seething anger.  Finally I traced all blame for my momma’s and my predicament to Oshang.  Had he not left his people, they would not have been scattered to the winds in the first place.

Day in and out I contemplated how to get away, to find my momma and get out … get out and one day come back and get revenge on them all. 

Every once in a time Cordis would saunter around me and say things like, “That mammy of your’n really knows how to de-light a man,” or, “Hu-ay, your mammy’s one damned good bitch,” and, “Your mammy’s belly is stretching’ again.  You got any idea who the pappy might be?  Nobody else knows …”

Cordis, I thought, Cordis would be my first.  I could feel it in my blood, I was going to kill Cordis first.  Before I could do anything, though, I had to escape.

Mustron Bluff was five miles to the west of the castle, and each autumn a group of us would be taken to the base to pick prossen berries among the unforgiving briars that covered the region.  One of Cordis’s pleasures was making me do it barefoot, but there was a silver lining in that cloud.  Back when she was drilling me in regard to that forgotten tunnel under the castle, momma had told me of another tunnel, one for use as a last resort.  This one led to an opening below the Bluff, somewhere among the heavy briars.

Twice before I had tried to escape to find that opening; hey, it was the first time they had taken my leg-irons off, so I went for it.  They couldn’t possibly know that I knew of the tunnel, probably they didn’t know either, but I got caught looking for it.  You can’t wear leg-irons in those briars, you’ll get all tangled up and what good is a tangled up slave.  That’s when Cordis came up with making me go barefoot.

It had been over four years since they took me away, and the berry picking was half done when I saw what I was looking for, and it wasn’t that far away.  But I needed to time things just right.  The bluff was five miles, add more for being at the base, which was a long way, and if anyone got a clue where I was going, the horse would get to the castle before I could.  What’s more, I didn’t know what kind of shape that tunnel was in or how winding it might be.

We had another week of picking, six days, and I came up with a plan.  There was a little time, but not much, I figured.  But that evening Cordis came by to check on things and he couldn’t pass up another taunt, “Halloo, stub-Johnny.  How’s them feet?”  He chuckled and looked down at the bruises and briar marks, then he spit on them.  “Here …” he tossed my meat and bread on the floor while a couple of the slave boys giggled, “… eat that. Ya damned slink.”

Turning to talk to the quartermaster Cordis remarked, “They gonna cut his mammy open next day or two, take that whelp she’s been carryin’.”  A look of panic crossed my face and he looked right at me with a challenging glare, “Whu … what you gonna do about it?”  He raised the back of his hand as if to slap me.  “Seems like she’s havin’ problems.  Damned whore bitch can’t even pass a whelp the right way.”  Then he bared those rotten teeth and growled, then laughed at me.

My breathing came hard; they were going to cut her, to hurt my momma.  There was no time to lose, but I had to try to keep my head.  The quartermaster looked at me without expression.  “Cordis is just tryin’ to rile you, boy.  Here, pick up your food and eat it.  You ain’t getting’ no more.”

I looked down at the floor where he indicated and saw the overturned plate and a wooden fork.  Sullenly I dipped down and made as if to salvage some of the food.  Slipping the chunk of meat into my pocket I also palmed the fork.  It had been two years since my last escape attempt, so the quartermaster wouldn’t expect it.

Once it was half-night, I slipped from my cot.  Slinking across the room of sleeping boys, I almost made it to the door when a boy named Jaymes saw me and yelled.  He tried to grab me and I ducked under his shoulder and carried him through the door, breaking it off of the jam.  Jaymes was still hanging on and I took that fork and stabbed him with it I didn’t care where.

My stealth had already failed, so amid the yells of alarm I ran as fast as I could the two and a half miles where our picking was, and found the old pile of rock I had been looking for.  Climbing in and behind the broken slab, I found a metal door, hidden from any view unless you knew what to look for.  It was cracked open just enough to let smaller animals in, and it looked to have been left that way for decades, maybe centuries.  On the inside I found a slide bolt and secured the door into place.

There was only a little light, but on an inner shelf I found some torches and something momma called matches were in a little box.  I struck a torch and grabbed the others and started my journey.  I had very little time and I was tired from the day’s work, and I hadn’t thought to plan for any water.

  Since the tunnel hadn’t actually been sealed, the air wasn’t bad.  But there were all kinds of bones, snake skins, and all kinds of things in there.  Several times I passed tunnel cross-sections, but I kept going straight through.  I had to rest a few times and once I fell asleep.  I ate my piece of dried stew meat while walking and was wishing mighty hard I had thought to bring water.

Once, at a cross-section, I came almost face to face with what looked like a rat, a giant rat that must have been all of four feet long not counting the tail.  In its mouth was some kind of creature I didn’t recognize, and didn’t want to. 

We stopped, each of us surprised by the other, and I held my breath and said in a slightly quivering voice, “Mr. Rat, sir …” my momma had always taught me to be respectful of nature’s creatures, “… I’m on a rescue mission to save my momma.  It would please me, Mr. Rat, sir, not to bear me ill will and leave me to be on my way.”

Now I don’t know if that rat was a mister, or not, but it left me be and I kept a’moving.  Several times I heard rustling among the litter on the tunnel floor, and I had to burn my way through some awfully big and thick spider webs.  Thankfully I didn’t meet the spider who spun them, but I kept checking my back trail just to make sure.  Many was the time I had let a house spider crawl on my hand, but the thought of something so big dropping on my neck or back against my knowing gave me the sammies.

When I found the trap door leading up from the tunnel, I had to work really hard to break through roots and all beside Surry Creek.  I couldn’t get the door open very far, and I basically had to crawl out.  But as soon as I forced my way through the opening closed back up without any help from me.  I saw the cluster of rocks my momma had told me to look for, way back when, so for me it would be no problem finding my way back if need be.

Once out I found it was still pitch black nighttime and the shadows from the trees of the rippling creek were ghostly, but in the last four and a half years I had been learning to like the shadows of night.  But wait, was it the same night?

It took me a while to sneak around several hundred acres until I came close to where that old rock building still was.  It somehow didn’t look the same and I saw a refuse heap off to one side.  Edging my way closer I saw some guards standing around the building and I heard a baby crying.

On that refuse pile I saw my momma wrapped in a cloth and laying on top of it.  Gasping in horror I forgot all caution and ran to her.  She must have been there for some time and she was all white looking in the moon's light.  Blood was caked around her middle, but then her hand touched mine and she smiled weakly at me.

In the weakest of voices she said, “Siu’Haht-chin, llam puhko nia’hatsu.” 

“No!” I cried out.  Grabbing her hand I tried to make it better, to find the Family Secret she had used so many times for me, but where was it?  I felt powerful warmth flowing into me, all the thorn puncture wounds in my feet healed and I felt stronger than ever before, but the energy was going the wrong way … 

Desperately I said to her, “Momma!  I’m here!  Please don’t let go, I’m hanging on, momma hang on to me …” How many times had she said those same words to me, and always everything was better.  But I couldn’t keep her, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t good enough, my momma was slipping away and I couldn’t save her.  At the very moment she needed me I was powerless to help and I cursed myself, ‘You’re a weakling, Komain, you are worse than weak, you are nothing …’ I told myself.

She managed to touch my face and tried to say, “I … l-l-lov-v-ve … y-y-y- …” and then she died looking into my eyes as it seemed the wind howled and everything around me went askew.  I felt rough hands grab me and pull me back, and then something hit me hard over the back of the head. 

When I awakened, I was chained to the whipping post on the grounds of the main keep.

It was morning and Cordis was standing there with a sadistic grin and a braided whip.  Other slaves and residents of the keep came out to watch, as if this was some form of entertainment.  The whip descended upon my shoulders and back fifty-eight times.  I counted each lash and imagined how each person there would respond, were the lash landing on them instead.  It gave me escape, a place to go with my mind as the leather struck my body.  I felt wetness around my hips, legs and feet, and realized I was covered in my own blood.

Despite the lashings, however, and it was something I wasn’t conscious of at the time, for some reason the metal tips braided on the end of Cordis’s whip weren’t doing as much damage as they should.  Yes, they hurt and tore at my flesh, but instead of nips and smaller cuts, the strikes should have ripped and torn.  That whipping would have killed a normal human, let alone a small boy.

Later I would reflect and realize, my momma had known … she knew what would be in store and she had given me one last gift.  Even in death she was reaching out, doing everything she could to protect me.  I could envision her thinking, hoping against hope her effect would last long enough for them to vent their rage; to give me one last chance to survive.

My thought was, ‘Thank you momma.  One day, I don’t know how, but you will be avenged one thousand fold.’

A younger man I did not recognize, but whose name I had heard several times, ordered the taskmaster to stop, himself disgusted.  “You’re enjoying yourself to much Cordis.  He can’t help what he is.  With some cultivating he can be a long term asset to the estate.”

“Lord Herrol, You are makin’ a mistake with this ‘un.  He’s got a devil look in his eye, I’m tellin’ ya.  Let me kill him now.  He’s a cur that’ll turn on ya faster …”

“I ... Said ... STOP!” the first man insisted.  His voice rising with each carefully pronounced word.  In some ways he sounded like Roveir when I heard him that day years ago.

“But …”

“Leave it BE!  Go to the barracks and get some supper.  I need you to report to my office first thing in the morning, early, for new work orders in County Walter.”

Cordis gave him a dark look, and then reluctantly left while coiling his whip.

“Everyone, go on to your quarters, it’s over.  It’s done.” said the lord.

I had heard the name Herrol before.  A son sent off to a school for nobles.  What, ten, fifteen years ago?  He was the pride of the family, for sure, and an officer with the Gevard elite military force.

He made his way over to me and outside of the range of my feet he carefully looked me over.  A young man, himself, Lord Herrol Leland Fel’Caden looked to be perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, but he carried himself as if much older.  He was definitely used to being in command of his surroundings and being touted as the next Duke of Fel’Caden.  His bearing was strong and confident, hair black and perfectly groomed with a neat mustache and goatee, tall and lean but muscular.  His movements were fluid and relaxed while suggesting great power.

As Herrol spoke to me he wasn’t arrogant, but firm and straight up.

“I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking ‘One day … one day I’ll get even.’  And to be honest I don’t blame you.  But understand this clearly ...”

What he had planned to say next I will never know.  He got down where he could look me eye to eye and waited until he had my attention.  As he looked into my eyes he let out a long breath “You know … by the gods, I think Cordis could be right.  There is something about your eyes.”

He actually looked at me with some form of grudging respect “You, my young boy, have a demeanor I haven’t seen since coming in from the battlefield.  I can actually feel it.  There is a true killer in there.  Worse, there is something of insanity behind your eyes.”  He said this while inspecting me as if I were an intriguing sculpture he was studying for the first time.

He waited for what seemed an eternity.  He gazed directly into my eyes, and I unspeaking, gazed him back. 

“I had strongly considered using you for stud.  Elvin blood makes for long-lived labor, among other things, and you have a good look about you.  But that isn’t going to work here, is it.”

I said nothing.

