I am sitting in a carriage that looks like a prison. Bars of steel and guards accompany me, and my fellow slaves. I feel miserable and there is a horrid smell from all of us sitting inside the cage. There are 9 other humans with me. I am the only elf in this band of slaves. Many of these people have not seen elves before, we are a rarity in the human lands, so I am treated as an outsider even amongst the slaves. At least the food I get is a bit better than the scraps they are fed, this however makes the gap between us even larger as I get “Special” treatment.
I was captured while playing with my friends near the enchanted forest edge. A man named Bryce caught me and forced me into this cage, as per him I am to be sold to some wealthy noble in Valeria, wherever that is, I don’t know much about the human world and I never really cared. I have not actually gone to school yet. Not that it matters though as from now on I will be a slave, I do know that once an elf makes an oath of servitude, we cannot break it, this was set by our creator to set us apart from everyone else. Heavens know why he would punish us like this.
The carriage bumps extra hard over a rock and I yelp, my body is sore from the rough treatment, and my behind of the hard wood of the carriage, every little bump is sorely felt, a guard looks at me and grins, he says something, but I do not know the language at men. It is obvious that he is laughing at my misery. I ignore him and look around, we are traveling on a dirt road, there are trees on the sides, but they don’t have the life in them like our trees do, it’s the first time I come across trees that are dead inside. The road is well travelled, there are quite a few travellers that we pass. Most ignore us as no one cares to look at slaves. They are supposed to be in the background, unnoticed.
Night came, and we were given food through and opening in the cage. I got a hard piece of bread, some yellow stuff and the same soup the guards were eating. The rest of the slaves got soup only. I never tasted this yellow stuff or bread before I was captured, it tastes amazing! Though it is quite hard. We Elves know about bread, it is one of the precious commodities we trade for in the human towns. But this yellow stuff is something else entirely.
My tongue tingles when I remember the taste. A guard watches me eat and tries to talk to me but I ignore him. I feel his hand on my shoulder and yelp in surprise moving to the other side of the cage. The guard tries to smile which I guess is to make me feel at ease but it does not work. He points to himself and says, “Lucio!” then he points at me. I have no Idea why a guard would want to give me his name, but these humans are not to be trusted. As I have not received any other orders from Master Bryce but to stay in the wagon, I am free to do what I want.
But I see no need to give my elven name to this person, so I give him the only female human name I know, “Emilia” I said, pointing to myself. This was the name of the human queen that brought an end to the war between us and the human’s centuries ago, not that the humans would ever remember. He continued talking to me and I looked at him. Humans look so weird with their round ears. I am not fond of the look. Soon he got tired and left me to sit at the fire with his friends and eat his own food. A fire was made at both sides of our wagons, both to keep an eye on us, the “stock” and to provide warmth.
The slaves bundled up closer as it became colder. With the exception of me of course, Ostracized as I am. But I deal with it, I am an elf, I am above this pettiness. I keep myself distracted by looking around, humans struggle to see at night, but I do not have any such problems, not that they needed to know that though.
Travel was rather uneventful, thanks to the fact that we have a lot of guards. I’m guessing that’s not the norm as I saw many carts pass by us with little to no guards. Our Guards number at about 20, and 6 wagons in total. After almost two weeks of travelling a different smell is in the air, it’s not something I know at all. Some of the guards visibly relaxed. I heard the word Ocean repeated a few times by excited guards. I’m guessing that we are nearing our destination.
Late in the day we came in sight of a HUGE city. My opinion may not count for much as I have not even been to our elven Capital, but I have not seen or heard of a city this big! The walls disappeared in the distance, you would not be able to walk that distance in a day. This is the first city I have ever seen and I have to say this is amazing! It looks like the city was built on a gentle sloping hill with the wall on the outside and smaller houses close to it, with bigger houses the closer you get to the centre. The fact that you could see the houses was testament to how big the hill is, wait, should that not be a mountain then? I focus on the wall again, huge towers were spaced every 200 meters or so on the wall, it is not a circular wall but seemed to follow the flow of the land. Glancing to my right I saw the biggest lake I have ever seen, my eyes felt like they would pop out of their sockets. Big rafts with houses floated on the water.
