Ch 02
I was a fool to have any level of optimism for the future. The food brought to us in the morning was a watery gruel that barely took the edge off my hunger and quieted my growling stomach. Afterwards the guards who had brought us gruel herded us all off down a hallway that held doors to at least a dozen such cells as the one that I had been held in and up a flight of stairs into daylight.
When my eyes cleared from the sudden adjustment of light, I saw that we were in the center of a fenced in area surrounded by a crowd of wealthy looking men and women of all different races. One by one we were led to the center of the clearing where the assembled persons bid on us, sometimes loudly and sometimes with barely any enthusiasm. After the strongest and prettiest slaves from my cell had been auctioned off there were three of us left, myself and two little girls who looked like they could be sisters with their identical auburn fur covering their dog ears and tail. As I was led up to the stage, I felt apprehension as the auctioneer started to describe me.
“this human male looks weak and malnourished but if you are willing to feed him up a bit and give him some training, he may be good enough to hold a shield for you or perform manual labor around the home. Do I have a starting bid?” As the auctioneer’s domineering voice came to an end there was silence for a few moments before a man finally called out “10 coppers” in a bored voice. “Come, come” says the auctioneer to the man “a young man like this is surely worth more than ten coppers. Do I hear 20? Does anyone have 20 coppers for the scrawny human?”
Shame turned my ears red as I listened to the auctioneer describe me so callously and the people’s lack of enthusiasm while bidding on me. After a few moments I ended up being purchased by an elven man wearing leather armor underneath a resplendent fur cloak for a mere 30 coppers. The elf paid the auctioneer and I was affixed with a collar with a rope attached before being led away into my new life.
As the richly dressed elf led me away, I remained silent for a several minutes as we left the area. I saw many buildings around us as he led me down a street and towards the town center. When we reached the center of town there were a number of horse-drawn carriages waiting to be hired by anyone with the money and my new master soon had hired a carriage to take him to his home in a neighboring city. As I tried to climb in behind him, I received my next unpleasant surprise.
“Get down CUR!” my elven master yelled at me while viciously kicking my face from inside the carriage and causing me to fall to the ground. While I was still lying there in shock he spoke again, “you, a lowly slave think you are good enough to ride in a carriage with your master? Know your place! You will walk or run outside the carriage and you had better keep up because I am going to tie your rope to the carriage and if you fall behind you will simply be dragged along like the trash you are.” Saying this he tied the other end of the rope attached to my collar to the carriage and went back inside.
Cursing my luck and thinking that I had most definitely not gotten a good master I began to stumble behind the wagon as it pulled me along. After a bit I was able to walk normally although with some extra effort to keep up with the speed of the carriage. I had about twenty feet of rope, so I only had to jog every so often to make up ground. As we exited the city where the slave auction had taken place this changed however as the horses began to pick up speed on the open road. This is how I found myself running along tethered behind a carriage gasping for breath with dried blood still on my face from when I had been kicked.
I continued running behind the carriage for a couple of hours despite the weak constitution of my new body by keeping the fear of being dragged behind the carriage in my mind but as the miles dragged on and my exhaustion became critical I eventually stumbled and was not able to get up again in time and so began to be dragged along behind the carriage. Just as I thought that I would likely die this way and that it was probably for the best as this life had already been nothing but misery the carriage came to a stop and I dimly heard the driver telling my master that there was a watering hole here and he needed to rest the horses.
As I lay gasping on the ground covered in scrapes and bruises trying desperately to catch my breath my master came over, presumably to see how fared his recent purchase. Upon seeing my lying at the end of my rope and covered in scratches his face turned red with anger and he began screaming at me about how useless and worthless I was. After a few minutes of this punctuated by occasional kicks to my side he strode away again, and I was left alone until it was time to get back on the road. Barely able to get to my feet I am soon being dragged again and end up spending the majority of my trip being dragged along at the end of the rope. As the sun began to set and I began to wonder again if I would die soon another city came into view on the edge of the horizon and I felt a faint glimmer of hope for survival.
As much as I hated the life that I had been given, as much as I despised living as a slave and knowing that another man owned me, as much as I would probably be better off dying and being reborn again, the fear of death was strong and for some reason I found myself thinking that I didn’t want to die. With a final surge of effort I pulled myself up with the rope and managed to stumble the last few hundred feet to the city gates where the carriage driver deposited my new master and myself before turning and heading back into the evening gloom to get back to his own home, hours away. With a sharp jerk on the rope now coiled shorter my master led me into the city and to his home. I no longer had any hope that I would have a decent life, but I had a new and burning desire to survive and spite the God that had sent me to this horrible life.
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