It took a few days for the decisions of the war council to trickle down to the camps. But it was not good news, at least for us slaves. One afternoon some guards we had never seen before came to our camp and started dividing up the slaves. At first they wanted to take Lil separately from Fin and me, but neither of us would stand for that. We were nearly executed on the spot, until one of the soldiers who knew about us, spoke to the guards. I assume he told them we were a family or something, because they changed their decision and took all three of us together, along with two other male slaves.

  They tried to make us walk a long way, but the shackles still on my legs prevented me from walking fast enough to keep up. I could see it was making the man in charge of our group very angry, so he finally yelled at one of the guards. We all waited while he ran off and came back a little while later with the key to remove them.

  I don’t know why they had not been removed before now. I couldn’t really ask someone, since I didn’t know enough of the language yet. But I had been cooperative since the beginning. I may have run away early on, but not now. We had been integrated into their army enough to get used to it, dependent even. We didn’t have any better place to run off to. Yes, we could have gone back to our home in the valley, but that wouldn’t solve many of our problems.

  It was best to just stay with them, at least until something better came along.

  It was such a relief to finally have the shackles off. The scabs and scars on my legs were a little infected and looked awful, but worse than they felt. I was so used to the constant pain for so long, I had learned to ignore it. My only hope was that I would heal quickly, and at least now they wouldn't be constantly irritated.

  It was much easier to walk now, however I was so used to taking small steps I had to keep reminding myself that I didn't have to do that anymore. We eventually got to the new camp and were shown to our tent. This one was smaller and looked like it had even more slaves assigned to it.

  The commander took one look at how full it was, shook his head and decided to put the three of us into our own tent instead. It was much smaller, but we didn't care as long as we could be together. The only possessions we were allowed to bring from the other camp had been a single blanket, the clothes on our backs, and one change of clothing.

  We were left at our tent and told to stay there so we did.

  “What do you think is happening?” Fin asked.

  “I wish I knew. Maybe this new army needs more slaves.”

  There had been plenty at the other camp, but maybe not now. I had learned from the woman slave who knew Landrian that the reason they may have taken us in as slaves, rather than just kill us like they usually did, was because they lost a bunch of slaves when the dragonettes attacked.

  That’s when we heard a loud voice from a man who had stuck his head in our tent and yelled, “Aipihe dueni sbang aueiai ashu, ailaili prii fika tiq! Tiq enu oakinie ate xa mni!”

  I didn’t know what he wanted, other than he wanted us to do something. So we scrambled out of the tent and stood in front.

  Here was an ugly man. There was just no good way to say it. He had a long scar on his left cheek, his nose was crooked, and there were black and red streaks marking his arms, hands and up his neck, even the sides of his face. He wasn’t tall. In fact, I might have been taller, though I would not consider myself tall in any way. He also had a large pot belly.

  He scowled at us. It may have been permanent. It didn’t look like this man had ever been happy.

  “Oaiafr gku sbaz tkyitdesu?” His voice sounded gravelly, like it was having a hard time escaping his throat,

  He had asked a question I didn’t understand, so I said, “We don’t understand. Diki ebue aoguni put Theanoni.” (We don’t speak Theanoni.)

  He slapped me across the face with the back of his hand. I almost fell back into the tent. Fin stepped forward to do something, so the man slapped him too. Fin was ready for it, or maybe he was just tougher, so he just took it. But he stood his ground in front of me and Lil.

  The man got a wicked grin on his face, pointed his hand at Fin. Violet pulses of electricity came out in short spurts and hit Fin in the chest, and continued until he crumpled to the ground, convulsing.

  I could see what looked like glee in this man’s face just before I bent down to check on Fin. I sent a bit of healing energy into him, but I had to be quick and inconspicuous.

  “Ouni cwu tel cwa.” he said. “Ouni cwu tel cwa!” he repeated, yelling this time. I knew that word. Cwa meant master.

  “Sbang gku xuzaidesu. Sbang keie oaiafr ouni lbaoi.”

  He was saying something about us being slaves. Fin woke up and looked around, still stunned. I helped him stand up slowly, a fierce look now on his face. I’m sure it mirrored my own. We were both ready to attack this man.

  But, I realized we couldn’t antagonize him— not right now, not in the middle of a large army, no matter how we felt. So I put my arm on Fin’s shoulder, shook my head and simply said, “Don’t.”

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  When the man saw us relax he asked again, “Oaiafr gku sbaz tkyitdesu?”

  I think he wanted to know what we knew how to do or what jobs we wanted. I pointed to Lil and said, “Biadri” (Cleaning). I pointed to Fin and said, “Oxaiidri,” (Hauling). Pointing to myself, I said “Isaj, faiiaiitean” (Food, clothing).

  The man nodded at me. He turned and said, “Xili ac” (Follow me.)

  He took us to the food preparation area and pointed at Lil. I shook my head to correct his misunderstanding, but got a defiant glare from him. “Erk” (No.) So I nodded at Lil who looked scared, but nodded back. The man spoke some things to the cooks as we left her there.

