The First Spark

by T J Trapp

  After a few days, they stopped earlier than usual to make camp. Erin could see a village in the distance.

  “A chance for more captives tomorrow,” one of her ring-mates muttered.

  Late in the afternoon one of the slave-keepers came, grabbed Erin’s arm, and untied her from the ring. Her ring-mates nudged each other, aware of what would happen next.

  “Come with me,” the slave-keeper said. He pulled her over to the trogus pens. “Time to feed the girls,” he said cheerfully. The trogus began to stir and come over to them. Erin had a very bad feeling about this. The man sneered at Erin. “Trouble-makers make good trogus food.”

  A uniformed man stepped out from a nearby tent, apparently alerted by the expectant whines of the trogus.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Erin’s keeper, sharply.

  “Going to feed the trogus, Captain, sir,” the slave-keeper said, jumping to attention, but still holding Erin’s leash.

  “Not tonight, you fool. We need the trogus to be in a fighting mood tomorrow, and I don’t want them fed before a raid!”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  The officer relented slightly. “You can feed them when we get back tomorrow night if they are still hungry.”

  “All right, sir. Very good, sir.”

  The slave-keeper sullenly led Erin back and tied her with her ring. Her ring-mates were surprised to see her.

  “You missed the evening feeding,” one finally said. Erin didn’t care – she couldn’t have eaten. At least I wasn’t the meal, she thought. Being consumed alive by carnivorous beasts was not her idea of fun.

  That night Erin had a dream. She felt that it was Alec telling her that he was coming to rescue her tomorrow. She needed to be ready. I love you, please come quickly, was her thought to him. Or else it might be too late.

  ✽✽✽

  The sun peeking into the air hole woke Alec the next morning. He took a careful look outside his cave to make sure there were no unpleasant surprises in store for him, then opened the entrance and slid out.

  Alec was apprehensive. He was too excited to eat, so he didn’t even try. He crept to the top of the rock outcrop and looked towards the camp. All was quiet. They would not be feeding the captives until after the raid.

  He could see the raiding party already well on the way to the village. His plan, such that it was, involved waiting until the raid started – then the slavers would be too occupied to return to camp to fight him. Alec saw the raiders approach the village and the village guards frantically closing the village gate.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Alec could hear the noise of bullets, carried by the wind. The rifles gave the slavers an advantage that would quickly swing this battle. The village gates were designed to stop mounted intruders with light archery or swords but would not protect against gunfire.

  Maybe there was something he could do to help swing the battle against the raiders and further the distraction. He looked out towards the village. The slavers had taken a single wagon with them on the raid. That must be the ammunition for the rifles.

  Focus. Alec pulled in dark energy. Different materials affected the dark energy background differently. He could feel a clump of material in the distance that might be gunpowder in the wagon. Focus. Nothing happened. Must have been the wrong thing.

  He focused the dark energy and again let his senses wander over the battlefield. He had never tried to sense materials from this far away before, and he could feel himself sweating from the exertion. He felt another material. That might be it. Focus. A few seconds later he heard a lone shot on the wind. Found it.

  Focus. This time Alec simultaneously heated the powder in all the bullets. He heard a massive burst of noise on the wind and then everything went silent. Hopeful sign, he thought.

  Now for the slavers’ camp. Maybe he could do the same thing here.

  Focus. The dark energy swirled. He could see the powder wagon and could feel the powder in the protected wagon. Again, he heated the powder. A massive outpouring of sound erupted. The wagon caught fire and started burning. The captives started to yell in fear – if a fire swept through the camp they would likely perish.

  At the great sound, the animals in the camp reared and screamed in terror, breaking their halters and running free. One of the trogus escaped from its pen in a panic, and as its keeper tried to corral it, the animal crunched down on the man’s arm. Blood spattered everywhere, but instead of devouring the man the beast brayed and continued to run, crazed, through the camp. The few remaining soldiers and slave-keepers started running after the animals to corral them, yelling at the cooks and other camp helpers to try to fight the fire.

  Here’s my chance. Alec trotted down the hillside and into camp. No one was trying to keep intruders from getting into camp. In fact, no one was trying to keep people from doing much of anything. A person was easier to recapture than a trogus, so the men in the camp were intent on capturing the frightened animals.

  Alec slipped down into the men’s camp. He had prepared a tool to release the leather collars, and released about a dozen people, including his former ring-mates. The men stood and looked at him.

  “You are free!” shouted Alec, raising his arms and shooing them like barnyard chickens. “Grab some weapons and let’s take over from these slavers!” The freed men just kept looking at him blankly as he released more of them.

  Finally, two of them seemed to come to life.

  “Come on, come on, let’s get ready and take over!” With that, the rest started to move.

  Thank goodness, Alec thought, someone still has some hope left. Then, with a start, Alec realized the two men organizing the other captives were the same two that had abused the teenage boy. What a world, he thought.

  ✽✽✽

  The morning after her dream, Erin could feel that the camp seemed filled with adrenaline as the soldiers prepared to raid the nearby village. Erin was dreading every second. She knew when the raiders returned her slave-keeper intended to feed her to the trogus.

