Book Two - Chapter Twenty-Five

Ariya was on laundry duty with Boyan again, scrubbing clothes in what seemed like an endless cycle of grabbing and rinsing. If not for that and the whole prisoner thing, though, it would have been a nice day. The sun was shining, there was just the right amount of clouds to provide pleasant shade, and there was a perfect breeze blowing.

“It’s lucky we got put together again,” Ariya said.

Boyan smiled and nodded. “It sure is. Well, maybe not all luck.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, brow furrowing in confusion. She doubted the bandits were nice enough to team her up with her friend on purpose.

“You get put on laundry duty a lot,” he said. “Since they don’t shuffle you around a lot, it makes sense we’d end up together more often.”

“Oh,” she said. “That makes sense. I wonder why I’m always doing laundry.”

Not that she was complaining. Well, she was, but less than she would have been if they constantly had her carrying water or something.

“I’m assuming it’s because you’re small and not suited to the more physical tasks,” Boyan replied.

Ariya frowned, her head cocking slightly. “I’m a big girl.”

“You sure are,” he said with a gentle smile. “But you are still a kid. You’ve got some growing to do yet before you can carry lumber around all the time. They might like making things difficult for us, but they at least care a little about making sure the work gets done too.”

Well, she guessed all that was true. And she knew she wasn’t really a big girl. Lusya said she wasn’t, and Lusya didn’t lie. So, as disappointing as it was, Ariya knew she wasn’t grown just yet. That tickled something at the back of her mind, though.

“I heard the bandits liked kids,” she said. “What happened to them?”

That was right. Back at the first village she and Lusya had visited with Ander, the bandits had taken a bunch of kids. But here, Ariya hadn’t seen any other than herself.

Boyan raised an eyebrow. “Where in the world did you hear that?” He sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter. They—”

A bandit walked by and glared at them. Boyan glanced at him and went pale, snapping his mouth shut. Ariya didn’t acknowledge the bandit. She just looked at Boyan and waited for him to finish. It wasn’t like rubbing clothes took her full attention. The bandit clicked his tongue and walked away.

Boyan let out a heavy sigh in relief, like he’d been holding his breath that whole time. “Anyway, they do take a lot of children, but the kids are never here long. Not even a day, in most cases, and they’re almost never in the prison with us. As I understand it, they sell the kids quick, and keep everyone else around a while for labor, and so they can ‘break’ us, which I guess they don’t think they need to do to the kids.”

“I thought kids made better slaves,” Ariya said.

Boyan scowled. “Where are you learning these things?”

“People tell Lusya and Ander, and I’m standing right there,” she said with a shrug.

“Well, that might be true if you need someone to cook or clean,” he said. “But, like I said, it’s not if you’re looking for somebody to haul firewood or do anything else physical.” He shrugged. “That’s my guess, at least. I’m no slaver, thank the gods.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” she said.

Boyan nodded and went quiet. Ariya didn’t have anything to say either, so she just focused on her job. She didn’t mind that at first. A little silence wasn’t bad every now and then. A chance to calm down and think. Before long, though, the silence had grown excessive, but Ariya still didn’t have any ideas on how to break it. She blamed the base. This place and the last week hadn’t been stimulating the brain much.

“Hey, you’re not done yet!” a bandit shouted, storming across the camp.

Ariya looked up from her laundry to see what he was doing, grateful for a distraction from the tedium. She had liked the ease of laundry at first, but by now she had realized that it was also so dull she worried she might die of boredom. When she saw what was happening, though, she quickly realized that this wasn’t something to be grateful for.

There was a woman a little bit away from the firewood pile, sitting on the ground as she tried to catch her breath. Ariya understood. That stuff was heavy, and the woman looked to be on the older side, not to mention sickly. The bandit didn’t seem as sympathetic. Ariya thought she recognized him. His name was…Terso, if she was right, but she didn’t remember where or how she might have learned his name.

The woman didn’t reply. It wasn’t clear if she couldn’t hear him somehow, or if she was ignoring him on purpose. Or if it was just taking that long for her to compose herself. Whichever it was, she just kept panting, so Terso walked right up to her, looming over her. When she still didn’t respond, he gave her a sharp kick in the side. Not hard, but more than enough to hurt. The woman gave a shout, scrambled away, and glared up at him.

Terso looked down at her, snarling. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just catching my breath,” she said.

“Who said you could do that?” he asked.

It was obvious that he knew the answer. Everybody in camp knew the answer: nobody. The only actual breaks they got were to eat and sleep. Sometimes, there were moments between tasks when they weren’t doing anything, and the bandits wouldn’t complain, but that was different. No one got to stop in the middle of a job, ever. Ariya had seen a man pass out carrying water the other day. The bandits had forced him awake by dumping water on him and put him right back to work. He hadn’t even been allowed to dry off first.

