The Forestwalker

by Sarah Wheeler

Table of Contents

Chapter 16

Gareth slowly turned around, equal parts anticipation and dread warring in his mind. He recognized that voice. Sitting just behind him in the wagon was a tall, pale-skinned man with long, dirty brown hair streaked with grey and sunken, sad blue eyes. The man's face was heartbreaking both in its familiarity and in the changes it had gone through since Gareth had seen it last.

“Master Teskar?”

Gareth looked up at his master for only a second before dropping his eyes in deference out of habit, but that momentary glance was all he needed to tell him exactly what his master had been through in the months since they had been separated by the bandit attack. Teskar was thin and starved, tired and beaten-down, well on his way to but not quite past the breaking point of total submission to slavery and fighting it still. He was dressed in ragged brown burlap and the shackles on his wrists and ankles, while not permanent, were metal instead of rope – a sign that he had been in the company of these slavers for a long time. Gareth wondered if he had escaped from the bandits only to be captured by the nomads while trying to make his way west to his wife in Pan'sho'Ke, or if he had been passed off to these slavers by the bandits or another group of slavers in order to make sure that he was sold far away from his home country. There were a hundred questions Gareth wanted to ask Teskar, but he held his tongue for now, both out of respect for his master and also because Teskar was already asking him a steady stream of questions in a frantic, worried whisper.

“I don't understand, boy. What are you doing here? After the bandit attack, they left only the dead behind. How did you survive? How did you escape? What happened to my children? Are they alive? Were they captured too? Please, tell me you know what happened to them!”

“Master Kastor and Miss Shanna are fine, sir,” Gareth said, and as Teskar sagged with relief and buried his face in his hands to hide his emotions, Gareth moved back to sit next to him so they could talk without being obvious or easy to overhear. “They are safe and free, sir, and I have looked after them and protected them just as you asked me to.” Then he proceeded to tell Master Teskar everything that had happened to him and the two other children since the bandit attack. He left nothing out, not even the fact that Kastor and Shanna had been captured by bandits for a while, nor the fact that their freedom and safety was currently in danger, even though telling his master those things meant admitting that he had failed Teskar's children in the worst way possible not once but twice.

“In two days, sir, Devon is going to meet those slavers who brought me here again and he, Master Kastor, and Miss Shanna are going to be captured and brought here as slaves too. I won't let that happen to them again, sir, but I also can't let Devon continue to try trading others to these slavers in hopes of getting his sister back, so I need to find her and her friend – they're here in this caravan somewhere – and escape with you and the two of them before tomorrow night.” As he talked, he continued to scan the groups of slaves within his line of sight, but he still saw no one resembling the girls he was looking for.

When he turned back to his master, who had gone strangely silent, he saw that Teskar was staring at him in surprise and admiration, a spark of life coming back into his eyes. “And just how do you propose we do all that, lad?” he said, sounding only a tiny bit incredulous. “I can't recall anyone escaping this caravan in all the time I've been with them... or even trying, come to think of it.”

“Can I ask what happened to you, sir?” Gareth asked, knowing he was being impertinent but stalling for time as he considered how to answer Teskar's question. “How did you end up all the way out here?”

“The bandits that raided the caravan took us all back to the slave market at Atherton and traded us to another slave caravan headed west. My land and wealth meant nothing to them, nor did the wealth of any of the merchants. Marten and the other slaves and all the servants were left at the slave market to be sold, and all the other merchants and their guards that were captured with me have long since been sold too. I've been handed off from one slave caravan to another since then; no one seems to know what to do with me, to be honest.”

“Don't worry, sir. They won't have to find out.” Gareth clenched his fists, testing his bonds and trying to loosen them. The ropes were only a secondary restraint, so they weren't tied as tightly as they would have been otherwise. With a little effort, he should be able to loosen them enough to remove them by the time it got dark.

“Well, I don't know what fates were smiling on me the day I... met you, Gareth, but I'm very glad to know you,” Master Teskar said as he watched Gareth.

“And I you, sir,” Gareth said softly, feeling certain that his freedom was assured now as long as he could get all the Cranes home safely. It had taken five years for them to show themselves, but maybe the fates had been smiling on him as well the day he had been bought by Master Teskar.

