Saxon glanced at Jenny. “You women will get to rest tonight. You’ll need it. Tomorrow is the testing for your services.”
“What is this testing you go through?” Jenny asked, her curiosity piqued.
“Stupid woman!” Saxon guffawed. “It’s you women who are tested, not us.”
“What type of tests?”
“You’ll see,” was all Saxon would say.
The sun climbed as they crossed the verdant valley.
“I’m getting scared,” Angela whispered.
Jenny smiled at her reassuringly. “We’ll make it.”
Shouts sounded in the town as they drew near. The Trolls had erected a wooden fence, encircling the northern half of Fox, with gates in the middle of each side. Faces, most of them bearded, appeared at the western gate and it was hastily flung open.
“Not as fancy as your big wall,” Saxon said, indicating the fence as they approached, “but it and the fires keep the pus heads out.”
“Pus heads?” Jenny repeated.
“You’ve got to know what the pus heads are,” Saxon said. “They are all over the place. We saw one yesterday, remember?”
Jenny understood now. “We call them mutates.”
“What?”
“Mutates.”
“From now on,” Saxon instructed her, “you will call them pus heads.”
“If I don’t?” Jenny defiantly countered.
“I’ll feed you to Wolvie or Runt or Momma,” he threatened her.
“Who are they?”
Saxon chuckled. “You’ll see them soon enough.”
Dozens of Trolls poured through the gate and surrounded the newcomers, many of them lecherously leering at the women.
“I think we’re in big trouble,” Mary stated.
The throng moved inside the fence and along several streets until they reached a paved square in the center of the town. A small platform was standing in the middle of the square. Saxon jumped onto the platform and held his arms aloft.
Silence descended.
“As promised,” Saxon bellowed, “we have returned with more women!”
A great cheer went up among the assembled Trolls, mixed with clapping and whistling.
Saxon motioned and they quieted.
“I told you I would bring healthy females, and as always I have kept my word. Who leads you best?”
Slowly at first, with increasing frequency and volume, the massed Trolls chanted the name of their leader. “Sax-on! Sax-on! Sax-on!”
Saxon, Jenny saw, was eating up this adulation. She gazed at the buildings in their vicinity and noted their dilapidated condition. Cement was cracked, wood was warped, and trash and filth were everywhere.
Didn’t these people believe in sanitation?
“Tomorrow,” Saxon shouted, “we will hold the tests to see how strong they are. Life to the strong and death to the weak!”
“Life to the strong and death to the weak!” most of the Trolls repeated.
Jenny abruptly realized only men were present. Where were the women?
Surely the Trolls had more women!
“Many of our fellows did not come back.” Saxon turned somber, pacing on the platform. “This Family is very strong. They have many guns! More guns than I ever saw! How would you like to get those guns?”
The Trolls went crazy at the prospect.
“I have a plan,” Saxon told them. “When the time comes, we will attack their Home again, take their guns, and steal all of their women! Would you like that?”
A chorus of “Yes! Yes! Yes!” came from his cheering companions.
“I knew you would!” Saxon pointed at the women. “Lock them up until tomorrow morning. Then we will have our fun!”
The Trolls obeyed, three or four gripping each woman, hauling them forcefully down another avenue until they reached a three-story brick building. Two Trolls, both armed with rifles, stood guard outside a sturdy door.
Jenny, like the other women, found herself unceremoniously shoved through the doorway. She sprawled on her hands and knees on a rough concrete floor, scraping her palms. The windows in this putrid place were boarded over. Several candles, placed in metal holders attached to the walls, provided the sole illumination.
The door slammed shut behind them.
Angela was sniffling.
Jenny rose, removing the rope from around her raw neck. She spotted other women, and children, huddled along the walls.
“We’re not alone,” Ursa noted.
“Hello,” Jenny addressed them. “My name is Jenny.”
No one responded. One child fearfully pressed against her mom.
“We mean you no harm,” Jenny assured them. Her eyes were adjusting to the subdued lighting. These women were a bedraggled and timid bunch, attired in rags and animal skins, their hair unkempt, their bodies slumped in an attitude of profound despair. The children were the same.
She counted nineteen women and nine children.
“Did you say,” spoke a squeaky, tiny voice, “your name is Jenny?”
“I did.” Jenny faced the direction the voice came from, one of the darker corners of the room.
A shadow detached itself and came toward her.
“Who is it?” Angela asked fearfully.
“Quiet!” Lea shushed her.
“I knew a Jenny once,” said the shadow, a woman, as she limped across the floor. “It was in a place I grew up, a wonderful, happy place called the Home. .
“The Home!” Jenny ran to the woman and gripped her by the shoulders, drawing her close to one of the candles.
The woman was old beyond her years, aged by hardship and wrinkled by torture. Her hair was gray, her eyes brown. She limped because her right foot was twisted at a right angle to her body.
“Who are you?” Jenny demanded. “We are from the Home too!”
Tears welled up in the older woman’s eyes and she sagged.
“Help me!” Jenny directed, and Lea and Daffodil assisted her in gently lowering the older woman to the floor.
“I can’t believe it…” The older woman choked on her words. “I am so sorry!” She began crying, great racking sobs, her frail body trembling from the intensity of her emotion.
“It’s all right,” Jenny assured her.
“No,” the older woman disagreed, “it isn’t! You don’t understand!”
“Understand what?”
“That you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me!” She rolled over, hiding her face, bawling.
“What does she mean?” Saphire asked.
“I don’t know,” Jenny replied. She raised the woman from the cold, dirty floor. “What did you mean by that?”
“I was the one who told them about the Home!”
“You did what?” Lea asked in an angry tone.
The gray-haired woman wept even louder.
Jenny, perplexed, held the woman’s head in her lap and patiently waited for her to stop. There was something about this woman, a vague quality of familiarity.
“I have the feeling I know her,” Ursa mentioned, confirming Jenny’s intuition.
The poor woman cried and cried, but finally her tears subsided, her shaking stopped, and she grew quiet, wiping her forearms repeatedly across her nose.
The Family women surrounded her, while the other women in the dingy room kept their distance.
“Can you talk now?” Jenny inquired.
The woman nodded, sniffling.
“Good. Who are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me?” her voice quavered.
“No.” Jenny shook her head. “But I do feel like I should know who you are.”
“I remember you,” the woman stated proudly. “You’re Jenny, the cute one who was always hanging around Blade.”
“How did…” Jenny began to speak, but was cut short.
“And you,” the weak woman said, looking at Lea, “are Lea. And Ursa.
Saphire. Daffodil.” She paused, smiling, pleased at her accomplishment.
“But I don’t know you two.” She wagged a finger on her left hand at Mary and Angela.