Futile Endeavors

Chapter 4

It was a three day trip. No food. No water. No stops.

The first night had been the easiest. Everyone was too stunned to do anything other than cower in the corners and avoid any contact with the soldiers and the collectors. Astegan didn't sleep at all. Some of the youngest boys had fallen asleep that night, using a shoulder or a thigh as a pillow. The older boys stayed awake and alert. Brothers held each other, friends consoled one another as the sun sank behind the horizon.

The morning brought fresh tortures.

The collectors came to do a headcount. Tegan heard over two-hundred boys had been taken. Why were they here? What could the Empire possible want with a bunch of prepubescent boys? All these questions rose from the tired mouths of the children as the journey continued.

No answers were given.

Slowly, the wagon started to smell of piss. It wasn't a smell unknown to Astegan. He'd worked in a pig sty for most of his life, but that didn't stop him from getting nauseous with the stench and the movement of the wagon. Each evening and morning, the collectors did their headcount to make sure no one had escaped. Any hope of food or water was squashed with each mile traveled. By the end of the second day, the wagons were a chorus of grumbling bellies and hushed whispers. A few had vomited due to their hunger, others relieved themselves with apologetic looks on their faces. The stench was enough to have Tegan's own stomach flipping, threatening to spill if he didn't get some air soon.

He stuck his nose as close to the wagon's open flaps as he dared to get a whiff of the crisp night air beyond. Slowly, his headache and nausea subsided. The stars blinked in and out of his vision. They were flaunting their freedom from the heavens, mocking the parade of malnourished bodies below. Tegan scowled.

"My mother said that the Emperor is planning on using all the boys in these wagons as human sacrifices," one of the boys behind Tegan said. You could hear the smirk in his voice.

A few whimpers came after the boy stopped talking. Astegan was furious. It was bad enough that almost the entire population of boys was taken from their villages. Now these same boys were terrorizing each other for fun.

"Stop it," Tegan breathed out.

"What was that, you twig?" The voice belonged to a burly kid who was huddled in the corner. Younger boys surrounded him. Tegan realized that he'd built a human shield around himself, the younger boys positioned to take any hits meant for him. Coward.

"We've all been taken," Tegan started. His voice sounded raw. "And we've all been terrorized enough. Not one of us really knows what is in store when we get to the Empire. So stop messing with them."

"Who cares. We'll likely all die as soon as we get there," his voice was exhausted. He'd given up.

"We will not," Tegan countered. "If they wanted us dead, they would've done it in the village. Think about it. Why would they drag only boys between the ages of what fifteen and twenty away and cart them all back to the Empire? Just to unload us and slaughter us like pigs? No. Something is going on. We just need to comply and keep our heads down. We will live."

A few of the boys seemed to relax at the words. Each bump in the road seemed to jostle some of the tension in the air. No one else spoke for the remainder of the trip.

When the wagons finally stopped moving, every head shot up. No one moved as the canvas flaps were drawn back and each person was blinded by the sun light.

"Out!" A deep voice demanded.

A calloused hand gripped Tegan's forearm. He had the sensation of falling, then his knees hit the ground. Knees protesting, pain lancing his entire leg, Tegan rose. The light subsided and he got a glimpse of the rest of the boys being hauled from the wagon. Immediately, they flocked together like mindless sheep, recoiling from the hands of some of the largest men Astegan had ever seen. Fear spread like a wildfire through the group as more and more boys emerged from the other wagons. Tegan could tell they were from different villages. Ghadfrend's diversity varried between villages and regions. Some of them were from the coast, he could tell by the clothes and seashell necklaces. Some were from the merchant villages, their expensive perfumes and bathing oils stinking up the cramped air, mingling with other... odors. Some of them had dried blood along their faces, bruises forming under their eyes and along their cheeks. Some were stained with dirt. And the smell. It seemed that Tegan's wagon wasn't the only one used as a toilet.