Ch 07

Beetle stashed the bag he had filled with the carcasses of many rodents back under his sack-clothing and walked quickly back the way we had come, not waiting for me to catch up as he hurried on his way back to our master’s house. Struggling to catch up and not lose him in the foot traffic, I began to feel worried that I would get lost and be unable to find my way back on my own.

I wouldn’t have worried too much about it and would even have tried to get lost in order to run away and escape my situation but I remembered what Beetle had told me early this morning about the slave collars around our neck having the function of revealing our location to our master and I also remembered the pain that came when I tried to remove the collar and thus did not have any reason to disbelieve his words about it. After several minutes, I was again gasping for breath but had managed to catch up to Beetle who contrary to my haggard self was calm and seemed to only be out for a brisk noontime stroll.

As we passed the more crowded parts of the city and moved into the residential areas the crowds thinned and I did not have to worry so much about losing sight of my mentor in slavery but he also did not slow down in the least and ignored my pleas to slow down. Eventually we came around a corner and the road we were on became familiar, soon enough we were walking up the path to the house owned by the elf Silvan.

Beetle immediately headed towards the back of the building upon arriving and moving a large stone that lay inconspicuously on the ground near the trough where we had washed our master’s linens and clothing, revealed a hole in the ground. He quickly pulled the bag of, I shudder to call it, game from under his clothing and tossed it into the hole before replacing the stone and winking to me. As soon as this was done, he began pulling the now dry linens and clothing off of the line.

“Why did you hide the mice?” I asked him. “SHH!” was his only reply. With a sigh and shaking my head at the strangeness of this old man I began helping him with the task of pulling down the laundry and folding it up again to be placed back on the side of the house where we had gotten them from, but not before that too had been scrubbed with soap and water from the well to remove any lingering urine from our master’s way of thanking us for working hard at the laundry.

As we were scrubbing the floor of the side porch Silvan returned from somewhere, walking up the path with the other male slave who was now wearing leather armor and carrying a short sword and dagger along with a small shield that barely covered more than the back of his hand as well as sporting a brand new black eye. Ignoring us, they walked into the house, a few moments later the slave whose name I still did not know came back out again, once more dressed in a sack with holes cut and a tied-rag of a rope fashioned into a belt around the middle, the same as the rest of us.

He did not speak to us or even look at us as he exited the house, instead he quickly headed for the back door that led towards the basement where we slept. “I thought slaves weren’t allowed in the house” I said to Beetle while he poured the last bucket of rinse water on the porch to remove the suds. “Oh, that is true for you or me and even for Minge, although sometimes the rule is bent for her on occasion when our master desires it. For Teka it’s a different story though.”

“Teka?!” I said finally having heard this other person’s name but being confused because it was different from the trend the rest of us followed for naming schemes. “Oh that” responded Beetle quietly, “A teka is a type of dagger given to those sentenced to execution in the arena. It is extremely sharp, but it also breaks easily and is intended to be thrown away. The reason he is named this is to remind him that he is nothing more than a disposable dagger to master Silvan, forced to fight in the arena to make money for our master, this will be his life until he dies.” Stunned by the callousness of our master I lapsed into silence for a moment before asking “and he is allowed into the house because he fights in the arena?” At this Beetle chuckled for a moment in a dark and dry way before answering me. “In a sense. He is allowed into the house in order to put on and put away the armor and weapons. Our master is too lazy to carry them in and out, so he allows him in to do this. He apparently did not like the sound of his voice though because a week after he was allowed into the house our master cut his tongue out”

After this I did not ask any more questions. I had heard as many gruesome details about the kind of man, or elf if it makes a difference, my new master was, and my future outlooks were grim indeed. As I was contemplating this the side door opened and there stood our master.

“Lazing about I see Beetle! I guess I’ll have to give you more work to do.” A cruel smile spread across his face and he pointed to one of several trees within the yard. “Cut that one down with the axe I got for chopping firewood” he said with a merciless grin and Beetle immediately deflated a bit and started heading towards the other side of the house after bowing low and muttering a quick “Yes master.” Unsure of what to do I also bowed and followed Beetle around to the other side of the house where he was opening what looked like a cabinet built into the side of the house. Inside was a variety of tools and Beetle selected an axe with a long handle and a dull grey looking head. Pulling it out he handed it to me, and I nearly dropped it in surprise.

“I see our master has also enchanted the axe like he did the bucket for the well” I said weakly to my mentor. “If that was all he had done to that axe I would not mind but that bastard also ground the edge dull and then raised the metal’s durability with another spell. Not only is it heavy but it cuts very, very poorly.” Beetle seemed to be growing tired just thinking about the task ahead of him. He paused for a moment looking at me and then shrugged and muttered that I might as well build the muscle for it if I was going to take his place and grabbed a second axe. I thought that we would be sharing the task to make it easier on us both but once again my expectations were too optimistic. “These are magick trees that grow back in a day and are especially hard to cut down. Since our master only assigns this as a punishment, we will both do a tree because I do not want to make him mad by shirking the task, he gave me” Without another word Beetle turned and began swinging his axe at the nearest tree.