I wake up to the sound of shouting, and quickly feel a whip hitting my leg.

"Get up you maggots, suns already up." I rise up quickly, already wincing in pain. I suppress a growl which will only earn me a real beating and get up.

I take in the large cave room we are in, it's large enough for about three hundred of us to sleep. I see the other slaves quickly get to their feet, the same resigned expression on their faces as mine. Several men in armor armed with whips and other weapons go through our ranks. There is a large variety of Beastkin, some with wolf ears and tail like me, others with snouts, small tusks and all kinds of animal qualities in the crowd. Only we all share the same defeated look.

I got transferred to this mine not a week ago so I don't recognize many, but I do recognize the bastard that whipped me. His smug smile paired with an angry scowl makes me angry but I know there is nothing I can do. Doing something will only make it worse. Having been a slave for more than a year now, I know it's futile to try anything.

There are several tunnels that go deeper, and the slave masters quickly funnel us into different sections of the mine. The walls of the cave are rough stone and dirt while only some tunnels are supported by wooden beams. They are there more to make sure the Empires guards don't die rather than for our safety.

I think back on my tribe to the east of the Brudian Empire. How long ago it seems now, like another life. I remember how I used to be unhappy with that life, wanting to travel the world, not taking the elders seriously when they talked about the dangers of the world. How I regret not enjoying those days to their fullest, always complaining like an idiot.

"You. Stop dreaming and get a move on." A slave master yells at me while hitting me with a club. I almost fall to the ground but grind my teeth to stand and move on. Falling and being weak makes it worse. You slowly learn these things, either by doing them or seeing someone else do them. No one tells you how this works, but you quickly learn. Most are docile after a week.

We slowly reach our wall to mine for the day. There are about four guards for thirty slaves. A naive man would think we could overthrow them just with sheer numbers. It has been tried. I tried the first week in the first place I was assigned. We failed miserably, everyone was tired and hurt already so they easily subdued us while their armor hindered our feeble attacks. But that wasn't the worst. No, the worst came after they punished all the slaves, not just our group. They forced everyone to go without food and water for two days. Some died from the lack of sustenance, but the worst was that our group got shunned by the others. No longer were we slaves versus captors, no, some of our former friends attacked us with impunity while the guards egged them on.

I used to have some smoldering anger and hope back then despite it all, but it eventually got beaten out of me. I pick up one of the few pickaxes in front of the wall of ore and start digging. Mechanically getting my arms up, ignoring my aching body. Sometimes I think it would be nice to die, to be released from it all, but still, I go on, trying to live just another day in this hell. Truth be told you can get used to many things. I'm used to this, it feels like it's all I've known in my life now. My previous life in the village is like a hazy dream I use to feel better rather than something real that happened.

The dust in the air, the dimly lit tunnel, the ore slowly being chipped away, there is a kind of twisted sense of comfort in all of this. A comfort in the familiar, in knowing how it works. There are no more surprises here. Everything is organized. The stronger Beastkin uses the pickaxes, while the children, elders, and women carry the rocks back for processing. Two meals a day, just enough food and water to be strong enough not to collapse.

A man in red full plate armor comes in. It's nothing unusual, the guards all wear full plate, but his colors are different and I've never seen that insignia on his chest. He doesn't seem to be in the slaver division. I watch him, curious and fearful from the corner of my eyes while I continue to work mechanically. He goes over to the slave master and they start talking, out of earshot. My hearing is better than a regular human but with all the noise around me, it's hard to hear what is being said.

It doesn’t matter as the slave master turns and speaks up in a commanding voice.

"Stop, get in line all of you." We stop working and all of us obey without question.

"Hmmm." The other man paces back and forth in front of us while the slave master looks on, amused. The man in red seems to be pondering something.

"You, step forward." He points to a half-lizard.

"You." He points to another Beastkin. He repeats the process, picking out another 5 before picking me too. He picked the strongest looking Beastkin present.

"Follow me." The stranger says, we hesitate a bit, looking at the slave master. He makes a notion of shooing us away. But won't that slow down the group considerably? What's going on? Nothing new is ever good in this place.

As we walk back to the main area, I see that several others have been picked out from each group in the mine. We all huddle together. There are about sixty of us. There are more people in red full plate armor around us, but their armor isn’t as decorated as the one that we are following. They also lack the insignia on their chests. The leader of our group walks in front of every group before speaking up.

"You are now under my command and will no longer work in the mines. Life for you can now be better. I reward those that show themselves worthy, but, if any of you are out of line, I will be a lot stricter than they are here." He pauses as he looks at us. I glance at the others and most if not everyone is looking at the ground, showing they are subservient.

