by V. A. Lewis
Shang looked at me, and then he shrugged.
"He’s a Human, is he not? Humans are… fragile. They rely too much on their tools to fight. Unless they’re a Saint, if you take away their weapons, they only have their hands and feet."
Shang then lifted one of his fingers, and pointed a sharp nail— not sharp enough to be like a claw, but definitely sharp enough to draw blood if he stabbed someone with it— at the thing on his mouth; it was a muzzle.
"Meanwhile, other species’ like Elves are naturally more agile; Orcs stronger and larger; and us Beastkin have our own weapons that you could never remove from us— unless of course you get up close and personal. And I assure you, that would almost always end with one of us dying."
Rin was nodding her head, and smiling. Everyone in the room was grinning and smiling. I looked around, and noticed something about the Beastkin for the first time: other than being a bit starved, they looked… untouched.
Unlike the slaves outside who were regularly beaten for misbehaving, it seemed that these Beastkin were usually left alone. Despite being locked up in cages, and despite all Dog Beastkin having a muzzle ; despite all Cat Beastkin having manacles that covered their hands entirely; and despite the two Rabbit Beastkin having chains reinforced by mana crystals around their legs; they were all being avoided.
I realized the slavers were wary of them. But I remembered seeing them fight. The guards were all Humans, and yet they moved faster than anyone in my world could. If Humans here were already that strong, then how about these Beastkin? I looked around, and met every eye in the room.
I always wanted to escape, but I had no plan; I always thought to wait until the chance showed itself for me. But that was not good enough. No one was going to save us, except ourselves.
"So, what’s the plan?" I turned to face Rin, and our eyes locked. "You said you will escape. Do you have a plan?"
Rin looked at me, her eyes serious and full of conviction. Then she smirked.
"Of course we do. You’ve noticed, haven’t you? They won’t come near us, out of fear of making a mistake. But they will have to when they want to sell us. When they do, we will pounce on them. Then kill them all. Or at least, the ones in charge like that Marcus guard, or the old man."
"That’s not enough." I shook my head.
I realized one thing the other day, from the battle with the rich man. And that was: waiting did nothing. Nothing happened as I waited and hoped to somehow escape. But when I acted, something did happen. It sparked the fight, which almost led to my escape.
And even that, it was at the wrong moment. I acted out of impulse, not out of any pragmatism, which still nearly could have gotten us out of here. Perhaps if I called out for help to the Bolerian Officials earlier, instead of just ignoring them; if I called out when the crowd was still around, there would have been too many people to witness what happened.
So it was not enough to just stand around and wait. They broke the spirits of everyone else, but they have left me, and these Beastkin mostly untouched. So we were the ones who had to act.
"Nn?" Rin looked at me confused. Bewildered by my statement. So I explained my plan.
"If you wait for them to gather around and come close to you, they’ll be prepared for you to resist. And especially if you try to escape in Bys— you’ll have to fight through a whole city. We’ll die if that’s the case."
"Better dead free than to live as a slave," Shang said, shaking his head. "But I understand what you’re trying to say. Go on."
"I…" I hesitated for a moment, feeling the pain in my leg flare up for a moment. The healer who treated me only gave me a dab of healing potion— speeding up the natural healing process, but not enough for me to walk around unhindered. I sighed, "I’ll help you. I’ll give you the moment you need to break free. Before we reach Bys."
It was a risk. If I was caught using magic… perhaps the Free Lands would have been kinder to spellcasters than the Church. Yet, a merciful punishment was still a punishment. However, with no risk came no reward.
Even just mentioning that I could help the Beastkin seemed to have elicited some suspicion from them. Shang cocked an eyebrow. "And how exactly will you do that?" he asked.
"I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you," I said, chewing my lower lip. "Just please, trust me."
I gazed around the room with a pleading look on my face. I could not tell them about my magic. But it was my magic that could get them the key. Everyone in the room, including Shang looked at me skeptically, but Rin spoke out in support of me.
