“Well … basically that’s the whole story.” Leo woke up and heard Lana’s weak voice nearby. She was currently lying on a large pelt and resting head on Anna’s thigh, “Afterwards he carried me here while on the way feeding fresh blood of different beasts, mostly hares though.”
His vision was slightly blurry and he missed the complicated look she threw his way, but he realized they were all gathered around the campfire in a forest like they used to do. Apparently he had passed out and Lana just finished telling the story of their escape.
“How stupid can the guards be?” Una snorted, “Dozens on training grounds, a bunch guarding your cell and who knows how many in the city and all failed to notice a small male-slave!”
“… he got lucky …” Lana sighed, but Leo finally had enough.
After freeing her he kind of hoped for the change in attitude, but they were still taking him for a slave. If until Seda, the first city they visited, he didn’t know what it meant, then after Kinta he knew better than anyone else.
Everyone saw him suddenly get up, but the next moment the faces of the seven women instantly turned ugly hearing what he said.
“What in the world is wrong with you?” Leo barked at Una, but at the same at the rest as well, “Male-slave here, male-slave there … I’m people! Just like you! And even after I saved one of you, you still consider me to be a lower being or something! F*ck it! I quit! Have a nice life!”
The first thing that stupefied everyone apart from Lana was how fluent he was in their dialect, but what he said made most angry in an instant.
When Leo turned his back intending to walk away, few squad members already had hands on their weapons, but what happened next shocked them even more.
“Leo, wait!” Lana weakly said, “Don’t be rash! Tell me … what do you want?”
Leo was stunned no less than the rest. Just because he woke up in a bad mood and having a headache, with a couple of sentences he broke three of his own sacred rules and immediately realized he was taking the last steps of his life. Now, of course, since someone stretched out branch to pull him from the depths of hell he was about to fall in, he was not going to refuse it.
“I’m sorry.” He said awkwardly scratching the back of his head, “You know I come from a place far away and things are different there. But I’ve always taken a good care of you, cooked for you and even washed you, but for some reason you think of me as this weak and disgusting being you call a ‘male-slave’. Why? Just because my lower parts are a bit different? So what? Do you think I saved Lana because of some kind of devotion to the master? To hell with that! I could’ve ran off by myself and survived just fine – ask her, she’ll tell you. I saved her because I like her as a person – she is incredibly strong and smart woman whom I respect because of her abilities, not because of the gender! … just like the rest of you! … but you … sigh …”
“So … what do you want?” Lana repeated, but this time with a weak smile. For some reason she liked what he just said.
“I … I want you to teach me how to become as strong as you.” Leo said after a slight hesitation, “And I want you to accept me as if I was a young girl – to be one of you! Of course, I’ll continue to cook for you if you want to. I like my own food as well, you know?”
“Alright!” Lana said surprising the rest once again, “You’ll become an official member of our squad, but under two conditions. First, you will obey my orders just like the rest and the second – when we’ll meet outsiders, you’ll play the role of our weak male-slave. We might have a use for such tactical advantage.”
“Deal!” Leo didn’t hesitate and immediately agreed, but then turned around and walked away again.
“Why is he still leaving?” Anna inadvertently mumbled.
“I’m not leaving! I’ll go catch a fish or two! Lana needs something healthy to eat!” Leo laughed and few moments later the seven women heard him jumping in the river. He was back in a good mood and actually did intend to make a soup.
After a brief moment of silence, Ruta sighed and said, “Care to explain?”
Lana shrugged, but the painful expression on her face told she was far from being ok.
“He’s a bit different.” She said, “My theory is that he was supposed to be born as a woman. Let’s be lenient with him for a while – he did save me after all.”
“Fine with me.” Ruta nodded, “How long do we have?”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Actually this was the most pressing matter, but when Lana woke up, Anna insisted on hearing her story first. Now it was finally time to think about solving their situation.
“Leo was quite fast and him on the way getting lost on few occasions actually might’ve bought us some extra time.” Lana said, “My guess is we have four to five day handicap.”
“So that means we need to leave tomorrow.” Una sounded serious, “You were out for two days.”
“Mhm.” Lana nodded, “But it’s fine … Justina probably leads them. She was the one who recognized me in Kinta.”
“Justina? That damned traitor!” Tia punched the ground angrily, “She knows us too well – we need to hurry!”
“Exactly the opposite.” Ruta smiled, “Because she knows us well, from the moment Lana got here we’re actually safe. Of course, we’ll need to sweat a bit, but it’s fine.”