“But you never answered my question, boy,” Teskar said after a momentary silence. “Just how do you plan to succeed at what no one else even dares to try?”

“Get lucky, mostly,” Gareth said. “I wish I could be more specific about it, but I can't. Not until I spot those girls. I don't think I'll have much trouble getting free of these ropes, and then I'll be able to free you as well, sir, but I can't leave here without them too.”

“I understand, lad. Can you tell me what they look like? I may be able to help. I've been with this caravan for almost a month, and I'd wager I've seen almost every captive here in that time.”

“Well, I don't know much about them, sir, but they would both be somewhere around my age, and they would look similar to me at a distance – same color skin, same dark hair. I doubt this caravan has many forest-dwellers, which is why I was expecting them to be easy to find, but I haven't seen anyone even remotely resembling my expectations since I got here.”

“That's because you've been looking in the wrong direction, lad,” Master Teskar said sadly, gesturing with a nod of his head over Gareth's shoulder. Gareth turned to look where his master had indicated and cursed himself for the incompleteness of his conclusions.

Because now he was looking not at the slave caravan but at the slavers' camp. And while the nomad and Esharan slavers relaxed near their wagons or around campfires, five slaves, all of them children, were running to and fro, setting up tents and making supper and unloading luggage from the supply wagons. There were three girls and two boys, and two of the girls had the distinctive black hair and olive skin that marked them as Gareth's people.

Gareth groaned softly and hung his head. He had remembered that Devon's sister had been taken a year and a half ago, but he had not considered exactly what that would mean. He had come here expecting to rescue a captive, not free a slave who had been permanently collared and shackled. He had little doubt that she and her friend would be more than willing to be set free, especially since they could see their old home just at the edge of the northern horizon, but the caravan's permanent slaves were likely to be heavily restrained and guarded during the night. His escape plan had become much more difficult now – maybe even impossible – but he wasn't going to give up on it yet.

Because he still had one last surprise up his sleeve; one that he had forgotten about until the slavers had tossed him into the wagon. Two days ago, while still traveling through the forest, Gareth had borrowed Kastor's pocketknife to skin and clean a squirrel he had shot for their supper. Once he was done with the knife, he had cleaned it off and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket instead of returning it to Kastor. He had planned to return it if Kastor asked for it, but since he used it more often, he had figured it would be more convenient to carry it on his person rather than having to ask Kastor for it every time. Kastor hadn't remembered to ask for it back, the knife had settled into the folded scarf that Gareth still carried around with him in that pocket, and he had completely forgotten about it until now. And he was extremely grateful that the slavers hadn't searched him – they must have expected Devon to do that for them, but Devon hadn't had the time. If he and Master Teskar could get away – and he was sure they could – then maybe, once they had stopped Kastor, Shanna, and Devon from being captured, they could find some other way to come back and rescue Devon's sister and her friend.

Master Teskar seemed to realize what he was thinking. “I'm sorry, lad. If there were some way to get those girls away from here – all those poor souls, in fact – I would tell you to take it in an instant, even if it meant leaving me behind. But it's going to be a hundred times more difficult to get them away from there than it will be for us to escape from here. I hate to say it, but you might have to rethink your plans.”

“Yes, sir, I think I will,” Gareth said with a sigh. As he settled back to wait for dark, he tried hard to come to terms with the fact that he wasn't going to be able to help Devon right now; he was just going to have to find another way to rescue Devon's sister once he had saved Kastor and Shanna from Devon. As he ate the dry, hard roll and drank the tepid bowl of water that the slavers brought him for dinner – his first meal in almost a day – he couldn't take his eyes off the five children working around the slavers' camp. None of them were older than he was; he found himself thinking about how Master Teskar, who had bought him as a slave when he was only eight years old, had called them 'poor souls,' and then he found himself thinking about Tam's little sister. “I know what people buy kids like you for,” Tam had said. Gareth's stomach turned over, and he felt his eyes burn. Why did the world have to be so unfair? What gave anyone the right to treat another person, especially a child, like a piece of property, to do with whatever they wished? He would find a way to escape from here, and he would find a way to come back and destroy this caravan, to set all the slaves and captives, not just Devon's sister and her friend, free. All he had to do was get these ropes a little looser...

