The Forestwalker

by Sarah Wheeler

Table of Contents

Chapter 17

Gareth awoke the next morning before dawn just as the guard returned to release all the slave children from their restraints. Once his had been removed, Gareth sat up and stretched his aching shoulders and back, which earned him a smack on the back of the head. As he sat and waited for orders, he tried hard not to squirm. His whole body was stiff and sore, and he hadn't exactly slept well. He saw Holly looking at him sympathetically out of the corner of her eye as he took the bowl of watery porridge that the guard handed him, but he didn't need her sympathy, so he squared his shoulders and tried not to look as sore and exhausted as he felt as he devoured the bowl of tasteless mush. Once all the children were done with their breakfast, they were ordered out of the tent to make breakfast for the slavers. The five of them worked together silently around the fire, cooking porridge and bacon and eggs and brewing coffee as the rest of the camp came awake.

It took all of Gareth's willpower not to glance over towards the wagons where the captives were being held as he took a plate of food and a mug of coffee over towards Master Ara's tent. There was no hue and cry, no sign that the slavers had noticed any of their captives missing. Had Teskar gotten away clean? Or was he still over there somewhere? Gareth hid his nervousness behind silent docility as he woke Master Ara, served him his breakfast, then helped him get dressed and cleaned up his tent before heading out to serve the other slavers their breakfast. He was kept too busy that morning to be worried about what had or had not happened to his old master during the night, though. He raced back and forth across the camp for at least two hours, bringing food to the other slavers and getting cuffed, kicked, and even boxed on the ears once for not being fast enough, despite the fact that he moved as fast as he could manage without spilling anything.

Gareth couldn't help but notice that all the other children were treated the same way. It was no surprise that Cesra had been hurt as badly as he had. The children were the slaves of the five most senior slavers, who seemed to treat them well, but in order to keep the lower-ranking slavers from all demanding their own slaves, the children were forced to serve them all in some degree as well. And, as with all other free men that Gareth had met since becoming a slave, while some were kind and most were generally indifferent, far too many for his liking were simply cruel for the sake for being cruel. He got slapped several times for no reason at all, one of the slavers tripped him as he passed by just so he could laugh as Gareth fell to the ground, he watched Mischa get a black eye from one young slaver who decided his coffee was too cold, and Nora got five lashes with a switch because one of the nomad slavers claimed that she glanced at him while bringing him his breakfast. None of them escaped getting beaten or slapped around that morning, and Holly confided softly to Gareth as they washed the breakfast dishes that every day, morning and evening, was always the same. It was actually a relief to begin packing up the camp while the slavers took care of their captives.

Once all the wagons were loaded and the caravan was ready to move out, Gareth returned to Master Ara's side. “I'm second in command around here, kid,” Master Ara explained as he took Gareth's leash and led him off in the direction of the slave wagons, “so I get all the cushy jobs when I want them. Today, you get to ride with me while I drive one of these wagons.” He headed towards the nearest one, and Gareth followed him with his head down, his heart pounding. The wagons hadn't moved since the night before, and the one his new master was leading him to now was the same one he had been sitting in with his old master yesterday. He risked one glance up when he recognized it, and his heart sank into his shoes when he saw Master Teskar still sitting in the back of the wagon, watching him. A few minutes later, he found himself sitting in the front seat of the wagon next to Master Ara, his chain leash locked to the crossbar, trying desperately to ignore the fact that, just over his shoulder, his real master was sitting in the wagon bed with his wrists and ankles in shackles and a rope around his neck. Gareth kept his eyes down and his hands folded in his lap and tried not to let his increasing anxiety show as questions he could not ask rattled around inside his head. Why was Master Teskar still here? Was he still planning on escaping on his own? What if he couldn't get away tonight? Was there anything Gareth could do to help him?

“You do good work, boy,” Master Ara said suddenly. “I might just have to keep you around. What do you say to that?”

“What about your other slave, sir?” Gareth asked softly, feeling Teskar's eyes on him and suddenly fearing for Cesra's future more than his own.

“Who, Cesra? He's too small, and a bit of a klutz,” Ara said casually. “I don't care – he's a sweet kid – but the boss doesn't let our slaves work exclusively for us, and last night isn't the first time he's gotten in trouble with the others. I don't want to see him get hurt any more. I'll make sure he goes to a good master; the boss'll probably consider it an even trade. Normally, a slave like you would fetch a good price – you're young, well-trained, you do as you're told – but without papers or proof of your previous owner...”