“Not going to speak, threaten or anything are you?”  He actually grinned at me.

“You have guts, boy.  You have that damned elvin blood in you.  But you have my blood in you, too, the blood of my family, the blood of Fel’Caden nobility runs hot within your veins.  We were the first in this country, ours is the oldest castle and our ancestors built the Citadel at Stonebridge.  In fact you remind me just a bit of an uncle of mine.  He was insane, too.”

I could tell he was trying to read my emotions, trying to look deep into my soul.

“Boy, I hate to do it, but I have a bad feeling; keeping you here, even if we geld you, would be like having a turn-case dog on the premises.  If we left you uncut, you would refuse to breed for spite.  And the first chance you got you would kill someone.  In fact, you already have, haven’t you?  You speared that boy, what was his name, Jaymes, in the neck.”

He stood back up and looked at me for a long while, then added “There is no getting around it,” he said, “by Eayah, but I’m going to have to either kill you or sell you.  If we kill you, then we are at a total loss; selling you, on the other hand … we might could make a tidy profit, if we find the right buyer.” 

Herrol kept staring at me, and then with a shake of his head and a bit of amusement he asked, “Just out of curiosity, would you mind telling me how you got up here from the flat without anyone seeing you?”

I just gave him the stone-face.  He wiped his mouth, held the back of his hand against his chin, then gave a grunt of exasperation as he turned and went inside to take his evening meal.

As I stood chained to that whipping post, it slowly sunk in that I would never hear my momma sing songs to me again.  I would never feel her touch or gaze into her eyes.  She had been everything to me, and now she was gone.  I had no purpose, no meaning; depression enveloped me to the core.  All of those wonderful stories meant little.  The elves were not coming, and there never had been.  They were just stories to me.  And I had no great thoughts for any who would let their own be used as my momma had been used.

After the sun had set, a groom came out and carefully sloshed water over my body.  I can’t remember how many it was, but several men with crossbows came out and tossed a shovel at me.  Then Lord Herrol came out and said, “Take no thought, if you make a run for it we will shoot.  It won’t be to kill.  It will be to capture, geld and harness to the mill grind.”

He walked in front of me again and made sure he had eye contact.  He shook his head, “Devil’s Damnation, boy.  Okay, I’m going to make it clear.  I know your mind is running with all kinds of thoughts of revenge.  If it wasn’t, I’d be disappointed.  But you see here.  No matter what you think, right now, right at this very moment, there isn’t a damned thing you can do.  I own you boy.  And right this minute I am going to give you the opportunity to bury your mama in your own way. 

“I’m not going to ask if you understand.  I know you do.  So when Lexin unlocks those chains, you go pick up your mama and find you a nice spot to bury her in.  Then you can do whatever praying you do to whoever you pray to.  Then we’re going to lock you back up.

“Now you behave, and there may come a day when you get your chance to get your revenge.”

He shook his head slowly, “I don’t think it’s going to happen.  But you understand in your mind that if you get stupid you won’t ever get that chance.”

At that moment I hated him in such a way I would have gone after him with a rock against his sword, young though I was.  But as much as I hated it, I knew he was right.  I had to keep my mind clear and make sure my momma had some sort of respect. 

They led me in a procession out to what had once been our quarters.  Lexin, of all people, now with a Gevard army uniform on, unlocked my chains and I just stood a minute and rubbed my wrists. 

My body was beaten and I was weak.  I hadn’t had any food since early that morning and my wounds were fresh.  But without looking at anyone else I walked over to my momma and took a blanket someone tossed over.  I wrapped my beloved momma with care and tenderness.  No tears came to my eyes.  That was for me alone at my own choosing.

I buried my momma under her favorite apple tree which she had lovingly planted over one hundred years ago.  She had sung many songs under that tree and we had eaten of its fruit while pretending to walk the valley of the Dsh’Tharr.  I swore to myself, I would find a special place where I could call my own.  I would come back and take her there.  But there would be blood to pay first.  How?  I had no idea, but in my child’s heart a seed was planted.

There were no prayers for me to pray, for deep within me I knew that if there were any gods, they had been watching when this had all happened.  I wanted no part of them.  In my mind I spat curses and defilements on all powers that be, as well as any and everyone who worshiped them.

After a time, Herrol decided I had knelt beside my momma long enough. Without a word I walked away from the tree, looked these humans directly in the eyes, and held my wrists out.  I could feel my nostrils flare ever so slightly and I felt a calm, white incensed anger emanate from my eyes. 

“Mother of gods!” one of them exclaimed in a hushed voice.

Then Herrol said, “Go to town and find Stagus.  Then get him over here.  Get him here as soon as possible.  I want that boy sold and gone.”

He turned to leave and as Lexin came over to clamp the chains on my wrists, I snapped my hand quickly for his dagger; I drew it with a cry of rage and then I went berserk.

Chapter   9

________________________

 

 

I HAD CAUGHT them flat-footed, and in so doing learned a valuable lesson.  Only a fool would have bucked a stacked deck like that, a fool or a crazy person.  I dove into the center of the half circle of men and I heard Herrol yelling at them not to shoot their crossbows.  Panic swept the group and several of those brave men took bolts fired by their own comrades.  One took a bolt in his eye and I sidestepped onto his falling body, jumped up and landed on another while cutting deep with the blade.

As he screamed and fell, I wrenched the blade free and rolled swiftly to my feet.  Chaos was in motion and I saw Colsti, who had invaded our quarters that day, and one of the bolts had caught him in the midriff.  He was focused on the bolt and not at me.  He might have lived had he paid more attention to what was actually happening.  The cur was bent over and I ducked under grabbing hands; slashing hard at his neck I felt the dagger glide all the way through.

Beside Colsti, I recognized his younger brother, Phaul.  He had been there too.  Phaul was twice my size, but fear gripped his gizzard and he turned and tried to run.  He fell and as he stumbled to get up I ran him through the middle, then whipped around cutting not one, not two, but three more unarmored humans.

I heard a whip crack and turning, I saw directly in front of me was Cordis.  I got a look into his eyes and suddenly I saw fear in his face.  That potbellied pig froze for an instant, and then he tried bringing his braided whip back into motion … but he was too slow. 

I had wanted to kill him first, but right then it didn’t matter.  Something was hitting me, but I didn’t feel it.  Overwhelmed with rage I leaped upon Cordis with a snarl like some savage beast.  I saw him panic as I caught the lash of his whip around my arm.  He didn’t let go as I yanked myself to him with a thrust into his gut.  When they pulled me off of him I was screaming and had stabbed him over twenty times.

They tried to hold me and had to lift me up overhead as I fought like a demon in mortal form.  I felt the blows hammer my body too frequent to count, but I kept swinging that blade.  Weakness and loss of blood finally overcame me allowing them to take control of my body.  As they held me down I felt someone grab my hair and pull my head up to face Herrol.  His sword was drawn, blood on his clothes and he looked ready to run me through.  Then his face broke with a strange grin and he gave a shake of his head.

“Chain him boys.  And keep a careful eye.  He’s crazier than a rabid wolf.”  He looked me straight and direct and inside I could see he really liked me.  It was a cruel kind of like, the kind of affection a warrior gives a really worthy opponent.  But it was still a form of respect.  “Damn it all, boy.  Seven people, you killed seven people, here, that slave boy below, and wounded twice again as many.” 

He wiped his face with his sleeve and smeared blood from a cut on his head.  He slowly shook and dabbed his head again while sizing me up. Then he spoke through exasperated breathing, “Damn …” staring at me as one would look at a captured mountain beast he added, “… do you know ten confirmed kills on the battlefield grants one exalted status?”  Herrol suddenly noticed what must have been a deep wound on his arm, which he now tried to hold closed. 

Herrol breathed deeply, and then chuckled.  Did something like insanity run in the Fel’Caden bloodline?  Had I inherited the same traits?  Holding his arm tightly, he still gave me his attention and seemed to be weighing something out in his mind.  Whatever it was, his face showed a sign of resolve as he apparently changed his mind from whatever it was he was thinking.  He concluded his talk with me by saying, with a final and a resolute shake of his head, “Boy … I hate to see you go.” 

With that, he strode off to the main keep.

The morning after burying my momma I woke to find myself naked, my hands and feet securely chained to a post behind the regular slaves’ quarters.  My body had been cleaned and I could tell my back had been salved.  I was to be sold, after all, and you don’t want your merchandise to bear infections from disciplinary actions. 

Never in my life could you have told me a body could feel as stiff as I felt, nor as sore.  My head hurt and I heard a ringing in my ears.  I felt nauseated beyond anything I had ever experienced, even worse than when I had eaten a bunch of poisonous berries as a young child.  And I couldn’t see from my right eye, it was swollen so badly.

Something felt like it moved a little in my left side and it hurt to even breathe.  Was this how it felt to die?  I didn’t know, but was sure it couldn’t be too awfully much different.

It hurt less to lay on my right side than the left.  And there was a little rise in the ground beneath me, so that was where I lay my head.  The thick grasses were actually comforting under my exposed and beaten body.  And the sun, well, the sun felt good.

I tried to imagine my momma laying her hand on me once more to ease the pain.  A youngster has all kinds of imagination, but I could almost swear that I felt So’Yeth beneath me reach up and pull just a little of the hurt from my wounds.  A red-breasted robin landed beside me and picked at my hair for a few minutes.  And in what I figured to be some form of delirium I thought I heard a far off female voice tell So’Yahr not to burn me.

I knew those things didn’t really happen, only in my mommas stories of ancient times.  But the nausea seemed to go away; something in my left side seemed to go ‘pop’ and my breathing became a little easier.

Eventually I noticed on the grass beside me was a sizable chunk of meat, a roll of bread and a gourd of water.  Cordis was nowhere around, but I recognized Barlan stood watching nearby.

“Take da tahm to eht, Komain.  Yu’ll be needin’ yur streng’t.”  Barlan’s tone wasn’t haughty, nor had he ever been unkind.  Not overly friendly, mind you, but never unkind.  In fact he used to come by often and listen to my momma’s music when she would play at night.

The hate in me was strong for all humankind, but this man was a slave like me.  And he had always been polite to my momma.  For a long time I looked at the food and knew I would have to eat.  And it did look mighty inviting.

As if reading my thoughts Barlan said, “Ah know there’s a site of angah in yah, but yah won’t get very fahr at all without nothin’ in yur belly.  Now eht.  Eht while ya can.”

I made the effort to eat at the food beside me, but I was more thirsty than anything else.  I drank and Barlan made sure I had plenty.  Carefully I tried to chew on the meat and was surprised to find my jaws actually worked.  It seemed I had been struck there repeatedly and was sure a tooth or two had been knocked loose.  But I could eat fine and felt no pain around my teeth.  The bread was stale, but I ate it anyway.  When you are hungry, I mean really hungry, you aren’t that overly particular.

___________________________

 

Only once did anyone from the house come to look in on me.  It was one of the older men.  When he looked me over for a couple of minutes, I heard him talk to Barlan about keeping me in his sight.  They didn’t want me trying to kill myself before I could get sold.  I heard Barlan address him as Felder and I then recognized him.  It was strange how suddenly I wanted to know names.  Names and faces.  “One day …” I thought.