"Do I make myself clear?" None of us dare speak up, not sure what to do in this situation. We have learned that talking will only get us into trouble here.

"When I ask a question, I want to hear a yes, sir or no, sir." Another pause.

"Do I make myself clear?" He yells louder this time.

"Yes, sir." We respond in unison, but still lower in volume combined than him. He sighs and continues pacing back and forth a bit, thinking.

"Give them the collars sergeant." A man throws something black that lands at our feet. It looks like a collar.

"Put them on." He orders and we promptly obey.

"All right, a demonstration is in order." He points to someone in the crowd, one of the weaker looking ones.

"You, attack me." The slave’s confusion is easy to see. Hesitating, he looks around, trying to be sure he is talking to him. The man urges him forward and repeats himself. He hesitates but doesn’t obey. Suddenly the slave’s collar is choking him. Confused he starts to scratch wildly at the collar.

"If you do not obey, the collars will strangle you. If you try to hurt us, the collars will strangle you. There are other rules but I'll let you discover them on your own if you have the guts. As long as you do as I tell you to, you will be fine." The slave is slowly dying, his face red from the strain. Slowly getting up he tries to charge the man. I see the collar constraining his neck even harder at that, and suddenly, in the silence, we all hear something break and he stops moving. Just a few meters away from the dreadful man.

"Do I make myself clear?" He yells at us.

"Yes, sir!" We all say, louder this time. He nods to himself.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Your first orders are simple, rest until tomorrow, do not try anything to harm the empire or your unit." I feel my collar taking the shape of my neck at the command, ready to strangle me should I try something. He walks away and only two people are watching over us.

Left without anything to do for the first time in a year, years for some, we look around unsure. Someone sits down, and slowly others copy him. A man with cat ears even lays down on his back. I spot two other wolfkins in the group and walk over to them. I've never seen them before. Beastkins have a good relationship with each other, between species. Mostly at least, but I haven't seen a Wolfkin in so long that I'm curious. As I get closer I hear them talking low.

"That's only rumors. I mean it isn't possible." I hear one of them say.

"No, trust me I overheard a guard talk about it, it's real!" The other one whispers loudly.

"What is real?" I ask as I sit down beside them.

"You haven't heard? There are a few Beastkin villages that still resist the Empire to the east. Apparently, they live in remote areas, like high up in the mountains and other areas which are hard to attack for the Empire's soldiers." He looks at us excitedly.

"I even heard some slaves escaped and made it there." He continues, his companion looking at him like he is stupid.

"You wouldn't make it twenty meters out of here anyway, so why dream about it." He says deadpan. He must have been here longer by the dead look in his eyes.

I wonder why the Empire hasn't crushed the tribes, even if the locations are disadvantageous. They have the means to deal with it. Too much trouble for what it's worth? Maybe, but somehow I doubt it. So far the Empire has always felt calculating to me. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. A question takes me out of my thoughts.

"What do you think is going on now? What will happen to us?" The more excited of the two asks.

"Don't get your hopes up, the Empire has always used our kind for experiments. But these collars are something I've never seen before." The other one says.

"How long have you been a slave?" I ask him.

"I was born a slave." He says. Damn. I can't even imagine how he sees the world, having known nothing else.

"I'm Rannulf by the way." His friend says.

"Garr." The slave born one replies.

"I'm Tibald. Nice to meet you." He can't have been here for more than a month. I wonder how he got here, but I refrain from asking. It's always a delicate question.

"We should try to get some rest." Garr says, and we both nod.

I lay down close by, where there is enough space for me. I have a hard time sleeping even though I'm exhausted. I've been exhausted for a year now and to be honest I don't remember the feeling of being full of energy. Laying there, I think about what could happen to us and everything I come up with is more horrible than the last idea. I’ve come to distrust the Brudian Empire, and that man’s words make me uneasy for the future. I finally fall asleep despite my nervousness, too exhausted to continue thinking about all this any more.

—

"Rise and shine you lazy pieces of shit." I hear and obey before I can even think about it.

"The captain's here, stand in proper lines you degenerates." He continues.

The man from yesterday comes into the cave room, observing us critically. He nods towards his subordinate that got us awake.

"Make a proper salute to your captain you filthy animals!" He yells and bashes the closest one to him. The rest of us are quick to obey and we salute like we have seen the soldiers do when the captain comes in. It looks bad, as we are completely out of sync and do it at different speeds. In the end we all kind of manage something close enough to be acceptable, for now. All standing with a fist to our heart, slightly bent forward. Most of us look really awkward doing it.

"At ease." The captain says and everyone slowly returns to standing.

"What are you looking at, you piece of trash." The other man bashes someone who was looking around. I don’t even dare to look that way but hear him get back up quickly and look straight ahead like the rest of us.

