by Jessica Snow
“Which is why I'm talkin' to ya, Tauren. You see, Mathias and his boys, they think they're just angels of vengeance, but I know the truth. Truth is, we've all got an ugly side to us, and a side that is capable of terrible things. Murder, and more. So while your father, all you nobles, might have the dirtiest hands, none of us are exactly innocent. Well, nobody except the children, and I'd like to see a future where they can grow up safe and sound,” Rebbie says, doing a final check on the tent. “Come on, you did a good job. Let's go make sure the supply tent is set up.”
Rebbie stays with me through the morning, while Jensen and Audra meet with some of the other senior members of the camp. I notice that, again, Mathias is with them. I am not afraid of the man, but he does concern me. I'd have to be blind and stupid to not see the hatred he has for me, and the things I've heard worry me. I've held my tongue so far, but with this relocation of the camp, our second since I've become their 'guest,' I do not know how much longer I can keep silent.
Just after the sun passes noon, Audra comes over, a ration pack in her hand. “Hey Rebbie, thanks for watching him, I've got it from now,” she says, with a nod of thanks. “How was he?”
Rebbie gives me an evaluating look, then nods. “Not bad, Audra. I'd say he's got his skull out of his arse.”
“I'll take that as a compliment,” I chuckle, giving Rebbie a nod. “Thank you... for everything you told me.”
“You just remember it, and don't let that gilded throne you're going back to fuck with your head. You do that, it's worth the pain of telling it again. I'll see you later,” Rebbie says, heading back towards her tent. I watch her go, and turn to Audra. It's strange to me, but I've come to look forward to the time I get to have her 'guard' me, and more than ever, I do think she's pretty. Tall, with elegant movements that are more than just her training, she strikes a commanding figure among the humans even after just a few weeks. For me though, it's her hair, that flaming red that I've seen in my dreams recently, framing her creamy skinned face and pale blue eyes.... I've never had sex with a human woman before, but I understand the appeal. The fact is, Audra's beautiful.
Not that I can show that to her. After all, she is still my captor. “So, what did you bring me today?”
“Number....... eighteen,” Audra teases, drawing out the tension a few seconds. After revealing my disgust for the Number Eleven packet, she's joked with me a few times about it. “I got a five.”
“Not bad. Thank you,” I reply, taking the packet. I try to stretch out my legs, but the shackle between my ankles stops me, catching on a rock. I try again, carefully lifting my ankle up and over the rock so that it rests between my legs like a small table. “You know, I liked the cave better.”
“I can understand,” Audra says, opening her kit and spreading out on the soft ground. It's different than the northern forests, it's warm enough that while a coat is useful at night, right now just a long sleeved tunic is all I need. Jensen's even been accommodating enough to give me boots, pants and a tunic in my size, although my tunic's been treated with a fluorescent dye that more or less makes me visible at a distance very easily. I feel ridiculous wearing a nearly glowing yellow-orange stripe on my tunic, but it's better than being strapped to a tree all the time.
“How is everyone settling in?” I ask, looking around. It's not done with the precise exact lines of a Lancer camp, but Jensen knows the basics of forestcraft, I can tell. The living area is held together within a perimeter, while the non-essential lifestyle areas such as the toilets are a distance away in order to minimize the chance of detection by anyone wandering through the woods. There's water nearby, with a rock pool available below a stream that I assume will be used for drinking water, while the pool can be used for bathing. It's a smart location for a camp of over a hundred people, especially ones who aren't professional soldiers. Best of all, the overhead trees keep the camp from detection, and while I don't know what Jensen's doing to mask the camp from the satellites that I'm sure are monitoring the area, at least to the eyes, the camp quickly becomes invisible once you are more than a hundred meters away or so.
“We'll have to be careful about fire control, but Jensen says that's true every time we have to rough it,” Audra says. “How're you adjusting to wearing the shackles again?”
“I don't like it, but I understand your brother's sense of precaution. Outside the guard tent, I'm a threat to escape. Or at least, he has to make it seem that way. For your friend Mathias and his supporters. They'd kill me very quickly if they thought they could get away with it.”