Later in mid noon Barlan came to me and said “Now Komain, ah need to wash yah up a mite so ah can sab yah up again.”

He didn’t act with any animosity, and he moved carefully over my wounds.  I could sense that he wasn’t afraid of me, but not because I was bound up.  No, there was something else.  Momma had always said that he trained and took care of horses the elvin way, with care and compassion.  The animals trusted him, she would say.

As he bent down and bathed my back I offered no fight.  It hurt but I gave no evidence of pain, or at least I tried not to.  All the while he was humming my momma’s music.  With uncommonly gentle hands he put a strong herbal salve over my wounds.  Then he began to talk in low, but clear sounds.

“Ah know yah got a bunch of barnin’ fahr lashed up in yur innards.  But yah gotta larn a mite of patience.  Where evah ya go, tink about yah momma.  Ah know she’s gone.  An’ maybe what all she talk about don’t make no sense raht now.  But she war tryin’ to prepare yu fohr sometin’.  What, I dunno.  But sometin’ fohr shore.

“Yur momma was goot.  She showed me kindness when mah own momma died.  I was about yur size an’ she talked to me, she sang to me, an’ it was her dat taught me how to care fohr animals.”

As he talked there was no break in his slow movements.  And he would hum in between things he would say.  I could tell he was talking so no one would realize he was doing so.  Why, I don’t know, but I listened.

“Ah was dere when yah was born.  Ah saw da moons an’ da naght sky.

“Yah momma nigh lost yah dat naght.  It was hard fur her.  Ah tink she knew her tahm was close.  She tol’ me dat sometahms her people could tell dere tahm to pass on was t’hand.

“Yur differ’nt, young fella.  Ah seen da way da hosses look at yah.  Ah seen da rabbits an’ skirrels watch yah when yah play an’ sleep.  They want to talk to yah.  But yah’ve gotta let ‘um.”

He was salving my back when Felder came back out and said “Hey, Barlan.  Get a move on.  We’ve just received some new hacks at the south barn and we need you to prove them up.”

“Yes suh, Lord Feldah.  Ah’ll be raht dere.”

Felder left and Barlan looked at me.  As he began to move to stand up I noticed him pause.  The way he was kneeling I saw his mantle open and there in his underbelt was my momma’s harmonica.  I knew he saw me notice it and I saw his expression become soft with my own amazement.

“One day, one day yah come back har.  Come back a free man.  Ah’ll hab dis part o’ yah momma waitin’ fur yah.  So yah can hab it forebber.”

I looked at this man who looked to be forty or fifty years old, with his thinning brown and gray colored hair, a trimmed bearded face which normally had no expression and his weathered features.  This man who had been born a slave and lived his whole life tending the livestock of his owner’s household.

“Angah can take yah so fahr, an’ yah hab da raght.  But yah can’t lib like dat forebber.  Fine yur place, Komain, fine yur place.”

As he got up to leave I thought I saw a tear in his eye.  He hesitated and bent low, acting as if to brush something from my body and in a hushed whisper he said, “Yah got a twin brudder out dere, ah don’ know where, an’ a olter sistuh who ah tink is free.  Ah don’ tink she know about you.  Der was anubber, but her dead now.”  Then he stood up and walked away to meet Felder without looking back.

___________________________

 

A twin brother, I thought as shock and amazement set in my mind.  I had never known.  Why hadn’t momma told me?  I felt a rush of emotions I couldn’t identify.  Somewhere I had a family, a brother and a sister; could I find them, if so, how?  There weren’t all that many elves around.  And now here I was about to be sold.  I felt a kind of panic inside.  But it had been so long ago.  And what of the one who died, another sister?  What had happened to her?

A twin, I thought, he surely must have been sold before I could remember.  And then there was the child who had just been born.

The weakness from my wounds made me want to sleep.  My future was uncertain, and I was still a child easing into adolescence.  What I needed now was rest and recovery.  Despite my attempts to stay awake and ponder my situation, darkness closed in upon me and I fell into a restless slumber.

When I woke later in the evening I saw that another piece of meat and roll of bread had been placed to my side.  The gourd had been refilled with cool water, as well.  I ate but was aware of a couple of the human children watching me from a distance.  Naked, chained to a post, and in the open, I was ashamed and degraded.

I tried to think about what Barlan had said and why.  But what consumed me was my burning desire for revenge.  Barlan stood out in an unwanted manner.  I wanted to believe that all humans were the same.  Yet he took the time to say something meaningful.  And I became bitter for it.  It made me mad all over again; mad, but with a desire to hear it all one time more.  Now I was both angry and confused.  So many emotions, so much had happened and I had no answers.

Where were the protective spirits my momma had talked about?  If they were so real, why had they allowed her to come here in the first place?  Again I cursed the so-called powers that be, if they existed at all.

As to the birds, squirrels, and horses … big deal.  What could they do to help?  I didn’t even like horses.  They were so big.  In fact they scared me just a little.  What would happen when you got on one of those beasts and it got mad?  No thanks. 

As to a living twin and older sister, what could I do?  Was there even a point in worrying about it?  My sister was more than likely eighty or ninety years older, at least.  That’s a long time and she could be on the other side of the world.  And many years had gone by since my own birth.  Where would my twin be?  I was more depressed than before.  Emotionally crushed I think is a better description.  I was a slave, born into ownership, living the life of a slave.  More specifically, I was living the life of a half-breed elvin slave.  I was alone.

At what point I wasn’t sure, but I again fell into a deep sleep.  While sleeping I dreamed.  But these weren’t the kind of dreams you can remember when you awaken.  They were horrible dreams, nightmares.  I was constantly in a state of fear … as if running from something I couldn’t see and fighting creatures that would not die.  From behind I felt teeth sink into my neck and I slashed with a sword made of rotten wood.  I could not see my adversary and knew not where I was.  Then I fell.  Down, down, into some kind of deep darkness which most people associate with death.  As I fell I felt myself being consumed with terror and called myself a coward.  Then there was nothing.

___________________________

 

Stagus was not a small man.  He was only of about average height, seven or eight inches above five feet, but broad.  He probably weighed around two hundred and thirty to forty pounds.  Some of it was fat and his belly hung grotesquely over his leather girdle, but his hands were huge and shoulders broad.  When he moved he made me think of an overweight hound dog just after eating.  He was bald with a fringe of brown hair and had an ugly scar to the outside of his left eye.  I had not seen many bald men before, and momma had told me that it didn’t happen to elves.  It had been funny to think of, before.  But it wasn’t funny to see on this man.

He wore an unbleached cotton tunic with heavy denim pants, a leather workman’s vest and hard soled boots.  A wide bladed short sword hung by his left side.  He was a rugged looking man who I figured to be in his mid – forties or older.  I had seen him on the plantation before.  He never brought slaves in, but occasionally he would take one or two away with him and they never came back.

When I awakened the second morning he was kneeling just out of reach and giving me a careful study.  He saw when I opened my eyes and I could feel his gaze watching my reaction to seeing him there.  I became like a stone and simply froze in place.  Our eyes met and there was a coldness there that made me think of Cordis, but his manner was level instead of rash.

I saw his eyes go to my genitals and linger there for a long time, filling me with a sense of shame and indignity.  An icy cold chill washed up and down my spine which I did not understand and could not explain.  Stagus slowly looked up my body and back to my face with a slight expression of approval on his face that made me ache for my clothing.  I had the feeling he was about to reach down and attempt to touch my privates when Herrol came around the corner, followed by Lexin and two other guards.

“Don’t you ever come to the front door, Stagus?” Herrol asked as he walked up briskly.  I saw a bandage on his head and his left forearm was wrapped in red stained cloth.

“Hmm, Lord Herrol I presume?” Stagus asked in a harsh voice as he stood up to meet the lord.

“The same.  And you no doubt are Stagus.”  There was a sort of impatience in Herrol’s voice and manner.  As if he didn’t really like the burly man in front of him.

Stagus seemed somewhat amused and callous, almost challenging.  Clearly not something Herrol was accustomed to.  “You write good letters.  I half expected you to be carrying a rapier and wearing a formal jacket.”

If Stagus was trying to unsettle the lord of the estate, he didn’t appear to be succeeding.  In a clam but firm tone Herrol said, “From here on out you will present yourself to the front door, where you will be properly attended to as befitting your station …” Without more than a half breath and before a remark could be made he nodded his head in my direction, “… and this is the youngster for which I have extended you an invitation to come and consider.”

Stagus had his mouth open to make a remark but Herrol moved to the side and waved toward me as he continued with a startling air of control.  “As you can tell he possesses elvin blood, and he is strong and hardy.”

Caught off guard by Herrol’s command of the conversation, Stagus simply closed his still open mouth and listened to the presentation.  “He is small, but his type ages slow and will last for generations to come.  He is also a fighter, as you can tell …” Herrol stepped aside and indicated the bandage on his arm and lashings on my back, “… by the discipline we have had to enforce upon him.  That would, I presume, make him an ideal candidate for your project up in the mountain road developments.  Furthermore, he is a son of Kelshinua.”

Stagus had become quiet during the description, but his eyebrow gave a rise at the mention of my momma’s name.  “You mean the elf minstrel you keep on the plantation?” He tilted his head in a slightly perplexed manner, “Didn’t she just give birth within the past week”

Herrol’s reply was short and to the point, as if he didn’t want to discuss the issue, “That is correct, now …”

“Elves don’t breed that quickly.” With Herrol momentary off track Stagus seized the moment, glanced at me quickly and added with a curious and crooked smile, “This boy can’t be more than twenty-two or three, twenty-four at most …” He lingered the phrase just long enough for Herrol to begin a comeback, “I expected him to be out of the other elvin bitch you have …”

He was pacing and lingering again just long enough for Herrol to begin opening his mouth, then answered his own question as if he had been suddenly enlightened, “… Kalisha, I believe her name to be?” Stagus poised his head inquiringly.

Stalled and irritated, but as yet unflustered, Herrol paused a moment and replied, “Kalisha was infertile, and has been deceased for the better part of a year.”

“I see,” replied Stagus, as he momentarily returned his attention to me. 

With an almost casually conversational tone Stagus commented, “I have a wizard acquaintance who says one of your people approached him, oh, four or five years ago.  Something about enhancing breeding cycles of some species or another.” Stagus again gave Herrol a crooked smile, “You wouldn’t be trying some of that ancient science of your ancestors, improving your family’s unusual constitution and longevity with old elvin blood, would you?  You didn’t kill Kalisha by … trying to magically induce her into pregnancy?” 

They were talking around me as if I wasn’t even there, as if I was an animal.  To them, I must have been, but for me it was humiliating.  Furthermore, I was hearing about family I never knew I had in the most derogatory way.  And now I was learning my sister may have died because of some kind of experimentation.

When Herrol didn’t answer, Stagus added with a direct tone of challenge, “Did your man tell my wizard you wanted to create a master race?”

