None of the slaves working looked at Helnia or her master as they approached, most likely because they were too busy chipping away at the stone in the earth to focus on anything else. Helnia’s master stopped walking and then scooped up an old pick from the ground. He turned around and forced the pick into Helnia’s hands, which she took reluctantly, because she could tell, just by the way her master glared at her, that if she refused she would be killed there and then.
The pick was heavy and awkward in her hands, but Helnia had no time to think about that, because her master pointed sharply at the rocks that the other slaves were chipping away at. Then he mimed the movements of the slaves, which was how Helnia understood that he was trying to tell her to start working.
Because she had no other choice, Helnia obeyed. She walked over to stand beside another female slave, who appeared similar to her in age, but before she could begin to start chipping away, her master detached the chain from her collar. The thought that her master was not going to oversee her work made Helnia feel hopeful for a few seconds until he attached the end of her chain to the collar of the slave working next to her. That was when Helnia noticed that all of the slaves working alongside her were chained together by the neck, probably to keep them from escaping.
Then Helnia’s master slapped Helnia on the back, which Helnia took as her cue to start working. She hefted her pick in her hands and began to strike it against the rock; since she wasn’t very strong, her blows barely made a dent in the rock, but when she looked over her shoulder and saw her master now walking away, she relaxed somewhat, because it meant he wasn’t going to be standing there watching her every move, ready to harm her if she got too lazy.
So Helnia returned her attention to the rocks before her and resumed hitting them. It was hard and difficult work; the only good part was that the heat her body generated from the work kept her warm, though she was never quite as warm as she wanted to be, especially whenever a gust of wind blew through and made all of the slaves collectively shiver.
“So,” said the female slave next to Helnia, a young woman who had short, dirty brown hair and a lot of scars and scratches along her face, “are you the new slave?”
“What?” said Helnia. She briefly stopped hitting the rock to look at the other slave. “The new slave?”
“Yeah,” said the slave, who still worked at her own rocks as she spoke. “Last night, Chizze and his raiding party returned with a young female mage with long dark hair in tow. At least, that’s what my brother, who was working the night shift, told me; I didn’t see it myself, but you seem to fit the description he gave me.”
“So I’ve only been here since last night?” said Helnia. She sighed with relief. “Oh, good. I thought—”
She heard the cracking of the whip before she felt a hot, leather whip strike her in the back. Helnia cried out in pain and fell to her hands and knees, tears of pain flowing from her eyes. She wiped away her tears and looked over her shoulder to see another Draymens standing above her, this one carrying a whip. It was growling and glaring at her and, even though it hadn’t said a word, Helnia understood why it was angry.
Despite the pain she was in, Helnia rose to her feet, picked up her dropped pick ax, and resumed chipping away at the rock. She heard the whip-wielding Draymens leave after a few seconds, but she didn’t dare slow down or look over her shoulder, lest she give him an excuse to whip her again.
“Sorry about that,” said the female slave. “The Draymens don’t like it when we stop and chat. But we can work and talk; I don’t think they care if we talk, as long as we do what they tell us to.”
Helnia blinked away the tears in her eyes. “Y-Yeah, okay. How long do we keep working?”
“Until the sun sets,” said the slave, raising her voice to be heard above the sounds of hundreds of picks striking against rock every minute. “And sometimes, if you anger the Draymens, they make you work until morning, but that’s usually when they want to kill you.”
“So we’re going to have to work all day?” said Helnia in surprise. “We don’t get any breaks?”
“Just a quick, five minute break at around lunch so we can get our one meal of the day,” said the slave without looking at Helnia. “But sometimes we don’t even get that much, at least if the Draymens are pissed off about something. Just be grateful with whatever they decide to give us; slaves who complain about their food usually get their tongues ripped out.”
Helnia’s eyes widened, but when she glanced around at the other slaves, she noticed that a few did seem to be missing their tongues. It made her want to touch her own tongue, even though she knew it was still there.
“What’s your name, by the way?” said the slave. “I’m Aroda.”
