by Joseph Lallo
“Jarrad's orders, Menri,” Ben replied. “You wouldn't second-guess the master's orders, would you?”
Menri scowled, glancing at one of Jarrad’s paid servants at the edge of the field. A word against the master would have consequences. He clenched his teeth and squeezed the handle of his spade, eyes turned to the earth. At his feet was a smooth, fist-sized stone. He plucked it up and turned to the malthrope. The beast was crouched at the beginning of his row, knocking free the dirt that was caked on the bottom of a pair of buckets and making ready to begin his task. Menri hefted the stone . . . then turned a bit more to see the blind man leaning on his walking stick and giving instruction to the monster. A fiendish grin twisted the elder slave's lips.
The beast’s ears flicked and his eyes darted to the sky. A stone didn’t make very much noise as it flew through the air, but a malthrope’s ears were very sensitive and years of dodging thrown stones had inspired him to develop a keen awareness of the near-silent whistle. He spotted the stone and traced its path. It would miss him by quite a bit. In fact, it was heading toward the blind man.
The old man’s shadow sprinted to him, shoving Ben aside the instant before the stone would have struck him.
“What was that all about?” Ben grunted, taking a few steps back to steady himself.
“He threw it at you, Ben. He threw a stone at you,” his apprentice answered.
Ben heard something in his protégé's voice as the creature spoke the words. There was the tremor of anger, the spark of violence.
The wicked grin on Menri’s face widened. “Sorry, Ben. I was trying to hit that pet of yours. Considering how long you’ve been keeping it so close, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before. I wouldn’t be surprised if that starts happening more often, old man.”
The creature’s lips pulled back, revealing vicious, needle-sharp teeth. His eyes narrowed, the intelligence behind them draining away to be replaced by raw, animal instinct. Ears twisted back. Fur bristled. A low growl, unheard by any but Ben, rattled in his throat. The beast took one step forward.
“Don’t,” Ben stated.
“But he—”
“Don’t,” Ben repeated, his hand finding its way to the creature’s shoulder. He began to speak, his voice kept low enough so that only the beast could hear. “It is what he wants. No good can come of what you want to do. If you let that part of you take over, you'll prove them right. You'll be what they always expected you to be. Understand? You want to hurt him? There are other ways. Better ways.”
“What do you mean?”
Ben took a deep, steady breath. “You’ve got a job to do. Get it done.”
“But—”
“Get. The job. Done,” Ben repeated with finality.
The apprentice took a deep breath of his own and snatched up one of the buckets in his shaking hands. His eyes turned to Menri and watched for a moment. The senior slave laughed a greasy laugh and lifted the end of a barrow, beginning his row. The beast had watched him do this job before. Menri always worked it the same way. He would load up a barrow with the compost and manure, all that he would need for the entire row. As he prepared the row, he would edge it forward, mounding the earth with his wide spade, then portion out the contents of the barrow. No one else carried the barrow from the beginning. All of the other slaves used a smaller barrow, and a smaller spade, and made many trips. Menri’s strength and his skill with the spade meant that he always finished his row first. The beast’s eyes narrowed again. Not this time.
He took off at a sprint, one bucket in each hand and a trowel tucked into the rope that took the place of a belt. The creature didn’t have a barrow at all, and wouldn't have had the strength to move one the size of Menri's beyond a snail's pace if he did. The buckets that took its place each held barely enough of their given ingredient to feed a single planting site. That meant that each mound would require a long trip to the opposite end of the field and back, but that didn’t matter. The beast was fast. He streaked across the field, wind whistling in his ears until he slid to a stop to load the buckets. Manure and compost were heaped inside, eight scoops of one, five of the other, and the beast was on his way back. The planting site was mounded and sculpted, fed and marked, and the trip began again.
Menri had made his first five stops before he'd even noticed that the beast had begun working, and when he did, it was with no small amount of satisfaction that he observed that the thing had only managed one.
The rakka fields on Jarrad's plantation were large by any standard. There were twenty-eight rows, and each had room enough for three hundred bushes. The average slave could do a bit more than one row in twelve hours. Menri had made a name for himself by managing the same feat in seven—and, on one notable occasion, had managed two rows in the same day. After the first hour, he checked his competition. The beast was trailing far behind, but there was something worrying about it. His opponent hadn't slowed down. A blur of red was streaking along the row, loading up buckets, ferrying them back, and crafting the contents into a well-formed mound, then back along the row.
Another hour passed. Menri’s row progressed steadily, and each time he paused to check the progress of the creature, his lead had grown by a bit more. The thing had been doing a passable job at preparing the row, and even seemed to spend quite a bit less time at each mound than Menri did, but the long run to fetch more supplies was causing him to fall further and further behind. He had barely lost a step, but Menri convinced himself there was nothing to worry about. After the third hour, though, something happened. The creature had managed to match his pace. An hour later, Menri was half-finished with his row, but the creature had begun to close the gap.