“You little idiot!”

One of the boys serving the slavers their dinner had tripped over an exposed tent peg and had spilled one man's dinner on the ground in front of him. The man was on the poor boy in a second, screaming curses at him as he dragged him to his feet, slapped him around, then threw him to the ground and began to kick and stomp on him. The boy was no older than Gareth had been when he had first been made a slave; Gareth found that he couldn't watch the boy being abused, and he fought back both tears of shame and a sick feeling in his stomach as he looked away.

“Hey! That one's mine! The hell do ya think you're doin', Josa?”

Gareth looked up in time to see one of the other slavers grab the man who was beating the boy and pull him away, but it appeared to be to late. The poor slave was lying motionless on the ground, his face and ragged burlap clothes covered with blood. The man who claimed to be the boy's owner went to his knees to check on him, then motioned to the two nearest slaves, who happened to be the two forest-dweller girls.

“He's still alive,” the man told them as they came over, “but he needs the doctor. Take him to your tent, and I'll send someone to look after him.” The two girls nodded silently, their faces pale as they looked at their fellow slave, then did as they were told. They carefully picked the boy up between them and carried him into a small tent on the outskirts of the camp. The man got up as well, heading for another tent, but he stopped and grabbed the man who'd beaten his slave by his shirtfront as he passed him.

“You just lost me my slave for a good month, Josa,” he growled, “so unless you want to take his place, chains an' all, I suggest you go find me a good replacement while I go tell the boss to take it outta your pay.” He shoved the man over to his fellows, then stalked away, calling for the doctor.

“Where'm ah sposed ta find him a replacement?” Josa growled to his friends as he stalked over towards the wagons and the lines of captives. “None a these swine we got are trained.”

“Wot 'bout dat one dey brought in taday? He trained, got da shackles, da collar, everthin'.”

Gareth froze when he heard that, then turned to his master in a panic, fumbling for the scarf in his pocket. “Take this, sir,” he whispered as he pushed the small bundle of cloth into Teskar's hands. “I'll get away if I can, but you're going to have a better chance than I will now. Please, sir, get away from here. Head north, to the forest, and stop Devon from leading Master Kastor and Miss Shanna here.”

Teskar took the scarf with a puzzled look on his face, but when he felt what was wrapped inside it, understanding dawned in his eyes. “I shouldn't take this, Gareth. With this, you might have a chance to save those girls.”

“I can't, sir. I can't risk them finding this; all our chances of escape disappear if they do. The locks on your shackles will be easy to pick with that, but theirs won't be. Don't worry about me, sir. Go find your children and get them home safe, sir, please?” He turned away from the guilt in his master's face. They both saw the slavers getting closer; there was no more time for his master to protest his decision. Gareth could only hope that Teskar would do as he asked and escape now that he would not be able to.

Gareth was sitting silently, trying to look like he didn't know what was coming, when two slavers came over to him, removed the thongs binding his wrists and ankles, untied the rope from the collar around his neck, and dragged him off the wagon. Gareth stumbled after them as they led him by his leash across to their camp, keeping his eyes downcast until they reached one of the tents and the men grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him inside, calling, “Here's your replacement, Ara.”

Gareth went to his knees just inside the entrance to the tent and bowed his head as a good slave should, barely even catching a glimpse of the man sitting on the camp bed on the far side of the room. He could feel the man looking him over critically for a minute, then he asked, “How long have you been collared, slave?”

“Five years, sir,” Gareth said meekly.

“And what are you trained for?”

“I was my young master's bodyservant, sir,” Gareth said, hating his use of the past tense even though he knew it was necessary.

“Excellent. My slave has just fallen ill and can't perform his duties, so you'll be replacing him until he recovers. You will serve me and my companions, and you will do everything that is asked of you. Defiance or failure to do your work quickly and without error will be punished severely. Do you understand?” Gareth nodded. “Good. Now go and bring me my dinner. You'll find everything by the fire, and the other slaves will help you if you need any instruction.”

