I awoke to a bit of sun shining through a crack in the wall. I pulled out the small timekeeper I’d been holding in my pocket and gave it a light to check the time. It was later in the day that I would have preferred to wake up on the date that we would finally be leaving the camp. I sighed as I got up, only to find that a guard’s outfit had been carefully laid out beside me.
Whoever did this, thank you.
After thanking the unknown person, I put on the guard outfit. It fit rather well, although the shirt felt a tad bit larger than I would have preferred. It was a buttoned, long sleeved shirt that was adorned in the browns and reds endemic of the Arlin empire. I put it on over my undershirt, leaving it unbuttoned. For some reason, having it like that felt right. When I walked outside, I nearly ran directly into the ass of a strig.
I panicked and stumbled back onto the dirt, narrowly avoiding getting my jaw kicked off by scaring the massive creature. I’d only dealt with a few strigs when I was young, but it was a well known adage that standing behind a strig was basically begging for one of its powerful hind legs to kick you. As I scrambled, I could hear Sera’s laugh. I turned up to find her sitting on the strig with a smug look on her face.
“Sorry North. Just testing out my new ride.”
I slowly got up to stand beside the creature. It was a massive animal, covered in autumn red fur and with powerful hooved legs. It had a long face, and its head was adorned with plentiful horns which snaked out like tree branches. Many of the branching horns held small straps for which people were to tie items to be held by the animal’s head. Its body was able to pull carts or wagons with ease or drag large plows to work fields. It was a massive, majestic beast upon which entire societies were built.
The strig turned its head to me and licked my face. Its rough tongue surprised me and caused me to stumble again. Sera giggled while I was attempting to internalize all of the things that had just happened to me in such a short period of time.
“Sera, why.”
“Because I wanted to see your reaction. She seems to like you.”
At least I kept my jaw.
“How did you even get on that thing with your leg?” Her leg was still very much broken and very much in a cast, which meant she had limited mobility. The strig was massive to the point where I’d have to make a large jump or use a stool to clamber onto its back on my own.
“Oh, Mell helped me. He’s the one who helped me learn how to ride her. You should go meet him.”
Mell?
“Yeah, sure. I’ll try to meet him when I can. Oh yeah, about Nicole’s supplies-”
“They’re fair. I mean, she's still taking from us but she didn’t take too much. I expect she was careful.”
I let the name Mell tumble through my head a bit, searching for a face to connect to the name while I wandered through the raided camp. It was looking a lot more barren as the buildings were looted and the carts that we were using had been filled up to make the journey as easy as possible. There was one other person who I needed to check on before I left. On the far side of the camp, standing near the entrance to the now caved in mine, was Nicole. She turned to me with a fake look of surprise.
“North! You don’t look half bad in that guard’s outfit. I presume you got word from the other Corithian.”
I nodded, standing next to her and looking at the pile of bodies that sat outside of the mine. There were bugs starting to surround them now and eat away at their flesh. Galen’s body, despite lacking a head and being put in an odd display with his limbs splayed out and hoisted into the air, was surprisingly untouched by nature.
Guess even nature thinks he’s an unsavory piece of shit.
“I got the news from her. I trust her opinion, so I’m going to put a slight bit of trust in you. You’re not taking any strigs or carts?” I asked her, taking a moment to turn away from the mine. The sight of it was starting to make me feel a bit off.
“Of course not. Unlike you, we’re avoiding roads. I must thank your cartographer. Her mapping skills are extremely good. She even gave me pointers on which villages I could run through or should avoid. She’ll be a great future asset for you. I’m sad she refused to join me, but you can’t have everything, can you?” She shrugged, turning around to look at the hustle and bustle of the camp. It was very true that she likely wanted Ruby and had some schemes to snatch her away from me, but her deal was strong enough to prevent that. “My group is ready to go, so we will likely be heading out very soon. This may be the last time I ever talk with you.”
There was a false sniffle of sadness done to taunt me.
“I pray that it is.”
Both of us laughed at the line. It was an honest statement on my end that I never hoped to run into the woman again in my life.
“North, you flatter me. I promise you, when the time comes for me to cash in my favor, I’ll be very careful with it. I’d hate for you to die before you can finish your little war. I care for your cause.”
I couldn’t keep myself from laughing again at her response. “I think that’s the first lie you’ve told directly to my face. I thought you were above such things, Nicole.”
Nicole gave me that classic noble smile.
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“You appear to be learning a bit. That’s good. You’re going to need it when you inevitably get dragged into the politics of your actions. I do hope you’re prepared to be the most hated person in the entire Arlin Empire.” Her tone had shifted. It was a genuine voice, even though it was hidden behind several layers of nobility. “I want to watch the Empire burn in your wake as it struggles to comprehend how its actions could come back to hurt it. So please, don’t die.”
Nicole wanted spectacle, and I was how she was going to get it. That was something I could deal with, because it aligned with my goals.