  The morning wore slowly on. Erin heard a sharp noise carried on the wind from the distant village – crack! crack! crack! She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it was somehow tied to the raiders’ overwhelming advantage over the villagers. Then she heard a loud bang! being carried on the wind. What was that? Did the raiders destroy the village? How could anyone fight against that?

  A few seconds later Erin heard a crack! crack! crack! very close by. Then there was an overwhelmingly loud sound as one of the wagons in the slavers’ camp spit pieces everywhere and then burst into flames. Erin clapped her hands over her ears to try to stop the ringing sound inside her head. All the animals in the camp seemed to go crazy from the noise, and trogus and drungs alike pulled free and ran about.

  “Dragons! one of her ring-mates yelled. “We’ve been attacked by dragons!”

  “Fire!” yelled another woman. “We will all be burned alive!”

  That must be Alec! thought Erin. He doesn’t know how to do anything quietly.

  Then she heard shouts on the other side of the camp and looked to see what was going on over there.

  “The men are free!” a woman captive shouted, pointing across to the men’s side. The captive men were running towards the few slave-keepers left in camp; the slave-keepers saw the danger, turned towards the captives, and drew their swords, but they were outnumbered. Five men, even armed with swords, were no match against fifty desperate men armed with sticks and rocks. In no time the slave-keepers were taken down.

  Erin saw the guards fall and the captive men continue to beat on them. And then Erin saw a single man running towards her.

  “Alec!” she shouted, and for the first time since her capture, began to cry.

  10 – Freedom

  Alec heard Erin’s cry and ran to her. In a moment she was in his arms, and he was lifting her off her feet in a bear hug, totally oblivious to her state of filth or that she was tethered to three other women. She let
him hold her for a moment or so, while her ring-mates looked on in wonder.

  Finally, the reality of their situation and the utter silliness of her appearance struck her. She laughed through her tears.

  “Do you hug every naked lady you see?” she asked.

  Alec snapped back to the moment and pulled out his tool to unlock her collar. It quickly snapped off, and she was free. Alec freed the next woman on Erin’s ring and then handed her the tool.

  “Free the others,” he said to her. Then to Erin, “We have to get out of here. Fast. Let’s find our wagon.”

  Their wagon was easy to find among the others and had been loaded with loot taken from the village raids. Their clothes were still in the wagon and Erin grabbed enough to feel presentable, although she knew she was as filthy as she had ever been. She also checked the concealed compartment. It had not been disturbed; the rings and coins were still there.

  “Let’s dump the stuff we don’t need, grab a couple of drungs, and leave,” said Alec.

  “I don’t think that will work,” said Erin.

  “Why not?”

  “If we try to run, the mounted soldiers are much faster than we would be in our wagon – they would soon catch up with us.”

  Alec looked back towards the village. The raiders who had survived Alec’s ‘magic’ were beginning to straggle back to the slave camp.

  “Yeah. You’re right. They will be back before we can get out of sight,” he said. “I guess we are going to have to fight our way out of here.” The two of them made their way back into the center of camp where the captives – men and women, now free of their collars and tethers – were milling around in confusion; a few were sitting on the ground, hunched up, face buried, hugging their knees and shaking.

  Alec stood on a serving-log and addressed the throng. “The raiders are starting to return from that village. They’ll be here before long. We will have to fight them. Who has experience in setting up a fighting force?” Alec shouted.

  “I do,” one man said, stepping forward.

  “Who are you?” Alec asked.

  “I am Harl,” the man answered. “I was the guard subleader at Octavin.”

  Alec had no idea where or what Octavin was, but the man seemed confident and did not have the hopeless look in his eyes of some of the captives. Also, Alec noted with relief, the man was not one of those who had abused the boy.

  “Good,” said Alec. “They won’t be expecting that you have been freed from your collars and can fight. Let’s surprise them and try to take them down.”

  “But what about their death rods?” said Harl. “We can’t win against those!”

  “I destroyed the fuel supply for them,” said Alec.

  “You what?” said Harl, in total confusion. “The fuel? The death rods have fuel?”

  “He is a Great Wizard,” said Erin, holding Alec’s arm.

  “Are you a Wizard?” said Harl in amazement – or was it disbelief?

  Alec paused, and instead of objecting to Erin’s explanation, gave in and just said, “Yes.”

  “Good!” Harl said delightedly. “Then maybe we do have a chance! What magic can you do?”

  Alec didn’t want to tell him that he might not be able to do much.

  “I can launch projectiles … uh, send rocks through the air,” Alec said, “and I can set their animals’ tails on fire.”

  Harl paused and looked at him. “Is that all?” Harl asked, looking somewhat dejected.

  I guess the idea of burning trogus tails isn’t too exciting, thought Alec, then added, with a bit of a swagger, “I can do more – but that should be enough.”

  Someone had located the soldiers’ armory and was handing out swords and spears to anyone, man or woman, who could hold one. In the meantime, Harl and Alec briefly discussed their options and agreed on a course of action. Harl arranged the rag-tag group in accordance with their plan.