Gareth hoped Master Ara hadn't seen him flinch at that. Master Teskar had to be hearing every word. “I... I didn't run away, sir,” he risked speaking out of turn to say, his tone soft but defensive. “I was stolen, sir.”

“I thought as much,” Master Ara said. He obviously didn't know the circumstances under which Gareth had come to the caravan. “Don't worry about it, kid. I'll take good care of ya. What's your name, anyway?”

“Gareth, sir,” Gareth said, hiding his surprise at being asked that question.

“Gareth, eh? Funny name,” Ara mused, then he hefted reins he was holding. “You ever driven a wagon before, Gareth?”

“No, sir,” Gareth replied.

“You wanna learn?”

So Gareth spent the rest of the day driving the wagon while his new master kicked back, relaxed, and chattered away aimlessly about his job, his life, the cities he'd visited, and his plans to settle down and raise a family some day. Master Ara had no particular desire to be a slaver; he saw this job as simply a stepping-stone to a better life. He was close personal friends with the caravan boss – they had grown up together – and when the previous caravan boss had handed the reins over to the current one, Ara had received the number two position, which had allowed him to have a slave and a private tent and a nice little nest egg saved up for his retirement to a stable life in the city in another few years. Ara was a good guy as far as Gareth could tell, and would probably be a good master, but Gareth didn't think he could bear living with a slave caravan, especially one that ran back and forth across the plains within a day's walk of the forest and so often took his people captive. Not to mention, the thought of serving the slavers who were holding Master Teskar captive and who had conspired with one of his people to take him and two other children captive in return for nothing but a broken promise made him feel sick with betrayal. No matter how relaxing he was hoping a day driving the wagon would be, the thought of this being his life for the foreseeable future combined with the itch between his shoulder blades that wouldn't let him forget that Master Teskar was sitting behind him served to keep him on edge every second of that long, hot day.

He risked a fleeting, pleading glance at Teskar as he was climbing down from the wagon once it stopped for the night, but Teskar just looked away, his expression unreadable. That didn't make Gareth feel any better. Was his master afraid of trying to escape on his own? But what about the consequences if he didn't get away? Surely Teskar wasn't expecting him to make the first move? Gareth wanted desperately to talk to his master, to reiterate the importance of him escaping, but he had no chance. As Master Ara went off to help his boss with inventory and logistics, two of the younger slavers escorted Gareth over to the supply wagons to help the other children set up camp for the night. Everyone but Adela, who was the caravan boss's personal slave, already looked run-down and exhausted; Mischa and Nora's masters were out on patrol, and Holly's master had been serving as a guard on horseback, so the three of them had been forced to walk behind the supply wagons all day. As a concession to the fact that he'd had an easy day by comparison, Gareth made sure to pull more than his fair share of the weight that evening while setting up tents and unloading supplies from the wagons.

Once all the slavers' tents were set up, Gareth took it upon himself to set up their tent, then he and Holly carefully carried Cesra out of one of the wagons on a stretcher and carried him inside. Gareth felt responsible, as Master Ara's new slave, to make sure that Cesra was well-taken-care-of; Master Ara had seemed to like the poor boy, after all. And, surprisingly, he hadn't just been saying that to gain Gareth's trust. Just moments after Gareth and Holly had made the still-unconscious boy comfortable on a pallet at the back of the tent, Master Ara came inside. He smiled at Gareth when he saw him taking care of Cesra. “How is he? Has he woken up yet?”

Gareth looked over to Holly for that answer; she had been keeping an eye on Cesra from her place behind the wagon he had been lying in. “No, sir,” she said, sounding worried.

“The doctor will be in here shortly to examine him and make sure he's alright,” Master Ara reassured her with a pat on the head. Then, he turned to Gareth. “I would like you to look after him for me, boy. Let him know that I have not forgotten about him, that I want him to get better, and that I will find him a better master once he's recovered.”

Gareth nodded, feeling very uncomfortable with this charge, but determined to do it all the same. Cesra deserved to know who was replacing him and why. Unfortunately, though, he wasn't the only one who would need answers. Once Master Ara had left the tent, Gareth looked up to see Holly glaring at him suspiciously.

“I thought you had a good master and wanted to go back to him,” she said accusingly.

“I do,” Gareth protested. “I didn't ask to be Cesra's replacement, Holly. I don't want to stay here. But Master Ara thinks I would be able to... hold up better under the conditions here. He really seems to like Cesra; he hates to see him hurt like this, and doesn't want it to happen again.”

