The First Spark

by T J Trapp

  “We had a good life, my peddler-man and me. He was fun and made me laugh. We traveled around, and I got to see more of the Grasslands. He would trade things between towns and sometimes get extra coins as a storyteller. I set up our camp and took care of things. Cook, clean, manage the animals, and things like that. It was a good life.” She smiled a wry smile. Then her smile faded.

  “Then about a month ago, we were caught in one of the Aldermen raids.”

  “Stop!” said Alec. “Who are the Aldermen?”

  Lily shrugged. “No one knows who they are, but they are fearsome raiders. They started showing up over the last year or so, maybe less. They are raiding and savaging the Grasslands! They have fearsome weapons that make them impossible to fight – some people say they throw the dragon’s teeth! We all fear them!”

  “Hmm,” said Alec. Dragons again. So many tribes and lands to remember. Word association. You can remember this tribe because they sound like Dr. Alder back at the Lab. “Please, continue with your story.”

  “About a month ago, we came to a village, Cantin, and things were fine. I set up camp outside the village. We like to set up on a brook so we have easy access to water. The best location was a few els from town. My peddler-man had gone into town. Then I heard loud noises and saw smoke. I feared for him!” Lily shuddered at the memory.

  “I hid beneath our wagon for a long time. But I was too scared to stay at camp by myself! When the noises stopped, I ran as fast as I could into the village, but it took a while to reach it. By the time I got there, it was too late. The Aldermen slavers had come through town, taken what they wanted, captured as many people as they could, and moved on.” She shook her head. “There was no sign of my peddler. I do not know if he was captured or killed. At first, I went back to camp and cried. Then I went to town to beg for help.” She scowled.

  “First an innkeeper took me in and told me he would let me work for food and a place to sleep. Then the next day, he told me I had to agree to a contract if I wanted to stay. He lied to me! He said it was just a village formality and nothing to worry about. I can’t read! I didn’t know what his parchment said, but I trusted him! I was a fool!” She snorted. “I agreed and put my drop of blood on it like he said. That night after I cleaned up the common-room, he started to beat me. I threatened to leave, and he laughed, and just beat me harder. He told me my contract said that I could only leave if I paid him five gold coins – that’s more than I could earn in a year! And more than the worth of the food and board he offered me! He knew I had no coins and could not pay him anything! He said I had agreed in that contract to do whatever he wanted! So I couldn’t leave!” Erin patted her arm sympathetically, and after a moment to catch her breath, Lily’s hysterics subsided.

  “After that, he made me clean and help in the kitchen in the day and serve as an inn-lady at night. If he thought I wasn’t enticing enough to the patrons or if any of them complained about my performance, he would beat me!” She pulled back her sleeve and showed Alec the purple and green marks of old bruises on her arm.

  “A couple of weeks ago, Jitsu passed through town, liked how I satisfied him, and purchased me from the innkeeper.” Lily crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself. “Jitsu is mean and cruel, but I had to stay with him because he paid for me. I had no choice! The other night I threatened to run away, and he told me he would catch me and kill me painfully.” She looked up at Alec, her eyes pleading with the look he had seen last night.

  “Please help me! If you don’t take me, I will become the property of the marshal. When the marshal tires of me, he will sell me to one of the inns.” She looked like she was about to burst into tears.

  Don’t be a sucker for a sob story. We’ve got enough problems as it is, without her!

  Alec was about to tell her they couldn’t help her when Erin said, “Of course you can stay with us! We are headed to Theland, and we will need someone to help with our camp during our journey.” Erin wrapped her arms around Lily and hugged her.

  “Thank you,” said Lily tearfully, burying her face in Erin’s sleeve. “Oh, thank you!”

  ✽✽✽

  The three went downstairs. The common room had been cleaned and put back in order after last night’s melee. The innkeeper did run a tight ship, Alec noted. Breakfast was more of the porridge for the three of them.

