In Wilder Lands

by Jim Galford

“Of course, of course, they will put them in here,” came another voice, but not one Estin recognized. A female’s voice, somewhere on the far side of the dark place they were in. “Always with the children and the men. All just makes you crazy. You might have claws and fangs, or maybe you’re just strong. Does it really matter?”

  “Who is that?” Estin asked of the darkness.

  “Not a person. Just another animal. Another woman in a cage. You know they always throw one of us in the box, right? Always. Can’t be fun without a woman…”

  Estin began to feel really nervous about staying where he was. He made sure to find the kits in the dark, pulling them close to him, despite Atall’s objections and a painful nip at Estin’s finger.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked the mysterious female.

  “Can’t be easier to break your toys. Put them in a box and shake it a lot. If they still won’t break, put a man in the box, too. He’ll break her for you. Just takes a little while. He won’t want to, true, true, but he will eventually…”

  Estin swallowed hard.

  “Then, then comes the best part,” continued the raspy voice. “Just having a man abuse the woman out of frustration isn’t enough. No, certainly not. You lock them in a box long enough, he’ll do just about anything to make himself feel better, then it’s breathing in your ear and apologies later. So much pain. That’s what they give you in the box, you know.

  “But…yes, the best part. Throw in the children. Make them listen to the two fight. Make them listen when the man hurts her. Make them listen when the man overpowers the female and kills her for food, because the others forgot to feed them. Maybe the children get eaten first, maybe not. Either way, one day, they do not know how to leave the cage. For all the pain in the cage the outside might be worse…”

  The kits squirmed and whimpered against Estin’s bare chest.

  “I am not in here to hurt you,” Estin said, still not even sure exactly where the voice was coming from. The closed area made things echo weirdly. “Are you the only other one in here?”

  “Only one! Last man got taken away…maybe they killed him? Maybe he pulls a plow? Who knows? Maybe he hurts another woman? Oh so many ways to hurt us, there is. You’ll hurt us too, it just takes time in the box…”

  Estin closed his eyes as she mumbled on, hugging the kits to him. Atall fought to get away at first, but soon both slept. Still the room jostled onward and the demented voice trailed on into the darkness.

  In desperation, Estin slid away from the voice, finding the corner of the cage. He had bars on two sides of him. Some protection, at least.

  Time passed slowly, though he could not be sure how much was actual time passing and how much was his imagination in the dark quiet. It felt like days that the cage continued to rock, with the female yammering almost constantly about the abuses she had endured. When the kits would wake, Estin would talk to them about almost anything, trying to help them ignore the other voice in the cage.

  The twins had begun crying almost constantly, having gone without food for even longer than Estin had. He had searched the floor for his pouches that had been filled with rations, but they were long gone, along with his weapons and armor. His searching fingers had only brushed a patch of bare skin of the mysterious female, eliciting a sharp hiss before she retreated to her side of the cage.

  When the movement stopped at last, Estin pulled the children close again, unsure what was coming next. To his amazement, the sides of his prison opened up, revealing wooden panels over a large iron cage on a wagon. He blinked in the restored light, finding that they were in a large camp of humans, with tents as far as he could see.

  Estin turned to check the other direction, but froze when he saw the poor creature sharing the cage with them.

  She had been human, that much he could be certain of. Her clothing was tattered and stained with both dirt and blood. The woman appeared to have been beaten over and over again, but never so much as washed down after months of captivity. Dark terrified eyes darted around as she cringed at every noise and tried to keep herself curled as small as she could in the corner. She covered her ears and eyes as the cage was opened up to the air, whimpering and still talking to herself.

  Estin had never seen a more pitiful creature, even in the slave pits of Altis. Still, he knew that was her origin, based on a small burned mark on her neck that denoted the particular slaving group that had originally sold her. Estin felt such loathing and pity that he had to look away. He had never realized that the long arm of slavery reached even to the humans’ own.

  “Okay!” shouted a human to the wagon’s driver. “I’ll just get them all hooked up and you’re good to go.”

  The man approached Estin’s side of the cage holding a leather collar.

  Holding the kits more tightly, Estin shifted to the middle of the cage, growling and snarling at the man.

  “Either you take the collar,” the man said, sounding annoyed, “or when you pass out from hunger, I’ll take the lil ones from you. Not really in the mood for arguing.”

  Estin looked down at the two kits, who stared up at him nervously. They were terrified and he could not risk letting them be taken away. His choice was already made for him.

  He leaned forward to the edge of the cage, struggling to keep from biting the man as the heavy collar closed on his throat, the clasp locking shut.

  “Now,” the human said, walking around to the lock of the cage, “what manner of work are you used to? Fields? Mines? Cooking, maybe?”

  Glaring at the human as he sat down, Estin dragged the forefinger claw of his left hand across his right palm, slicing open the flesh. He then drew magic into the wound, closing it.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” the man said, his eyes wide. “You just saved yourself a lot of training in the fields under a whip, boy. If you can heal, you may just find yourself better off than most.”

  “The kits stay with me,” Estin growled.

