After exchanging names, Kalen talked with Wellynd and Maurice for hours into the night. After each of them began to share their experiences of how they had fallen into their situation, Kalen began to understand more about the camp, and the group of soldiers who governed over it.

When it came time for Kalen to share his own story, the two boys had started to murmur and nod together.

“So essentially, though there’s some minor differences, you were basically roped into the ‘Imperial trick’.”

‘Imperial trick?’

Kalen immediately got confused.

“Trick? What do you mean?”

Wellynd coughed, seemingly searching for the words before recounting what he knew.

“Well, there’s a section of people here in camp that were led into slavery for more or less the same reason. Not only that, their stories all share similar events and circumstances.”

“What are those events?”

“Basically that, well, let me know if this sounds familiar: Your village is short on its harvest, for whatever reason, a Publicani, or a tax collector, has come to the village, and you can’t pay. The soldiers with him make a motion of casually idling in the village while you scramble to collect the tax, and after a certain amount of time is up, say an hour, the payment is all amassed only to find something is wrong with it.”

The concept dawned upon Kalen as he slowly nodded.

“Well, that’s the Imperial trick. The Publicani and his soldiers didn’t come to your village with actually collecting a tribute in mind, but slaves. No matter what you presented, they were always going to find a problem with it, and from there they would fill their quota of slaves with whoever was in your village. As far as we know, they’ve done it exactly like this in every village they’ve crossed for the past month, as it's been successful in gathering far more slaves for them than their past methods.”

‘How long have these two been here?’

“So it’s all a trick? Then why choose us? What does the Empire want with an old man and a child like my sister?”

As Kalen said that, Maurice’s eyes widened slightly and Wellynd seemed to sit up a bit straighter in the light of the bonfire.

“You said an old man? Well, that’s unfortunate…”

Wellynd cupped his chin in thought. Several considerations appeared to be running through his head as Kalen looked at the boy for answers.

“Why? What does it mean?”

Kalen looked at Wellynd and Maurice. Was there something significant about the old man?

After a moment, Wellynd spoke up again. His face was more serious than it had been while merely listening to Kalen’s story.

“I should say first, that the Empire doesn’t want anything with an old man or a child like your sister. Part of the trick of the armored Publicani and his men coming to your village is the facade of an authority being present, but you should know that the men of this camp have nothing to do with the Empire itself. All of their armor was either bought used or looted. What they are in reality is a private company of mercenaries called the Eagles, and they specialize in slave trafficking.”

The revelation came as a shock to Kalen. A tremor of outrage suddenly sprang from his chest and out his mouth.

“They’re not soldiers then?! Then what they’re doing is illegal, right? They had no right to demand tribute!”

Wellynd sat back and sighed, shaking his head.

“While it was illegal for them to demand tribute from any of the Empire’s villages, holding us as slaves isn’t illegal in itself. Slavery is still allowed in a majority of the Empire’s provinces, and the chance of anyone being able to prove that we were acquired as slaves illegally is next to zero. The word of a peasant villager, or even that of a whole village, is practically mute next to that of an Imperial noble or anyone wealthy enough to buy us. Once we are sold, no one will even bother looking into it.”

Kalen grabbed his hair in frustration, reminding himself for the first time in a while he wasn’t wearing his gloves anymore. The guards had taken them away. Luckily he had made sure not to touch others during that time, but it brought his curse to mind.

‘Could I use it? Make the guards around me sick and then escape with Layla?’

Kalen shook his head. If only it were that simple. The amount of time he suspected it would take to incapacitate a guard with his curse via contact would be more than enough for them to beat him to death.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The hope of escape vanished from his mind.

“Then what about the old man, why is it significant he was taken as well?”

Kalen spoke dryly. After knowing his future, he cared less about the matter. Still, it might be important to know.

Wellynd continued his explanation all the same.

“Well, for whatever reason, Maurice and I have noticed that every time the Eagles start to take in old slaves in large quantities, the camp’s caravan also prepares to make the trek to the cities for sales. Before meeting you, we talked with seven others who arrived with old men and women in their groups.”