“I’ll leave it to you. Wake me up when the dinner is ready.” Lana said and immediately closed her eyes, falling asleep. Even giving the brief summary of what happened took a lot of strength and during the last one and a half months sitting on Leo’s back she almost didn’t recover at all.
“Ok, Ruta! You’re the smart one, explain – why are we safe and what we’re supposed to do?” Una asked the question that everyone had in mind.
“It’s simple.” Ruta shrugged, “If there was a squad that managed to keep up with them the whole time, it can’t be too big – twenty people at most. Even if they all are top experts, from now on already catching up to us is almost impossible to not speak about defeating our group if we are expecting an attack.”
“So we’ll just leave?” Tia asked.
“No, we need to make it a bit harder for them. We’ll build a raft and it’ll be obvious we left on it, but they will never know when or if we began to travel on foot again. If it’s Justina or any other person having a common sense, they’ll give up.” Ruta explained.
“Alright! What do we do?” Vita asked and got up.
“Let’s chop some trees!” Rita grinned in return.
When Leo climbed out the water, the camp had turned into a complete chaos with everyone but Lana busy chopping trees and cutting branches.
Snickering to himself about the fact that he didn’t need that much firewood he made a longer loop and searched the vicinity for usable roots and sprouts and afterwards cleaned the fish he caught earlier. A while later the pleasant aroma of the fish soup forced everyone to gather at the campfire again and, after the big pot was emptied, Leo was informed of their plans formally making him part of the team, at least for now.
Before the group departed early next morning, there was another semi-secret deal made.
When Anna told Leo her intention to sign up him for arena when they got back ‘home’, the sly boy agreed under the condition she will put all her effort into training him. Then she demanded he would have to continue to serve her just like before – apparently the girl enjoyed to be a fancy dame and a male-slave owner too much. After some struggle Leo managed to barter the price down to only washing and drying her and both parties came out as winners, although the boy had to suppress the ecstasy caused by expectations of touching her all over once again.
It died down naturally few moments later, when after eighty three days apart he picked up the Cleaver once again and realized another rune formation has gone out doubling its weight for the third time since his arrival to Dreadlands. Fortunately running with Lana on his back for so many days worked as a form of pseudo training and Leo didn’t exactly die under the Cleaver’s weight although his shaky steps were noticed by the others who fortunately translated it as him being still exhausted after the long travel.
The group went down Mizibi great river for half a day and stepped on a solid ground after midday. They continued for three days towards the south-west and few days later found a nice cave to settle down for two months until Lana more or less fully recovered under her sister’s care.
Meanwhile Leo’s schedule consisted of training, cooking, eating and sleeping which he found rather acceptable. After being on the run for almost two months he finally felt his strength increasing once again with the Cleaver getting slightly lighter every time he woke up.
He continued to experiment with cooking since in the wild, besides washing Anna, it was the only hobby he could have. Obviously there was nothing better to do and all three archers Una, Tia and Nina volunteered to supply him with meat of all kind that was found in the surrounding forests and when the squad left southwards before the first snow fell, the only wildlife that was left in the vicinity were only smaller birds and critters.
Lana and Ruta were right – the pursuers gave up the moment they realized the chances of catching the fugitives became close to zero and the group could leisurely travel southwards.
With the winter approaching the days grew colder and nights longer, but the further south they went, the milder the climate became. The most distinct change was after crossing a taller mountain range when the seemingly endless pine forests were replaced by deciduous trees like birches and oaks, but another month later they were already marching through bamboo groves signifying their arrival to Livania kingdom.
To Leo, of course, it didn’t matter much, but the seven women claimed they were finally ‘back’ and unknowingly increased their speed like horses after a long journey feeling the closeness to home. While he could tell the cardinal directions from the movement of the sun, somehow they confidently found their way through the jungle and high grass savanna as if there was a beacon somewhere calling them.
When they stepped on a sandy beach at the ocean they called ‘the White sea’, it was decided to rest for a few days and the time was spent mostly swimming, eating and sleeping.
For Leo it turned out to be a torture though. During the half year they spent together, Anna had already noticed how good of a swimmer he was and finally asked him to teach her to what the boy immediately agreed expecting another euphoric experience. Unfortunately he was forced to realize that this exercise for some reason was much more exciting than he would’ve liked and spending days with her in the water gave him almost a permanent erection.
Fortunately he had enough common sense to battle the urge to hump the girl and blamed everything on the ‘stupid apes’ and their patriarch who had traumatized him for life, turning him into some kind of a sick animal. The situation was partially solved by him never taking off leather pants even though it was inconvenient and hot, but at least he didn’t loose his life. His eyes and hands though were free to enjoy the once in the lifetime experience – something he would never forget.