  ✽✽✽

  The slave raiders were clearly annoyed. For the first time, their plan of attack had not worked. Their death rods had blown up and killed three of their members. Without their magic weapons, they were merely an ordinary band of marauders; the village walls were designed to hold off raiders like them, and the slavers had not been able to breach the gates. For this entire trip the slavers had been relying on their magic weapons to give them an advantage over the simple villagers, and, without their magic, they weren’t very skillful marauders.

  After their death rods blew up, and a few feeble attempts to attack without them, the leader of the raiders called for a return to the slave camp. Without the advantage given by the death rods, the village wall was going to hold. The leader thought that they could return to camp, get more death rods from the armory, and come back and finish decimating the village; there would be grave retribution for its impertinent resistance.

  As the raiders returned to their camp, the leader heard a loud ‘bang!’ ahead of them. He was surprised but felt that it wasn’t an issue – his men could deal with whatever it was after they got back to camp. He continued to lead his crestfallen raiding party at a slow walk. There was no reason to hurry – the mounts were tired, and several of the men were injured. They weren’t going to attack again until tomorrow, so there was plenty of time.

  But as he came closer to camp, the hubbub of activity didn’t seem right. Something was wrong.

  “Draw weapons,” he called to his men. A rival raiding party? He wasn’t afraid – he still had at least thirty good soldiers. There wasn’t anything out here that could take down that many armed men.

  The leader came closer to camp. Then he felt his mount flinch. He looked back. Instead of an orderly array of troops following him, his riders’ mounts were bucking and bolting in a frenzied panic. Each trogus had flames coming from its tail – they had caught fire and were burning, and the acrid smell of singed hair filled the air. Trogus were charging in every direction, colliding with each other; some were rolling in the grass and the dust to stop the burning. Blue-clad riders were running from the beasts but were being trampled and mauled right and left. The wagon drungs were also bleating and trying to escape the scene.

  Then, as his own mount began to yowl, the leader became aware that his trogus also was on fire. He turned and swatted at the burning tail with the flat side of his sword. He had a very well-trained beast, and it stood the test, enduring the pain until his swatting succeeded in putting the fire out. The leader looked around and saw that he was the only one still mounted.

  Then a rag-tag bunch of mostly-naked men and women charged out from a gully that bounded the camp, running towards the raiders; they started beating on the downed men with sticks, kitchen tools, and swords from the armory.

  ✽✽✽

  Alec watched from the knoll as the raiders retreated from the village walls and slowly returned to the camp. Harl has done a great job of organizing these guys, Alec noted appreciatively. Most of them were still naked, but they had clubs or spears, and a few even had swords. Harl had positioned the captives in concealed spots along the edge of the gully. It was a good staging point. They couldn’t be seen until the raiders were almost on top of them.

  Harl had pointed out to Alec that without help, the raiding party would make quick work of the freed captives; it would be Alec’s job to dismount the riders. Alec was amazed at how much everyone trusted him. ‘Great Wizard,’ he thought ruefully.

  Erin had found her sword in the soldiers’ armory and stood by his side. Alec suspected that she intended to protect him at any cost, but he didn’t want it to come to that.

  The slow-moving retreating raiders came near the gully. It was time. Focus. Dark energy flowed, and Alec felt the power of his new medallion. Although he had lost the first medallion in the scuffle when they were captured, he had grown comfortable with the new one. Maybe it was even better than the old one.

  As Alec and Erin watched, dozens of small fires erupted. Maybe I overdid it, thought Alec.

  With their tails in flames, th
e trogus ran screaming and braying through the grass. Small fires ignited in the dry undergrowth, and billows of thick grass smoke blew towards the downed soldiers.

  Harl gave the signal and the captives charged from the gully. Their chore was simple: kill the raiders. Alec was amazed at how much discipline Harl had instilled in the captives in this little time. Were these the same men that so recently had looked at Alec with hopeless eyes?

  “One soldier is still up,” Alec pointed out to Erin.

  She nodded, “I think it is the leader.”

  The man had managed to put out the tail fire on his trogus and was now charging towards the mob of former captives.

  “That trogus could overwhelm all of our people if it gets to them,” Erin said.

  “Time to go to work again,” he said.

  Alec pulled out one of his rocks and put it in his sling. Focus. The rock sang as it left the sling. It hit the lone soldier in the back of the head, and he fell with a thud to the ground. His trogus spooked and took off across the Grassland like a frightened rabbit.

  Five of the dismounted raiders succeeded in joining forces and formed a defensive position. They were better equipped than the ill-armed captives, but it still wasn’t going to be a sure victory since they were badly outnumbered. However, the captives were reluctant to attack the soldiers.

  From his position a short distance away, Harl saw their hesitation. He rushed over to handle this last part of the fight. Alec and Erin followed. The three approached the soldiers slowly, with the captive mob following uncertainly behind them.

  “Surrender, and we will not kill you until we have determined what is just,” Erin shouted to them. They looked at her and laughed.

  “Hah! A woman who thinks herself able to give us orders!” one soldier rejoined, and he spat in her direction.

  That was the limit for Alec. Focus.