"Nn, sure!"
I smiled at her, relieved. "Thank you, Ms Rin."
And she smiled at me back. "Aw, you called me Ms Rin! Shang did you hear that? I’m a ‘Miss’!"
Shang shook his head disapprovingly, and they were back to bickering with one another. But I did not look at them with annoyance, like I did before.
Instead, I relaxed as I watched on.
It took us a week before we left Boleria, the Free City of Trade.
I did not know why it took so long; perhaps it was because of the reduced personnel— they had to hire more guards to replace those who died in the battle— while selling off more slaves to reduce their ‘cargo’; or maybe it was due to the whole killing of a rich man and his bodyguards, which they had to spend a lot of money to cover up.
Regardless, our time in Boleria was much longer than initially planned. But it also gave me more time to recover. Lying around all day helped too.
According to Shang, at the rate we had been traveling, it would probably take us two weeks before we reached Bys. That gave me two weeks to act; I was not yet fully healed, but I found solace knowing we did not need to carry out our plan immediately.
I felt nervous at the prospect of escaping, but I was also almost excited. I’ll live, mom. And I’ll avenge you, I promise. I looked around the cages, the wagon, and felt it jolt as it hit a bump in the road. I stared at Rin, then Shang, before lying back down. But first, I thought, I’ll get out of here.
I closed my eyes, and I dared to dream.
Chapter 16: Light Bump
Light flooded into the room, and I glanced up to see a slaver enter our wagon. It took my eyes a second to adjust to the sudden brightness; the canvas over our heads was thick, which usually allowed too little light for me to see anything beyond the vague outlines of cages and Beastkin.
The slaver grunted, as if he were satisfied with what he saw, and turned to walk away. Rin leaned over the metal bars, calling out after him.
"Nn, where are you going? Come on, don’t you want to at least stay and chat a bit?"
"That’s not going to work, Rin," Shang said, shaking his head. The catgirl ignored him, of course.
"Hey! I just want to talk! Shang is annoying, and you— aw, he actually left." She slumped back down, sighing in an overexaggerated manner. "You scared him off, Shang, with your stupid, ugly face."
The Dog Beastkin ignored her, instead leaning one of his droopy ears towards the side of the wagon. "He’s gone. I think they’re giving an order to resume the caravan now."
"...did you hear me? I said you’re—"
"Do you know why we stopped?" I asked, as Rin continued to whine in the background.
"...Melas! Shang is a big meanie, stop talking to—"
"I don’t know," Shang said with a sigh. "Hrn, but they encountered something on the road. A roadblock, perhaps."
"...you know! I have—"
"Monsters?" I garnered a guess, to which he cocked an eyebrow.
"...he’s a terrible leader—"
"I don’t think any Monster attacked. If they did, there would have been some sounds of fighting. And such an attack is unlikely to happen on a group the size of this caravan."
"...stop ignoring—"
"No," I said, correcting myself. "I meant maybe they might have run into the aftermath of a Monster attack. On the road. That’s what I heard in Boleria— hordes of Monsters have been attacking cities all across Besha
."
"...fine I’ll stop—-"
"That’s… unusual," Shang commented, frowning.
"Why’s that?" I asked, suddenly feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Or an annoying bug had left my ear.
"I don’t know if we told you this, Melas, but we"— the Dog Beastkin gestured between himself, and the girl pouting in the corner of the cage— "are Hunters. From the Hunters Guild. Do you know what that is?"
"Yes," I said, "you guys just kill Monsters, right? Deal with Monster extermination."
"Hrn, correct." He nodded, before looking over his shoulder at Rin. "And we’re not just your regular Hunters. We’re a good team. Veterans. I, personally, have been a Hunter for almost a decade. And that makes us— for the lack of a better term— experts on Monsters."
