Most of us were shuffled off back into the tent after that. Two of the other slaves I didn’t know were held behind by the guards, though. The last thing I saw before the tent closed behind me were knives being given to the disturbingly eager slaves.

Once inside, we self-segregated again. Me, Bleddyn, and Walter settled into a corner, while the other three slaves spread out and began giving each other distrustful looks.

Bleddyn was the first to speak. “That sick fucker,” He growled. “How does he think he’s goin’ ta get away with this?”

I sighed. “Easily, I’m guessing,” I said resentfully. “He gets away with all kinds of shit. Who’s going to stop him?”

Bleddyn just glowered at the tent wall, roughly in the direction Magnus might be. He didn’t say anything, though. He knew I was right.

My attention was stolen by motion out of the corner of my eye. Turning my head to face it, I found Walter shaking in fear. The poor kid seemed like he was about to start crying. He looked up at me from where he was sitting on the floor. “W-w-what am I supposed to do, Mr. Hart?” He managed to stutter out. “I-I’ve never fought anyone in my l-life. I’ve o-only killed a few monsters before.”

Bleddyn’s head snapped around to fix on Walter. He spoke before I could. “Survive, boy. That’s all you can do. Those others,” He said, jerking his head at one of the other slaves. “They actually want this. They’ve been broken by their brand, and now they’ll kill whoever they need to for an easier life.”

I took a deep breath before crouching down to meet Walter’s eyes. “He’s right, Walter,” I said, gentler than Bleddyn. “None of us would need to do this in a perfect world. None of us-”

I was interrupted by a surprising number of cheers erupting from the spectators outside the tent. I glowered off into thin air at the noise. It sure didn’t take them long to get over their discomfort with Magnus’s latest scheme. “None of us,” I continued when the noise died down. “Deserve this. It’s not right, but when you get called out there, make sure you defend yourself.”

Walter stared at me with a bloodless visage before jerkily nodding his head. “I-I’ll try.” He whispered.

I didn’t get the chance to speak again, as the tent flap was raised by one of the guards. Stepping back into the tent was one of the slaves that must have been fighting, covered in blood.

He wasn’t followed by the other one.

The blood-splattered slave didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he slunk into the tent. Bleddyn spat off to the side as the slave passed us, shuffling off to an isolated section of the tent to be alone.

One of the guards stepped into the tent with a satisfied smirk. “Made five gold off of that one,” he said jovially, letting his eyes rove across the slaves of the tent. I tensed as his eyes fell on our group. With a smirk, he pointed at one of us. Dread pooling in my stomach, I followed it to Walter.

“You, boy.” The guard said smugly. “You’re next.”

Walter looked up at me with terrified eyes. He started trembling harder from his position on the floor. Meanwhile, I heard the guard pick another person out of the other slaves. I didn’t turn to see who though, I just laid a comforting hand on Walter’s shoulder. Slowly, I felt a deep well of furious resentment rise up from deep within me. Over the top of Walter, I met Bleddyn’s eyes. I could tell how much he hated this as well, from the full-on teeth-bared snarl on his face. I took a deep breath and tried to put a comforting look on my face. With Bleddyn’s help, we both kneeled down and got Walter onto his feet, from a hand under each of his arms. Once he was up, I clapped both of my hands down on his shoulders and met his eyes with an intense stare.

“You can do this, Walter,” I said lowly. “Magnus never said anything about killing, for once. I think you just have to fight to submission. You can do this. I believe in you.”

Bleddyn nodded on the other side of Walter. “Give ‘em hell, boy.” He said gruffly.

Walter tried to smile at us but only ended up grimacing. He didn’t get the chance to speak.

“Now, boy,” The guard said, annoyed. He hadn’t moved from his position at the tent entrance, even as the other slave slunk by him. I shot him a dirty look. Perhaps fortuitously, I didn’t get the chance to say anything to him before Walter started to tremblingly walk past him and approach the guard. Once he’d passed the guard, he turned around and mouthed something at us before the flap closed.

‘Thank you.’

Walter disappeared from view.

………………………………………

Shortly after, I heard Magnus smugly give the order for the fight to start. Now that I was listening for it, I could hear the sound of shuffling sound of feet and the grunts of the fighters. Only barely though, as it was nearly drowned out by the boos and jeers of the watching dwarven spectators.

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I couldn’t stop myself from pacing in the tent after Walter left. I was listening as hard as I was able to, but I wasn’t able to keep track of the fight very well purely through sound. I could tell that Bleddyn was trying to as well, and strangely, I think he was able to follow it more closely than I was. I thought it was odd, considering how I was the one with a secretly active Status, and thus a more active Perception Virtue, but I didn’t get the chance to think on it more deeply.

The crowd suddenly erupted into an explosion of cheers and boos as they had earlier. The fight must be over…

Both Bleddyn and I turned to stare at the entrance of the tent in tense silence. I knew it was wrong of me to hope that Walter had won, and possibly killed another man, but I couldn’t help it. He was just a teenager, dammit.