Herrol’s tone was level and he let no facial expression show, “Would you like to continue doing business within our Province, let alone Gevard, Stagus?”

Failing to shake the Lord’s countenance, Stagus seemingly thought it over while casually picking up a stick and chewing his lip.  Then he answered with a wrinkle of his brow, raise of an eyelid and a sly grin, “Of course.”

As if nothing else had been said, Stagus looked at me again with a carefully appraising eye and continued walking around me.  With the stick he probed my stomach, leg and arm muscles … I guess to see how firm they were.

“He had a twin didn’t he?  A second born that got sold.  I heard tell of it.”

My prospective buyer was looking right at me when he asked the question.  I will still in shock at having just learned the fact myself, and it must have shown on my face.

“Well, I’ll be damned!”  Stagus chuckled.  He looked up at Herrol, “He didn’t know did he?”

“Apparently not.” Herrol glanced only for a moment at me, and then returned his full attention to Stagus.

“I’ll give you an even seven Kales, Dahruban pressed Kales, for him as is,” Stagus offered.

Herrol did not seem tempted and turned, indicating Stagus to follow him, “We will discuss price, terms and potential future business in the house over tea.”

With a hint of humor and hands clasped behind his back, Stagus stepped around me and made to follow.

As they were walking away Herrol stopped and instructed Lexin, “Clothe him.  I won’t have anyone leaving the estate in a vulgar state of adornment.”  He turned to Stagus, “What you do once you leave sight of our premises is up to you.”  Almost with an afterthought he said to the guardsmen, “And be careful, he bites.”  With a wry look on his face he passed a glance at Lexin and added, “He bites hard.”

It was then I noticed Lexin had a bandage around his neck and his right arm in a sling.

They were several paces away when Stagus offhandedly asked, “There was another child, wasn’t there, a long time ago?”

Herrol came to a stop, turned and faced Stagus who seemed to be smiling.

Also stopping and looking up into the eyes of Herrol, Stagus continued, “A girl child, a girl child who was stolen away by one of your own slaves and escaped.”  Stagus paused long enough to see if Herrol would comment, and then added, “Her name was U’Lahna, I believe.”

As two warriors challenging each other, armed with wit rather than weapons of steel, these two met the eyes of each other unwaveringly.  Herrol then said in a smoothly controlled voice, “Make your point.”

Taking a moment, Stagus seemed to pick at something in his teeth, then in a somewhat arrogant voice he continued, “Far to the north, next to the Kohnarahs Bay in ice country, there is a rather prominent elvin cleric, or Druid, or whatever,” he waved his hand callously, “whose name is U’Lahna.  She is about the right age, one hundred years or so, give or take a decade.”  He still had that evil, challenging smile on his face as he flicked whatever he had picked from his teeth off of his finger.

Herrol asked, “Do you enjoy your vocation?”

Partially taken aback, then mildly scowling Stagus answered, “Yes …” lingering his answer he continued, “I do.”

“Are you good at it?” Herrol asked without raising his tone.

“I like to think so, yes.  Why?”

“Because, Stagus, I also like my profession, and I know I am good at it.  Very good, in fact, at the profession of war.” For the first time I saw a hint of a smile on Herrol’s face in his communication with Stagus.

Continuing his locked eye contact with Stagus, Herrol added, “You have a standard compliment of one hundred and fifty-eight guards and hunters scattered among three camps, and between seventy-five to eighty slaves divided among those camps at any given time.  Although partially funded by business parties in Dahruban, Charlamae and Malone, most of your operation is funded through your own resources.  And you have zero military support from anyone; you are in effect, self-reliant and at a minimum three days hard ride from any vestige of reinforcements.  Is my summation about accurate?”

Stagus was speechless for a moment, and then seemed to smile in genuine good humor. 

Herrol returned the smile with a cold demeanor and casually added, “I have also heard of the incident in Ersyde … you fought ten ruffians and killed three using your fists … and why, because one of them mistook you for someone else, and even apologized?” With that Herrol casually turned to go to the main house as he lifted and waved his left hand.  A half-dozen men walked from behind buildings, trees and shrubs, all carrying readied crossbows.  With a quiet and now cautious demeanor, Stagus glanced around and quietly followed Herrol inside. 

Numb and in a state of emotional shock I was still rolling the thoughts in my mind, “I have a sister.  I have a sister and a twin brother, and I had never been told?  And there was another sister who was already dead.”  For the first time I could remember, I felt a twinge of anger at my momma.  Why would she have not shared that with me?  The thought that I may have family bit deep into the core of my being.

Did my momma choose me over my twin?  I could not fathom my momma choosing one child over another.  What happened to my twin?  I wondered what he looked like.  Well, like me, of course.  We were twins.  But was his hair long?  How did he dress?  Did he like wild cherry tarts, or had he ever had one?

And U’Lahna, what was her life like?  Did she look like momma?  Where was she?  Was the U’Lahna from up north the sister who had been kidnapped?  And why had she been kidnapped in the first place?

I began to burn with even more emotional fuel.  These people would pay.  Somehow, I would find a way.  It would become my purpose in life.  How I did not know, but I would make it happen.  And when I did ……

With those thoughts in my mind and no answers to bear, I was sold like a common farm animal.  Sold and taken from the only home I had ever known.

Chapter   10

________________________

 

 

WHAT DEAL STAGUS and Herrol agreed upon I never knew.  Nor did it matter.  I was loaded into a caged wagon dressed only in threadbare, cotton pants and tunic.  But it was a lot better than what I had been wearing previously.  On my wrists were a newly forged set of manacles with a chain connecting to the tailgate door.  A neatly paired team of bay horses pulled the wagon, as I remember.  In time it would become apparent that Stagus was very particular about everything he did.  He liked things neat, in order and everything about him had to be just so-so.

Right before leaving, Stagus came around to the side of the wagon and gave me another inspection.  “They called you Komain, aye?  That’s a slink name.  You might be a slink, but now you belong to me.”  There was a smug dominance in his tone, and the term slink was a degrading reference to what humans referred to as a mongrel half-breed elf-humans.  “From now on you’ll go by Sedrick, had me a good mutt dog by that name once.”  He rattled the cage once real hard as he turned to walk away chuckling.

As Stagus climbed onto the driver’s bench he whistled over his shoulder, the way someone would whistle for a puppy.  “Here Sedrick, here boy,” he called out to me in a taunting manner.  He was still chuckling as the driver snapped the lines and the wagon lurched forward.

As we left the plantation I felt numb.  In my life I had never been far from the keep’s outer walls.  It was eerie to watch it slowly fade away into the background.  I could hear Stagus and his driver speaking humorous dialogue in another language.  Nothing more was said to me.

It was the year I had turned twenty-four years old, but I was about the size of most twelve year old humans.  I was still just a child.

From the plantation we rode to the nearby town of Heins.  It wasn’t a large town, not much more than a hamlet.  Two main streets crossed each other in the center and there were a couple of side streets.  The town was shaped somewhat like a rectangle in a large open place.  It didn’t register in my mind at the time, but the town had no wall.  I had grown up inside the protection of perimeter walls about eighteen feet tall.  There was so much I didn’t know about my world and a fear of the unknown was sweeping through me.

We didn’t enter Heins from the main street, but rode around to one of the back buildings.  I saw a barn and a couple of corrals full of cattle, mules and horses.  Around the barn were several wagons and there were men busy working around them.

Purchasing me must have been a last minute deal for Stagus, because he was preparing a good sized caravan to go somewhere of which I had no idea.  As far as I knew, he could be taking me somewhere to sell me again. 

They parked the wagon and two brawny men came over and opened the tailgate and cage door.  One pulled hard on the wrist chains while the other slipped a choke collar on me before I could regain my balance.  When I fought, they pulled and I choked.  It was as simple as that.

Stagus spoke to them in the new tongue I didn’t understand, but by their expressions I could tell he had given them some kind of instructions.  Before walking away he gave me a long appraising look.  The guards then led me to a fence post and hooked my chains.  Wonderful!  I was sure I was about to be whipped again.

This time, however, I was thankfully wrong.

Instead they pulled up my tunic and with expert hands inspected my wounds.  Then they bathed and salved them.  I’ll admit I was surprised.  Had I been more experienced in the ways of the world, I wouldn’t have been.  Stagus was a builder, a builder of roads, to be more exact.  And although he used slave labor this wasn’t considered wrong among most Aeshean peoples.  In fact, he was considered a bold and brave pioneer.  He would go out and build roads in the most dangerous of country.

At the time, the only real trade route from south to north was a road running parallel with the Melphashic River, and it was dangerous at best.  There were those who traveled occasionally up and down the western coast of the Phabeon, but that also was a nip and tuck journey.  You would find settlements here and there, and those attempting settlements.  Often the country was infested with brigands, creatures of all kinds and then there were the goblinoids.

Most of Aeshea’s human civilization was in the north, some in the Phabeon Islands and the east coast was supposed to be fairly well populated.  Stagus was part of a movement to open up the Sahrjiun Mountains and surrounding territories due to reports of iron and copper ore deposits, among other things.  So, Stagus was in some regards considered a brave and heroic man.  He was making history, or at least trying to.

___________________________

 

Like many other slave owners he thought of his slaves in the same context as animals.  To his credit, though, he believed in taking care of his animals.  It had nothing to do with affection, but of efficiency and equipment maintenance.  He understood that like any other tool or beast of burden, the better you take care of it the better your performance will be.

After I was salved I was led into the barn.  Inside I saw several stalls fitted with bars to be used as slave pens.  Mostly there were boys anywhere from twelve to fifteen years of age.  A few young men were in the mix, but there were no girls.  All were human.

There was no hesitation among the guards.  Instead of a cell I was taken to a side wall with a hitch ring and secured there.  Then one of them brought me food and water.  Again, this was taking me by surprise.  I noticed that the plate was clean and the water clear.  The food was a stew rich in meat, vegetables, onions and potatoes.  I hadn’t eaten this good since being separated from my momma.  Nor was the guard insolent.  He was treating me like a good groom would treat a horse in a stable.

The other slaves watched me and one tried to speak to me in yet another tongue I didn’t know.  Through song and poem my momma had taught me perhaps a dozen or more languages, yet I could understand nothing being said around me.  What was the use of all that stuff I had learned? 

I sat back and got comfortable and tried to rest.  At one point I awakened to see a rat looking at me through the hay.  The rat must have weighed fifteen or twenty pounds, but it wasn’t being aggressive in any way.  It was just staring at me and twitching his nose and only I seemed to notice.  I couldn’t help wondering if I was in his spot. 

Some guards came in and started feeding the slaves and I got another good meal.  As soon as the food cart came in the rat ducked out.  Through all that had happened I couldn’t help but be amused at how funny the rat looked as it darted back into the hay.  For a hint of a moment I almost smiled.  Instantly I felt guilty and ashamed.  My momma had been killed.  I had been beaten and sold.  I had learned of family I didn’t know I had.  Now I was on my way to who knows where.  I swore I would never smile or laugh again.  A huge part of me wanted to buckle under and weep like a small child.  I kept it bottled up, though.  From now on I would let myself feel nothing, nothing at all, never again. 