At the mention of Mathias, Audra's smile dims, and she nods. “Yeah....”
“Your brother has a challenge on his hands. A fanatic, highly motivated splinter cell within your movement could be either very useful, or disaster. Every day, Mathias and his supporters are growing. I do not think they threaten Jensen's power yet but.... well, I noticed that Mathias had another three crystals on his arm band this morning.”
I know what the Neyla crystals mean. Like a hunter who takes trophies for sport, every Tamarian that Mathias kills is added to his arm bracer. Since his first visit to the capital with Jensen to make sure the Resistance's demands are delivered, he's added almost a dozen crystals to his arm. It's to the point where the sparkle of sunlight off the crystals is starting to turn my stomach. I don't know them, but they are my people, Tamarians. I'm their Crown Prince.... and I'm sitting on my ass while Mathias and his men slaughter them.
“I know,” Audra says quietly, stirring her food. “Jensen's noticed, too. He's trying to figure out how to deal with things. The problem is, Mathias is so angry. I thought I knew how angry but....”
“What happened to him?” I ask. “You two were together, in Neyilla's house. What caused so much anger in him?”
Audra takes a bite of her food, then sets it aside getting up. “Grab your food, walk with me. This... isn't for public areas.”
We check in with Jensen, who approves, and Audra walks me through the forest for nearly a half hour. We come to three trees that have fallen in an almost triangular pattern, and Audra considers it for a second, then nods to herself, pointing with her powerlance, which she's had out and used as a walking staff for a while. “There, have a seat.”
I sit down on the ground, the wind's a bit sharper on this little section of forest, and by nestling down in the angle created by two of the fallen trees, I can stay out of the wind. “There. So, talk with me, please?”
“It's nice to hear you use the word please sometimes,” Audra says, swallowing her nervousness. “You're right, Neyilla was our owner, both of us. Our duties were vastly different, though.”
“She....” Audra says, then stops, gathering herself. “When we were little, our duties were pretty simple, to just be Neyilla's playmates. We'd play games with her, be her living dress up dolls, run with her through the fields of the countryside estate, the one not in the capital. Mathias was great with fishing, he loved going fishing on the pond that was at the main estate, and each time he'd give the fish to Neyilla, after he cleaned and cooked it. We'd have picnics together, the three of us. Sure, Neyilla was sometimes cruel even then, there was no way we'd risk losing a game against her, but overall it was a fun childhood for a slave. Lord Neyton even had a small school set up for the slave children, where we learned the basics of a lot of things. All that changed when Mathias turned ten.”
“What happened then?” I ask, and Audra shivers.
“Neyton decided that Mathias was the right build and had the athletic potential to make a good gladiator. Even though your father didn't demand every noble house offer up a gladiator for the major festivals, most already were as you know. So Neyton had Mathias put in the gladiator training program. For the next two years, I never saw him except in glances when Neyton would bring him to the main estate for exhibition matches. I watched as the wiry, gangly boy that I used to hang out with add thirty pounds of muscle almost too fast for his own skin to even stretch and adapt.”
; “I've always assumed that Neyton put his gladiators on growth enhancers and anabolics,” I muse. “Of course the rules of the Arena said no, and supposedly they were tested, but considering Neyton's knowledge of chemistry, I'm sure he could have skirted the rules even without corruption.”
“Most likely, Mathias never has told me much about the gladiatorial training. Still, the little bit that I got to see of Mathias, he was still sweet and kind, at least to me. And handsome. No matter how hard the training, Neyton picked well. Mathias never got scarred up like some of the gladiators, never broke his nose, never got his cheekbones or teeth shattered like so many others. Instead, with that black hair of his, those green eyes, I myself started noticing my friend as a young man and not just the boy that I used to have to play house with. Huh, maybe that was a sign even back then.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, and Audra shivers.
“When we were kids, sometimes Neyilla would have us play house. She, of course, was the Lady, and Mathias was the man of the house. She'd never let him be the Lord, but they were supposed to be a couple. I played a lot of roles, sometimes the daughter, sometimes the housegirl, whatever Neyilla wanted. But then... well, when I was fourteen and Mathias was fifteen, he suddenly showed up at the main house again.”