“Helnia,” said Helnia. “Helnia Alnem. What’s your last name?”
“Don’t have one.” said Aroda, still without looking at Helnia. “Used to, but the Draymens took it away along with my freedom. They’d take my life, too, but so far they’ve decided that I’m more valuable alive than dead. No idea how long that will last, though. You never can tell with these bastards.”
“Um …” Helnia was not sure how to respond to that, so she said, “Where are we? I was unconscious when I was brought here.”
“Reck,” said Aroda. “A slave town near the border of the Cursed Lands. There are about five hundred slaves here, plus a few dozen Draymens who make sure we don’t escape or slack off.”
“Reck,” Helnia repeated as she struck the rocks with her pick. “I’ve never heard of this place.”
“Few have,” said Aroda. “The Draymens generally don’t tell anyone about their slave towns. That way, no one can save us and interrupt our work.”
“Why?” said Helnia. “What are they building with all of this rock?”
“Who knows?” said Aroda with a shrug. “They don’t tell us. They just have us work and move the stuff outside of the village to other parts of the Cursed Lands.” Then she leaned in a little closer to Helnia and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I personally believe it’s just busywork. They just want us to work until we drop dead. The rock probably doesn’t actually go anywhere. It’s just a way to punish us for the crime of being human.”
“Can we escape?” said Helnia in a whisper. “Is it possible?”
“No one has ever escaped Reck,” said Aroda as she resumed striking the rock in front of her. “Every slave who has attempted to escape has been killed, usually in awful ways. Most of us just try to keep our heads down, work, and not attract attention from the Draymens.”
“But wouldn’t you like to be free?” said Helnia.
“Yes, but I also like living a lot, too,” said Aroda. She glanced around nervously for a moment. “Besides, you shouldn’t talk like that. The Draymens generally don’t understand what we’re saying, but they still know whenever someone is plotting to escape. Usually, they kill them before they can put their plan into action.”
“You mean there’s no chance of escape at all?” said Helnia.
“More or less,” said Aroda. “Besides, where would you go? We’re in the Cursed Lands. This isn’t Yores. We have no towns to flee to, no one to help us. Even if we escaped, we’d just die of thirst or hunger out in the wastes.”
Helnia was about to respond to that, but then she thought better of it. She did not know if she could trust these people with knowledge of her mission to find the Dragon Gods. Aroda seemed like an honest woman, but at the same time, Helnia did not feel like that was information she could just carelessly toss out like that.
So she said, “I just don’t like being a slave. That’s all.”
“Who does?” said Aroda with a snort. “It’s awful. But what can you do? The Draymens are stronger than us. We can’t beat them, even if we rose up in rebellion against them. Maybe if we had our magical necklaces, we could beat them, but we don’t, so we can’t. Anyway, we should stop talking about them like this; I’d rather not go without lunch today.”
“W
hat are you two talking about?” said a male voice ahead of Helnia, causing her to look up to see who had spoken.
It was another slave, who stood on the opposite side of the rocks they were striking. He was a man, but was so thin and weak-looking that Helnia almost thought he was a woman. Though he was dressed in the same slave clothes as everyone else, he had a certain air about him like he thought he was better than everyone else or like he knew something that everyone else didn’t.
“Nothing, Lach,” said Aroda. Her tone became noticeably sharper when she addressed him. “It’s none of your business.”
Lach smiled. No, he didn’t smile; it was a smirk, a creepy one at that, which made Helnia wish that she could run away from him. He just shrugged and resumed striking his rock, saying, “Well, I thought I heard you complaining about our masters. But you surely weren’t doing that, were you?”
“I said, it’s none of your business,” said Aroda. Her tone was now as sharp as a knife, but Lach didn’t seem to notice or care. “I was just explaining the town to Helnia. She’s new, so she doesn’t know all the rules or what it’s like to live here.”
“Right,” said Lach, his creepy smirk never leaving his face. “Let me guess, you were telling her how awful our masters are, right?”