Holly sighed and stroked Cesra's matted brown hair, which was a little longer than the regulation slave's haircut. “He wouldn't be wrong... about you being stronger and better suited to this than Cesra is. And I suppose it makes sense that he likes Cesra; he wouldn't have kept him as long as he has if he didn't. Cesra... he has a lot of problems. He's not like us; he was born a slave.”

“Born a slave?” Gareth was shocked. He didn't think he had ever heard of anyone being born a slave.

“Yeah,” Holly nodded sadly. “Apparently it's getting more common. There are plenty of grown-up slaves, after all. When one of them has a kid, the kid's automatically a slave. Cesra was taken away from his mother when he was born and sent to a warehouse, where he was raised by people whose sole duty was to train him to be a docile, obedient slave. He spent his whole life in a cage before Master Ara bought him, he was never allowed to go outside and get fresh air and sunshine, he was never fed decent food, he was beaten and abused and never shown the slightest bit of caring or compassion. He's nine years old, but he can barely talk, he's weak and sickly and clumsy, and he has no sense of initiative or self-preservation. He's completely helpless, and though Master Ara has done the best he can by him, he can't keep the other slavers from abusing him. We try to protect him, but we're pretty much helpless ourselves, and he's such an easy target... I suppose going to another master would be best for him.”

“If we don't get out of here first,” Gareth reminded her, and it warmed his heart slightly to see her smile at that. Hearing about Cesra, about what his life had been like, how he had never know family or freedom or anything but slavery, sickened Gareth, and only served to strengthen his resolve to find a way out of here for all of them, no matter what. Holly seemed to sense his increased determination, but it was hard for him to tell how she felt about it; she gave him sidelong glances and long, studying looks all night while they were working together, but every once in a while he thought he saw her eyes flash with hopeful determination. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him going through a long, hard night of trying to please men who got a night's entertainment out of finding and punishing his and his fellow slaves' failures.

Thankfully, Master Ara called Gareth back to his tent before the end of the dinner rush, where he allowed Gareth to eat the leftover scraps from his own supper. It was a treat to eat real food again after two days of stale bread, tepid water, and bland, watery gruel, and Gareth was also rewarded with words of praise from his new master for a job well done after he had cleaned up the tent and helped Ara prepare for bed. Gareth left his master's tent in the company of a guard feeling almost content... but as he was crossing the camp, he happened to glimpse the slave wagons out of the corner of his eye, and the reality of his situation slapped him across the face again. He prayed desperately that Master Teskar was planning his escape right now, and thoughts of what would happen if his old master failed in that task preoccupied him as he was led into the slaves' tent and chained up with the others.

As the other children ate their meager dinner of stale bread and water and talked quietly among themselves, Gareth sat by Cesra's side, wetting the unconscious boy's lips with a cloth soaked in cool water and thinking about what was going on in the forest right now. At this very moment, Devon was most likely leading Kastor and Shanna to the rendezvous with the slavers, probably under the pretense of catching Kastor's runaway slave. If Master Teskar didn't make a move, by tomorrow afternoon all three of them would arrive here in chains. He couldn't help but notice that Holly was sharing his worries. She, unfortunately, had no reason to hope that Devon and the others would escape being taken captive, but she was trying hard to hide what she was feeling. She wasn't talking much, though, and after only about ten minutes, she left her friends and came over by him. She held his hand and sat silently next to him as he watched over Cesra until the guard came in to put them all into their secure restraint position for sleeping. Unlike the night before, Gareth couldn't find any happy or comforting thoughts to help him relax and fall asleep, so he lay awake for a long time staring up at the dark roof of the tent. Just before he finally fell asleep, he thought he heard someone crying, and he guessed that it was probably Holly.

The next morning, Gareth got a nasty blow when he was bringing Master Ara his breakfast. He happened to glance over in the direction of the wagons carrying the captives, and he distinctly saw Master Teskar still sitting in the wagon closest to the slavers' camp. He hadn't escaped. Gareth didn't know the reason why, but he supposed it didn't really matter now. There was nothing to stop the three slavers that had brought him here from showing up later today with Kastor, Shanna, and Devon now. There was no way that Gareth was going to be able to escape from here with nine other people. He felt all his hopes for the future and all the promises he had made shatter into dust as he looked away from the wagons and entered his new master's tent with breakfast.