The woman sighed and stood up, hanging her head. She started back toward the lumber pile, Terso watching her like a hawk. Just as she reached the pile and was reaching for it, she suddenly looked up and turned back, her eyes meeting Ariya’s.

The woman held Ariya’s gaze for a moment, then nodded. Ariya wasn’t sure which of them that was meant for. The woman looked familiar, but Ariya didn’t even know her name and didn’t think they had ever spoken before. Ariya had kept trying to talk to the others, but a lot of them brushed her off or ignored her. The woman took a deep breath, turned toward Terso, and sat back down.

“I’m catching my breath,” she said again, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest.

Terso clenched his fists white-knuckle tight as he marched up to her again. He grabbed her by an arm and hauled her to her feet, his face inches from hers.

“Get back to work, now!” he shouted, his face red with rage, spittle flying from his flapping lips.

The woman flinched, eyes wide in terror, and tried to pull away to no avail. Then, she took another deep breath and set her expression in a scowl.

By now, most of the camp was watching. Prisoners and bandits alike had dropped what they were doing to gawk at the confrontation, Ariya included. Laundry was a distant, fading memory now.

Nobody got closer or said anything, but it was easy to tell what they were all thinking. Some of the prisoners were hopeful, others were concerned or disappointed. There were bandits who seemed amused, and those who seemed angry or indifferent. Ariya wouldn’t have called anyone happy about what was happening.

“I will work better,” the woman said slowly, if I rest for two minutes than if I collapse.”

Terso squeezed her arm tighter, making her wince, then shoved her forward and threw her to the ground. Once again, Ariya stood on reflex, and once again fear kept her from doing anything more. This time, Terso didn’t even notice. He put a foot on the woman’s chest to keep her from standing as he drew his sword. He raised the weapon high in the air, prepared to plunge it down into her heart. She squirmed and pried at his leg to try to get free, but she couldn’t budge him in the slightest.

“Stop right there,” Boss said as she walked across the yard. “What did she do?”

Terso gave a quick recap of what had happened. He mostly told the truth, but he did make the woman sound a lot meaner than she had been, and himself a lot more reasonable until the part where he tried to stab her.

“And you were going to kill her over that?” Boss asked. “That’s a horrible waste of money and labor.” She frowned, staring at the woman. “Stab her through one hand.” The woman shook, but Boss either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Patch her up so she doesn’t die of blood loss or infection and put her back to work.”

“Got it, Boss,” he said.

He moved to plant his boot on her wrist instead, and, heedless of her continued struggles, stabbed down through her right hand. The woman screamed in pain. She thrashed and clawed at his ankle and calf, but he didn’t even react. Terso let his blade linger for a second, then pulled it out and yanked the woman to her feet. He guided her across the camp as she held her bloody hand to her chest, wailing with tears streaming down her face. She wasn’t trying to get away anymore.

“Now, the rest of you lot,” Boss said. It was obvious she was talking to the prisoners. Ariya wasn’t sure how, considering she talked to most of the bandits with pretty much the same language, there was just something about the way she said it. “Gather around.”

Nobody moved. Everyone was rooted to the spot, staring at Boss with wide eyes full of shock and fear.

She grinned. “What’s the matter? You’re getting out of work here. Be happy!” All the joy vanished from her voice in an instant. “And come here.”

Ariya waited for someone else to respond. Eventually, a man put down what he was doing—Ariya couldn’t see what from her angle—and started trudging over to Boss in slow, hesitant steps. Ariya followed suit, putting down her stuff and making her way to Boss.

It took a couple minutes, but, eventually, every prisoner in the yard was gathered before her. She looked over all of them with a cold, calculating gaze.

“Now, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend here the past few days,” she said. Her expression shifted to a furious glare, but she kept her tone calm. “We’ve had escape attempts, people slacking on their quotas, and now today’s incident. I think it’s about time we put you back in your place. All of you.” She chuckled. “Thank your rebellious neighbors, everyone.”

“You can’t do that!” Ariya shouted. “It’s not fair. You can’t punish someone who didn’t do anything.”

Boss laughed again, getting closer to Ariya. She crouched and tousled Ariya’s hair. Ariya pulled away, which just made Boss laugh more.

“You’re the last person who should be saying that,” Boss said with a sinister smirk.

Ariya scowled. “But I didn’t do anything.”