I grimace, understanding. “Neyilla.”
Audra nods, grimacing. “Neyilla's older than me, you know, by two years. So she was seventeen, and she was more than interested in exploring what her body was telling her. Her father.... Neyton was nobody to say anything about it, he's even more twisted than Neyilla is. The girls I knew who go into his harem, within months their eyes go dead, their bodies pumped into cartoonish, grotesque proportions. Neyilla started the same thing, this time with Mathias. I.... I tried to help him.”
“How?” I ask, and Audra looks down.
“We knew enough, from what we'd overheard, that the hypnotics and libido enhancers work most effectively if they're combined and then reinforced with the same type of training you'd give a pet. So to create that bond, Neyilla started having Mathias dosed with both, and then she would, well she said she played with him,” Audra says, nearly sobbing. “In a desperate attempt, when Neyilla was asleep and the drugs were still in his system, he'd come to me and we'd....”
“You two became lovers,” I finish for her, and Audra shakes her head. “What?”
“We fell in love, something slaves aren't allowed to do. At least, not slaves in that house. But I loved him, I'd loved him since we were children. And I tried, so hard. Even as Neyilla's drugs sank deeper and deeper into him, and her requests got more twisted. I celebrated my seventeenth birthday, or at least the day I've picked out as my birthday, tied up in my bed, Mathias sobbing as he purged himself on my body. It... it got worse from there.”
“How bad?” I ask, and Audra stops, trying to find the words. “You don't have to, Audra. It's okay, I've already lost my appetite.”
Audra shakes her head and sets her food aside, standing up and undoing the clasps on her shirt, peeling it open to reveal her upper body to me. She's lean, athletic, and the primal side of me enjoys the display of flesh in front of me... until I see the scars. They're slightly diagonal, and I can see that they follow her ribs, precisely in between each one, curving up and towards her back. Before I can say anything, Audra pulls up her bra and reveals her breasts to me, and I see that the cuts continue, stopping in a curving joining star between them. Audra stands before me for a moment and then pulls her bra down, doing up her tunic again. “It was the last time that I could afford to bring him into my bed. It was something that Neyilla had done to him, but of course she used the proper medicines and treatments to make sure the only scars on Mathias were in his mind. I didn't have that luxury, and I couldn't reveal them anyway. I had to hide from Neyilla for two days while the cuts closed and I could sneak what I could out of the various med kits that slaves used around the house for day to day injuries. Even then, the scars are pretty much permanent. I couldn't use a scar reducer, I had to just... bond them. Mathias sobbed when he saw what he'd done, but after that, we both knew. We loved each other, but we couldn't be the way we were. I tried to keep helping him, but Neyilla's conditioning took over more and more. The last time, he couldn't even get erect when I was trying as hard as I could. I tried every technique I knew, I even talked to the harem girls behind Neyton and Neyilla's back in order to learn new ways or maybe more effective ways to arouse a man.”
I pick up my food again, then set it aside, my stomach churning. “I knew that Neyilla was self-centered, vain, greedy... I knew that the whole reason she kisses my mother's ass is to try and get herself on the throne next to me. I knew that she's perverted, that a marriage with me would be merely for position. I knew her plans were to get the crown, and then try to twist me to her will the way that my mother tried with my father.... but I didn't know the depths of her madness.”
Audra nods. “Now you understand a little bit Mathias' anger. But there's one thing that makes it even worse.”
“What's that?” I ask, and Audra shivers.
“Neyilla, she doesn't like her slaves having even the chance of having a relationship with others. So she had Mathias um, fixed.”
My hand freezes, my water bottle frozen halfway a hand's breadth from my mouth, shocked. “She wha... why?”