That day, Gareth did his best to be invisible, especially one he did find out why Teskar hadn't escaped. After breakfast, the slavers all dispersed among the captives as the children began to break down the tents and load up the supply wagons again. Less than fifteen minutes later, a loud commotion went up from the captives' wagons and two of the slavers dragged a man in chains away from one of the slave lines into the half-dismantled circle of tents. As they threw him to the ground, Ara came forward. As second-in-command, he was in charge of discipline among slavers and captives alike.

“What's going on?” he demanded of the two slavers. The captive was a young man, thin and starved-looking, dressed in grimy rags. He was shaking in terror as he watched one of the slavers standing over him hand a small rectangular object to Ara. Gareth's heart skipped a beat and he couldn't help but stare, because the object was Kastor's pocketknife.

“We found this worthless slave trying to hide that knife from us,” one of the slavers said. “His shackles had been tampered with, but he wasn't anywhere near getting them open, so he couldn't have been at it long.”

“Where did you get this, slave?” Ara said, casually flipping the knife open and closed as he stared dangerously down at the pitiful man huddled at his feet.

“P...p...please, sah, ah f...foun' it onna groun' yestahday as we w...w...was walkin',” the man stammered out, getting to his knees and prostrating himself on the ground in front of Ara, his shoulders shaking. “Ah dinna mean ta try an' 'scape, sah. Please, sah, have mercy!”

Ara considered this for a minute, his eyes as hard as flint. “Thirty lashes,” he finally said, “and secure his hands behind him when you return him to the line. He will be forced to rely on the kindness of others in order to be fed and watered for the next week.” The man sobbed brokenly from where he lay on the ground as Ara turned away. It was a harsh punishment, but it could have been much worse. Gareth knew that the man could have been executed for much less. Of course, Gareth supposed that, once the beating was done, the severity of the man's sentence depended entirely on his fellow captives. If the young man had alienated those around him with his escape attempt, or if they were all too broken or afraid to risk helping him, then he was in for a very difficult week.

As he and the other slaves and all the captives were brought to attention to watch the young man being punished, Gareth tried to ignore the guilty voice in the back of his head telling him that this man's punishment was his fault. It wasn't, he insisted furiously. He had given the knife to Master Teskar, who had obviously been able to hide it successfully for at least a day, and he certainly hadn't meant for it to be found when he had handed it over to his master, especially not in the hands of a stranger. Gareth tried not to wonder how Master Teskar had lost the knife and just be glad that they had not found it in his possession. Not that it was anything to be glad about, because now his master had no way of escaping or helping his children escape from here after they arrived this evening.

Gareth was glad that no one had noticed the undue attention he had paid the events in the center of the camp, and he kept his head down the rest of the morning and worked hard to keep himself from dwelling on what was coming later that day. Once the caravan was on the move again, though, he had no way of avoiding the two ever-present reminders. Master Ara kept the pocketknife and spent the morning studying it intently as Gareth drove the wagon. “This is excellent workmanship,” he mused as he studied the knife's carved handle and clean, sharp blade. “Esharan-made, if this mark is accurate. A very expensive knife.” It was, too, Gareth knew. He remembered when Master Teskar had brought that knife back from Devrost for Kastor as a birthday present a year after Gareth had arrived in their household. He remembered Kastor threatening him with it every time he got angry for a solid week until his father threatened to take it away from him. But he also remembered how glad Kastor had been to have been given such a wonderful present, how much care he had taken of the knife, and how he had carried it everywhere with him, and he guessed that Master Teskar, sitting just behind him in a miserable, defeated huddle, probably remembered all those things as well.

“It's been well-taken-care-of, too. I wonder how it ended up out here?”

Gareth saw Master Teskar flinch and shudder with what looked disturbingly like a muffled sob when Ara said that. The knife was mystifying all the slavers, and Gareth could do nothing but desperately hope that they didn't choose to investigate that mystery too closely. Fortunately, Master Ara pocketed the knife when the caravan paused briefly at midday, and he didn't bring it back out or mention it again for the rest of the day. It didn't make it any easier for Gareth to sit there in the wagon next to him, though, because he was still acutely aware of Master Teskar's presence, and he could imagine all too easily what was going through the poor man's head. What would he do, or say, when he saw his children, brought back to him as captives, destined only to be separated again and sold as slaves? For that matter, what would Gareth himself do? Would he be able to face Kastor again after having failed him so completely? And what about Shanna? Thinking about seeing her as a captive again nearly broke his heart. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment to keep the tears at bay and drew in even more completely on himself. Thankfully, silence was an expected quality in a slave, so Master Ara never noticed that anything was wrong.