Wait.  I would let myself feel one thing.  I would let myself hate.  I could and would hate humans.  I would hate the elves who allowed all of this to happen, who let my momma be taken and defiled as a slave to humans and give birth to me.  Life was not fair, I decided.  Life was worthless and I wanted out, but what to do?

The next morning we were fed and my back cleaned and salved once more.  Then we were taken outside and loaded into six of the wagons.  There were six slaves in each of the wagons, except for mine which held seven.  My addition would take up a little more space, making me unpopular to begin with.  That brought the total number of slaves to thirty-seven.

Most of the other wagons were filled with supplies, and there were thirteen of them.  Stagus’s personal wagon and two more made a wagon train of twenty-two wagons in all.  Most of these were pulled by oxen; a couple were pulled by mules. 

Stagus’s wagon was pulled by a team of six of the most beautiful bay horses I had ever seen, not to mention the biggest.  And all six horses had these bushy hairs all around their feet.  I would learn these were called feathers, although they didn’t look much like feathers to me.  When the horses moved the feathers would move so that it seemed the horses were almost dancing.  They were called Clydesdales and one of the oldest breeds in the world.

Several mounted guardsmen were part of the team, armed with crossbows, swords and leather armor.  Once everything and everyone was loaded we set off to travel to … well, I had no idea.  The whole town, such as it was, turned out to see us go.  It wasn’t on my mind at the time, but I am sure it made quite a spectacle for these folks to see.

The reins snapped and the wagon wheels started rolling, thus beginning a long journey that was to last for quite a while.

___________________________

 

Heins was located in the southern county of the Fel’Caden Providence, which was in the north-east part of Gevard, in turn placing us just west of the highest peaks of the Sahrjiun Mountains.  In short, we were in the middle of nowhere with the closest real settlement being the Stonebridge Citadel.  The Citadel was south and east by several days of good riding.

We headed out to the south, skirted Gevard, then turned south and west to hit the Saudjumae Trail.  This trail was not in the best of condition due to much rain, but we held true until finally reaching the Norder-Sau Trade Route … Norder-Sau … this is what humans call a name.  The origin came from true lack of imagination and was a hybrid combination of Northern and Southern, eventually condensed to Norder-Sau.  This was the famous-infamous thousand mile and more long road from Shudoquar, in the north, to Port N’Ville, in the south.  That is, if you made it that far.

You would think such an important road would be guarded, or at least maintained.  Not hardly.  Often it barely resembled a road at all.  Twice, from the merger of the Saudjumae into the Norder-Sau, until we reached the cutoff to head south by east around the Jutte Range, we were attacked by brigands.  I got to see Stagus’s men in action, though, and they were handy.  We lost three slaves and two guards were wounded between both skirmishes.  Considering the times, that was actually pretty good.  I had heard of entire caravans getting wiped out on that road, and here and there you could see the remains of wagons.

All around the Jutte’s it felt like eyes were watching, but we weren’t attacked.

We then reached the Clements River and traveled parallel to the east until getting through Clements Gap.  From there we followed the river to its point of origin at the Phabeon Sea and continued north around the eastern side of the Jutte’s. 

When I first saw the Phabeon I just stared.  I remembered the tales momma told me tales of elvin civilization and the City of Phabeous which once governed the land.  It had been a paradise long ago, but the ruins were now all under water.  What it must have looked like, I wondered.  In the distance all I could perceive in the horizon was a beautiful sea.

The days turned into weeks and I lost all track of time.  It was all the same to me now, anyway.  The travel was always precise and well planned.  Riding time was balanced with walking and we traveled six days with a full day of rest on the seventh.  This had nothing to do with religious observations, Stagus simply wanted to make sure his animal and slave stock were in good condition. 

Food was always well prepared and we watered regularly.  Whenever we bedded down Stagus would always inspect each of the slaves for health, but he never touched any of us.  He did seem to give me a little more attention than the others.  A couple of times I would notice one or two of the guards give each other a knowing look. 

There were now thirty-four of us in chains, but I was the only one with pointed ears.  My wounds healed quickly and my strength had completely returned.  I was still the outcast and when I ate, I ate alone. 

Often my thoughts would go back to my momma and our nights beside a warm fire.  Looking at the night sky I would remember her pointing out the many stars and telling me the names of constellations.  Her favorite was the constellation called The Archer.  This was an elf, she said and he resided in the southern sky.  His drawn bow and arrow ever pointing the way due north.

I missed my momma dearly, her smooth voice and the calm way she had about her.  How I wished I could just talk to someone and have them not look at me like an infection.

It’s a bad feeling to be a misfit even among misfits.  These humans were already forming friendships, but me; I felt like a child looking through a window into a room of happy people, only I wasn’t allowed inside.  It was like suffocating but being allowed to breathe just enough to stay alive.  I think I would have rather been back in that box, at least I wouldn’t see what was going on that I couldn’t be a part of.

I learned to listen to their conversations and could detect three distinctly different dialects.  I found I had a natural talent to learn words and mimic their accents.  The most common language used among Stagus and his crew was the Lohngish tongue.  To hear Lohngish used for the first time, it seemed to have a much broader scope of terminology with a somewhat smooth sound; quite different from the more guttural sounds of the Gevardic language.  I would learn that, predominately, only people of Gevard spoke this language, consequently making it an uncommon tongue.

One of the slave boys, a mid-teen called Hamges, heard me repeating syllables to myself one evening at camp.  He seemed to swear at me, and then threw a clod of dirt my way.  The whole idea of this human boy, also a slave, trying to provoke me rekindled my smoldering anger.  We met eyes and held a moment.  The challenge was there; his insolence and my seething anger, his need to prove himself tough and my need for vindication.  Nothing happened that night, however.

As the journey continued I noticed communication developing between Hamges and Stagus.  And then Hamges began spending occasional nights in Stagus’s wagon.  Hamges still journeyed with the rest of us and seemed to gain no special treatments.  But if the others ignored me before, they seemed to avoid me now.  What was worse, for me, was now every time I heard laughter it seemed it was directed at me.  Hamges and all the rest were making me the butt of their jokes.  All, that is, but one tall, big boned boy who looked to be about thirteen or fourteen years old named Jared. 

This Jared was kind of gangly, with oversized hands and clumsy feet.  He had a dark complexion with a long, ragged shock of almost black hair falling over his eyes.  He was a newly captured slave, I gathered, but he still had spirit.  Even though he was younger than most, he was as big as some of the grownups.  When he talked he had a really clean and cultured accent and he seemed to be accepted, even respected by some of the other slaves.

When I looked around at the laughter directed at me, though, I saw he wasn’t part of it.  I think he found the jokes funny at first, but then he caught the look in my eye and I noticed the humorous smile slowly leave his face.  We locked eye contact, he and I, and my expression was as if to say, ‘How would you feel if …?’

After that it was as if he wasn’t sure what conclusions to draw about me, like he was trying to understand what I was thinking.  He still, however, kept his distance.

The road north was not easy and as the terrain grew worse we were all fitted with shoes.  The guards were always wary and scouts went out regularly.  Often the road paralleled the Phabeon Sea, but was not very smooth much of the time. 

Thrice we were attacked by denizens of the Wilderlands, the name of the Sahrjiun’s south-east regions bordering the sea.  These were my first actual experiences with orgs, a hideous humanoid creature averaging about six feet tall, hairy, dirty and with facial features resembling a cross between a baboon, gorilla and an opossum.  It was said they were as intelligent as a mentally challenged human and the result of a wizard’s experiment gone wrong.  The name org was a play on the creatures called ogres, but they weren’t connected in any way.

Orgs are more intelligent than ogres, live in nomadic tribes, are fierce warriors, indiscriminate as to what flesh they eat and can be encountered anywhere along the regions west of the Phabeon.  Again, Stagus’s team was well trained and we made it to a seaside settlement called Valiedo.

There we met with more of Stagus’s guards, eight more wagons of supplies and tools and more slaves for him to look over.  These new slaves were mature human males and numbered about forty-five to fifty.  With our additional losses, due to the org attacks, this brought our total number up to about seventy-five or eighty slaves. 

Most of the new slaves were vagabonds and ruffians caught in crimes; sale into slavery being not exactly uncommon as a criminal punishment.  After these were inspected and approved of, we were issued clothing and blankets for the colder climate and continued on.  We picked up more supplies in a tent settlement called Stuches, and spent a day and night on the outskirts of the foothills town, Kynear.  Finally we arrived at our final destination, a region called the Tremount Valley. 

Tremount was a wild and dangerous region of the eastern Sahrjiun’s.  Here, Stagus was involved with building a section of a new trade route.  This route would connect the city-state of Dahruban, which was located at the southernmost coast of the Alburin Sea, with various lands to the south and through a pass in the Sahrjiun’s to connect with the western lands.  Up to now trade and travel down the western Phabeon coast and Clements River was scarce.  This new route would allow for forts, walled settlements and all the travel protections that come with them.

Stagus planned to move up and through the Tremount Valley, deep into the Black Aggie Mountains, eventually reaching a place called Sahnuck Pass.  On the other side of this pass ran the Sahnuck River.  The Sahnuck would eventually flow past the Stonebridge Citadel, which Herrol said our ancestors, excuse me, his ancestors built.

This was where Stagus had been successfully making a road for around ten years.  He had left to pick up custom made tools from Gevard and bring some new slave boys for training.

We were about two days from Tremount when we were hit hard by a well organized force of brigands.  The attack was sudden and some of the guards went down fast.  Catapults were used to send flaming missiles our way and I saw magic used for the first time.  An ugly creature suddenly appeared in the midst of us and started swinging a huge ax, instantly cleaving the head from a horse one of the guards was riding.  Then I saw a bolt of lightning streak through our ranks and took out eight or nine guards at one time.  The stench of burnt flesh filled my nostrils and the scream of electrocuted guards near us rang through my ears.

The livestock went berserk and mayhem was all around us.  Most of the slaves were riding the wagons at this time and our driver took a lance through the body.  The team of mules took off bucking and jumping and we found ourselves being bounced off the road.  The mules ran through some rocks and I heard a splintering crash.  One of our wheels shattered and then the wagon rolled into a small ravine.  Eight of us were in the wagon and I saw one boy, a black headed fellow named Vyet, get caught in between the bars and his neck snapped like a twig in the roll.  Another boy hit his head hard on a rock as the wagon rolled, and I could tell from the way he flopped in the rolling he had been instantly killed.

A tall and lanky fellow, Rajan, was bruised but landed fine when we finally came to a stop.  I managed to come out all right, but Jared was in the wagon as well and his leg looked to be broken. 

I hated humans, hated them in a bad way.  But sometimes you do things without thinking, like when I was climbing that curtain, and this was one of those times.  As the wagon came to a stop we could hear the fighting still going on.  Rajan was in a panic and cowering against a corner.