Gareth nodded again to indicate understanding, then got to his feet and left the tent. He headed straight for the fire, keeping his head down and ignoring the stares of slaves and slavers alike. He stopped and watched one of the other slaves – the other boy – pick up a tin plate from a nearby table, fill it with stew, vegetables, and bread from the pots and pans around the fire, then fill a mug with beer from a nearby keg and take the plate and mug to a man sitting in front of one of the tents. The boy left the man's presence without being punished, so Gareth decided the safest thing to do was to imitate the other boy's actions to the letter. His new master seemed impressed by his speed and initiative when he set the plate and mug of beer on the table next to the bed. As his new master dug into his dinner, Gareth took it upon himself to pick up the clothes lying around the floor of the tent and straighten things up. He also did everything the man needed him to when he decided to get ready for bed. Gareth supposed it was in his nature to do his job well, even though a part of him didn't want to. If nothing else, it kept him from being punished, he supposed.

Once he was done with everything Master Ara asked of him, Gareth went to his knees next to the tent-flap and waited apprehensively for further instructions. To his relief, though, his new master simply dismissed Gareth for the night once he was finally in bed. “Go back to the other slaves and finish cleaning up the camp. Then they'll show you to your tent. From today, after bringing me my dinner you are to return to the fire and serve the other caravan drivers, understand?” Gareth nodded. “Good. You're a fast learner; I like that. Tomorrow morning, I will expect you just after sunrise with my breakfast, then you will be responsible for packing up my belongings and this tent and helping the others pack up the rest of the camp and loading up the wagons. Now go.”

Gareth got to his feet, bowed to his new master, then picked up the dirty dishes and left the tent. With the exception of a few patrolling guards, the only movement in the camp now came from a large metal washbasin where four silent children were crouched, washing and drying piles of dishes. Gareth walked over, followed by a guard who had been waiting outside Master Ara's tent, and knelt down to join them. No one looked at him or said a word, but that wasn't surprising. He helped the others finish the dishes, dry them, and put them back on the wooden table by the fire for the morning, then the guard led them all to the small tent on the edge of the camp where Gareth had seen them take the injured boy a few hours earlier.

The guard went in first, leading Gareth by his leash. The tent was small, but surprisingly clean and comfortable-looking. Five pallets lay in a circle around the central tent-pole, from which hung a single oil lamp. The guard led Gareth to the pallet furthest from the entrance, ordered him to sit, then pulled out a padlock and used it to lock Gareth's chain leash around the central pole. Then he did the same for all the others. As they were led to their pallets and their leashes locked to the tent-pole, Gareth studied the small, still form lying on a separate pallet outside of the circle not far from where he was sitting. The little boy who had been so badly beaten was still breathing – Gareth could see his chest rise and fall – but that was the only indication that he was still alive. Gareth wondered if he was going to survive, or who was going to take care of him. Did Master Ara care about what had happened to his slave, or was Gareth his permanent replacement? He could feel the silent stares of the other children as he stared at his hands in his lap. They all hated him, he was sure, but it wasn't like he wanted to be here. As soon as the guard had left the tent, he looked up and confirmed that they were all staring at him. He felt the need to explain, but wasn't sure if he was allowed to talk. The silence stretched out interminably, and he began to squirm inside from all the attention. Finally, he couldn't stand it any more and decided to have the first word, consequences be damned. “Hello,” he said softly, trying to smile slightly as he looked around at all of them. “My name's Gareth. What are your names?” He waited expectantly, but they all continued to stare silently at him. “I'm sorry, are we not allowed to talk?” Gareth finally asked after long minute.

The other boy finally spoke first. He had dark skin and black hair and eyes and looked to be about ten years old. “No, we can talk. My name is Mischa. Are you a slave? You're not dressed like one.”

Gareth tried hard not to look too self-conscious as he glanced down at himself and only then remembered that he was not wearing the traditional slave uniform. No one else had even mentioned it, even though it was a crime for him to be wearing these clothes. He supposed they were waiting for the key that would remove his chains, and then he would be forced to change back into brown burlap. His reason for wearing what he was wasn't going to be easy to explain to the other children, though.

“Yes, I'm a slave,” he finally said, “but I was stolen away from my master before being brought here to be sold again. They knew that I was already collared and trained, so when Master Ara needed a temporary slave, they brought me over here from the wagons.” He looked over to where the injured boy lay, his face falling with sympathy. “I saw what happened from over there. Is he going to be okay?”