Once the slave caravan finally stopped for the night, time seemed to slow inexorably. The silences between Gareth's pounding heartbeats stretched to small eternities, and it took every ounce of self-control and self-preservation he possessed to keep from glancing out northward into the grasslands as he and the other slave children set about unloading the wagons and setting up the camp for the night. Whenever he saw movement out in the grass, even if it was just a bird or the wind, he would flinch or catch his breath in anticipation, and he could see that all the other children, Holly and Nora especially, were similarly distracted, though they all hid it well from their masters.

But the event they were all dreading never came. Less than fifteen minutes into their evening's work, the three slavers that had brought Gareth in two days earlier came storming into the camp... alone. They marched directly over to the caravan leader and Master Ara and the five of them exchanged angry words in the nomads' language for about ten minutes, with several gesticulations in Gareth's direction and a few in Holly's that they both prudently acted like they didn't see. Finally, the caravan leader was able to calm them down and sent them on their way with the supplies and the money they were promised for their work. Gareth's heartbeat returned to normal and relieved confusion replaced the terror that had filled him all day as he watched them disappear into the grassland, heading south. As he turned back to his work, he caught Holly's eye and saw relief spreading across her face as she flashed him a small smile.

“They didn't catch them,” Holly whispered to him half an hour later as they carried Cesra into their tent on a stretcher and made the still-unconscious boy comfortable. “What do you think happened?”

“I don't know,” Gareth said, equally softly, “but, whatever happened, it looks like the slavers won't be going back for them. My hope is that Devon changed his mind, and that they're all working together right now to find a way to rescue us. But just in case they're not, I'm still going to keep my eyes open for a way for us to escape on our own.”

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that,” Holly said with a small smile. She was about to say more, but just then, to their surprise, Cesra groaned and coughed and began to whimper in pain. “Oh!” Holly jumped to her feet. “He's awake! I'll go get Master Ara and the doctor.”

Gareth nodded as she left the tent, then sat down next to Cesra, who was shivering and muttering under his breath. Gareth used one edge of the ragged blanket covering Cesra to wipe the sweat off his face. “It's alright,” he said softly. “I'll take care of you, and I'm gonna find some way to get us away from here and...” Suddenly, he remembered that Cesra had no home to go to if he was set free. If they did get away from here, all the other children would go home to their families, but where would Cesra go? He certainly wouldn't be able to take care of himself; he would be at the mercy of the first slaver that came along and end up right back in chains. In order to make sure that Cesra got the life he deserved, Gareth would have to find him a real home and family, somewhere safe where his life as a slave could one day be nothing but a distant painful memory. Maybe Tara would be able to find Cesra a home in the forest, or, even better, maybe Gareth's own parents would have a place in their home for a lost child...

But he was getting ahead of himself, he remembered guiltily as Master Ara came into the tent, carrying a bowl of porridge and a cup of water. “How is he?” he asked as he came over, set the bowl down, and knelt next to Cesra with the cup in one hand.

At the sound of his master's voice, Cesra's eyes snapped open and his pain-lined face stilled to complete blankness. His eyes were as brilliantly blue as Shanna's, but they were as blank and emotionless as the rest of his face. He even controlled the tremors of agony that had been wracking his body. It was an extremely disturbing transformation. “He's awake, sir,” Gareth said. “You can ask him yourself, sir, if you wish.”

Master Ara looked down at his slave and smiled gently. “Hello, Cesra. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, sir,” Cesra said, his weak whisper devoid of any emotion. Gareth felt sick. The last thing Cesra was was fine. Even Master Ara seemed to know that, but his gentle smile never wavered.

“I brought you some more pain medicine from the doctor,” Ara said as he reached out and propped Cesra's head up slightly. “Here, drink this.” Cesra drank the cup of water slowly and mechanically, only shuddering slightly at its bitter taste. Once the cup was empty, Master Ara lay Cesra's head back down and made him comfortable again. “Cesra, this is Gareth. He is going to be looking after you and taking care of you for me until you get better, alright?” Cesra glanced up briefly at Gareth, then dropped his eyes again, his face registering nothing but indifferent blankness as he nodded in response to Master Ara's question. “Good boy,” Master Ara said. He patted Cesra gently on the head. “You rest and recover now. I'll check on you when I can.”

Cesra remained silent and unmoving as Master Ara got to his feet and gestured for Gareth to do the same. “Feed him and make sure he's comfortable, then go about your regular duties,” Master Ara told him. “He'll be alright now; the doctor says all he needs is rest.” Gareth nodded and stayed standing respectfully until Master Ara was gone, then he turned back to Cesra.