I felt a shudder come over me, as I realized the implications of what he was saying. "But if this is… unusual. What do you think could be causing it?" I asked, trying to keep the fear from showing on my face.
Shang turned back to face me. He met my gaze as he responded, "Either something has been starving all the Monsters in the entire region, forcing them to resort to attack settlements. Or something— another Monster species from a different region, perhaps— has forced them out of their homes. Regardless, this is not something that’s good for us."
"Why not?" I asked stupidly. "Isn’t that a good thing— if a group of Monsters attacks our caravan, it could give us the distraction we need to escape. And this only increases the chances of that happening!"
"Because—" Shang started, but was cut off.
"It means that if a Monster horde does attack our caravan, it would not be satisfied with just eating all the slavers, Melas," Rin said, both her voice and her face suddenly serious. "Nn, and if there really are hordes of them attacking the towns and cities, then there’s no way we can escape."
I felt a bead of sweat roll down my forehead as the information sunk in; I looked over at Shang to seek some sort of confirmation, and only felt worse when he lowered his head in agreement with the Cat Beastkin.
A sudden jolt shook me out of my stupor. The caravan resumed its travels, but even the rattling of the chains and the banter between the Beastkin could not distract me from the fear creeping over me. I… did not want to die.
That was fairly obvious. I watched those slavers murder the rich man in Boleria; he was an abhorrent individual, entirely deserving of the fate that befell him. Yet, I could revel in his death with glee. If we had to escape— if I had to witness the brutal massacre of these slavers by Monsters— would I freeze up? Or would I be able to act unhindered?
More than that, however, how would my physical injuries serve as a detriment to such a scenario? I had broken an ankle. It was still in the middle of recovering, even if the healing process was sped up by the medical aid I had received back when we were in Boleria. If I were to die during an escape attempt—
The prospect terrified me, to say the least.
I was not sure if I trusted these Beastkin with my life; Shang seemed competent, but on the other hand…
I looked over at Rin who was bickering with Shang because he opted to speak with me about something of actual substance rather than engage in her quipping, and felt as though my life were already forfeit.
The thought unsettled me, so I closed my eyes, and put it off for a little bit longer. Dreaming was different from actually acting. And right now, I wanted to dream of escaping more than I wanted to try and escape.
"Melas," Shang said, waking me up.
It had been a few days since our caravan ran into whatever it was that forced us to stop while in the middle of the road; such incidents were occurring occasionally— not at a particularly high level of frequency— but enough to the point where we all knew something was up.
It was probably evening right now. Far from the middle of the night which would usually be when most people slept. However, my sleep schedule was erratic: with nothing else to do, and if the world sucked, sometimes it was easy to just pretend it all did not exist.
"What is it?" I asked the Dog Beastkin, sitting back up.
"I’ve spoken with the others. These talks of Monster attacks— they’re making us uncomfortable." I could not exactly make out the features of his face most of the time, since he was wearing a muzzle, however I could tell he looked grim. "We’d find anything preferable to being slaves, and I’m sure you do too. But ending up as food for Monsters is one of the last few alternatives we’d want, if we could help it." He hesitated, but I already knew what was coming next.
"You guys want to escape soon, right?" I guessed.
"No," Shang said, taking a deep breath. "Not soon. We want to escape, tonight."
My heart skipped a beat. "Tonight? But that’s so soon. My leg is not healed yet!"
"I know," he sighed, shutting his eyes for a moment. "I just don’t know if we’ll get a better opportunity than right now. From what I managed to hear from eavesdropping, this is the last small town the Mancis Company will be passing through on the way to Bys. They won’t even be selling any slaves here— it’s just a night layover they’re taking for some odd reason. The rest will be cities full of guards and the like. Far more dangerous if we break out now." The Dog Beastkin opened his eyes again, his ears lifting slightly as he looked at me. "You said you could help get us out. I don't know how you’ll do it. But if you can give us that moment tonight. I promise you, we’ll keep you safe no matter what happens."
