“That sounds like something you read,” Frentis observed.
“Codicils of the Ruling Council, Volume Six.”
“Well, forget the Council and the empire. You’re a long way from both, and this Realm has no slaves.”
Thirty-Four gave him a cautious glance. “You do not bring me here to exact revenge?”
“You only do as you are commanded, since you were old enough to remember. Am I correct?”
Thirty-Four nodded, reaching into his tunic and extracting a small glass vial on a chain about his neck. “I need this, it numbs the pain . . . my pain. It’s how I do what I do.”
Frentis eyed the pale yellow liquid in the vial and felt an echo of the binding flicker across his chest. “And if you stop taking it?”
“I . . . hurt.”
“You’re a free man now, you can take it or not, as you wish. You can stay with us or go, as you wish.”
“What do you want of me?”
“You have skills, they will be useful to us.”
Davoka arrived, dumping the sack of grain she had carried from the Order House next to the fire and scowling at the sight of the slave. She accepted a bowl of soup from Illian, spooning some into her mouth and promptly spitting it out. “No more of this for you,” she told Illian, taking the soup pot and tipping the contents into a patch of ferns. She went to her tent and returned with a captured Volarian knife, tossing it to the girl. “You learn to hunt. Arendil, make more soup.”
Illian looked at the knife in her hand with obvious delight, waving it at Arendil with a taunting snicker.
“Come, we check the snares,” Davoka said, hefting her spear. She paused beside Frentis, scowling again at Thirty-Four. “Find another place for him,” she said quietly. “Don’t want him near the children.”
She strode off with Illian scampering after. “I’m not a child,” the girl said. “I’ll be old enough to marry in a year and a half.”
Arendil aimed a kick at the soup pot, grumbling, “I’m the blood heir to the Lordship of Renfael, you know.”
Frentis rose, gesturing for Thirty-Four to follow. “Allow me to show you something.”
Janril sat opposite the captive, honing the edge of his sword with a whetstone. The Volarian was large, impressive muscles bulging on the arms pulled back and secured to the trunk of an elm with strong rope. His face was a patchwork of cuts and bruises, one of his eyes swollen shut and his lips split with recent damage.
“Anything?” Frentis asked Janril.
The sergeant gave a silent shake of his head, narrowing his gaze at the sight of Thirty-Four. “He may be able to help,” Frentis told him.
Janril shrugged and rose to kick the feet of the bound man, his head snapping up, the one good eye casting about in alarm before understanding returned and it narrowed into stern defiance.
“He was wearing that when we took him.” Frentis pointed to the medallion hanging from Janril’s neck, an embossed silver disc showing a chain and a whip. “We believe he may be a man of some importance.”
“Guild-master’s sigil,” Thirty-Four said. “He’ll have command of fifty overseers. I’ve seen this man before, when the fleet was mustering. I believe he answers to General Tokrev himself.”
“Really?” Frentis said, stepping aside so the captive had an unobstructed view of Thirty-Four. “That is interesting.”
The single eye widened considerably at the sight of the slave. “Our new recruit has some questions,” Frentis told the guild-master.
They left them alone for a time, Thirty-Four crouched next to the guild-master as he spoke, the words tumbling from his damaged lips with scarcely any hesitation. The torturer hadn’t touched him at all.
“A large caravan returns from the province to the north in three days,” Thirty-Four reported a short while later. “The lord of that land provided a list of subjects he thought would make good slaves.”
Master Grealin straightened as Frentis related the torturer’s words. “Lord Darnel cooperates with his people?”
Thirty-Four gave a slight shrug when Frentis related the question. “I do not know who that is.”
This has been long planned, Frentis thought with a grimace. “What else? Any word of our Aspect?”
Thirty-Four shook his head. “He knows nothing of that, his sole concern is slaves and profit.”
“Is he going to be any more use?”
“He has numbers, figures on the slaves shipped back to the empire, likely returns on his master’s investment.”
“Get what you can out of him. Especially about this general he answers to. When you’re sure you’ve got it all, turn him over to Sergeant Norin.”
“I promised him a quick death. He begged for it.”
“A promise made to an animal is no promise at all,” Janril said when Frentis explained. It was the most he had spoken in days.
“You will stay?” Frentis asked Thirty-Four.
The slight man took the vial from about his neck and pulled off the stopper, his hands shaking as he hesitated, then tipped the contents away. “I will, but I have a condition.”
“I leave the manner of the slaver’s death to you.”
Thirty-Four shook his head. “No. I want a name.”
“Your role,” Frentis said to Illian and Arendil, lying alongside him in the long grass. “Repeat it to me.”
Arendil rolled his eyes in annoyance but Illian spoke up with prim eagerness. “We walk the road, stumbling about as if wounded. When the caravan comes we sit down and wait.”
Frentis surveyed their appearance one last time, satisfying himself the dried rabbit’s blood and ragged clothing would suffice. “And when it starts?”
Arendil spoke first, drawing a glare from Illian. “Get to the wagons and free the captives.” He brandished one of the keys they had been given. Experience had revealed the slavers were lazy about changing their locks and the keys they had captured would undo most manacles.
“Davoka will run to you as soon as the attack begins. Do not stray from her side.”
He glimpsed the Lonak woman’s stern look of disapproval from her position a few yards away and avoided her gaze, bringing the young ones had not been her idea.
“I thought Lonak children learned war at an early age,” he had said when she voiced her objections back at the camp.
“They are not Lonakhim,” she replied. “Both have known nothing but comfort.”
He knew she had a deeper reason, her eyes seeing another overly comforted soul when she looked at them, especially Illian. “War comes to this forest soon,” he said. “The games we’ve been playing up until now are over. They need to be prepared.”
A short shrill whistle sounded to the north, making the fighters sink deeper into the grass. Frentis turned to the two youths he intended to put in harm’s way. “It’s time.”
They played their part well, although Illian’s stumbles were somewhat elaborate and Arendil’s a little stiff. The caravan crested the low hill a few hundred paces to the north, a full company of Free Cavalry riding in escort. The officer at the head of the column raised a hand at the sight of the two youngsters sitting in the road and the caravan came to a halt. Frentis watched the Volarian captain scan the surrounding fields, taking his time over it. After a moment he barked a command at one of his sergeants and a troop of four riders galloped ahead, reining in a few feet from the bloodied refugees, both of whom were too pretty to kill outright.
Frentis took a firm grip on his bow and stood up, their small company of archers following suit. The volley was inexpert but enough arrows were launched to bring down all four riders in an instant. Davoka leapt to her feet and sprinted towards the road, Frentis leading his twenty archers towards the caravan at a dead run.