It was a relief to see, as he sat down next to Cesra's pallet again, that the boy had relaxed and that emotion had returned to his face, even though the eyes that now looked up at Gareth were full of pain and confusion. “It's alright, it's just the two of us now,” Gareth said kindly. “You want to tell me how you're really feeling?”

“Everything hurts,” Cesra said weakly, his voice shaking.

“Well, the medicine will help with that,” Gareth promised. “Are you hungry?”

Cesra nodded. Gareth turned to grab one of the other pallets, which were still rolled up near the tent's entrance, and used it to prop Cesra's head up, then began to feed him the bowl of cold, tasteless porridge. Cesra ate it eagerly, without complaint, but it didn't seem capable of really nourishing him or helping with his recovery. Gareth decided that he would risk asking Master Ara to give Cesra some real food – like what the slavers ate – in order to help him get better faster.

“Who are you?” Cesra asked him suddenly.

“My name's Gareth,” Gareth told him readily. Cesra already knew that, though, and the look he gave Gareth said that he was looking for more information than that. “Master Ara took me off the caravan to be his slave after you were hurt, to work for him until you got better.”

“Is he gonna sell me? I didn't mean to drop the plate. I'll do better, I promise!” A single tear escaped from one of Cesra's eyes and tracked down his cheek, but the rest of his terror was contained only in his voice.

“I don't know what he's going to do, Cesra, but if he does replace you with me, you should know that he's doing it because he cares about you and doesn't want to see any of the other men hurt you any more. He'll make sure you find a good master who will treat you well, I'm sure of that.”

Cesra didn't seem convinced, and Gareth didn't blame him, but he had no other words of comfort to offer the poor boy, and he could not linger any longer if he wanted to avoid being punished for shirking his duties. “I'm sorry, Cesra, but I have to go attend to our master and the others. Rest, and I'll see you again later tonight, alright?” Cesra nodded. Gareth reached out and wiped the single tear from the boy's cheek, determined to leave him with something happier to think about. “Holly and the others will be glad to see you awake. They've been really worried about you too.”

That brightened Cesra's expression briefly. “Holly's nice,” he said softly, then he yawned slightly and blinked his eyes heavily. The painkillers and other medicine Master Ara had given him for his injuries were finally taking effect, it seemed. A minute later, he was asleep again.

Gareth rose silently and exited the tent, depositing the empty bowl and cup in the washtub before heading towards the fire to help the other children make dinner for the slavers. They all looked at him curiously, their eyes asking the questions they dared not speak aloud in the presence of their masters, and he gave them a brief, reassuring nod as a temporary response to all those unspoken questions. Between Cesra regaining consciousness and the realization that Gareth's fears about three more children ending up here as captives had not come to pass, there was an air of almost relieved happiness among the slave children that even the slavers' brutal treatment of them could not dampen. Even Master Ara was in a good mood as a result of his young slave's recovery; when Gareth risked speaking out of turn in order to ask his master if he could give Ara's leftovers to Cesra instead of eating them himself, his master readily agreed and did not even consider punishing him for his impertinence. And the gratitude on Cesra's face when Gareth brought him real food to eat that night more than made up for the sacrifice he was making by going back to eating nothing but tasteless porridge and stale bread, Gareth decided. Anything he could do to help Cesra, he would do, hopefully ending with getting the poor boy away from here and freeing him from slavery forever.

That night, all the children wanted to hear Gareth's theories on why Devon, Kastor, and Shanna hadn't been caught by the slavers. Gareth told them what he had told Holly; that he suspected that Devon had changed his mind, or that the other children had discovered what he had been planning to do and stopped him, and he also repeated his hope that they were planning a rescue at this very moment.

“Just in case they're not, though, I'm still going to keep looking for a way for us all to get out of here,” he told them.

“But why risk it?” Mischa asked him. “Master Ara's a good master, your friends are safe, and if you get caught trying to escape... You saw what they did to that poor man today, and he wasn't even trying very hard.” He shuddered and glanced briefly over at Cesra, who was sleeping again, then looked down at his hands.

Gareth appreciated Mischa's concern, but he couldn't stop thinking about escape. He debated telling the others about Master Teskar, but in the end decided to keep that information to himself. As long as Master Teskar was a captive, though, Gareth was never going to stop looking for a chance to escape. He had a duty to help his old master be reunited with his children, and he still had to keep his promise to Kastor and Shanna to get them home. “I'll be safe and careful, Mischa. Don't worry. Now that I don't have to worry about Kastor and Shanna ending up here, I can bide my time and do things right. But I won't stay here forever. I can't. And when I find a way to escape, I will make sure you can all escape with me.”