The flap suddenly opened, revealing the winner of the bout. I felt dread pool in my stomach at the sight of who it was.

It wasn’t Walter.

Instead, it was one of the older slaves, covered in a spray of blood. I lurched forward, unsure of what I was even intending to do before a guard walked into the tent dragging something.

This time, it was Walter.

The guard was dragging him by an arm, leaving a trail of blood behind him. I didn’t get a better look at Walter before the guard bodily threw the teen at Bleddyn and me. We just barely managed to get our arms up in time in order to cushion his fall. I think the only reason I didn’t stagger from the weight was because of Bleddyn. Hurriedly, we set him on the ground to look him over. I took in a sharp breath of air at what we found, while Bleddyn cursed under his breath.

There was a kitchen knife buried up to the hilt in Walter’s stomach.

Fuck.

Walter was still alive, if barely. He was gazing blankly at the tent ceiling above while he bled out on the dirt beneath us. I don’t even know if he was aware of us hovering over him. Short, sharp breaths marked by a wheezing noise told me that this wasn’t a minor injury at all.

I don’t think he had long.

Panicking slightly, I looked around the tent another time to see if there was anything that we could use as a field dressing. I wasn’t expecting these bastards to have left a convenient potion laying around, but no. There was nothing in the tent but a bunch of unfortunate slaves. There wasn’t even any water to wash the wound with.

Bleddyn caught my attention with a hard punch to my shoulder, knocking me out of my panic. “Nate,” He hissed at me under his breath. “Do what I trained you for.” He made a cupping motion with his hands.

I gazed at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before realization struck me. When it did, I gaped at him. “Are you serious,” I hissed back, aware of the guard selecting the other two slaves that hadn’t fought yet. “I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s not the same as a small cut on your arm.”

“You have to try,” Bleddyn furiously whispered at me. “You’re the only chance the boy has.”

Goddamnit, he was right. Aetherial Melding was the only chance Walter had of living through this. Surgery using it was hard, but it was theoretically possible. The most first aid I’d ever done with a meld was stitch together small cuts. I made a sound of intense frustration, aware of the eyes of the other slave on us.

“Fine,” I whispered to Bleddyn. “Make sure nobody can see what I’m doing. I’ll give it a shot.” Exchanging nods, Bleddyn stood up halfway to hunch over our position, hiding the view of Walter and me as much as he could with his body.

Taking a deep breath, I thought of what I needed to do first. I’d need something to stitch the wound closed, first. I didn’t have the luxury of nice, clean suture thread, so I’d have to make my own. Reaching up, I ripped the right sleeve off of my shirt. It wasn’t hard, as the material wasn’t extremely strong. But that would work for my purposes. Concentrating with the sleeve cupped between my palms, I entered into the trance I needed to manipulate Aether for a meld.

Once I had a grasp on the Aether, I got to work. What I needed to do wasn’t hard. I was going to break down the cloth of the sleeve into individual strings that I could use to bind the wound, and whatever internal damage there was, back together. This type of suture wasn’t ideal for internals and would likely stick around inside him, but hopefully, I’d be able to just dissolve it later on if he healed with another meld. I’d just have to hope Walter hadn’t lost too much blood yet to die from that.

It didn’t take me long, and when I was done there was a large pile of white linen string laying in my lap. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, aware of a small amount of strain. I’d rushed that part, as I wanted to save the largest amount of my concentration for what was coming next.

I needed to remove the knife.

I was going to have to work the fastest I’d ever had with a meld. If I didn’t, Walter would likely die from blood loss while I was trying to save his life. “All right,” I whispered to myself, aware of Bleddyn watching my every move. “Let’s do this.”

Reaching down, I yanked the knife out of Walter’s gut as swiftly and as cleanly as I could, in order to minimize any more damage. Walter cried out weakly at the movement, becoming more aware from the spike of pain. He looked down at me with dazed eyes, as I cupped my hands around the large stab wound and concentrated fiercely to re-enter my trance. Feebly, he reached down to swipe at my hands, too weak from blood loss to understand what was going on. “No…” He trailed off.

Not opening my eyes, I spoke. “Hold him down, Bleddyn,” I said lowly. I heard Bleddyn shift above me, but I couldn’t see what he was doing. I was too busy feeling out the wound with my Aetherial sense.

It wasn’t great.

The knife had entered him just below his stomach. And as I feared, it had caused more than just muscular damage inside. From what I could tell, it had missed his small intestine and instead penetrated right into his large intestine. Thankfully, from what I could tell, it was mostly empty at the moment, so nothing was leaking out of it that would cause sepsis other than blood. For once, the trend of not feeding slaves much had worked in our favor. Still, I’d need to stitch together both Walter’s large intestine, as well as the wound on his abdomen.

Carefully reaching down and making sure not to lose my concentration, I grabbed my makeshift suture with blood-soaked hands. Bringing the thread to the wound and concentrating harder than I ever had in my life, I got to work.