One of the forest-dweller girls, who was sitting on the pallet next to him, nodded. “He'll recover, if that's what you mean,” she said with disturbing flatness. Gareth looked over at her; she continued to glare at him, but her eyes flickered back and forth between him and the injured boy lying just behind him. Gareth could have sworn he saw a resemblance to Devon in her face. “As long as you're asking names, you should know that his is Cesra. I'm Holly, that's Nora,” she indicated the other dark-haired girl, “and that's Adela.” The last girl, who was pale-skinned and had curly brown hair and green eyes, smiled shyly at Gareth. She looked no older than eight. Gareth returned her smile with one of his own, his determination to get all of these kids out of here strengthening as he did so. He wasn't sure if it was the best thing to let them know why he was really here, but their chances of escape would increase significantly if they were all willing participants, and for all he knew this would be the only chance he'd get to talk to them about it.

“Thanks. It's good to meet all of you,” he said, smiling at the others in turn before turning back to Holly. He hesitated only a second before asking her, “Your surname wouldn't happen to be Lightsong, would it?”

He had guessed right. Holly's eyes widened and she went pale with shock while her friend Nora clutched her arm and stared at Gareth suspiciously. “How... how do you know that?” Holly stammered as she recovered. “Do I know you?”

Gareth shook his head. “No, but I know your brother Devon and I could see the family resemblance.” As her eyes widened further, Gareth suddenly realized that explaining how he knew her brother, considering Devon's part in the reason why he was here, was going to be very awkward.

“How do you know Devon?” she asked, as he had known she would, life springing into her eyes as she pinned him again with her grey-eyed stare. Seeing that, Gareth couldn't refuse to answer, even though he knew the truth was probably going to hurt her.

“Well...” he looked away awkwardly for a moment, then took a deep breath. “He's the reason I'm here, actually.”

“Does he know I'm here? Is he coming to rescue us?” Holly asked before Gareth could explain further. She and Nora were clutching one another's hands, hope lighting up both their faces.

“In a manner of speaking,” Gareth said weakly, finding it hard to look at them. “Devon is in the process of trading me and my young master and mistress to these slavers in exchange for the two of you.”

That cast a cold pall over the tiny tent. There was a long silence; Gareth looked down at his hands as Holly's joyful expression turned stony once again. Finally, her friend Nora spoke up. “What do you mean 'in the process of'?”

Gareth briefly explained how he, Kastor, and Shanna had ended up in the forest, how he had met Tara and Gavin, their plan to travel with him in order to contact other villages about starting a border patrol, how Devon had joined them, and how Devon had managed to separate him from the others in the middle of the night and turn him over to the slavers. “And he plans to do the same thing to my young master and mistress tomorrow night. But what he doesn't know is that they're not going to let you go in exchange for us. They're just planning on taking him captive too. So I have to find a way to get out of here and warn him, or at least warn Kastor and Shanna, before Devon gets himself in trouble. And I want you all to come with me.”

Disbelief was evident on all their faces as they continued to stare at him. Nora was the first to ask the obvious question. “And just how are you gonna do that, exactly?”

“I honestly don't know,” Gareth sighed. “Out there, I had a plan. Out there, it would have been easy for me to get away and warn them, and then I was going to find a way to come back here with an army and take this caravan out once and for all, but in here...” He pulled briefly at the chain attached to his collar, sighing again. “I just don't know.” But then he looked up and around the circle, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “But I will find a way to get us all out of here. I'll think of something, I promise.”

“But... even if you escaped from here, you would still be a slave,” Mischa spoke up while everyone else was still processing what Gareth had said. “Why would you risk so much to save your master, or anyone else for that matter – especially the person who did this to you? No offense meant to your brother, Holly, but he sounds like a pretty rotten person, to do that to someone else.”

Holly nodded, looking embarrassed on Devon's behalf, while Mischa stared at Gareth, waiting for an answer. Gareth was happy to explain. “Not all masters are bad people, Mischa. Mine's just a kid, like us, and his little sister Shanna's only five years old. I'm their only chance of finding their way home to their mother, and they've both been good to me, even saved my life a couple of times. I don't wish this life on anyone: not them, not even Devon. He may have betrayed me and my friends, but he's one of my people, and I will do everything I can to stop these nomads from taking any more of us captive.” That seemed to satisfy Mischa, and it also seemed to convince the others of his sincerity. “So, what can you tell me about this place to help us get out of here?” he asked them hopefully.