That night, Gareth slept unusually well. It had been a long, exhausting day, both physically and emotionally, and he was so relieved that things had not turned out as he had feared that he was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes and he woke up feeling very well-rested despite the stiffness that his restraints left in his arms, legs, and back. He did his work that morning with surprising good cheer, shrugging off the few cuffs and slaps he got from several of the slavers who were perpetually unhappy with his work. Master Ara was happy with it, that was all that mattered. And as he headed to the wagon with his new master, he exchanged a small, knowing nod with Master Teskar, who was looking as relieved and confused as Gareth had felt the day before. Gareth wished he could talk to Teskar, to reassure him that his children were safe and that Gareth was going to find a way to get them both away from here and back to Kastor and Shanna as soon as possible, but showing too much interest in or familiarity with one another would get them both in trouble, so he had to content himself with giving Teskar reassuring looks whenever he could and hoping that his master would interpret them correctly.

After that day, Gareth found his life settling into a familiar routine. He was a little disturbed by how easily he fell back into the old habits that defined a slave's life; doing everything he was told with silent docility, accepting punishment and chastisement, no matter how unjust, without complaint, keeping his eyes down and his face blank and pretending to ignore everything around him. But he wasn't ignoring anything this time, and his silent docility and meek acceptance of his new position was all show. He kept his eyes open every day for opportunities to escape, and every night he talked to the other children about where the caravan was going, how long it would take them to get there, and what was going to happen when they got there. Fortunately, with a hundred or so captives on forced march, the caravan didn't move very fast. The trip to the coastal market where the captives would be turned over to be sold across the channel in Pan'sho'Ke would take almost two months, and they would be stopping in two nomad settlements on the way to resupply.

“Our best chance would probably come while we're at one of those settlements,” Nora told Gareth one night. “The slavers keep us out of sight when we're there, to keep the nomads from stealing us and keeping us for themselves. Collared slaves are usually too expensive for the people – mostly elders, women, and children – that live in those settlements to afford. They train their own, of course, but it's a sign of status among them to own a slave who wears one of these,” she touched the collar welded around her neck, “and they don't really care how they get one. That means no work for us; they give us beds in one of the supply wagons and pretty much leave us to our own devices from the time they arrive until they leave – chained up of course, but they check up on us less often so as not to draw attention. If you can find some way to get the locks on these chains open, you will probably have plenty of time to work on them then.”

“How long 'til we get to the first village?” Gareth asked, seeing a spark of hope for real escape for the first time in four days.

“Probably a week or so,” Nora said, looking almost as excited as Gareth felt. “Do you really think you could find a way to pull off an escape by then?”

“I'm almost certain of it,” Gareth said with a grin.

“You won't... leave me behind... will you?” came a soft voice from out of the shadows.

Gareth turned to Cesra with a gentle smile. “Absolutely not, Cesra,” he promised the little boy. Earlier that evening, while feeding Cesra his supper, Gareth had finally told the younger boy exactly who he was, how he'd come to be here, and his plan to help all of them escape.

“But... I can't walk. I'll slow you down,” Cesra said, sounding resigned to being left behind despite Gareth's numerous promises to the contrary.

“We all go or none of us do, Cesra, that's a promise,” Gareth said, crouching down close and looking the younger boy square in the eyes. “I'll carry you to freedom if I have to, but no one's being left behind.” Except possibly Master Teskar, he realized with a frown that he quickly internalized. If this plan of Nora's worked, though, he would come back for his master once he found Kastor and Shanna again. Master Teskar would be able to survive captivity for a little while longer, but Cesra's very life depended on Gareth giving him his freedom. Fortunately, the intensity of Gareth's promise finally seemed to convince Cesra, and the faint spark of hope that lit his eyes warmed Gareth from the heart outward better than any blanket or blazing fire ever could.