  Today was a repeat of yesterday’s rounds. First to the seamstress. At Erin’s request, the seamstress was able to equip Lily in clothing suitable for their trip. Then it was off to add more food and supplies. Finally, they went to pick up the wagon. Everywhere they went the card game of the night before was the main topic of gossip.

  Lily seemed positively cheerful with new clothes and something to do. She helped carry their bundles to the wagon and put things in order. By late afternoon they were ready to leave.

  As they made their final inspection of their loaded wagon, and out of earshot of Lily, Erin made a request. “Can you please use your wizardly powers to make a hidden compartment on the bottom of the wagon? We need a safe place to secure our valuable things.” As soon as Alec was finished with this task, Erin stored their remaining coins and both rings in the compartment.

  They didn’t travel far before the sun was starting to set, so they stopped for the night. Lily gladly took care of the drungs and set up camp without any direction.

  Alec laid out several rocks. Focus. The rocks heated and steamed. Erin had warned Lily, but she still gasped at the heated rocks and almost burned herself when she tried to touch them to see if they were truly hot. Lily quickly figured out how to use the rocks and cooked a better supper than they had been served at the inn. Both Alec and Erin were more pleased with the arrangement than they had imagined.

  The wagon was designed as a cover for a sleeping tent with the sleeping bay under the wagon. The three of them crawled under the wagon, undressed, and slept.

  The next week passed uneventfully. They continued to follow the rough path. They passed no one else as they crossed the rolling Grasslands, but that wasn’t unexpected. When the third moon waned, Erin estimated they had another few days before she would be in familiar territory – then they would leave the Grasslands and enter a forest at the edge of the mountains that were still mere shadows on the horizon.

  As they travelled, Alec spent time experimenting with how he could use the local dark energy. He also continued teaching Erin how to sense dark energy. She was progressing slowly but steadily. She could feel small amounts of dark energy, and she could use the energy to light her sword.

  Occasionally they would stop. Erin would put on her ring and sense the location of a flock of bounders and Alec would hunt to give them fresh meat. Things are going well. Maybe too well, Alec thought.

  ✽✽✽

  Erin was driving the wagon when she saw a column dust rising high above the next hill. She kicked herself for not noticing it earlier. “Riders are coming,” she said with some concern. “Enough riders to stir up dust. That’s not good. Can you hide us or blur us with your magic?”

  “At this range, my ability to bend light won’t be good enough to obscure something as large as this wagon, and the drungs,” Alec answered. “If we can get a little way away – maybe a quarter of an el – I might be able to blur things enough that the riders would miss us in the grass.”

  Erin started to turn the wagon off the path into the tall grass – another few hundred paces and Alec might be able to obscure them successfully. Too late. The riders had seen them and changed their direction to intercept the wagon. Erin could count ten well-armed riders on trogus. She could see the riders were all dressed in functional dark blue clothes. This was not a gang of rag-tag bandits. It was an organized team. Soldiers? But whose? She hoped the riders would give them a cursory look and pass on by.

  The riders again altered their course so that they would come across the wagon in the next few minutes; however, they never changed their speed and did not appear to be in any hurry to approach the wagon.


  Alec’s staff was laying in the front of the wagon, and he wore his medallion in its usual place on his chest. Erin had her sword out and close to her side. Erin had been teaching Lily how to use weapons, so Lily had a long knife by her side. Alec felt that Lily was inept with a weapon – she wasn’t going to be much help if it came to a fight, but she needed some way to protect herself. Erin also had been teaching Alec how to use a sword. His athletic abilities made him capable, but she could see that he would need long hours of practice to be even half-way proficient as a warrior. They had also practiced combat moves with his staff, and now he had a better feel with it and a more natural sense of how to effectively use it. Plus, Erin had pointed out, few sword fighters ever face a staff, so they were rarely prepared to fight it effectively.