Slowly, it dawned on the brawny slave that each trip back and forth for the beast added another plant to the row, which meant that each trip was shorter than the last. The thing couldn’t possibly keep this pace much longer, but if he did, he might catch up. Menri heaved the significantly lightened barrow from the ground and shoved it forward. It would be a cold day in hell when a malthrope could out-work him.
Another hour rolled forward, and the word of what was happening was spreading. Slaves working elsewhere found reasons to linger near the rakka fields. The work on the other rows slowed as more eyes turned to the spectacle. The sun was beating down on the fields now as the hottest part of the day approached, but neither man nor beast had stopped for water in more than an hour. Even the slave handlers had begun to gather now. Six hours since work had started; there were fewer than a dozen planting sites left to be done, and the creature was only a few steps behind Menri.
The beast was panting heavily, his tongue lolling from his mouth. Every inch of him was smeared with mud, compost, and fertilizer. His lungs, legs, and eyes were burning terribly, but he willed himself forward, refusing to slow. Before long, Menri was unwilling to spare even a moment to see how close the monster had come. He was tired and cramped, but his barrow had been nearly emptied, and thus took little effort to move.
Just a half-dozen more mounds to form. All work on the rest of the plantation had stopped now. A few moments later there were only three more mounds. Out of the corner of his sweat-burned eye, Menri spotted Jarrad looking on. A few moments more and he was on his last mound. He dumped the soil into place, heaped it with the spade, and raised his hands triumphantly.
“Finished! Finished!” he bellowed, wiping sweat and dirt from his eyes.
Menri’s heart was pounding in his ears, but he’d expected to hear the boisterous hoots and hollers of his fellow slaves as he put the little monster in its place. There was silence. He looked first to the malthrope’s row. It was finished. He looked next to the gathering of slaves. Mouths were agape, heads were shaking, eyes were wide with disbelief. His eyes then turned to the figure before him. It was the malthrope, nearly doubled over with exhaustion, trying to catch his breath. When the thing saw that Menri was looking, he forced himself to straighten, rising to his full height and for the first time looking the older
slave square in the eye.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the malthrope croaked through his parched throat, “if that starts happening more often, old man.”
The creature limped painfully toward the shack it called home. A combination of awe, disbelief, and even a sprinkling of respect was enough to leave the beast unharassed as it marched.
#
From that day, things changed on the plantation. None of the slaves ever behaved quite the same way. Most steadily shifted from general disgust toward the malthrope to a hardened, targeted hostility. Having to cope with a monster sheepishly taking orders and ducking out of sight at first hard look was bad, but tolerable. Being told that the same monster was to work the same jobs and be given the same privileges as a person? That was more than most of the other workers would willingly bear. More and more often, the slave handlers were having to break up fights, as old slaves and new attempted to put the inhuman monster in his place once and for all. Jarrad had no patience for anything that might injure his slaves, and thus the first few fights were harshly punished. It was enough to convince the less dedicated slaves to back off. For the others, it simply taught them to select their arenas more carefully, and to find the handlers who were willing to look the other way.
This forced the malthrope to learn a few lessons of his own.
No teeth, no claws. That was the first and most important thing. The strap across the face he'd received years ago was reason enough, but now there was a better one. Quite simply, the other slaves didn't have claws, and they didn't have teeth like his. If a slave showed himself to a handler with something as distinctive as a slash of claws or a few teeth marks, there was only one way he could have gotten them. The fact that they were delivered in self-defense was not relevant. Those same handlers who would ignore a few fists in the beast's ribs were only too willing to make an example of him if given half a reason. Using fists and feet to defend himself, on the other hand, was almost a sure way to avoid being blamed for an injury, because no one who hadn't seen it with his own eyes seemed willing to believe that any animal with teeth and claws would ever fight without using them.
By necessity, and as a result of far more practice than he would have liked, the creature became quite adept at dodging blows, batting attacks away, and returning them with enough force to ward off attackers both larger and more numerous than he.
The creature steadily began to slice his day into two parts. While working, he stayed in the open, in full view of a handler at all times. As much as it bothered the beast to be exposed, it was better than risking a beating. At night, his dyed-in-the-wool instinct to stay out of sight was honed to a razor's edge. When the sun went down and the work day was done, the beast may as well have ceased to exist. Shadows, tall crops, gulleys, the roofs of shacks and huts, anywhere a casual glance wouldn't catch him, that's where the creature was.
He had been called a shadow before, but the name had never been more fitting. Slaves frustrated by their inability to vent their hatred upon the beast briefly attempted to target Ben instead. It was a decision each made only once. As unpleasant as it was to fight the malthrope when he was defending himself, it was downright nightmarish to fight him when he was defending Ben.
By the end of the growing season the slaves were beginning to lose their enthusiasm for picking a fight with the beast.