“Maybe I was,” said Aroda. “What of it?”
“Well, it would be rather … problematic for you if someone were to go and report those comments to the Draymens, wouldn’t you agree?” said Lach. He snickered. “I don’t think they would be very happy to hear us talking about this stuff. They expect us to work, not complain.”
Aroda suddenly stopped striking her rock and looked up at Lach with a mixture of fear and anger on her face. “You wouldn’t.”
“When did I say that I would do that?” said Lach. “You really need to stop being so paranoid, Aroda, though I admit it is funny.”
Aroda opened her mouth to say something, but then one of the slave masters—who happened to be walking by their line of slaves—suddenly shouted and struck Aroda in the back with a club. Aroda fell to her knees, gasping in pain, leaning on her pick, while the slave master resumed walking past.
“Aroda, are you okay?” said Helnia, looking at her in worry.
A chuckle caused Helnia to look back at Lach. He hadn’t stopped breaking apart his rocks, but he was chuckling as though he’d just heard a great joke.
“Why are you chuckling?” said Helnia. She gestured at Aroda, who was still gasping for breath. “She was hurt by one of the slavers. That’s not funny at all. She’s one of us.”
“One of us?” said Lach. He chuckled again, a sound that made Helnia’s temper rise despite herself. “How quaint a thought. I can tell you’re definitely an idiot.”
“An idiot?” said Helnia. Then she realized that she’d stopped breaking the rock and immediately resumed working before one of the slavers noticed.
“An idiot,” said Lach. He rolled his eyes. “And under-educated, too, apparently, even though you are a mage. Typical Yoresian education, I guess. Makes me glad I no longer live there.”
“I don’t understand,” said Helnia. She was starting to sweat and get tired from the work, but she still wanted to talk to Lach. “How is showing concern for my own people stupid?”
“Because we deserve whatever the Draymens do to us,” Lach replied. He was still smirking, which made Helnia wonder how he managed to keep such a creepy expression even while he spoke and worked.
Helnia was so surprised by what Lach said that she briefly stopped using her pick and looked at him in disbelief. “We deserve to be slaves punished with hard labor?”
“Sure,” said Lach. There was no sarcasm in his voice. “You know the history between the humans and Draymens, right? Or don’t they teach that to our mages anymore?”
“They still do,” said Helnia, feeling defensive for some reason. “The Draymens used to live in Yores before the Dragon Gods drove them out and gave the land to us.”
“Unjustly, I might add,” said Lach. He stopped his work briefly to look at Helnia, though instead of smirking he was frowning in anger. “Our ancestors slaughtered thousands of innocent Draymens who were just trying to live their own lives and preserve their own culture, all under the direct orders of the Dragon Gods. We took their land unjustly and our historians never focus on that fact.”
Helnia blinked. “Be that as it may, I don’t see the problem. That’s typically how invasions work. If our ancestors hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be around today.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be around,” said Lach. He resumed his work. “When I was captured by the Draymens, I learned all about how terrible their lives have been in the Cursed Lands since they were banished here by the Dragon Gods. They’ve never had enough food, water, or anything else, so they’ve been plotting their defeat of us so they can retake their old lands and the resources within. And rightfully, I might add.”
“So what?” said Helnia. “We won. They lost. Yores is ours. If they wanted it, they should have defeated us.”
“Typical Yoresian parochialism,” said Lach, shaking his head. He smirked again. “That’s why I’m glad that the Draymens are invading Yores. We’ve been so cruel and unfair to them that it is only just that the sins of our forefathers come back to haunt us.”
“What?” said Helnia. She no longer broke the rocks with her pick; she just stared at Lach in disbelief. “You mean you like being a slave? You like towns and villages being destroyed and survivors being forced to flee with only the clothes on their backs?”
“Sure,” said Lach. “Don’t you feel it? It’s justice. It’s history righting itself. We like to see the invading Draymens as the villains, but maybe they’re the heroes and we’re the villains.”