  The lead rider approached and stopped directly in front of them. The others spread out around the wagon. Erin had been hoping that they could keep their heads down, keep plodding along and that the riders would let them pass. Not going to happen.

  “Where are you three heading?” the lead rider asked.

  Erin replied “We are heading home after trading our goods in Arose. We are from Theland.”

  The leader looked at them with no apparent concern. “We will have to inspect your wagon. Get down.”

  Since discretion still seemed like the better option, the three of them slowly got off the wagon. Alec hopped off the left side, and the two women stepped down from the right. Alec noticed that Erin had taken her sword with her.

  I should take my staff, Alec thought. He reached back into the wagon to grab it but as he turned, although he never saw anything, he felt a whoosh of air near his face. Something connected with the side of his head, everything went dizzy, and he lost consciousness as he felt himself falling groundward.

  ✽✽✽

  Erin had stepped warily from her side of the wagon, looking with concern at how the riders had surrounded them. She looked across at Alec just in time to see a soldier in Alec’s blind spot pick up his cudgel and bat Alec across the head.

  “No!” she yelled, but it was too late. Alec had fallen in a heap.

  She drew her sword and looked at the troops. “Let us go,” she said. “We haven’t done anything to you.” Lily cowered behind her – did she have her knife?

  They ignored her plea. Three of them dismounted and came towards her. She slashed at one of them with her sword, but he just stepped back. She could see they didn’t appear frightened by her. A fourth member pulled something from the side of his saddle. It looked like a big pile of ropes.

  They are going to have to fight me and win before they can tie me up, she thought. With a practiced hand, the fourth solider flung the collection of ropes at her. It spread in a wide arc over her head. Erin had never seen a net before, but she instinctively raised her sword to fend it off. The gaps of the net were widely spaced, and her sword pierced the air.

  The center of the net settled over her head; her sword was outstretched through a gap.

  Maybe I can still fight, she thought, as the edges of the net settled around her knees. The soldier gave a pull, bringing the net tight around her, and left her off-balance. She stumbled onto her knees and hands, losing her sword in the process. She tried to lunge forward to pick it up, but one of the dismounted riders grabbed it. Two of them pulled the net tight around her knees and tied the net to the pommel of the trogus. Her head and shoulders were on the ground, her arms were tightly tangled around her side, and her feet were in the air lashed to the beast. Erin tried to kick and squirm, but the trogus had done this many times before and ignored her. She was stuck.

  The riders weren’t particularly worried about Erin escaping and turned their attention to Lily. Lily stood holding her knife and staring at them. They gestured for her to drop it. Lily had no idea how to defend herself. She dropped the knife.

  “Down on your knees,” one of the men barked. Lily dropped to her knees and complied.

  The lead rider looked at the haul. “Probably doing just what they said – returning from a trading trip.” He gestured to his men. “You three – strip them and take them back to camp! We will add them to the other slaves.” He eyed the wagon and drungs. “Take that wagon, too; we need more wagons and drungs to carry supplies. The rest of us will continue to patrol.” The remaining soldiers mounted and rode off with their leader.

  ✽✽✽

  The three soldiers approached Alec and started removing his clothes. Erin saw one soldier remove Alec’s shoes and cast them off into the tall grass. One of the men tore off Alec’s pants and underclothes while another tore off his shirt. They rolled him over and saw the medallion on his chest. One soldier cut the strap holding it. He squinted at the medallion briefly as it caught the sun and tossed it towards the wagon so that he could look at it later. His aim was bad, and the medallion hit the wagon’s sideboard and caromed into a patch of high grass and disappeared from view. They tied Alec’s hands together and roped him to the pommel of one of the trogus. All Erin could do was watch and squirm in her upside-down position.

  The three men then turned to the women. First, they approached Lily. By now Lily had figured out she was better off cooperating. By winking and smiling, she made sure they knew that she would do whatever they wanted. They motioned for her to undress and she quickly stripped everything off and dumped her clothes on the ground around her. She gave several suggestive wiggles, but the men weren’t interested. They tied her hands and looped her rope over the pommel of the third trogus.