I met his gaze, hearing a voice screaming internally telling me that I was not ready yet. I saw Rin leaning over the metal bars, chatting casually with one of the neighboring Beastkin, and that apprehension got worse. But I bit back my tongue, and nodded.
"I will help us get out," I said, trying not to reveal any signs of the nervousness I felt in my voice. "Tonight, right? Just sleep like you usually do. I will wake you up when I’m ready."
Shang eyed me with worry. "Are you sure? I don’t want to push you, Melas. If you need our help—"
"I’m fine," I cut him off. "I… just can’t get distracted, you know?" I made up some lame excuse, but it seemed to convince him well enough; he settled back down, nodding.
And then, it was night. I wanted to try and get some rest before we attempted this escape plan, but my nerves did not let that happen. The slavers came as usual, serving us some slops, while giving the actual cages a large berth; they slid the bowls into the cages, rather than get up close to it, probably out of fear of the Beastkin.
I made sure to pay careful attention to each of the slavers that came into the wagon. Most of them did not have keys on them, which made sense, but one— a supervisor of sorts— seemed to have a set of keys hanging around his waist.
I paid careful attention to what he was wearing; he did not have the same garbs as the other slavers. He was not like Marcus, who wore better armor, nor was he like Julian, who had a suit on. He simply had no armor on, and was dressed in plain clothing. An employee of the Mancis Company hired to handle paperwork, perhaps.
He seemed to pay less attention to myself and the Beastkin, than he did toward the boxes full of wares with us. So keys are going to be with the unarmored man. Got it, I told myself.
Soon after we were served our dinner, the slavers left us alone. Then it was dark, and everyone slowly went to sleep. Shang was the last one to close his eyes, and he shot me a look, to which I responded with a reassuring nod. I waited a few more hours before I finally got to work.
Let’s do this.
A faint blue magical circle appeared around my hand; lines began to appear on the surface of the spell, forming a pattern on the surface of the magic circle alongside symbols and shapes.It was like a round handkerchief with embroidery sewn into it; except the handkerchief is transparent apart for the edges, and the embroidery glowed in the dark.
I felt the magic coursing through the world, and at once, everything opened up; the world grew bigger, and it was like I was suddenly thrown deep into an oce
an.
I was so immersed into it, I held my breath for a second, thinking that I was going to drown. But I did not. The cages around me did not disappear, and the shackles that bound me still held tight; I was still in the room with the Beastkin. That was the world I saw.
But in the world of magic, in the vast ocean that I was lost in, I recognized something familiar. It was a small pool that seemed to refract light, making objects in it appear much closer than they actually were. However, when I did dip my hands into the pool, the objects did get within my reach.
The feeling of a third invisible arm settled in, and I experimentally flexed (I can’t actually flex something with no muscles, but the idea is there) it a few times; slowly getting used to the feeling once again.
For about a minute, I accustomed myself to using the spell, moving it around the room, moving it through solid walls, and just touching random objects like small pieces of rocks and dirt.
It was a peculiar thing, really; I could easily control what I wanted my spell to touch, and what I wanted it to phase through. The sensation of doing it was odd— almost indescribable. It was like if you asked me to explain how I moved my real hand to a person without any hands; I don’t know how I did it— I just did.
After getting used to the magical feeling of the basic telekinesis spell, I finally got to work. I sent my mage hand through the front door, and waded my way to the nearest person.
It took me less than a minute to find my first person, and carefully used this magical ‘vision’ (it was not sight, it was simply intuitively knowing what was within grabbing distance of my ‘third’ hand) to figure out who it was.
It took me less than a second to figure out that the person was a guard: I could tell from the sword around their waist.
From what I could tell by the makeup of the room, we were in the main room of a warehouse; it was small. We were not even unloaded from our wagons— they did not plan on staying more than the night in this town. There was a single hallway to the side, with a few rooms on either side of it.