Audra shakes her head. “I don't know. Maybe she knows what you know, that humans and Tamarians might share a genetic lineage. Maybe she thinks that we can cross-breed. It wouldn't do her plans any good to get pregnant with a half-human baby. Or maybe she knew about Mathias and I, she certainly was even crueler to me on the days and nights after I tried to help Mathias. Maybe she wanted to deny him and me even the remote chance of something good coming from the hell that was being her slave.”
I shake my head, sitting silently, giving Audra a chance to collect herself. Finally, I speak what's been running through my mind. “I understand now, the depths and reasons behind Mathias' anger. But it worries me, Audra. Because Mathias, he isn't just angry, he's full of high tension rage. That sort of rage.... it's just going to get people killed. Yours and mine.”
“Rage also kept him going even after all the other harem slaves, both Neyton's and Neyilla's, died inside. I talked about it with Jensen, and he told me the truth. Most of Mathias' supporters, and they're growing, came from situations like his. Or haven't you noticed that most of the fanatics happen to be exceptionally good looking?” Audra asks. “Angel faced killers is what they want to be.”
“I noticed. I also have noticed that of the slaves who come in the most... mentally damaged, the majority of them are also of that type. If I may ask, what spared you? You're quite beautiful, Audra. Why did Neyton not try to take you?”
Audra blushes at my compliment, then shrugs. “I play dumb very well. Every time that horny old bastard tried to get me alone, I played off his words and his pampering of Neyilla to find a way out of it. The most he got were a few pinches of my ass, and he groped my boobs once. But with a harem as mentally addicted to him as he has, even my simple dumb act, and the fact I was his daughter's favorite.... heaven and stars that sounds pathetic, thinking of what Neyilla did to me, but I was her favorite, Neyton just didn't bother too much.”
I nod, and wonder if the rumors that I've heard whispered over the past few weeks are true, that Jensen and Audra might be at least partially resistant to the hypnotic drugs. I know Mogar's interested in it, finding a counter agent. I wish he'd come here, so I can talk with him face to face, see what the games master is thinking. “I'm glad to hear that you were never touched by Neyton. But it leaves me with a question. There's two groups in this camp. Mathias has a small group of very fanatic followers, while Jensen's the established leader, and the support of a vast majority still. But he's losing influence with each and every Neyla crystal Mathias puts on his arm. Pretty soon, the Resistance may face a crossroads. So.... who do you side with? The brother that you've known for three weeks, or the former lover who you'
ve known since childhood?”
Audra thinks about it, then looks me in the eye. “I've got a lot of rage too, you know. I told you that Neyton never took me to his bed, and that's true. His daughter though.... sometimes her games weren't just with Mathias or her boy toys. She would take me to her play room too, and her games with me were just as sick as anything she did to Mathias. So yes, I've got a lot of rage, Tauren. But if I wanted to give in to that rage, you'd have died back in the cave when that mob wanted to tear you apart. You know what living with Neyilla taught me, more than rage?”
“What?”
“That I don't want to be a monster. I don't want to be a murderer. Now, don't take that to mean I won't kill, I can do that. But I'm not going to just be a murderer. I agree with Jensen, and I want to see as little death as possible. There's good Tamarians and bad Tamarians, there's good humans and bad humans. So far.....” Audra says, then stops, reaching into the pocket of her pants. She pulls something out and tosses it to me. “Here. It's been a weight in my pocket ever since seeing Mathias with that bracer of his, the similarities are too much. When I took that from you, I hated you, you were my enemy.”
I pick up the diamond shaped Neyla crystal from the forest floor, studying it. It's mine, of course, I've worn this crystal in my forehead ever since I was thirteen years old. The color and shape is reserved for me, and me alone on Tamaria, and I turn it over in my fingers, nodding before I toss it back to her. “Keep it, it's yours. Like you said, I was your enemy. I have never had a great need to wear the Neyla crystal, I stand on my own feet without any symbol. But, as a last question I've got for you. What am I now?”
Chapter Nine
Audra
“Another supply raid down,” Mathias declares happily as he comes back into camp, carrying a box under his left arm, dropping it on the table in the command area. Jensen and I have been discussing breaking into a suspected slaver camp along the Coprian Sea, and Jensen looks up, frustrated.