  Then they turned to Erin. I won’t make this easy, she thought. But it was. With practiced efficiency, they pulled the net up enough that her lower body was exposed and all her clothes below her waist were off. They rolled her on her chest and put a harness with a bit through her mouth to control her head. A twist and she was face-down on the ground. Her remaining clothes were torn off and left in a heap. Her hands were tied, and she was roped to the trogus with Lily, still wearing the harness on her head.

  One of the soldiers climbed onto the wagon, clicked at the drungs, and started moving in the direction the riders had come. The first rider mounted his trogus.

  “Come along, or be dragged,” the soldier said.

  The trogus started slowly. Alec had regained just enough of his senses to stumble alongside the trogus with the second soldier. The two naked women followed the third trogus, attached by about ten feet of rope.

  Erin desperately looked around for a landmark in the grass – a bush, an animal burrow – anything – so that she could locate this place again. She knew that somehow this medallion was very important to Alec and that he would want to be able to find it again when they got free. But there was nothing obvious that she could see. The only hope would be if some of their discarded clothing stayed close to the clump of grass where the medallion had landed; however, the slight breeze was already blowing her tunic down the trail, so she knew it was but a faint hope.

  7 – Captured

  Alec started to regain consciousness.

  My head. His head throbbed and he felt as though he could see sparks behind his closed eyes. He could tell his hands were tied together firmly and he could feel the grass rubbing against his skin. Then he realized he was naked. Now what?! He opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear the clouds of darkness from his vision.

  As his mind cleared, he could see their new wagon heading off in the distance, and two naked women tied to a nearby trogus. Erin and Lily!

  “Your turn,” his captor said. “Stand up.” Alec looked up and saw a man in a blue uniform standing over him. He got to his feet drunkenly and instinctively felt for his medallion. It was gone. A raider, thought Alec.

  His captor mounted his trogus. A jerk on a rope commanded Alec’s attention, and he realized he was attached to a tether tied to the trogus saddle. The animal started off at a slow pace. The rope pulled tight, and Alec stumbled and almost tripped before he could match the animal’s gait and walk behind it. The trogus did no
t seem to be affected by the saw-like grass blades or the small rocks on the path and wandered along the easiest walking route. The short length of his tether and the constant pace did not allow Alec to avoid the grass – soon his legs were covered by dozens of grass cuts and his bare feet were slashed by the rocks. He had to keep his eyes on the path ahead and could not look around, but he figured that the two women were suffering the same fate.

  Alec was ready to collapse when the trogus came over a small rise. He could see a camp below with about fifty soldiers in uniforms like his captor’s and a dozen or so others. His commandeered wagon was entering the camp ahead of them and joining other wagons. As they came to the edge of the encampment, they passed a pack of dogs; most were chained but a couple roamed loose. Sentry dogs, thought Alec, to keep us from escaping.

  In the center of the camp’s circle of tents and wagons were two groups of naked people, huddled in a central cleared area – about fifty men on one side of the clearing, all tied together, and about the same number of women tied together on the other side about a hundred paces away.

  Slavers! thought Alec. Slavers have captured us!

  ✽✽✽

  Erin and Lily were pulled roughly behind a trogus as it made its way along a faint trail through the tall grass. The pace was set to cover ground, but not totally exhaust the new captives. The rope that tied them to the trogus chaffed Erin’s arms, and Lily whimpered and cried incessantly. There was not enough room on the path for both women to walk side-by-side and they tended to bump into each other. Erin was experienced with rough terrain and knew to step adroitly between the rocks, but she could see that Lily was having a very hard time. The soldier riding the trogus turned once to look at the two naked women. Lily shook off her tears and gave him a very suggestive gesture and a wan smile. Erin spat at him.