The Shepherd Boys, Part 2 The Eastern Road
Dreaming up
How long had it been since Elly had lost his freedom? Two weeks, one day and close to two hundred miles. Enough to see the Three Ravens watching over him, the three massive mountains, shining in black and snow over the tree line. Stories told that amid their woods, giant spiders weaved their silvery death traps, so terrible that even bears took care not to be entangled in them. On the sky above, an imperial eagle carried a mouflon. Seconds later, the raptor would drop its prey on a peak to dismember it at its pleasure.
Down on the road, it was dull. Elly had by this time made himself used to the display of the wilderness. If something, the constant drizzle had long tested his patience for days before fading away from his mind. The “penta”, that is, the five irons that the smith had fastened to his ankles, wrists and neck, had long disappeared from his cares too. Even the slavers seemed just another feature of normality.
A friend, almost, maybe
And then there was this trasgrin boy that fate or chance had placed next to him. It took a week, for you don't look forward to making friends with the enemy. trasgrins had been enemies of humankind for centuries. They were mean, cheaters, cruel, cowards, dirty, noisy, lazy, bandits, arsons and enslaved children just for fun. Did you need an enemy in your games? You got someone to play orc. You want to make fun of somebody you disliked, just use the word: trasgrin. But then, for many long miles, Elly had nobody else to talk to. It's not that the slavers let you to turn back to talk to your human mates behind you, and, after a time, it felt awkward to talk to someone you can't see. The trasgrin kid was right there and he didn't look half as bad as the stories told.
Tedus, the trasgrin boy, had much preferred one of his own kind at his side. Or a hobbit, as a second choice. Humans were filled with hubris, always looking down on anyone, and not just because they're taller. Besides, they are all the time catching trasgrin boys like him to enslave them and worse. And they were immensely boring, every time they spoke a human sounded dull and slow. Tedus at that time would have told you that humans were snail slow at thinking and so easy to fool it wasn't worth the trouble. How else did they fall so easily in the most basic of ambushes?
But slavery has this thing that you aren't free at any thing, even choosing a friend, so he had to put with that “bohboh”* human by the name of Elly. And, after a time, Tedus ended up prefering the human to talking to his imaginary friends.
“Tedus, I believe it's my birthday today.”
“Bird-day?”
“No, birth-th-th-day, like I was born exactly 15 years ago.”
“Ah… big human party… we tell all, good?” Tedus was about to erupt in shouter so that even the last lizard in miles would know.
“No, shoos, shoos, the guards will make fun of me.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I can give my cookie today, you eat, eat, small feast, good?”
“You're a good friend, Tedus. I don't need a feast. I'm just sad because I was joining the army today.” By army Elly meant the auxiliaries, where he'd been made a messenger or a scout. For many poor teenagers that was their way out of poverty.
“Today?”
“Today yes. If my father hadn't sold me, yes.”
“The human army or the trasgrin army?"
“The human one.” Elly laughed at the idea of his green-skin friend.
“Bah, humans are no fun.”
“Right… and I'd be a hero.”
“But den, I, may be, free too and in day trasgrin army and I get you, and you are my loot, and then I'm very happy and you very scared… but you won't be scared long, for we're friends”.
“That's some story.”
“Yourer Dad is some story, so you're happy,” the trasgrin paraphrased as well as he could. Elly smiled, hoping the Trasgrin wasn't being mean.
Along with them, there were about five dozen slaves of the usual ages, most from eighteen to thirty. Older ones weren't usually transported this far. As for the youngest, a halfling by the name of Pip could attest to twelve years of miserable life, and his thin, almost emaciated body (for a halfling) nearly disappeared in his oversized poncho.
Sour thoughts
There were, also, six other trasgrins ranging from fourteen to sixteen, boys and girls. Of teenaged humans there were five with him: Rena, Olmond, Arba and Dw; three of them from his city, but none he had never met them before. They were, sadly, kidnapped orphans, a crime that nobody in the country seemed to notice. “It's better for them orphans to have a master than to roam the streets”; that seemed to summarize everyone's sentiment.
Elly had agreed to that no so long ago, when he was almost about to join the army and be forever shielded from his present fate. Now the memory burnt like acid.
Note:
(*) “Bohboh” cannot be adequately translated into any human language I know, but rest assured that if you are the object of such an epithet, they aren't counting on the sharpness of your intellect nor on the strength of your will.
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- Start: Part 1: On the Anvil
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