"You stand stock still and look ahead when the captain is speaking to you." I stay completely still in the hopes of not attracting attention to myself.

"Today we are moving you out of this hell hole. You are now a unit, and as such you will be treated as one. When one of you messes up, we will punish all of you. We will now start marching out of here, and I want you all to walk in sync." The small echo of his voice is all that can be heard in the dead silence. Are we to become soldiers? But the Empire has never used our kind for that.

"Do I make myself clear?" He yells at us with a booming voice that echoes on the walls of the mines.

"Yes, sir." We echo back.

We start marching in the most awkward way, getting yelled at by the sergeant, several of us getting beat up for our incompetence. This goes on for about two hours as we go through a forest and some plains back to a mostly empty camp. By the time we arrive, we are exhausted from the beating and tough pace.

Sitting and huffing on the ground, I try to catch my breath. I look around more closely at the camp. Wooden palisades, simple tents, and large cleared fields. Is this a military outpost? It really does seem like we are to be soldiers. But I've never heard of Beastkin soldiers in the Empire. I touch my neck and feel at my collar, maybe they were afraid before these collars could more easily control us? It doesn't matter now. I know better than to try anything, especially now when I can get choked to death at any moment.

"Who told you to rest? Are you little sissies tired already? Well tough luck you maggots, because now we start training. Get a move on!" The angry sergeant is still riding us hard. I get up and feel my legs wobble under me but endure it. I don't want to die.

They take us to one of the fields and give each of us a spear, tell us to line up and to copy him with the spear.

"Not like that you stupid shit." He smacks another slave who doesn't get up, too tired to move.

"You are soldiers now, act like it. If you don't stand up in the next three seconds you are out. Do you know what that means you filthy animal?" He barks at him. All of us have stopped training and we are looking at the commotion. He quickly counts to three, barely giving him a chance to get up, then thrusts the spear through him.

"Do you get me?" He yells as he looks at the rest of us.

"Sir, yes sir." We echo back. I don't even feel a thing. I've become numb to it all. Some have a fearful look in their eyes as they get back to training in earnest while I mechanically continue, my mind elsewhere, the only free thing I have left.

Two more die in the next hour, and I can feel that I myself am close to my limit. Just when I'm on the verge of collapsing, we take a break. It's lunchtime apparently. We still get crappy food, but we get as much as we want for once and most of us devour the slop, not sure if we will ever get our fill again.

The excruciating training continues the next day, and another few are 'outed' again. The sergeant's voice is constantly present, telling us how pathetic and weak we are. He tells us that the weak die in this world, that we could never amount to anything but apparently someone higher up thought we could be useful, but not him. Constantly nagging us and beating the weaker ones, pushing them harder.

It's do or die, but for some reason, I like this more than the dark mine. The feeling of the sun on my face, my belly full. My body aches like it never has before, but it's a refreshing feeling once the day is finally over. I lay on my back looking at the stars. The tents aren't for us.

The following day, more slaves arrive in the camp, and they get treated the same way. Another sergeant much like our own mistreats them. Too tired to think, I simply follow every instruction in a daze. We get to eat as much as we like every day now, which somehow makes it worth the effort.

One week later the camp is full of life, different groups of slaves training under strict supervision can be see all around. I can feel my muscles starting to get back in shape and it's slowly becoming easier to get through the day. It seems that all of us that made it through the first week feel the same. Some unspoken bond has bloomed between us through this shared suffering. We talk very little as the sergeant beats the living shit out of anyone who talks without permission, but we don’t need to. A nod here, a smile there is enough for us to understand each other.

It does feel strange in a sense that I somehow like it better here. Maybe it's because our group feels more united, almost like a family, that we get our bellies full, or that we aren't restrained or beaten down for the sake of it. We are mistreated but it's never for no reason at all like back in the mines. I also like that I feel better in my body than ever, strength and dexterity returned to me after so long.

Even if we still live in bad conditions, even if we are still slaves, it seems we are more valued than before. Seeing how large scale of an operation this is, it feels like this is not the only place where slaves are being trained to become soldiers. The Empire is starting to prepare, for what, time will tell. I just pray they won't send us to kill our own kin. I'm not sure about the others, but I'd like to believe that at least a few of us would rather die than exterminate the few living Beastkin villages that are left.

I think about Azael, the closest kingdom, and I'm not against them. Slavery is illegal there, but still, historically they never helped when the Empire slaughtered our people. Never giving us a helping hand, even though I heard they regularly berate the Brudian Empire for their 'Vile practices'. Hypocrites.

I go to sleep that night feeling something other than apathy for the first time in a year.