Chương 14: The Wrong Kind Of Freedom (4)

One of the senior officers frowned at the bodies.

"Four dead in a single day... Brakka hasn't been this brutal in a while." Another guard winced.

"And the captain had to be away today of all days. He's going to take this out of our pay."

"I called for the orc to stop! But the damned half-wit only listens to the captain."

"You could've rung the bell sooner. Or sent him away for the day after seeing what he did in the first match."

"And end his practice after just one bout? He's our only fighter for the weekly tournament. Captain'll have our hides if the orc doesn't get enough practice. The monthly tournament isn't far away either. You know that."

"Brakka's worth coin because he wins the weekly tournament, even if he can't do shit in the monthly one. But the slaves he kills cost coin too—and that coin'll come out of our pockets." Teren forced himself to ignore the bastards discussing dead men as though they were nothing more than lost coin. The first body was still warm. Teren discovered that when he wrapped his hands in cloth, caught the dead goblin under the shoulders, and helped drag him toward the cart. The head lolled backward.

Blood ran from the dead goblin's hairline across Teren's wrist. His stomach rolled. He somehow kept his grip. The cart took two bodies before the wheels sank too deep in the blood-softened dirt, and all four laborers had to strain to shove it up the ramp. They took the corpses through a side passage to a low shed near the far wall, where a larger wagon waited. The bodies were thrown in with no more care than sacks of spoiled grain. The boy vomited beside the cart once they returned to the pit.

Teren barely noticed; his attention was fixed on the fourth man Brakka had struck, whose arms had broken beneath the post without slowing it. One bad answer had sent Teren into this pit in the previous loop. Just one moment of refusing to swallow the anger. And this was how it had ended. Humans and beastfolk died in the dirt while Karthane's soldiers wagered on whether they would last longer than the previous body, and sometimes, the bell came too late.

Once they had loaded the man with no recognizable face, Teren went to the fourth body. He had checked the pulse of every man they carried despite already knowing what he would probably find, still hoping one of them might have survived. He crouched beside the man with the twisted arm and pressed two fingers against the side of his neck. There was no pulse. As expected. He punched the wooden wall with his fist in frustration. Dammit! Damn this cursed world! Damn Brakka! Damn these greedy bastards!

He began to remove his hand when suddenly he felt a faint movement beneath the skin. Then another. The man's heart was still beating. It was feeble, but it was there.

"He's alive!" The nearest guards looked over in surprise. One swore and hurried closer, then pointed toward the ramp.

"Get him to the medical hall right now," a guard ordered.

"He might live to see the morning if the healers have enough mana left to spare." Teren nodded, and went to hold the man beneath the shoulders. The injured man groaned as he and the other laborers lifted him, but his eyes never opened. They removed the dead man from the cart for transferring later and laid the injured one as carefully as the guards' impatience allowed. Blood ran between the planks while the laborers pushed the cart up the ramp and across the yard to the medical hall.

The healers took one look at him and began shouting for water, bandages, and space beneath the wooden awning. Whether the man would survive seemed to depend less on the injuries than on how much attention the healers could spare for him among all the other injuries they dealt with every day. Then the laborers were sent back for the dead.

By the time they finished cleaning up the pit, the sky above the compound had darkened to deep blue. A thin slice of moon showed over the city wall. The first crystal lamps had been lit near the restricted section, pale and steady. A few more glowed near the examination hall and the gates of the compound. The labor side remained mostly dark except for lanterns carried by guards. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

The shadows between the buildings were thick. Perfect for any accidents to a Corvadryn. Teren noticed that. And he hated that his mind went there so quickly. They were fed late. The stew was thinner than the night before. The bread was hard enough that Teren had to soften it in the bowl before chewing. He ate everything anyway. Salen sat beside him again. For a while, neither spoke. Then Salen sighed.

"Pit duty gets easier if ya stop lookin' at their faces." Teren looked down at his bowl.

"I don't want it to get easier..." Salen's spoon paused. The old man's face gave away very little in the low light. Salen resumed eating.

"Does anyone ever run?" Teren asked.

"It is... rare."

"And?"

"Sometimes they bring back bodies. Sometimes they don't bring back anything." Salen scraped the bottom of his bowl.