Some lost their taste for combat faster than others. Goldie, Blondie, and Gurruk never seemed to share the same eagerness for “putting the beast in its place” as the other slaves. This was likely because as the only other non-humans, that “place” was uncomfortably near to their own in the humans' eyes. A few of the older slaves backed off before long if only because they were too tired and sore to be taking the lumps they inevitably received in return for the ones they gave. Only the young bucks with something to prove came after him with any regularity.
And, of course, Menri. The show the malthrope had put on lit a fire under the slave's already raging hatred. For a time, targeting the beast was more important to him than working. He would linger near the beast, arrange to be given matching tasks, and at every opportunity lash out viciously. The other slaves just wanted to hurt Ben's apprentice, backing off after a bit of blood was spilled or some bruises were given. Not once did Menri stop until handlers or other slaves hauled him off. Only the threat of adding a stripe was enough to get his mind back on his labor.
Months passed, and eventually things became stable. The malthrope remained a favored target, but vigilance could counter that. Each time a new slave was added to the ranks, he felt the need to prove with his fists that while they may both be property of the same man, a malthrope was not his equal. It seldom lasted much longer than a few scuffles. As happens in even the worst conditions, the trials and tribulations of existence became familiar, tolerable, and normal. And so they remained for a number of years.
Chapter 11
A bit more than four long years had passed since the malthrope had lost his tail. The plantation had grown steadily in the intervening years. Rakka harvests had remained strong, and the three fields had grown to seven, worked by nearly fifty slaves. The farm had flourished.
Not so for the farmer. Jarrad's health had declined sharply over the previous year. He was not a young man, and despite increasing scale of the task of running the plantation, he insisted in doing it himself—overseeing the work, negotiating prices, managing workers, and a thousand other little tasks. The plantation was simply too important to him to be left to anyone else.
One day, when screaming at one of the carriage drivers responsible for transporting a harvest to market, the old farmer collapsed. He never truly recovered. Healers of every sort were brought to him. Even a mystic was found, casting spells that seemed to bring him back to health, but it didn't last. No treatment seamed to last. There were whispers, inevitably, that somehow the malthrope was to blame, but all agreed that if the monster were to target a single human it would be Menri, not Jarrad.
Eleven months later, he was gone.
The night of his funeral, in accordance with his wishes and Tresson tradition dating back longer than history records, he was to be burned in a pyre with the three things that signified his worth in this world so that he would be duly honored in the next. A shovel, the very one that had broken the ground on the first day that the land had been his, rested on his chest as the flames crackled. To one side there was a rakka bush, the finest of the harvest. To the other side, a painting of himself with his wife and children, a rare extravagance he'd allowed himself, commissioned on Marret's first birthday. Both of his daughters, each now married, each with children of her own, stood tearfully by the fire with their mother. A few steps closer stood Marret, his only son, hand-in-hand with his wife.
The slaves had been given the day to mourn, but most had little love for their owner. Only Ben and Menri had chosen to pay their respects by witnessing the lighting of the pyre, though someone who knew where to look might have spotted the telltale gleam of foxy eyes as the malthrope watched from afar. Tradition called for those who would bear witness to remain until the flames burned down, an hours-long wait that was meant to show how deeply each respected the departed. The slaves sat on the ground, a proper distance from the family, and quietly observed.
Long after the sun had set and the stars had taken their place overhead, the flames had finally been reduced to crackling embers. The family retired to the manor and the slaves stood to shovel earth over the remains of the pyre, the final element of the ritual. Menri drove his shovel into the earth when the last of the job was done and marched back to his quarters. Ben stayed behind.
“Blind man,” called a voice hoarse from smoke and still somewhat shaken with grief. It was Marret, marching down from the steps of the manor.
“Yes, Master Marret?”
“This land,” the young man continued when he'd reached his worker. “It is mine now.”
“It is. I speak for all of the slaves when I express my sorrow for your los
s. I've worked for a number of men, but none were the equal of your father. I—”
“Enough. I'm not interested in sympathy, old man. Father spoke to you about a number of things. Whenever he needed some skill or another, you seemed to have it.”
“As I said, I've worked for a number of men. They have had many requirements, and I've done what I could to fill their needs.”
“I want you to gather some of the other slaves. Starting tomorrow, I want the stable expanded into a full carriage house. If I am to remain here, it is time that I live the life a man of my means is meant to live.”
“Master, the rakka is in season. Pulling any workers will leave berries to rot on the vine, seeds to soak too long. We've already lost a day to the mourning. You—”
“Quiet!” Marret snapped. “Listen, blind man, I loved my father, but I have no intention of following in his footsteps. He fertilized this land with his blood, sweat, and tears. It was his way. It is not mine. I won't bleed for a harvest. I won't sweat for a few bushels of grain, and his death has brought me the last tears I ever hope to shed. I'm not looking for advice on how you think I ought to proceed, and I certainly don't need you telling me how he would have. I've got my own way. You just listen to what I say and make it happen. Understand?”
“Yes, master,” Ben said steadily.
“Good. Now get them together. I'll tell you what I want and where I want it, and you get it done. Dismissed,” Marret said, turning crisply and marching back to the manor.