Unfortunately, they didn't have any good news for him. The caravan made a living off of selling captives, so its drivers and guards knew all the possible methods of escape that slaves would try to use. All of the children had been with the caravan for a long time: Adela, the youngest at eight, was the newest of the five and had been with them for almost a year, Holly and Nora had been with the caravan since they were captured a year and a half ago, Mischa had been with them for just over two years, and Cesra, even though he was only nine years old, had been Master Ara's slave for four years. They had all seen their fair share of escape attempts, and they were quick to tell Gareth that none had been successful and that the punishment for trying was brutal and often deadly, as Gareth had known it would be. Nora was even insulted because Gareth's question implied that they had information and were just too stupid or cowardly to use it. “Do you think we'd be here if we had any idea how to get out?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “Do you think they'd let us sit here and talk together every night if they were the least bit worried about us coming up with a plan to run off? We're not stupid, Gareth, and we're not cowards. What you want to do really is impossible, and you'd be risking all our lives to even try.”

“A guard sits outside the tent all night,” Holly explained, “and they let us sit like this and talk for only about an hour every night before putting us in secure restraints to sleep. The rest of the day, we're out there, and someone's watching us all the time. When the caravan is on the move, we're helping our masters drive the wagons, or, if they're out patrolling, we get chained behind the supply wagons. We never get left alone, we're always in chains, and even if we could get away, we wouldn't get very far before someone noticed and came after us. They know exactly where we'd go, after all. I hate to dash your hopes, Gareth, but Nora's right. I appreciate what you're trying to do for all of us, and for your friends and my brother, but you might be out of luck.”

Gareth nodded reluctantly. “Well, you'll forgive me if I don't stop trying,” he said shortly. Holly nodded back understandingly, then turned away from him to talk to her friends. Gareth knew she was right, but he couldn't give up. He expected that Master Teskar was already working on his escape and that he would go and save his children from ending up here, but Gareth doubted that his master would risk his life and freedom to come back for one slave. If he was ever going to escape from here, or have a chance of protecting his other friends and fellow forest-dwellers from Devon, he was going to have to come up with his own plans. He lay down on his pallet and turned to face the back of the tent. He couldn't stop looking at Cesra. The poor boy had been a slave since he was Shanna's age; he probably didn't even remember what it was like to be free. How had he become a slave? What had happened to his family? He could ask the same of Mischa and Adela too. They all deserved freedom. This was the first time Gareth had ever gotten a chance to know other slaves his own age, and he hated thinking about anyone else going through what he had been through. Not to mention, his own freedom had been so close, he was sure, and the thought of losing all of that...

A hand on his shoulder caused him to turn onto his back, and he looked up into Holly's face. “You alright?” she asked, obviously worried.

“Yeah,” Gareth said, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Just thinking.”

“I'm sorry about dashing your hopes like that,” Holly said as she sat down next to him. Over her shoulder, he could see the other three children deep in conversation. “If it makes you feel any better, we're going to do whatever we can to help you if you do find some way to get out of here. Just... be careful, okay? You don't know these men, or what they're capable of.”

“Don't worry, I will be. I am going to get out of here, though, Holly. I have to. I was an idiot, falling for Devon's trick like I did, and I've put my master and mistress – my friends – in the worst kind of danger... again. I knew it was pretty much hopeless as soon as they dragged me off of that wagon out there, but I have to keep trying. I will think of something, if not tonight, then tomorrow, or the next day, or the next...”

“Even if it gets harder every day? Even if it really is impossible?”

“Even then. I have responsibilities, and I made promises that I intend to keep. Not just promises to you, but promises to Kastor, and to his father, and to Tara...” Thinking about Tara caused a lump to swell in his throat, but he quickly swallowed his emotions. “Those promises matter, and I just have to keep hoping that the universe wants me to find a way of keeping them, no matter how impossible things might seem.” He would have considered such an idea laughable just a few months ago, but after everything that had happened to him, all the things that had changed his life in ways he hadn't thought possible... Meeting Master Teskar in the wagon out there had been the last straw. Whether it was luck or something more, he believed now that he was meant to keep his promises, and that if he did he would finally be allowed to go home to his family and live a normal life, never to be a piece of property again. “You'd be surprised at the good things the universe will throw your way if you just try to do right by others and keep your promises,” he told Holly, surprising her with the conviction in his voice.

