The Shepherd Boys, Part 1 On the anvil
Coarse was the anvil beneath the boy's foot. Elly, as he was called, kept his eyes fixed on a tall, strong man dressed in leather, wiping dust from a heavy hammer while a guard, still at the door, waited.
“Any year now, boy?”
The smith rose from his stool. “Thank you,” he told the guard. “I'm in charge now.” Elly gasped for air, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander back to the day before, when devils danced by his little world.
Elly was playing by the fountain when he saw his mother crying, begging, and toddling after these four men walking to him without a care. “Ankle-biter,” they told him, “your father wants you to come with us.”
“Run, Elly, run!” Shouted her mother.
He did, but was caught, even dragged onto the street. There could be no hope. Father, the man who had abandoned them all five years before, had just sold him.
His plight wasn't new, nor rare. A man who desired money would go to “Croogks & Stonharts”, and sell a child. All a mother could do about it, was to demand her share of the price. And many did, if only to run away with what remained of her children.
Elly came back to awareness as the smith measured his ankle. “My dear,” he said, “please, forgive me.” Elly gave a good stare at him. Strong-built, but laden with scars and a broken nose, the man's life hadn't been easy.
“My name is Socles. They told me your name is Elly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, no, no… I'm a slave, like you now. Are you scared?”
“I think so.”
“I won't solder them, the manacles.” Socles said. “I'll just put those rings around your leg, 'tap, tap, tap', and hammer them close. I have them filed, so they won't hurt you. “
The boy looked away, into the shadows.
“Easy up, there's a little tip I can give you. Fly with your mind, away, away, where this room is not. Dream away for a little while, and the dreams will steal your pain, right?”
Elly was good at daydreaming. But the fate before him couldn't be dispelled, so, instead of throwing himself into the lands of knights and dragons, he put his mind to the work of warping his fears into a story, less horrible.
About that time, the smith was choosing the right rings for Elly's ankles. “You may sit down now, I won't rush it a bit.” But Elly stood as he was, eyes tightly closed.
The Eastern Road
Far away, in the vastness of his imagination, he was on the Eastern Road. The rain was falling, as it had been for days, cold and unrelenting. That wasn't too bad, was it? The day was warm, and the showers ran the dust away off his skin and softened the ground under his sore feet.
Elly imagined he would be wearing an “ungar”. This was a type of poncho often given to slaves, made precisely from the common grass bearing that name. Light, tough, dirt cheap and sufficient to shield from rain and sun; many free farmers wore it too.
Before him, huge above the tree line, the Three Ravens would be greeting him. Many old travelers from those yonder lands had taught him about those mountains. Those he never hoped to see. Except he was now watching them, the hills of stories of those who ventured with orcs and trasgrins and ended in triumph or defeat, but always in glory.
Luck, the gods and his imagination had wanted him not to walk alone. There were two boys and two girls, fifteen years old, just like him and all in good spirits! These were the youngest among the captives. Another two dozen shared his toil: humans, halflings and trasgrins too. How cheerful these were! —a bit of six rascals perhaps, but never truly mean.
The guards didn't bother anybody too much. The road had been long already, and there was another week before them; nobody was in the mood to cause trouble. Instead, it was all to admire the herds of deer, the bisons, the bronze wolves, the wasteland gulls and everything else Elly, in his boyish power, could conjure up.
Towers, rising
Clank, clank, clank. It was done. The first manacle had been fastened around his right leg. “Did it hurt, Elly?”
“No.” Elly was at his tears. The same imagination that had taken him to the Three Ravens, now told a more realistic tale. His friends of old would never see him again, he'd be forgotten. Perhaps the youngest rascals of the city would make a cruel game of spitting while he would wait, chained, to be taken away… and… Gods! He could remember to have done just that, when he was little, only because the other kids did it as well. Tears of remorse and fear came to his eyes.
“Hey, whatever you're thinking, forget it and forgive it now”, the smith said. “Life is change, remember that, you're so young and able, you'll make it, you'll make it, somehow.”
Elly nodded.
“Good, now the other leg, I'll be quicker this time.”
The Capital of the Wild Boderlands
Elly has moved his dreams to Yonderton. Not the best of names for a made-up town, but it wasn't too bad of a place. It had a ring of palisades, no!, stone walls, with towers and everything, all ready to dispatch any raiders out of the misery of this world. A little farther away lay the orcs, the Trasgrin tribes, and those who loved freedom and went along nicely with nature.
His companions and he had helped to build some of those towers. And quite proud of their work they were. The boys had grown up quite a bit, had stronger out of the hard toil, and counted each other as the best of friends. Food? It hadn't been fancy, truly, but abundant and tasty: tatties and chicken, beans, turnips, carrots, lentils-a-plenty, chorizo once every fortnight, or was it every fourth night? Yeah! The later, certainly. Most certainly indeed! They, the masters, wanted strong workers who'd do a good job. And indeed, nobody would say of the boy's towers, “This is but slaves' work”.
Another manacle done. “No, I'm not linking them with chains, no worries. Not today. These irons are enough to slow you down if you try to run for it, but they won't slow your work too much. Just what masters want.”
“But they can tie me up.” The manacles had a secondary ring, one that made it easier to restrain a prisoner tightly.
“Masters will do that for transportation, and at any time you might have ideas. But watch me, I have nothing. You just behave nicely and things will be nicer, understand?”
The boy nodded again, almost smiling.
The man whispered. “If you get any ideas of running away, just don't. Masters will … ah, you've seen that.
Elly hadn't, but he knew well enough and refrained from imagining. Slavers could be of devilish cruelty.
“Now, I want your hands on the anvil, please.”
“No, please, no…”
“Forgive me, Elly, forgive me.”
The boy closed his eyes again, and let Socles do, while his imagination, once more, transformed despair into hope.
Under a wild sun
They had done it, the six friends, girls and all five humans and one halfling, older but shorter than them. They were all away, free in the wilderness. Masters won't go after them, not any longer. They were too far out in orc lands to be in danger of masters, or their headhunters. Ah, and they'd beaten a dozen of them the day before. They didn't kill not even one of the b…tards, but sent them home barefoot, disarmed and without horses. Now the slaves had turned into heroes.
Meanwhile in real life, it was time for the boy's neck. Elly harbored no bad thoughts, conveyed no further imagination, but promised himself that if the orcs defeated them, he would not fear half of what he had feared this day. He, and his friends, would rise again. And what if they became the Tragrins' loot? Oh boy, it'd be great to be at their feasts—even if to serve on them; especially with a halfling cook, because halflings are all great cooks, am I right?
“Well, Elly, I'm done here. You've been brave enough. Now, whatever you do keep a little smile, a true one, in reserve for good times. Times do change up, if you change stuff, agreed.”
Before Elly could answer anything, a restless guard came back in. “OK, 915D, we have to rush you out. New plan, master wants you in todays' caravan.”
“Yes, ma'am… and…and… may I beg you a question?” Said Elly.
“Ah… make it a quick one.”
“Where are we walking to?”
“Eastwards, to Yst, right on the new borders. But you'll do the walking, I'll be riding. Now, move!”
Elly complied at once, and asked as they left the forge. “With the trasgrins?"
“Don't get a weep now, they aren't half as bad as they tell you, and the forts will keep you from them, or any foolery.”
“I know ma'am. Thank you! It'll be a great adventure!”
By some odd reason, the slaver chose to laugh.
To be continued