It took about an hour to get to the gate of city, colourful banners hung down the walls next to the gate. I had to lean back to see the top of the wall, it looked impossibly tall. No one can climb this I thought. Our excuse for a wall was nothing compared to this monstrosity. Our group was stopped by the guards at the gate. They have impressive looking armour. I have never seen so much metal on a person. Only the eyes, and mouth was open. The nose was covered by a hawk like plate with the mouth part open. The helmets also had Iron wings on the side where the ears are, going straight up in a 90-degree angle with 4 lines in the wing heading back. It did not look like the guards were in any discomfort. The guards that are with our caravan wore leather armour, helmets and boots.
We elves use wooden armour, specially grown from our trees. Though not as strong as steel we rely on our skill with weapons, and lithe bodies, to evade as well as our shields to parry blows. So the iron these humans wear are foreign to me. Most of our warriors know the weak spots of the iron armour, as they wiped the floor with the humans in most of the battles fought, this was if I was being fair mostly due to the difference in lifespans, we trained for many years before being ready for war, whereas the humans only lived for about that long. I break from my thoughts as it is our turn to be inspected.
The guards glanced over the list of goods that the caravan master gave him and did an inspection of the slaves. You have and elf!? One of the guards exclaimed looking at me in wonder. “Yes, and she is going to the lord of the castle.” The caravan master replied. The guards all stared at me in wonder. Most of them seeing and elf for the first time. After a few minutes we went through the gate. I heard many voices and unknown sounds coming from the city. A loud clang every now and then, MANY voices shouting about something, and then also amazing smells that had my mouth watering assaulted my nose. All the new sounds and smells confused me greatly and I retreat to the safety of the slaves in our cage, but I get pushed away roughly by the man I got close to and hit the bars with a clang. Fortunately, I hit it with my shoulder which hurts! But it is not my head at least. I keep to a corner of the cage trying to make myself as small as possible.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
We moved down the main street on a cobbled road heading to the palace of this city. It is huge, with many towers, the walls form a circle shape. It took almost 20 minutes to get close to the palace, roads to the palace was wide and in very good condition. Many people travelled on the road, but there is enough space for everyone. I could see strange arrows pointing down from the towers once we got closer. Strange because I have never seen arrows as big as that. The amount of guards increased as we got closer to the palace, the houses on the side also became bigger and more lavish. I saw some people with an iron band around their neck. I am guessing those are the slaves. There is a niche where a rope or chain can be fastened. We elves abhor iron, it is lifeless, what will happen to me? Will I also have that around my neck? I started fretting and was not paying attention until we got in front of the palace gate.
As with everything else in this amazing but evil place, it is also made of iron, the walls, about half as tall as the outer walls circle the palace grounds. We are stopped by guards in silver armour with Gold linings on the edges of every plate where the armour joins, the wings on their helmets are also gold. One of them leaves and disappears into the palace. We wait for what felt like forever before the Palace guard returned, A man with ornate Purple clothes returned with him, his robe moving slightly as he walked. This person is completely different from all the other humans I have met. Before they get close the door to our cell gets unlocked and I hear the jingle of the keys as it swings open with a creak. A guard prods the slaves back with a spear, I hear shouting and take a moment to notice that master is calling me, he motioned me to get out of the cage, my body moved automatically the oath I made forcing me to take action based on what I understand. The guard helps me down the wagon and moved with me to the golden guards. Master followed close behind.
Master greeted the man in purple with a bow, the rest of the guards following his example. I was not commanded to do anything so just stood there. They conferred in low voices and the man in Purple walked over to me. He inspected me visually and I squirmed under his gaze. I am being evaluated as a thing, not as a person. I feel very humiliated but stood still as master ordered. The man opened my mouth and checked my teeth. Eventually he stepped back looking satisfied and spoke to my master.
The man leaves and enters the palace again, I notice the guards whispering to each other and looking at me. As I said, elves are a novelty. After a few minutes he returned and spoke to who I assume is the captain. The captain shouted something and the guards saluted and made themselves scarce. The captain also left, leaving our caravan with the man in purple robes. Master grabbed my arm and approached the man, who gave master a bag which clinked as master grabbed hold of it. Master took his hand off me and opened the bag, his face lit up and he shook hands with the man.