“You really believe that, don't you?”

“I gotta. I wouldn't have survived this long otherwise. And after everything that's happened to me... I can't tell you all of it, but if you knew, you'd believe it too.”

“Well, if what you believe comes true and we all get out of here some day, I expect you to tell me everything,” Holly said, looking slightly heartened by his renewed certainty. “And even if that day's a long way off, there's something comforting about you being here. Not just because of your promise to set us free, but because... well, you're proof that they haven't forgotten about me. My family, I mean. I know that's horrible to say, given what my brother did to you, but at least now I know he's still out there trying to bring me home.”

Gareth knew what she meant, and he understood it all too well. “You should know, Holly, that I don't blame Devon for what he's trying to do. I'm furious with him, and the next time I see him I'm planning to punch him square in the face, but I understand why he did it, and why he chose me and my master and mistress to trade. To him, we were just outsiders, and a grim reminder of exactly what you were going through and who was to blame. He saw me as weak, broken, and brainwashed for not trying to escape, and I'm sure he hated Kastor and Shanna for being slaveowners. I would have been hard-pressed not to do the same thing in his situation. I don't agree with what he did, obviously, but it's easy to see why he was tempted.”

“If he really knew anything about being a slave, he wouldn't have done it, though,” Holly said, her voice suddenly hoarse. “You were right, you know. No one deserves this life; no one.” She brushed a hand across her eyes. “If Devon were in my place, he'd know that. If he had any empathy at all, he'd know that. You're not the only one who wants to punch him in the face.” She laughed weakly at that, but her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Gareth moved closer to her to comfort her, but just then the flap on the other side of the tent was pushed open and a voice growled, “Alright, shut up an' lie down, ya li'l brats.”

Holly was back on her pallet in a flash. Gareth almost looked up at the man who had just entered the tent, but then he noticed that all the other slaves had immediately stopped talking and were lying on their pallets with their feet straight out and their hands clasped over their stomachs, forming a head-to-foot circle around the tent's central pole. Kastor's recent decency had made him complacent, he realized as he rushed to imitate them. He was going to have to watch that if he wanted to avoid being severely punished. As he lay there looking up at the ceiling, it took every ounce of self-control he had not to watch as the man circled the tiny tent, putting all the children in the 'secure restraints' Holly had warned him about.

She had been right; there was no way he was going to escape tonight, or any other night if this treatment was the norm. As the children lay completely still with their eyes closed, the guard shortened the chain between their wrist shackles until there was only one link connecting them, then did the same to their ankle shackles, then locked the excess chain from their wrists to their ankle shackles and the excess chin from their ankles to the collar of the person sleeping below them in the circle. When he got to Gareth, the man cursed under his breath about not being able to remove Gareth's chains, then he used leather thongs to secure Gareth like the others. When all the children were tightly restrained, the man barked a warning that any sound from the tent would result in beatings for all of them, and left, taking the lantern that had been hanging near the roof of the tent with him.

Gareth lay on his back, staring up into the oppressive darkness and trying not to let despair overwhelm him. He refused to believe escape was impossible, even now. He wasn't going to give up on his old master, or his old life. He couldn't forget that Master Teskar was out there in the darkness right now with his pocketknife, hopefully planning his own escape. Teskar would get away, Gareth was certain, and stop Kastor and Shanna and Devon from being brought here, which would give Gareth a little time to do some planning of his own without having to worry about freeing more captives, and he was certain that once Kastor knew the truth about what had happened to him that he would not leave Gareth to another master. Even if he did, there was no way that Tara and Gavin would stand idly by and let him disappear into the grasslands; he was their best chance of finding their missing father and sister, after all. If he could not find a way out of here with his four... no, five new companions, he was sure that help would come from without eventually. Even though the position his restraints were forcing him into was extremely uncomfortable, that hopeful thought relaxed him enough to allow him to drift off to sleep. He could face what came tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that because he knew that this would not last forever. He would not be forgotten.