“So, soon enough. It’s likely that a portion of us will be taken from here to be sold.”

…

Kalen stewed in that revelation for the time it took Ayana to come back. She took one look at the new additions of Wellynd and Maurice before situating herself between Kalen and them.

The boys looked like they wanted to ask if she was part of Kalen’s group, but just as they were about to open their mouths again, the beat of a drum rang out across the pit.

BADUM BUM BUM

Every slave in the area turned toward the noise. As by now it was later into the night, the beat of the drum had awoken those few who felt tired enough to fall asleep.

“Everybody listen up!”

Kalen looked toward the man speaking. By the edge of the tents, there was an area lit up by standing torches, just on the precipice of being within the pit. There, the man Kalen recognized from earlier as Lars was shouting to them.

The noise of the drums died, as Lars spoke to all of the slaves.

“Everyone listening? Good. Standing here before you is the leader of the Eagles Company, here to announce what the future will hold for many of you come tomorrow morning!”

The man had to shout to be heard above the crowd of slaves. Because as soon as he had neared the end of his sentence, a rumbling of the crowd’s wails and confusion had drowned out his words.

As Lars introduced the leader of the Eagles, Kalen looked next to the man, only to find a giant standing there.

Under the light of the torches was a tall muscular man, standing a full head taller than Lars next to him. Long black hair was draped down from his head, over his shoulders and back like the mane of a lion. Even more distinctly, was his lack of armor. It revealed his arms and upper body muscles that looked like they could bend iron, and along the surface of them, crawling black lines that curved like flames and bent at sharp points.

“Wellynd, what are those? Why does he have…tattoos?”

Kalen looked to the boy next to him, only to find him standing in shock. He heard a gulp from across the fire.

“Inscriptions! Verma. This is the first time I’ve seen the leader. I didn’t know he had them! Everything makes so much more sense now!”

There was a clear tone of fright in Wellynd’s voice, but for a moment, Kalen thought he could hear something else.

‘Appreciation? Envy? No, that can’t be it. But why does it sound like he feels those things?’

Kalen looked toward the other boy. Maurice had gone silent and Ayana seemed just as confused as he was. Kalen rose up from the crowd as he tried to figure out what Wellynd was talking about.

And in the next moment, the leader suddenly made a move.

“SILENCE!”

The giant of a man shouted at the crowd.

With a grand motion, he spread his hands forward as the etched lines scrawled along his body roared to life with red light.

Every inch of his exposed skin suddenly began to burn brighter and exude a crimson glow that extended several feet around him like a haze.

FWOOOOM

The red light passed over the part of the crowd nearest to the man.

Less than a second later, it made its effects known.

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!”

In an instant, the row of the crowd closest to the leader fell back as the glow passed over them.

The air started to warp and wave as the red light passed through it. The people affected choked as the moisture of their skin was plied away.

Flesh and hair fell from the places where it had once been rooted.

Finger and toe nails cracked and slid off as if they had never been affixed.

Eyeballs shrunk, or otherwise popped in their sockets as they were drained of liquid.

The crowd of people writhed, as they clamored over each other to run sightlessly away from the scorching light.

But as the tendons and tissue connecting their muscles dissolved into mush, they could find no power with which to move.

Even their screams were silenced as their throats lost the moisture to open, and their bodies the ability to feel pain. Yet not nearly soon enough.

The hissing sound of hot air continued on as the charred forms of the slaves dropped to their knees. Blackened and soundless, they became indistinguishable from the dirt below them as they fell.

Like everyone not caught in the light, Kalen bore witness to it all, terrified into silence before the light retreated in a blink of an eye. Just as quickly as it had come.

Kalen looked on in stupor as the red lines across the leader’s body lost their glow and faded back into a dormant black state.

His mind too frightened and exhausted by the display of supernatural might that Kalen didn’t even have the time to think about what he had seen before the leader started talking again.

With a clap of his hands, as if to erase dust that had accumulated there, the giant spoke.

“Alright, now that everyone’s attention is where it should be, let me start…

…You’re all being sold tomorrow.”