  “Can’t promise that, boy. If someone else needs them on another field…”

  “Either they stay with me, or why would I have any reason to let those who need healing live? I let you have the collar, give me this.”

  The human’s eyes narrowed angrily.

  “For now. That’s all I can promise. You screw up too bad, they’re gone and you go to a mine. Agreed?”

  Estin closed his eyes and nodded, trying to shut out the crying of the kits. If he let that get through his defenses, he knew he would try to kill every person here between him and their freedom.

  “Alright, c’mon out,” the man said, swinging open the cage. “Stop when you get down.”

  Obediently, Estin carried the kits to the entrance of the cage, then slid down to stand on the ground. His legs were both shaky from being unable to stand so long and the hunger that was making him woozy.

  The human snapped a leash onto Estin’s collar, but Estin bit down his pride and looked at the kits as a reminder why he needed to be calm. The glance was not lost on the human, who gave him a moment before gesturing towards one of the few semi-permanent structures nearby.

  “They say you were found near the old quarry,” the man said, leading them into the tent village. “Was the human in the cage with you originally?”

  “No,” he answered, following reluctantly as they left the wagon. “She was in the wagon when I woke.”

  The man nodded knowingly and glanced back at the wagon, where other handlers were trying to get the woman out, as she screamed and clung to the bars, kicking at them and growling like some feral beast.

  “That one’s just not right. Must be one of the ones from the Altis slave caravans…we’ve had a few come through like that from time to time, when a caravan got disrupted. The things they did to their slaves makes me wonder why anyone would put up with seeing that done to another living being.”

  Estin looked at the man in confusion, asking, “How is your slave camp any different?”

  The man laughed and shook his hea
d.

  “Not a slave camp, boy. Slavery is illegal in Lantonne. What you have here is old farmland that we’re using to supply the troops while Altis is crushed.” He gestured broadly at hundreds of tents, then over at expansive fields, tended by hundreds of people of every race. “You’re all from Altis, or lands it controlled. You never paid taxes here, so the law is that you all work to help us win the war against their undead, or you get tossed in the way of Altis’ army…that’s not where anyone wants to be right now, trust me.”

  “So you’re forcing us to work your fields and your soldiers are threatening to kill children to enforce it…and you don’t call that slavery?”

  Estin gave the leash a gentle tug to reinforce his point.

  The man stopped walking and sighed.

  “I didn’t say it was right, but it’s what we need to do,” he confessed, glancing down at the crying kits. “There’s a war at our doorstep that’s killing thousands. Those who can fight are out there and I don’t doubt they’re willing to do awful things in the name of saving society from the undead horde. Those of us left here are not fighters…hell, we’re not trained to take care of two-hundred refugees.

  “I wouldn’t hurt you or your kids if I had a choice, but it’s not always my call, and not everyone feels the same way.”

  Estin whispered to the kits, trying to calm them, as the man watched them sadly.

  “You were found near the quarry, so I’m guessing the soldiers would have been happy to stick a sword in you,” the man admitted. “You’re lucky you weren’t wearing Altis’ colors, or they’d have killed the kids and then seen you hang for murder.”

  “Murder? Since when is destroying part of the undead forces considered murder?” asked Estin, bewildered. He could have expected nearly any reaction from Altis’ enemies, but that was not one that had ever even occurred to him.

  “Not that part,” the man said, giving Estin another tug on the leash to get him moving again towards the building, the kits clinging to his legs as he walked. “That was actually pretty clever and unexpected…we still don’t know why Altis blew up its own soldiers. I was talking about the aftermath.”

  “I think I was in a cage by that point.”

  “Great, I get the smart-ass,” grumbled the man, stopping Estin at the door of the building. “What I meant was the collapse of the rest of our mines and the magical hole that opened up and ate everything that went down into the quarry. Last word I got was with the driver of your wagon and he says the death toll from that little stunt was over a thousand. They got the Altis soldiers that did it though, so we can at least hang them.”

  Estin felt sick, thinking that the very men that depended on him to deliver the magical explosive now faced execution for an act that was meant to help everyone. He thought about confessing his own role, then remembered the kits, who were squirming and clinging even more tightly to his legs when he stopped moving. He bit down his thoughts of saying anything of what he had done.

  The human swung open the door to the building, half-leading and half-pulling Estin after him.

  The dimly-lit interior of the building was larger than Estin had expected, the plank floor extending far back and away from him. Several dozen people lay around, many groaning and holding injuries, while others appeared to be gravely ill and barely conscious.

  “You’re only the second healer we’ve been graced with,” the human explained, leading them inside. “Most get shipped out to the army. They probably didn’t even think of the possibility of you using magic…low opinions of wildlings abound in some parts of our city, I’m afraid, though it helps us out.

  “You’ll stay here and tend to those too sick to work. If you leave without permission, there are taskmasters out in the fields who seem to think they’re tending to slaves, rather than prisoners. They’ll whip you if you’re lucky. Just be smart and stay in here. At least you’ll stay warmer than most of the others.”

  “What about food and water?” Estin asked, as Oria motioned to be picked up. When he did, she nuzzled at his neck. “We haven’t had either in more than a day.”