  Then he took Fin and me to the clothing mending tent and pointed to Fin. I shook my head slightly to keep him from complaining, but told him to go in and do what he could.

  Then he took me to the wood chopping area and said, “Ywuki uws lal tel ebki.”

  I nodded, pretending to know what he said. At least I knew how to chop wood. But I was very worried for Fin and Lil.

  Sweat was pouring down my face later when the head woodsman called for a break. He gave me a drink from his water skin, then passed it to the next person. I assumed we were all slaves here, but I guess some might just be working out their assignment or maybe punishment. They were all strong men, except me of course.

  He was shaking his head as he looked at the products of my efforts. The pile I had made was only a quarter of the size of the others who were chopping here.

  I knew I was in trouble, but what else was new.

  When the ugly man, cwa (master), I guess, came to get me near supper time, I was sitting on the ground, completely exhausted. He talked to the head woodsman and looked angry at the report he received. He grabbed me to haul me to my feet, sending some jolts of electricity into me in the process.

  As we walked he kept repeating “Iaoip,” (faster), shocking me each time. I was jogging by the end but couldn’t go any faster without getting too light headed. I had been trying to partially cancel at least some of the shocks, but I also wanted to know how bad they really were, so I let most of them hit me full force. Each time one did, I nearly collapsed from muscle spasms and pain. One time I actually did stumble to the ground. That only made him yell and zap me again.

  He was behind me the whole way, so I couldn't really see his face, but I could hear it in his voice.

  He loved doing this.

  When we got back to the tent he pointed inside. It was supper time, and I was hungry, so I said, “Iqiiile uf?” (Eat supper?)

  “Erk. Sbang zeieiizuekipaiba sbaz aiina.” Erk meant no. I wasn’t sure about the rest. I guess I knew more about how far he would go to punish me. I just hoped Fin and Lil did better than me and got to eat.

  That hope was quickly squashed.

  Fin looked even angrier than earlier, when cwa (master) brought him. He just groaned and laid on the ground.

  Lil was in tears when she was shoved in the tent a while later. It took almost an hour before she settled down enough that we could talk. I had been sending healing energy to both of them during that time, so I don't think they were injured any more.

  “I hate that man,” Fin said. “I’ll kill him someday.”

  “Don’t talk like that, and keep your voice down. We can’t just kill him, even though he probably deserves it. So we need a plan to deal with him. First, I’m giving him a name. He keeps saying he’s the master, which is ‘cwa’ in their language. So I’m calling him Quack.”

  That got a small smile out of both of them.

  “Quack likes to punish us. I think he’s a little insane. He gave each of us tasks he was sure we would fail at, just so he could punish us. It might be so he can feel justified but also to bully us.”

  “He’s definitely a bully,” Lil agreed.

  “It’s best to stand up to a bully. But this is one we can’t stand up to, at least not yet. So what should we do?”

  “We need to be strong,” Fin said.

  “Yes, I agree, be strong and brave. But that may just earn more punishment, at least for a while. Would you like to hear some ideas I had today?”

  They both nodded.

  I held up a finger as I covered each one.

  “One, Do your best to not deserve punishment. He hates it when we talk back, so don’t say or do anything to provoke him, and try to be obedient. If he keeps putting us where we’ll do poorly then work hard to improve anyway. If it’s obvious we don’t belong somewhere even when we try hard, hopefully the supervisor will notice and tell him to not bring us back there.

  “Two, Make more friends. That also means learning their language. Try to get more people on our side. Preferably people who are not slaves, but the more the better.

  “Three, If he does punish us for doing our best, it may help us if he does it in front of others, especially higher ranking people.

  “Four, If I am near, I will try to protect you from the shocks, but I can’t protect you if he hits or kicks you. I practiced nulling his shocks a little today, so I’ll keep working on that. I could probably cancel his magic, but it wouldn’t be good if anyone found out, especially him. So it can’t be obvious. If he shocks you, and I can block it, you’ll need to pretend to get shocked anyway. That way he won’t find out.

  “Five, If I’m not near, I’ll heal you when we’re together. Um, I think that’s all of them.”

  “Those are all good ideas,” Fin said.

  For the next few days he kept putting us at tasks where he knew we did badly. But, as predicted, our supervisors soon forbade him from bringing us back there. That earned us even more punishment, as if it was our fault.

  Quack couldn’t prevent us from eating forever, or we would have had no strength to do anything. So we only missed a couple of meals.

  During that time I learned to form a thin null barrier around myself which his electrical zaps couldn’t penetrate. I just had to act like I had really been shocked. That wasn’t difficult since I remember them very clearly.

  It frustrated me that I was not yet able to shield Fin and Lil. The best I could do for now was to heal them as soon as Quack left us alone. Lil let me hold her to comfort and heal her. Fin would only let me put my hand on him, since healing worked best through direct touch. He was trying to be strong. I know he was thinking of Dad, but I didn’t bring it up.

  Maybe Dad was still alive? If so, where was he? Would we ever find out?