"Bodies mean the lesson's for us. No bodies mean the lesson's for whoever finds them in a ditch." Teren touched the black slave mark under his sleeve. The older slave saw the movement.

"That thing'll call trouble down on ya if ya try to run."

"How fast?" Salen shrugged.

"Fast enough."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got. I'm still alive at this age only 'cause I've never tried to run." A guard shouted for the men to enter the sleeping hall.

"Workday's over. Get some rest so I don't have to kick ya tomorrow to make y'all work harder." Salen rose slowly, knees stiff.

"Sleep if you can. We all need the rest." Teren stood with him, but his mind was no longer on sleep. He looked across the yard. The watchtower near the southern gate had a lantern hanging from one side. The guard there could see the main approach road outside, the clerk's area, and most of the gate. Another small tower stood near the far side, to cover the restricted section and the second gate. But the back of the men's sleeping hall was darker.

The hall stood close to the lower wall on the right side of the compound, though not close enough that a man could simply jump from roof to wall. But he realized that the towers' line of sight would be awkward there. A narrow strip of ground lay behind the hall, used for refuse barrels, broken buckets, and old straw waiting to be hauled away. No crystal lamp covered it. A guard with a lantern passed that way once while Teren watched.

The compound wall beyond it rose only around ten feet, a fraction of the height of Karthane's outer wall. Even so, it remained much taller than a man and too high to climb easily without handholds. But then he noticed that there were some barrels near the back of the hall. Teren entered the sleeping hall with the others, and lay down on his mat. But sleep would not come. Around him, men settled into the rough breathing of the exhausted. Someone coughed. Someone muttered a name—perhaps a family member he had lost.

A guard walked the row once, lantern light passing over closed eyes and still bodies. Teren kept his breathing slow. The mark on his arm felt too visible beneath his sleeve. He knew it was meant to help the authorities find escaped slaves. The guard had said as much. Salen had added enough to confirm it. But Teren did not know how. He did not know whether the mark pulled guards toward him, burned if he crossed a boundary, or simply allowed some mage to point in his direction.

He only knew that staying here offered no real safety. He could be sent back to the pit, beaten for some minor mistake, or eventually discovered by the white-fire attacker. On the other hand, the red-haired girl had vanished into Edras's custody while Teren remained here with a broom and a slave mark under his skin. He could learn more by staying. He might even survive another day.

Or he might do one task wrong, step too close to the restricted fence, or be chosen for pit duty again—not as the man dragging away bodies but as one of them. No. I refuse to die so easily. The decision settled in him with a cold feeling in his gut. He could not afford to remain a slave in this place. Near the door, the guard's footsteps faded after a while. Teren waited. He counted breaths until counting became tiring. Then he waited longer.

When he finally moved, several hours after lying down to sleep, the hall was dark except for thin lines of moonlight at the shuttered windows. He sat up slowly. No one reacted. The men around him slept like the dead. Teren almost laughed at the thought and immediately regretted it. He stood, his blanket in hand. The floor creaked once. He froze. No shout came. He moved toward the rear window. The shutters were simple wood, barred from the inside with a peg.

They were meant to keep out the chill during the colder months, not to hold prisoners. The guards were there for that. The windows were small, too narrow for larger men, and the drop outside would be awkward in the dark. Teren was not large enough for that to stop him. He lifted the peg. The shutter moved with a faint scrape. He stopped again to listen for any reaction from the guards. Still nothing.

He wrapped the blanket around the lower edge of the sill to muffle the scrape of his body against the wood, then squeezed through. For a moment, he was stuck halfway. Panic flared. Then his shoulder shifted, his ribs scraped the frame, and he slid through into cold night air. He landed badly on the other side, one knee striking dirt. Pain shot up his leg. He swallowed any sound. Behind the hall, the compound was nearly black.

The crescent moon gave him shapes rather than details: refuse barrels, a broken rake, a pile of old straw, and the lower wall beyond them. Somewhere to his left, a horse stamped inside the stable. Farther away, two guards spoke in low voices near the restricted fence. Teren crouched and listened. No alarm. So he moved. The barrels were heavier than he expected. He rolled one carefully beneath the wall, then another beside it. Each scrape sounded loud enough to wake the entire city. No one shouted.

He began to climb.