  The man studied Estin’s face a moment, then glowered at the kits.

  “I’ll get you some water and whatever food I can find. The little ones eat from your rations until they’re old enough to work. Not my rules, but I get to enforce them. We just don’t have enough to feed everyone properly without depriving the military of needed supplies.”

  Estin looked at the two kits, who stared back at him, their eyes filled with terror. Feanne had taught him to be killed rather than face enslavement, a distinctly odd mindset for his breed. Between training and instinct, he felt that he should either run, or kill until he himself was killed or had escaped.

  Now, looking at the fear and need for someone to care for them that he saw in the kits, he began to see what had taken the rage from Feanne. Dying for freedom and independence was useless if the children died too. For her children, he would do as the taskmasters told him. He would accept what was thrown at him, day by day. It was all he could do.

  Chapter Ten

  “The Other Side”

  What nearly broke my spirit was the leash. Every time someone touched that thing, I felt like I was letting my mother die again. It was an old wound on my mind, made fresh by seeing what others became through years of slavery. Though those who ran the camp were not awful, but it was their rule that I had to wear the leash anytime they let me out of the building.

  I would be led from my “home” to the latrines or the showers—generally a pair of large men who would dump a bucket of water over you, then send you back in line—by a random human from Lantonne, who would tug that damned leash the whole way out and back. The leash was not just for wildlings, it was for anyone that was not in charge.

  Tell me I am not a slave, but put a leash on me and I will call you a liar.

  Some pulled us along by those leashes because that was their job and I held no special dislike for them. Others enjoyed it, finding any opportunity to drag those who were larger or more “dangerous” by the leashes to prove something to themselves. Having fangs and claws put me into that category, it would seem. Oria and Atall were also treated this way, often dragged bodily when they tried to resist. I longed to walk over and cut them free, but I knew that all three of us would suffer for that decision.

  Over those months, I saw a great many of the slaves—indebted foreigners, I believe they called us—released to live as citizens of Lantonne, after having worked off their debts. Each time, we were passed over for this honor, owing mostly to my skills. Once a blessing, the ability to heal became an anchor for us, making us too valuable to lose. They were at least kind enough to let the kits stay with me, but there were times I considered sending them on, in hopes of finding a better life without me.

  In that year, I learned that dreams do not require sleep. I had daydreamed before, mostly about Feanne in times past, but here my dreams became very much a part of my waking self. Sleep was my body’s way of telling me that I had been pushed too far for the day and was my only true escape. It was the only time I could free myself from constant worry about the kits.

  The new dream for the daytime was simple, really. I would get Oria and Atall back into the wilds where they belonged, free of leashes and taskmasters. That was all. There was no thought for myself, Feanne, or anyone else. It was these two precious young lives that I needed to save.

  That is what it is to be a healer. They always said it was about saving lives and I knew which ones I needed to work to spare.

  Thirteen months into his labors at the supply camp, Estin found himself barely able to rouse himself to sit up as the morning began to shine through the slats of the poorly-sealed building. The day would be exactly the same as the last few hundred.

  An hour before dawn—an hour or two prior—all the others were herded out of their blankets and sent out to the fields to begin working. Some would work with the cattle, others raising crops or moving water where it
was needed. The kits were already out in the fields, helping how they could, while trying not to get trampled by the horses and oxen. Meanwhile, Estin was left in the building to wait and stare at the ceiling until further notice.

  Usually around noon, the injured would begin being brought to him. Most were those who had misused a tool and cut themselves badly or twisted a leg wrong, preventing them from doing their duties. Some were severely sick, having finally succumbed to the cold rains that had plagued the area nearly every afternoon for the last month, in anticipation of the upcoming winter. And, just to add some spice to the excitement of his day, nearly half of his patients were actual cattle, being brought to him to ensure they were healthy or to fix broken legs. At least once a week, one of the taskmasters would be brought in, though that was far more rare.

  He turned his head, looking towards the front of the building, still not able to motivate himself to stand. What drew his attention there—as it did every day as he woke—was the leash the taskmasters kept near the door. It was the one they put on him, the only one left after everyone else had gone for the day.

  Fear over the fate of the kits kept Estin from ever touching that leash unless ordered to do so. If he had his way, it would have found its way into a fire months earlier.

  Estin just lay there for a long time, eventually putting his hands above his face as he examined them. When he had lived in Altis, his hands had been rubbed clean of fur in spots from climbing their stone walls. After that, the training to fight properly, followed by magical education had allowed the fur to regrow, but the pads on his palms and fingers had thickened from burns and nicks with claws. Now, his hands were soft, aside from several recent scars. The only notable thing about them was that the claws were all but gone.

  This had actually been one of the earlier decisions by the taskmasters after his arrival. Wildlings and others with horns or claws had them filed down until they bled, for the safety of everyone around them. Every couple weeks, a pair of burly men would hold his arms down as they ground down his claws. It was humiliating and made Estin feel as though it were just one more piece of his self-worth they had taken from him, though like everything else, they did it for the supposed “greater good.”