I am not going to say that I wasn’t scared, I was.  But right then was a time for action.  I was in a cage and fighting was going on in the distance.  The cage construction was of high quality and the gate didn’t break open, so we couldn’t escape.  But Jared’s left thigh was horribly bent in a way that it shouldn’t go.  He was clearly in pain, but unlike the panic stricken Rajan he was keeping his wits about him.

Without asking, I helped Jared sit up and then took his knee in the crook of my left arm.  Setting my left foot carefully into the straddle of his right thigh, I thought of my momma and the Family Secret she would practice on me.  When I tried it on momma it didn’t work, and it probably wouldn’t this time, either.  But I wrapped my left hand up and over my right elbow with my right hand down directly over the broken place in a figure-four position.

Jared looked at me through his pain-wracked face and I heard him groan, but we made eye contact for just a second and he grabbed the wagon bars.  Closing my eyes, I focused on the thought of my momma and how she would touch me.  I could feel the shattered bone moving in the grip of my arms, and I knew his leg would probably have to be amputated. 

What happened next I couldn’t have explained and it isn’t like I made him completely well, but I gently pulled while thinking of my momma’s hands.  I felt a slow sensation of heat rise up through my chest, into my arms and the bone fragments seemed to come back together with a sickening sputtering sound and Jared yelled.  Well, actually he screamed.  But when I let go, the leg stayed in place and I felt a strange dizziness mixed with a nauseated exhaustion.

When the battle was over, it was Stagus who made it to the wagon first.  Rajan was still sobbing uncontrollably in the corner and had noticed nothing.  Another slave boy was impaled and dead on a stick poking up through the wagon bars and a seventh was folded over backward with blank eyes looking up at the sky.  A red headed fellow, who was simply called Red, had been cleanly knocked unconscious.

Jared’s leg was bruised something awful and he was clearly in pain.  But when they got the doors open he was able to stand up and walk out on his own.  He walked with a limp, mind you, but he walked.  Rajan never really knew what happened and Jared didn’t speak a word.  But when he looked back and we made eye contact, I could see he had finally made up his mind about me.

There were several casualties among Stagus’s party and there had been around a dozen losses among slaves.  But he wasted no time in recovering what he could and getting us back on the trail.  Despite the danger, Stagus did not rush through the remainder of the journey.  That isn’t to say he took his time.

We weren’t allowed to speak or make any unnecessary noise during the rest of the trip.  Everyone stayed on edge and crossbows were kept at the ready.  When we camped the wagons were driven into a circle.  Slaves and livestock were kept in the center.  We made what was called a dry camp, which meant no fire.  Tea was steeped cold and we ate rations.

Why Stagus said it to me I don’t know.  Perhaps it was just an absent means to communicate with someone while making his evening rounds.  Maybe it was just to practice the Gevardic tongue.  As he passed by me he paused and said, “Never be in too much of a hurry.  Keep your head even in dangerous territory, especially in dangerous territory.  It’s when you get in too much of a hurry that you make your biggest mistakes.”  He spoke as if making a passing remark, but I have always remembered the importance of what he said.

Hamges was only slightly injured, but there were no more evenings spent in Stagus’s wagon.  Stagus didn’t spend much time in his wagon, himself, for that matter.

With his numbers down I noticed he pulled watches like all the others.  He took a turn at collecting wood as well.  Apparently Stagus wasn’t above pulling his own weight and doing what needed to be done.  It was something else to remember.  He wasn’t just a boss man.  Stagus was physical, very powerful and moved like a cat.

That is when I started to pay close attention to people, their habits, how they moved and their body language.  I learned how to determine strengths and weaknesses just by watching someone’s methods and mannerisms.  You never knew when you might need to know these things.  You just never knew.

Chapter   11

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THE SLAVES WHO had been problematic before the fight with the brigands had by now lost any signs of resistance.  Hamges made it a point to play up to Stagus and a few of the other guards whenever the chance provided itself.  It became clear Hamges was one of those who chose the path of least resistance.  In an attempt to make life easy on himself he had elected to become a human toilet for the wiles of those who would never respect him for it.  I never cease to be amazed at those who think they are actually advancing their status in life by taking apparent moral shortcuts.  In the end it never works out.  What is tragic is these people never seem to get the idea.

Jared seemed to keep his spirits up and I noticed he kept reciting things to himself.  It sounded as if he were speaking poetry, well rehearsed poetry at that.  The rhythm of his recitation was smooth and his voice had a pleasant quality … until it squeaked a couple of times.  Well, it wasn’t exactly a squeak, more like a sudden drop. 

We weren’t sitting close the first time I heard it, but we weren’t far apart and he was alone.  He looked over at me suddenly, apparently to see if I heard.  He looked embarrassed, but after our eyes held again, he smirked with a shy chuckle.  I couldn’t help but smirk, myself, but when I started to chuckle I caught myself.  For a moment I had forgotten to be miserable for the rest of my life.  Jared’s voice drop was funny, though.

One of the adult slaves, a broad shouldered brute without teeth called Ghyd, was all the time smiling to himself and mumbling.  The guards acted as if they thought him insane, but as long as he made no loud sounds they left him alone.

When we finally reached Tremount I’ve got to admit that, although I seemed to be in for a life of hard labor, I was somewhat relieved.  The camp was almost a small town made of tents.  There was a saloon, a café, several bunkhouses, an open smithy and a supply tent. 

The slaves were kept in thin walled, wooden shacks.  One of the smaller shacks is where I was taken, along with some of the other new boys.  Among them was Hamges. 

Everything was smooth for the first couple of days and nights.  There were ten of us in that shack, but the others left me alone, at first.  We were introduced to chow time, morning and evening inspections and lights out.  We got to take a bath under improvised shower barrels and were issued hard-soled boots, gloves, cloaks and bedding.  Basically we were processed into the camp in a manner not unlike military recruits of some city-states and countries.

I staked out a corner of the shack and minded my own business, waiting to see what was going to happen about us slaves.  Apparently we were being allowed to rest up from the trip. 

After the evening inspection on the third night we turned in to get some sleep.  I found my bedding had been filled with human waste.  Turning around I saw Hamges smiling proudly with the other boys standing on either side of him.  He began talking to me like some kind of tough guy and started opening the front of his pants while his comrades laughed and jeered.  The other boys started to spread out a little and it was clear they were all worked up.  In the years since, I’ve learned this was commonly referred to in prison camps as Initiation to Pecking Order.

Most people don’t like to acknowledge this sort of thing happens but it does; and I was being introduced to it first-hand.

I had seen human male nudity before as a slave on the plantation.  My momma taught me not to make humor of someone’s physical impairments and shortcomings, but it has never made sense to me why human males enjoy standing around comparing themselves with each other.  Hamges was less impressive than most human males I had seen.  Furthermore, he was wasting his time telling me his intentions because I had no clue what he was saying.  His intent, however, was clear.

Why do humans insist on talking up what they plan to do?  Is it to build up their lack of courage?  Do they think it adds intimidation to the situation?  Whatever ... my actions caught them completely by surprise.

Instead of standing there and getting scared, I drove my right shoulder straight into Hamges’s midriff.  I didn’t try to take him down; instead I plowed him all the way across the shack and into the front door.  Those shacks weren’t built to withstand violence from within, but for shelter from the elements.  The door was made of old wood and it busted as we hit it.  It didn’t cave in, but it buckled outward just enough.

The other boys were screaming and I heard shouts from the guards outside, but I didn’t stop.  Hamges’s pants were now around his knees and as I got up I saw he was clearly exposed.  I felt a rage emerging within me and embraced it.  I remembered Cordis and his razor the day he meant to geld me as I brought my left knee up into Hamges’s exposure, hard.  As he buckled over I aimed an awkward right fist down and into his left ear.  I had no understanding of fighting science, but I was giving it everything I had.  Then hands were grabbing me from behind and I found myself falling backward. 

I had grown up on stories of Kn’Yang fighting trolls on a regular basis.  He had perfected a method of fighting them which included lots of diving techniques and rolling on the ground.  In play I would often fight the trolls myself and I had a talent for such movements.  Rolling backward was easy and as I fell I simply rolled out of it and came to my feet.  Again I caught the boys by surprise.

One grabbed at me and I ducked under and caught his knees, then standing straight up I threw him over my back.  Next I seized a piece of board and swung hard at anything I could make contact with.  My first target was a face which I smashed with full force.  I hit another boy across the shoulder followed by a thrust into a third boy’s stomach.  There wasn’t any skill, I was just swinging wildly.  As I swung I moved rearward to cover my backside and keep them from circling around me.  Backed into a corner I saw the door shatter and guards piled in.

Immediately, I found myself facing down two drawn crossbows with nothing but a broken stick in my hand, but I didn’t care.  I was sure I was going to be shot and they were yelling at me in words I didn’t understand.  Then Stagus’s voice boomed and he angrily pushed his way into the room.  He glared at me, and then he glanced at the pile in my bedding and back at me again.

He barked a couple of orders to the guards, glanced at my bedding again, then a side-to-side look at the boys and back to me.  Looking me square in the eye and with a nodding motion, he said in an angry voice, “A regular bad-ass, ain’t ya kid?  Ready to take on the whole damned world … not in my camp!  Not here!”

His eyes seemed to glare deep and grow wide.  I found myself caught in his gaze and he advanced one step.  “You want to fight?”  He raised his voice louder, “Do you want to fight?!  You want to swing on me, you little spike-eared slink?”

The whites of his eyes seemed to grow wider and looked to bulge out of his skull.  I was captivated by his gaze and before I could react, he snatched the piece of wood from my hand with his right.  His speed was startling as he circled the hand downward and back, as if to hit me, and his left hand grabbed me by the throat.  Stagus then slammed me into the wall, his grip like iron around my windpipe and I felt the wall groan from the impact.  From the size of his belly, I had assumed he would be slow and lazy in his movements; not so.  He brandished the wood high and for a moment I thought I was dead.

Stagus held me like that for a long moment and I looked back at him with a firm resolve.  Child, though I was, I had already accepted my death.  I would not whimper for a human, or anyone else for that matter.  He then released his grip and slowly nodded his head.  There was a look of study on his face and he said, “You’re not crazy.  You’re not crazy at all.”

He pushed me against the corner and I half fell but quickly regained my balance.  Speaking in short sentences he said, “No.  You’re not crazy.  You’re smart.”

Stagus pointed the wood at me and hunched his shoulders while giving me a vulture-like glare, “Maybe, maybe you’re too smart, but there’s some wild in you, too.  You’re like a domestic dog gone feral.”

There was a cruel smile on his lips as he looked me over like he did on that first day, “But I like it.”  He went to my bedding and rolled it up.  “If you don’t want your bunk mates to shit in your sheets …” he thrust the roll at me, feces and all, “… then don’t let ‘um.”

He barked another order at the guards and they prepared to lead me out. 

“I’m sending you to the front line.”  He nodded his head with a violent motion, “That’ll take the piss out of you.”