Helnia’s hands shook. She was remembering when she and Sarzen fled their hometown as Draymens ravaged it, remembered the fear she felt as she saw the homes and buildings go up in flames. “So we should be punished because of what our forefathers did? We don’t deserve to live in our lands because our ancestors took them by force?”
“Yeah,” said Lach, nodding. “I know it offends your sense of entitlement, but Yores isn’t really ours. We come from somewhere else. So I don’t lose any sleep when I hear about towns being destroyed and survivors fleeing with nothing but what they were wearing; it’s just the weak finally overthrowing the strong, the oppressed rising up against the elite.”
“I was one such survivor, Lach,” said Helnia. “My brother and I had to flee our hometown ten years ago. Our parents didn’t make it. Do you think we deserved that, even though we had never done anything to the Draymens before they attacked us?”
Lach snorted. “Sure. The fact that you didn’t directly harm the innocent Draymens doesn’t mean that you didn’t indirectly harm them by living on their land. My only problem is that the Draymens who destroyed your town apparently weren’t thorough.”
Helnia dropped her pick. She ran at Lach, but before she could get her hands around his throat, her chain tightened and she came to an abrupt halt only a few feet away from her spot. She was nowhere near close enough to choke Lach, but he had nonetheless taken a step back, a look of fear on his face for a moment before his creepy smirk returned.
“These chains are really tight, aren’t they?” said Lach, tapping his own chain. “Good thing, too, because you were just about to display some of that old human rage that makes me realize just how happy I am at the destruction of our people.”
Helnia was so angry that she could barely talk. She picked up her pick, but then Aroda grabbed her arm and said, “Helnia, stop, before the slaver comes and notices that we’re not working.”
Even though she didn’t want to, Helnia stepped back. She remembered too well what it was like to get whipped in the back and she was not interested in going through that again. She even looked up and down the line of slaves, but did not see any slavers who might have seen her try to attack Lach.
“Yeah, you’d better listen to Aroda,” said
Lach. “Not that it makes much of a difference, really. The slavers have a tendency to abuse us slaves even when we haven’t done anything. But I’ll let you think that won’t happen to you.”
With that, Lach returned to striking the rocks. Helnia imagined splitting his skull open with her own pick, but because she did not want to get into trouble with the Draymens, she also resumed her work.
But Helnia wasn’t really focusing on the rocks. She was just hoping that Sarzen and the others would find and rescue her as soon as possible, because she wasn’t so sure that she would be able to survive very long out here by herself.
***
Chapter Twenty
But no one appeared in Reck to save Helnia or any of the other slaves that day. Instead, Helnia worked all day long, just as Aroda said, getting a very short break to eat some slop for lunch. The slop tasted awful, like muddy water, and even after having a full bowel of the stuff, Helnia did not feel any fuller than she did before. In fact, she felt hungrier than before and found it harder to concentrate, which earned her another whipping when one of the slavers determined that she was intentionally being lazy.
Night didn’t bring any rest. Though Helnia’s tiny shack was protected from the elements, it was still uncomfortable to sleep in. The hay was not much of a bed and even less of a pillow and the cracks in the walls allowed cold air to blow through. She couldn’t close the window, either, so no matter how much she curled into a ball, she was unable to keep herself warm. That her clothing was thin and didn’t cover all of her body made it even worse, so she was forced to put some hay on her, though it was too little to make any real difference in comfort.
The next morning was even worse. Helnia was so groggy and in such pain from yesterday’s labor that she was missed the alarm. As a result, she received another lashing, this one actually drawing some blood, but she did not get a chance to rest, because she was sent back to work with Aroda and the other slaves immediately afterwards. Lach still worked opposite her, but he did not say a word to her all day. He just smirked when he saw Helnia limp over to Aroda’s side and chuckled when Helnia broke the fewest amount of rocks of the day, missing the quota of ten broken rocks a day. That didn’t earn her another lashing—thankfully—but it did mean that she was not going to get anything to eat until the day after tomorrow.
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