“Oh yeah, I have one question before we part ways.”
“Do tell.”
“What is embezzlement?”
Nicole paused in place. It was the first time I had seen genuine surprise from her. After a few seconds, she broke out into laughter at the statement, nearly falling over. I held firm, allowing her to enjoy the moment. After what felt like an hour, she finally turned up to look at me, wiping away a tear from her eye.
“Good luck North. You’re going to need it.”
Nicole wandered off into the camp to meet with her followers, still giggling.
I seriously wanted to know…
***
As we were packing the final few items, I spotted Sera talking with a familiar outline while on top of the strig. It was that extremely large person I had seen around the campfire the previous night. Sera spotted me and waved me over, a wide smile on her face.
“North! This is the Mell I was talking about. He’s the person who’s really good with strigs.”
The person who was named Mell nodded in response. His short black hair and soft facial features contrasted with his massive body which towered over my own. He almost looked like a physical manifestation of a strig, with his bulging muscles and long-ish face.
“Good day, sir. I’m just an expert with these things. Raised strigs since I was a kid.” Mell spoke in a rather mixed tone, although it was extremely polite.
“Were you a herder? Also, North is fine.”
Mell nodded. “Raised them alongside a few fragen. Was always really good with them, since I could handle them better than most.”
A few more physical details began to click in my mind. After studying him a bit, I realized that this was the person who was carrying around the logs for the funeral pyre with his bare hands. Although faint, I could hear footsteps come from behind me only to find Elm, standing by my side, also studying the massive herder in front of me.
“Out of curiosity, what is your attunement?” I asked, trying to figure out where his feats of strength may come from. Mell paused for a moment in response, putting a hand on his chin.
“None?”
Wait, what?
“You have aptitude, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“But you don’t have an attunement?”
“Yes sir.”
Something doesn’t add up. Also, didn’t I tell him not to call me sir?
Elm interjected just as I felt my head was about to split open.
“I know his type. He’s a rare one. People like him can’t transform mana or connect to one of the natural extensions of it, but they can still control the flow of it inside their own bodies. Ain’t seen too many of them though.” Elm spoke as though he was restating something he had researched in the past, which was likely because he had.
“So that means he can change the flow just inside of his body? What, does that mean he can change his natural state?”
Elm leaned over to me and patted me on the shoulder. “Let’s just say you don’t want to get into a fist fight with this fucker. Being able to control your flow means you can hit pretty damn hard and take a good amount of hits yourself.”
Mell nodded in response, although he seemed slightly unnerved at the mention of a fist fight.
“That’s correct. When I was working on the pastures, I sometimes had to lift the animals when they didn’t want to go places.”
He can lift strigs?
That was a horrifying mental image, but it did tell me that he would be of extremely good use.
“Thank you for helping Sera. I’ll make sure to come to you if we ever need some heavy lifting done.”
“You got it sir.”
Please stop calling me sir.
***
The items had all been packed and we were ready to go. Over half of the people in our group were wearing guard outfits, while the others were wearing a mix of undergarments from the guards and our slave outfits. Some people, such as Ruby, were unhappy with their choice of clothing. She had been attempting to put on one of the guard outfits, but her chest size had complicated matters. After an hour of fighting against several different shirts, she lamented and switched to a different outfit after being promised by one of the penal laborers that they would make the outfit easier for her to use once they had time to sew. Since fall was coming on, we brought with us the blankets from the guards' bunks to help us along with a lot of other supplies to keep us good at night. We’d take shifts between sleeping and watching over the group to make sure that we stayed safe at night, but the roads were generally safer from animals.
As we stood on the edge of the camp at the gate leading out into the unknown, I turned back to take in the sight. This blemish on the landscape that had been used by the empire was abandoned now. It would be unusable in the future due to the destruction that we’d done to the mine and all of the other facilities. I hoped that the forest would eventually retake it someday, but that future would come to pass after I was long gone.
I felt no nostalgia for it, but there was still some sting of pain. It was not a home, but it was a place where I met and bonded with a wide variety of people, all of whom stood by my side today and were willing to help me battle against the largest Empire in the world. The change was terrifying, but it was a change that I had to fully embrace. Without it, the empire could continue to commit its sins with no reproach.
I had to move on.
The sun was starting to go down in the sky. I turned to see many others sharing a similar experience to my own as they looked at the camp with wistful eyes. I needed to say something.
“Ex-Slaves of Arlin! Today we move forward, beyond this sinful place. You may look back, but do not worry. The future we create will be far more beautiful than this place could ever be. Now, let us march!”
A collective cheer came from the crowd. We moved forward, smiles on our faces and a hopeful fear in our hearts. I took the final step past the gate and into the world, walking past the edge of freedom. As the final men and women walked past the gates, I muttered a few words under my breath.
“I am free.”
I had no idea how fucked I was from the start.