I made my way out of the shack with my soiled bed and clothing in my arms.  Hamges slinked back away from me as I walked to the door.  Two guards led the way and as I stepped into the blackness I heard thunder shatter the night sky and rain began to fall.  I longed to see that Emerald Lightning streak against the sky, but it wasn’t to be.

The guards weren’t very happy about standing in the torrent of rain while I washed out my things.  But I took my time and relished every moment.  Up until then I had never thought much about rain except it was wet, often cold and it made plant life grow.  My momma had always liked the rain.  She even sang songs about it.  But this night it was becoming my friend.  From then on I would always like the rain.

As I rubbed a soap bar into my blankets and scrubbed, I found myself thinking again about my momma.  Unbidden tears suddenly began pouring from my eyes.  Hard and fast my emotions released against my will.  The guards were not close, but I was terrified that they would see me crying and think me weak.  But as I scrubbed the tears came. 

My momma … my loving momma was dead and defiled and there was nothing I could do.  Not … one … damn … thing!

My insides were ripping as I thought how I was so undeserving to be the son of my momma.  Somehow it had to have been my fault, but how?  What had I done?  Had I angered the powers that be?  Maybe if I had of worked better in the fields I wouldn’t have angered the owners.  What could my momma have done to have deserved such treatment?

The answer was nothing.  She hadn’t been mistreated until me, I, until I had been resistant.  Well, no more than she had been.

Again, I longed to hear her voice, to feel her touch.  But she was gone, gone forever.  I was completely and utterly alone in an existence without hope.

I cried without control and no longer cared, alone in the pitch blackness with the storm of life beating upon me.  Me, a slave with nothing but some clothing soiled by human filth.  I threw my head back and screamed my defiance at the top of my lungs as thunderstruck, drowning my curses.  With all my strength I beat my clothing against the washing rocks until I was exhausted.  Falling to my knees I sat for how long I don’t know.  My tears finally ceased and mingled with the sheets of rain washing over my body.

Finally the guards came to get me through a lull in the storm.  I let them lead me to another shack as another thunderclap shook the valley.  A guard shoved me inside and I heard him lock the door as the rain came down again.

Looking into the shack I saw five sets of bunks.  Two sets on each side, one set on the back wall.  Nine of the ten beds were filled.  Several pairs of eyes peered at me in the dark as I stood there with my dripping laundry, the rest apparently asleep.  It dawned upon me that I was in a cabin of adults.  All, that is, but one.  Jared was in there and he got up slowly and walked over to me.  One of the others said something in a language I didn’t know and Jared half turned and answered.  Then he took the soaked clothes from my arms and hung them on a drying rack.

One of the men got up and brought a blanket to me.  He motioned me to take off my clothes and I stared at him numbly.  I then realized I was shaking with cold.  Jared motioned me to remove my clothes and indicated to me through hand movements that it was okay.

The man with the blanket, a middle-aged man called Sym, said something in a low voice and another fellow tossed him a cloak.  I tried to dry myself but my hands were starting to shake badly.  So Jared helped and once I was well wrapped in a blanket and cloak, Sym sat me down in a chair and started to massage my legs.  It scared me at first, to have his hands on me.  But Jared instilled in me a sense of trust.

Sym started pushing his fingers into places I didn’t know existed in my legs, then my calves and finally my feet.  Each place he pushed hurt badly, at first, then the pain would ease away and I would feel a pleasant, smooth and warm sensation. 

He was indicating to me to breath deep and slow, which I did.  Then I thought of my momma and her touch, and the way I had touched Jared’s broken leg.  Slowly, I felt a kind of heat seem to rise up from So’Yeth, through my feet and into my legs and body.

I saw Sym pause and look at Jared for a moment with a curious expression on his face.  He then gave my knee a gentle slap and with a nod of his head he got up and went back to bed.

Jared led me to the remaining bunk, making sure I was comfortable and covered with adequate blankets.  It was an odd feeling.  It was the first time I had actually been in a real bed since before my momma’s death.

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Breaking down and crying like I did left me feeling ashamed, yet clean at the same time.  And no one knew anything about it but me.  The guards had stayed where they could see my outline through the storm.  But they themselves had stayed under shelter. 

When I fell asleep I slept soundly for the first time in years.  It’s not that I felt safe; it’s that I was completely drained in a physical and emotional way.  There were no dreams, I just slept.

The next morning the storm was still in full force.  It was so powerful that everyone was left to their own shacks.  That storm lasted for four days.  A guard came to check us at irregular intervals and threw a big sack or food inside.  Water was easy, we just put our water cruise outside for a couple of minutes and it was full.  The meat was dried, but that was okay.  And there were carrots and potatoes as well.

When I awakened on the first morning after the storm, everyone else was already up.  It was embarrassing to me, because I am normally up before the break of dawn.  But no one said anything about it that I could determine.  They seemed to be more concerned with the idea of a holiday to notice me right off.  Jared noticed, however, and he greeted me with a warm smile.  The first I had seen in a long time and I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with it.  He sat down beside me on my bunk then pointed at my blanket and said, “Pendalt …”  He looked at me for a minute, then pointed at it again and repeated, “Pendalt.”  Then he touched the mug in his hand and said, “… cuitt …” and poured a little water out into his hand and said, “… adwa.”  That began my learning of the Fhathern tongue.

Those of us in the shack had been designated to go to the very front of the road building in the Black Aggie Mountains.  There we would be paired off and would spend our working time slinging stone picks, shovels, and clearing rock.  A lot of rock stood between Tremount and a perfect stretch of flats which would make for the shortest route to the Sahnuck River and Stone Bridge country.

When I realized exactly where we were, map wise, I was amazed.  All of that travel time to the south, around the Jutte Horn, up the Phabeon coastline, and now I was going to be maybe two weeks journey from my birthplace.  No wonder they wanted a road.  Merchants could shorten travel time by literally months.

Of the ten of us, only three had just come in.  That included Jared, me, and the burly fellow who kept laughing to himself in the caravan, Ghyd.

Sym was the senior among us.  He was of average height and lean of build.  Looking to be in his mid fifties, he was actually over one hundred years old.  He was a member of the Nakoai race of humans, a race of philosophers, seekers of wisdom, and natural healers.  They practiced lots of meditation, lived close to nature, and practiced a form of healing based on deep breathing and massage of places on the body I learned were called acu-points.  I had no idea what all that meant, but it worked for me.  He was good at what he did.  He had also been a slave for most of his adult life.

Being strong and full of endurance, Sym was an integral part of the point team.  Not just for his tireless labor, but he was the designated healer as well.  Magical healing was rare out in these parts.  And not being a religious man, Stagus wasn’t likely to attract many of the ordained clerical healers.

Ghyd wasn’t crazy.  He was just a hard working, simple-minded human who dealt with his problems through jokes and laughter.  A one-time farmer, he had run up so much debt that he and his family had been taken in by the local lord and sold to pay his bills.  That had been years before.  His private jokes were his own way of just trying to get through life.

Dotch was a six and a half feet tall mountain of a man who had been caught in the wrong bedroom.  His tongue had been cut out and certain parts of his body completely removed, his face was a map work of branding scares.  Dotch never tried to communicate and clearly the spirit had been beaten out of him, but he worked like a horse.

Siu and Liu were sixth generation slave brothers who had been bought as a team.  The smarts had been bred right out of them but they could work all day and night, then start on tomorrow.  Both geldings, their only purpose in life was to do their job well.

Jared was the son of a scholar and teacher who traveled a lot and gave lectures.  His name was Jethroas and had mastered several languages, memorized several volumes of poetry, and had written two volumes of history.  Both Jethroas and Jared’s momma had taken the spotted fever and died when he was fourteen.  Jared had tried living on the streets, but was caught trying to pick the wrong pocket and ended up in a jail to be sold.

Carrot?  Well … he got his name for his hair color.  It seems most red headed people I have known get nicknamed Red, Carrot Top or something like that.  He had once been Stagus’s private boy, but he was gelded and put to common labor some time ago.  Apparently Carrot outgrew Stagus’s preferences.  It seemed Stagus had a fetish for boys in their mid teens to early twenties.  He liked them with fair complexion and light colored hair.  The consensus was that he had his eyes on me, but was waiting for me to grow some more and fill out.

I was a slave, right?  Property, right?  He had the option to do what he wanted with me, his property, right?  I made a resolve, then, that my first priority would be to make sure that would never happen.  How?  I had no idea.  Escape was always a first choice.  But that didn’t look to be very likely at this point.  Unlikely, yeah, but not impossible.

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After the storm blew itself out, the point team was gathered together.  The Black Aggie Mountains were named for a witch woman who was said to have lived there.  She supposedly died a couple of hundred years before, leaving magical secrets galore.  No trace was ever found of her and it is believed her home was a secluded cave, but that range covered several thousand square miles and the cave had yet to be found by anybody.  It was generally believed to be located somewhere in the vicinity of where the point was currently positioned.

Along with a few wagons full of supplies and several guards, we made our way to the work site.  It took several days to get there and we made good time.  At the front camp were more tents and more shacks with several guards posted here.  These guards weren’t there so much as to watch the slaves, although that was always important, but more so to protect them.

In the beginning I didn’t understand much of what was said.  But the guards were experienced in using hand gestures in getting the right ideas across.  Believe it or not, they weren’t cruel.  Like I have said before, Stagus believed in taking care of his property.  So, while we weren’t treated like anything special, we were treated well.  As long as we did our jobs we were left alone.

The food was plentiful and served three times a day.  We also had plenty of fruit and vegetables to eat. 

Work was staged out to maximize our potential and proper rest breaks were mixed in.  Production moved like nothing I had ever seen before or since.  Stagus had worked his methods down to a science. 

Our objective was to pick and cut our way through a huge, towering ridge of rock.  Then smooth it down so the next teams could polish it up, so to speak, for transit.  The high point of the ridge before us was over fifty feet high.  Tunneling through wasn’t an option because the ground was just loose enough to not be practical for a tunnel.  And this route was to be the major highway for the entire western side of the Sahrjiun Mountains.

There had been a rough trail through the region, said to have been used by those had come before, but nobody knew who they had been.  The existing trail wasn’t wide enough for a horse in many places, and only the toughest of mountain people could endure the passage.  This road was to change all of that. 

Even the weather was perfect for a trade route.  Although the Sahrjiun’s were known for an abundance of snow, and possibility of snow anytime of the year, something about the wind currents among the passes chosen kept the trail swept relatively clean.

Huge forces weren’t being employed by Dahruban’s investors due to the many dangers around and about.  The people in charge wanted the actual route cut out, first, and then they would send troupes to enforce the road’s safety and build fortifications.  This trade route was to be over three thousand miles long when completed.  It was said that it would open up the central continent for exploration and settlement.

The operation was simple.  Everyone was matched up with a buddy.  Pairs would go to the top and chip and hammer.  Pieces of rock were then lowered in a controlled manner by other pairs.  At the bottom the next pairs emptied the rock into special carts.  Finally the carts were wheeled to a debris zone.  If there were fissures or cracks then other teams were utilized to scatter the rock and fill the fissures in.  And our tools; we had those custom picks and hammers Stagus had picked up in Gevard.  During the winter months, Stagus even sprung for a wizard to melt the snow and keep ice from building up on our target projects.