He held onto that memory and that spark of hope with a mental death grip the next day when he was called in to his master's tent and was confronted not only by Master Ara but by the caravan leader and a slaver holding an iron file. They didn't explain anything, but they didn't need to: as Gareth stood there, the caravan leader asked Master Ara if he was certain that he wanted Gareth to replace Cesra as his personal slave. When Master Ara said yes and agreed to let the caravan leader sell Cesra to the slave market in Pan'sho'Ke in Gareth's place, the caravan leader nodded to the other man, who came over to Gareth and used the file to remove the leash and chains from Gareth's collar and shackles. Gareth held still and didn't look up, didn't protest or say a word, feeling a strange sense of loss as the chains that Kastor still held the key to were taken away from him. Worse, though, was the loss of the clothes that Kastor had bought him; he had to force himself to feign indifference as he was ordered to remove them all and was given a brown burlap shirt and pants to wear instead. Then, Master Ara brought over a new set of chains and locked them to Gareth's shackles, and once the other two men were gone he took Gareth out behind the tent, sat him down, and trimmed his hair back down to its regulation cut. Not a word was spoken to Gareth, but none needed to be. It wasn't like he had a say in the matter; he was property as far as the governments and people of these outside lands were concerned, which meant he had no say in his own life or anything that was done to him. As he exited Master Ara's tent, dressed and shackled like a true slave once again, he glanced up towards the forest on the northern horizon and wished more than anything that he could be back among those tall, sheltering trees.

Losing his clothes and his old chains, becoming Master Ara's slave in truth, dimmed some of the optimism that had kept Gareth going for the last few days, and all the other children sensed it as soon as he joined them around the fire to make dinner. Fortunately, they were all very understanding and sympathetic to his loss, and that night they all kept their conversation light in order to keep his spirits up. But it was the look of stunned betrayal in Master Teskar's eyes when he saw Gareth following Master Ara to the wagon the next day that brought the fire back. He had no way to tell Master Teskar that this was not a betrayal, that being made Master Ara's slave had not been his choice; the only way to prove that to his old master was to run away from Master Ara, something that he had not considered doing as Master Teskar's slave – well, maybe once or twice he had thought about it, but he had never gone so far as to actually attempt it. His loyalty still belonged to Master Teskar and Kastor and Shanna, and he would prove that loyalty by escaping and saving his master and reuniting him with his children.

And his first step in that direction came to him quite by accident that afternoon when he was sent to do Master Ara's laundry. As he was scrubbing Ara's clothes in the large metal washtub behind his tent, Gareth found Kastor's pocketknife in the pocket of one of Ara's pants. Had he really forgotten about it already? There was only one way to find out, Gareth decided as he slipped the knife into a roll in the waistband of his pants. If Master Ara noticed it missing, he would be able to return it easily, but if he didn't... With this knife and a significant amount of uninterrupted, unguarded time, which he had been promised by Nora in just a few days, he was sure he could get the locks on their leashes open. That was the most he could hope for, he was sure, but the locks on their shackles could wait until they were safely back in the forest, assuming they could get a decent head-start on the slavers.

That night, while he was feeding Cesra his dinner, Gareth slipped the knife out of his waistband and hid it in Cesra's blankets. He didn't let any of the other children know what he had done, so as not to get their hopes up in case he ended up having to return the knife, but he couldn't hide his anticipation, and the other children all saw it.

“This is really gonna happen, isn't it?” Holly whispered to him when she saw him studying the end of his leash where it was locked around the central tent pole.

“It has to,” Gareth said. “It's the best chance I'm gonna get.” It had been over a week since he had been brought to this caravan; if help was coming from outside, it should have been here already. He knew it had been a little much to hope for, and a part of him was glad that Tara and the others weren't risking getting captured themselves in order to rescue him.

That night, the guard that sat outside their tent and put them in their secure restraint position was late entering their tent and appeared distracted and more drunk than usual. Gareth was surprised by this, but none of the other children were. “They always try to go through the rest of the beer on the wagons before they get to the nomad camp for resupply so they can take on as much fresh beer as possible,” Holly whispered to him as soon as the man had left. “Between that and the party that the nomads throw for them when they get to the camp, they're going to be pretty distracted for the next few days.” Upon hearing that, Gareth fell asleep grinning, assured of his freedom – their freedom – in just a few days.

Gareth had only been asleep for an hour or so when the sound of someone entering the tent woke him from a shallow sleep. It was too dark to tell who it was, and Gareth stiffened nervously as the figure slowly circled the tent, looking intently at each of the sleeping slave children in turn. When the figure came to him, Gareth closed his eyes tightly and pretended to be asleep. He felt the figure go to its knees next to him, then a hand touched him on the shoulder and shook him gently.

“Gareth? Gareth, wake up.”

Gareth's eyes snapped open in shock. The whispered words were barely audible, but he would have recognized that voice anywhere.

“Kastor?”