She had thought about it plenty of times, sure. She could have slacked on washing the laundry, spat in their water, knocked over a couple tents. There were plenty of options. She had even had a couple chances to put something gross in their food. But she knew she had to play by their rules until Lusya showed up. Not to mention she didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble. After that one guy had almost hurt someone else for her talking back, she had decided to bide her time.

She hadn’t even really said anything since then. In fact, she had avoided speaking to or even looking at the bandits as much as possible.

“Maybe not intentionally,” Boss said. “But everyone sees how you act. So brave, always hanging onto hope. It eggs them on. What adult can keep cowering when a little girl is standing so tall? What happened back there is on you.

“Of course, that’s not the kind of thing I’m worried about. I can get you all back in line whenever. What I’m worried about is these guys getting bolder when I’m not the one holding the leash. If that starts happening, I’ll have to sell to ‘proper’ slavers to get them trained. And since those guys will want to sell them again later, I’ll get less money, get it?”

Ariya shook her head. “Not really.”

Boss sighed and hung her head. “Guess I shouldn’t have expected more from a kid.”

A stick suddenly struck her on the back of the head. The stick snapped and splintered on impact, half of it hanging limply by a thread. Boss didn’t even flinch. The only sign she had been hit was the presence of some chips of wood in her hair.

She slowly raised her head to look at who had swung the stick as Ariya did the same. It was Boyan. He yanked the broken stick back and brandished it. Despite his total failure, his “weapon” now being ruined, and his entire body trembling as if the ground he stood on was shaking, there was fire in his eyes. Boss stood up to look him in the eye, her expression locked in a small frown, almost a petulant pout.

“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t just watch while this girl shows me up. That’s why—”

“No one was paying much for you anyway,” Boss said, her voice devoid of its usual cruel humor.

She backhanded him across the face. Ariya recoiled. There was a boom and a rush of wind, like when Lusya hit things sometimes, then a sickening crack, and he went flying off to the side in a wild tumble, until his momentum finally died enough for him to fall to the ground, where he rolled several more feet before coming to a stop in a limp sprawl. He didn’t get up. He didn’t so much as twitch.

Ariya looked around at the others. The rest of the crowd had all retreated. Some had just taken a step back in shock. Others seemed to have moved several feet, like they had tried to run away before realizing there was nowhere for them to go. The result was that there was now a distinct gap between them and her. A semicircle a couple feet across now separated Ariya from the closest of the other prisoners.

“Now, for the rest of you,” Boss said. She turned her attention back to them. She hadn’t even looked at where Boyan had ended up, like nothing had happened. “I’m a reasonable person, so I’ll start small. You’re skipping your next two meals. Work schedule is unchanged. Maybe a day of labor on an empty stomach will make you appreciate your situation a little more. Back to work.” She smiled at Ariya. “And remember, this is all your fault.”

Ariya hung her head. It was hard to argue, if what Boss had said was true. And there wasn’t much reason to think it wasn’t. What reason was there for her to lie about it? Blaming Ariya didn’t help her any.

Ariya hadn’t realized she’d had that kind of effect on people. She hadn’t been trying to. All she had wanted to do was stay strong while she waited for Lusya, and maybe help the others do the same. Getting them to rebel and get in trouble had never been the plan. She looked up at the unmoving figure sprawled on the ground a couple dozen feet away. Her throat and chest felt tight, like someone was choking her. With a shuddering sigh, she turned and trudged back to her laundry basin, while Boss laughed like a madwoman.

She looked back one more time. Another bandit came up to Boss. He was scrunched in on himself, like a turtle, as she looked at him. She stopped laughing, and they began talking in hushed tones, just loud enough for Ariya to make out, though she missed the very beginning of what he said.

“—two groups who are way past their return date,” he was saying.

Boss frowned and pursed her lips. “Give it another couple days. I’ll send someone to handle it if they’re still not back.”

Ariya had no idea what they were talking about. It seemed like they were done, but then Boss spoke up again.

“While you’re here, chuck that corpse into one of the demons’ pens,” she said. Since she was out in the yard, the demons were relatively quiet at the moment. “Giving them a toy every now and then helps keep them behaved.”

A quiet sob escaped Ariya’s throat as she looked at Boyan one more time. She wiped some of her tears away on her arm, but more started to trickle down her cheeks right away. She had to be more careful now. If anyone else got hurt—No, she couldn’t lie to herself about this. She had to come clean about her mistakes. Mama, Papa, and Lusya all agreed on that, and that had to mean it was important. If anyone else got killed because of Ariya, she wasn’t sure she would be able to take it.

Just a little longer. Lusya had never taken anywhere near this long before, but Ariya knew she was coming. Ariya could only hope it was before things got any worse.