Simple; but who ever said that simple was always easy?

From the beginning it was intended that I should get burned out quick and have my anger curbed in short order.  After all, I was small and not exactly formidable looking.  But you should never underestimate someone because of their size or build.  Many a horse has won their race over so-called superior animals due to heart and courage alone.

An older, more experienced teammate might have carried the slack they expected from me.  Or worse, I might have slowed them down.  So by orders of Stagus I was paired with Jared.  After all, we were both green.  And, hey, what if we turned out to work well together?  The crew would have another productive team.  As for me, personally; elvin blood took time to grow.  And if I filled out from good, hard work … when the time was right Stagus would have a prize to break into his pleasure.  At least that was the talk.

Each day each paired team was rotated in their function.  Basically, on day one a given team would perform work which involved pushing and pressing motions.  On day two the same team would rotate to perform work involving pulling motions.  Every day each team was constantly rotated to keep the muscles fresh and rested from the previous day’s type of work.  Every seventh day each team rested.  There were several teams and work went on seven days a week.  The whole program worked like a well oiled machine.

Stagus would often come and check on the progress and make sure things were going according to schedule.  And of course he was interested in me and how I was holding up.  I had no intention of being sent back and didn’t care how dangerous this part of the country was.  Jared and I excelled together and became one of the top three teams in the whole outfit.

Luckily, production was Stagus’s main concern, and since Jared and I produced so well, we were left as a team.  The two of us were thankful for that, but that wasn’t all.  Remember, we were both kids … the youngest kids … at the most forward camp of prisoners, many who were rough and of the lowest human standards, and human standards can get pretty low. 

Well, every camp has a top dog, or what is sometimes called the Lead Bull.  At the Point Camp, Sym was the Lead Bull, and even though he didn’t control everything that went on in the slave cabins, he controlled what went down in his own, and if he said leave so-and-so alone, that person was left alone.  Let’s just say our cabin didn’t have a Pecking Order Initiation.

The story was when he first came to camp, the current Bull confronted Sym and ordered him on his knees.  Without a word, Sym poked his forefinger into the soft spot above the Bull’s belly.  The Bull’s eyes bugged out and he bent over holding his stomach like he had been speared with the business end of a shovel.  Sym reached up and with his thumb poked the Bull in the throat, and then reached up behind his head and grabbed his hair. With a twist he threw the man to the ground.  They said he was dead when he hit the ground and Sym became the new Bull from day one.

Jared and I were in Sym’s cabin, and he had a problem with what he called child abuse. As the new boys we scrubbed more than our own clothes for a while, but that was much better than the alternative.  For what it’s worth, our cabin also had the top performers in the Point Camp; actually, we were the top performers on the whole road project.

For the next several years I worked at the point.  My muscles thrived at the labor and I became hard and unusually strong for my size.  Elves and most of those with half-blood mixes don’t swell up with huge muscle mass.  That lends to the misconception that we are small, but, while I’ve never been one to go around flexing my muscles to get attention, when my shirt was off you couldn’t help but notice the definition and symmetry of my physique.

Thanks to Jared I learned four new languages thoroughly.  In turn I taught him the elvin dialect of my momma’s people.  He would recite poetry and I would recite some of the songs my momma would sing.  But I wouldn’t sing.  I couldn’t do it. 

“Come on, Sed.  I know you can carry a tune.  You can’t stay bottled up forever,”  Jared would often say.

I would look at him from under my brow and give him the kind of warning, yet mildly tolerant glare that true friends might flash at each other.  And he had truly become my friend, my first real friend.  “If I sing, I would have to kill you,” I would respond in dry undertones.

He would then roll his eyes into the heavens and say, “Riiigghhht.”  He would then flex his biceps.  “I’m still stronger than you.”

And in truth, Jared had grown strong.  I mean really strong.  His dark and unruly hair was tied into a permanent ponytail and draped an incredibly powerful body.  He could even out arm wrestle Slade, a big brute of a man who was brought in during our sixth year.

“That …” I would continue dryly, “… Is because you haven’t had a bath in two months.”  And so it would go.

Often I would think of my twin and my sister.  Who were they?  Where were they?  Did they know anything about me?  Were there other brothers and sisters of mine out there?  Somehow just the thought that I had family out there gave me a good feeling.  Like, maybe I wasn’t alone.

Sure, I hadn’t been raised with them, wouldn’t know any of them if I saw them, but I had kinfolks.  Then the thought of my little brother would cross my mind and I would close my eyes in anguish.  There was nothing I could do; he was being raised by filth, and for what?

Sometimes Jared would say, “You know?  I don’t know much about elves, but Sed, you think more like a human all the time.”

I would look at him with an expression that asked, ‘Is that supposed to be an insult?’

He would laugh, but it was a thing between us.  Often he seemed to know what I was thinking without my saying a word.  And it isn’t that I was easy to read.  “You can do the stone face thing and talk with your eyes to everyone else … but I know you bro.”  He was the only one to ever call me that.  Only how much could he really know?  So many times I wanted to sit down and just talk with him about things, things I had experienced.  I wanted to know what it was like to have a father, a real family.  But I could never get myself around to do it.

After all, there could always be tomorrow.

One of my regrets is that I can’t tell you of fun times, even moments that we had.  Our life was simply work, sleep, eating, and more work.  Sometimes there was a little rest, like on our seventh day, but the only recreation was wrestling and watching Sym do his slow-moving breath exercises.  Most of the time we were too tired to do much but sleep in.

As the years rolled by, though, I noticed differences between Jared and I that caught me unexpectedly.  Jared grew up; I, on the other hand, stayed small, or more like an adolescent.  I was older than him by nearly ten years, but it became like I was his younger brother.  He never treated me any less, but it was something I thought about a lot.

“Hey …” he backhanded me on the arm and got serious one night.  “Do you ever think seriously about escape?  No, don’t look at me that way.  I mean, really?”

I looked at him a moment in the darkness, because escape isn’t something you discuss in earshot of others, and then chewed on a blade of grass thoughtfully, “Who hasn’t?” I looked deep into the night.

“Come on, Sed, really.  Look, we are almost at the last ridge into the Sahnuck Pass country.  If we could somehow make a run for the river …”

“First off, it’s been tried what, eight or nine times in the last couple of years?  None of ‘em made it.  And there is that wizard, Donnely.  He found that one fellow last year just by looking in the water barrel and saying a few words.

“Second, it’s wild country out there.  Let’s assume we made the river.  They say it’s all rapids, you know?  We have chains connecting our feet when we are on the rock, in case you have forgotten. 

“And then there are the beasts.  You heard about the hunting party who met up with that bear.  They said he was seventeen feet tall and took out all of them except the one who got away. 

“And then there’s the drake that’s supposed …”

“You see?  That’s your problem.”  Jared said, “You’re always so damned pessimistic.  I would rather live five minutes free than five hundred years as a slave.  I would take that chance.  And Donnely has left for the season.  He won’t be back for another five or six months.”

I sat there chewing my stem of grass, thinking.  Yes, he would, he had courage.  But me?  I thought about it.  I wanted revenge, but to be free?  I couldn’t comprehend it.  Here, as long as I worked hard I wasn’t ever bothered.  The food was great and I had clothes to wear and shelter from the weather.  On the other hand, there was the looming presence of Stagus; it was something I was going to have to deal with some how, some way.

Then I looked at him and raised my left eyebrow and squinted my right, “Jared …” I said slowly and emphatically, “you won’t live to be five hundred.  You’re human.”

He looked at me for a second, then gave me a ‘duh, you know what I meant’ look, “One day, Sed, one day …” We were sitting on a log outside the shack.  Any guard could see us, but keeping our voices low they couldn’t hear. 

Jared had been quiet a lot lately, thinking a lot.  He was well into his twenties now; a big, powerful, grown man who could not be compared to the lanky youngster I first met.  Always quick with humor and wit, smart, well liked by everyone including the guards; his olive skin and flashing smile, mixed with that lean and well muscled physique and his charm would grab the attention of probably any lady who saw him.  Most fellows would probably be intimidated by him. 

Then all at once I worked it out. 

It takes me a while sometimes and I figured it just as he turned to me and said, “I … I want to do something,” he looked at his hands, “to do something with these besides break rocks or take orders.  We’re chaingos, Sed, slaves bound by chain to do menial labor.  I want my own farm, or maybe a shop, or start a school, something.”  I saw a far-away pain in his eyes as he added, “I want to take a wife and have a family, Sed, but look at me … look at us … you’re going to live practically forever, but I’m, I’m …”

Beside me was my friend, and he was hurting.  I had been born into slavery but he had been a captive.  He knew what it was like to go and do what you want, when you want, the way you want to do it.  And while I wasn’t going to live forever, he was right, he was aging so fast, so much like what he was, a human.

“Life is, it’s passing me by, Sed.”  He looked off toward Sahnuck Pass and I saw the same yearning, wistful look I had seen so many times in my momma’s eyes.  It’s something I honestly couldn’t understand.

What was my problem?  Weren’t elves supposed to want to be free, to be one with nature and talk to the birds and all that nonsense?  What would it mean to truly be free?

Were freedom and oneness with nature the same?  I couldn’t see it.  It’s like I could walk on the ground but to me it was just ground.  But sometimes … sometimes it was as if I could hear something in the woods.  Something … no, someone … someone seemed to be calling out to me, but who? 

Jared turned to me as if hoping I had something to say, but I didn’t.  We sat there for a moment longer and then with a last look to the mountains, Jared looked down and then putting hands on his knees, he got up and went inside to bed.

Sitting there I lamented over what I could have said, but what?

Gazing into the murky darkness, all I could hear was the far away sound of a lonely wolf calling into the night.

Chapter   12

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EVERY ONCE IN a while it seemed an animal would stop next to me and look my way.  Rodents in the shacks did it, squirrels, every now and then a bird, once a snow fox, all kinds of creatures.  It didn’t happen all of the time, but occasionally.

A huge deer just seemed to appear from the rocks one day where we were working.  It had apparently grazed out from the forest and was checking out the ridge.  Jared and I were in front that day and we were downwind of the deer.  He was magnificent and had eight points on his rack.  When he came face to face with me it startled us both.  But when he saw me he suddenly stopped, gazed directly into my eyes and tilted his head ever so slightly.  I could have sworn he was trying to talk to me in deer talk.  Then I felt the nearby whipping of a crossbow bolt through the air and the deer was dead.

“Damn, Sedrick.  That was a stroke of luck.”  One of the guards yelled while climbing the rock, “Saved us from having to go out hunting.”  He said proudly.

I couldn’t help but feel sick at my stomach and I wasn’t sure why.  Stupid deer didn’t have to walk right up like that.  Why didn’t he run when he had the chance?

I tried to avoid animals after that.  And if I thought they were looking at me I would think angry thoughts at them.  Shael’s if they wouldn’t turn and run, or at least leave me alone.

When the deer was killed Jared just looked at me.