He came to me and motioned the other man to stand next to him, the man from the palace said some words and I felt a strange feeling coming over me. I could feel my master, not in a physical sense, but more like I could feel his presence, I could feel his excitement and understand his thoughts! “Emilia, you will now be transferred to a new master. Swaer yourself to him now.” His command rang into my thoughts. I looked at the new man unable to stop myself and said in elvish. “I swear to obey any command given and will do my utmost until death to fulfil them. As was specified by the creator by my oath will I stand.” I felt the connection to my master sever and felt a new presence. The first thing I feel is curiosity. “Can you understand me elf?” the question resounds in my head. I nodded unable to reply in my head.
He spoke to my old master and shook hands again. “Follow me” my master commanded and I followed him, I could not help but look back at what was my whole world for the last month. Everything I know was changing again. We walked through a beautiful garden, I could not stop looking at all the different plants and flowers. I know many plants and flowers but there are way more here than what I have knowledge of.
We took a small path branching off from the main path and walked through the garden. I could not stop looking at the scenery. The walls are on my left, the towers made the trees look like small plants, the trees were still dead though, not the living ones like in our forest. After a little while we came to a small door which my master opened and stepped through. I followed him and delicious scents immediately filled my nose. I could not stop my mouth from watering. We entered a place where many people were making food. An involuntary rumble came from my tummy. My master turned around with an amused expression, “Are you hungry little one?” I nodded my head vehemently and he smiled, Master called a big woman over and spoke to her while pointing at me. The woman took one look at me and before I knew it she caught me in an embrace, I struggled at first shocked that she would suddenly just grab me, but I calmed down after I realised she would not hurt me.
She let me go from the hug and I took a step back, this was the first time I felt like a person in a long time. Master introduced her as Rita, one of the cooks in the royal kitchens. She smiled at me and said something, but I could not understand. Master said something again and she left, she was back shortly with a plate of delicious looking food. She handed master the plate and bowed.
My master gave me the plate and commanded me to follow him once again. I ate as we walked. I felt like I was in heaven with this food, it almost made the awful trip worth it, almost. There was some bread again, it can’t be the same as what my old master gave me, this was soft and fluffy and had yellow stuff on it that melted in my mouth! Ahhhhhhhhhh I said out loud. Master looked at me and laughed. “Enjoy it young one, unfortunately this will not be happening often, you will be handed over to the prince as his personal servant, He is not known to be kind to slaves, but you should be ok as you are not the normal slave. Know that you can always come to me if you need anything.” Uh-oh. That did not sound good to me. But as an oath sworn there is nothing I can do.
We took many passages, colourfully decorated with flowers and weird looking people most of them were missing their lower half of their body. Did they hang the bodies there as a warning? There is no smell of rot though. I looked at them in shock, master noticed my look and laughed loudly, I looked at him in confusion. After his fit of laughter, he told me that these were paintings, made of something called canvas and paint, they were not real humans. I felt really stupid for thinking they were alive.
A while later we came to another door. This was a big wooden one with a Golden Crown displayed on each half of the door. A huge knocker shaped like a crown is fit close to the handle. Many paintings depicting humans in full armour adorned the wall. A guard stood across the passage and saluted Master. Before I could think further, I was ushered in the room. A boy is playing in the room with small statues. Most of them are broken. He has brown hair and is dressed as lavishly as master, the difference being that he is also wearing a crown.
My master said something and bowed to the boy. The boy looked up and looked excited to see me. He has beautiful green eyes, I smiled, glad to see someone of around my age. He does not look like too bad of a person. “This will be your new master young one” Said masters voice in my head. “Do not upset him, he breaks things that he does not like, try to always stay in his good graces.” I nodded my head. Master said something to the prince and he eagerly stood closer to me next to master.
“Swear yourself to your new master Emilia” Master said. I voiced my oath. I felt the strange sensation where I disconnected from my master and felt my new master connecting to me. “At last a new toy!” my master’s voice exclaimed in my head. He turned to my old master and spoke some words. My old master bowed and left the room leaving us alone. Master moved towards me. “ I am your master and prince, Richard the first, stand still.” He commanded. My body froze, my eyes followed him as he walked around me. I felt him poking me all around my body. A shudder went through my body. I could feel him smiling at that. He started poking places no respectable man should touch and I squealed. “Shut up.” Master said, My mouth clamped shut, tears flowed down my face.