CHAPTER TWO - The Slaves
The survivors were placed in metal cages where the heathens could openly leer at them, appreciating the goods before they were sold. The young warrior called Lakas looked incredibly silly with parchment and quill in his bloody hands, and his annoyed look did not escape her when he was tasked to make an inventory of the slaves.
"Name?"
While the prisoners around her sobbed and wailed for their losses, Enna merely tried to make herself small in a corner. She never spoke. She never raised her head.
Lakas snatched her chin. He was scowling. "Name?"
When she refused to answer, the bald man behind Lakas growled before backhanding her. "Stupid girl! Tell us your name so that we can be done with this sham and leave!"
Elbows shaking, she sat up, gazing at them with tired silvery eyes. Still, she did not open her mouth.
"You – "
Lakas stopped the man with a wave. "Drop it. I will simply write Silver."
The man smirked. "Yes, a name befitting a horse."
They could call her whatever they want. Why would she bother when she would escape sooner or later? Fighting them would only be a waste of time.
What mattered was that she study how these so called sons of Summer work. The rotation of guards, when do they eat, when they rest, where the keys were kept, how they reacted, as well as differentiating the fools from the cunning.
No doubt an opportunity would present itself. An opening. A mistake. She just had to be patient.
Days wore on. She watched with impassive eyes as more towns were destroyed and more women were captured. Eventually, the cage became crowded until the Southerners were forced to build more. The wails of the women around her were getting to her. She did her best to tune them out. Most of the time, it was working. On rare days such as today, she felt a flicker of anger towards the rotten bastards who enjoyed harming these innocents. These heathens robbed and raped and killed without humanity and mercy. The cruelty of these bronze-skinned people knew no bounds. She could not make herself think of them as humans.
And somehow, these thoughts kept her sane.
A grimy hand shot out and grabbed her hair, pulling her so that her cheek was pressed against the cold metal bars. One of the heathens grinned maliciously, caressing her with slimy fingers from his other hand.
"Wanna taste me, you silver shiarri?"
Enna had picked up from her observations that the heathens call the citizens of Nyebe shiarri, "pale cattle", as derogation that they had the status of less than a human slave.
She spat on his face.
The heathen punched her. Or would have, had there been no bars separating them. As it was, he was stupid enough to react on instinct and hit the metal bars with his bare hand. She almost smiled at the brute's lack of intellect.
"I will kill you!" he roared.
"That you will not do," said a familiar drawl she recognized to belong from Lakas. Despite all odds, knowing he was around gave her a sense of security. Although fairly younger than the others, she had come to know that Lakas was no mere foot soldier; he was with title and thus authority.
He was by far the most decent among all the heathens she had met. He respected and obeyed orders of his superiors, but never did anything beyond, strictly adhering to his duties. Meaning, the prisoners could not be exploited with him on the watch.
However, she had no real reason to be comforted by his presence. He was decent, but not kind. He was among those she considered cunning. Cunning and dangerous.
In fact, he was almost always covered in fresh blood. He had no qualms when it came to killing people as long as he believes he was in the right. This she discovered a couple of days after capture. The heathens fight in duels whenever there were conflicts between them. It was either to death or until one surrenders, but from what she had seen, no man had ever chosen to swallow his pride and admit his surrender in a duel. For the heathens, honor was more important than human life. It was in this occasion that she witnessed how Lakas impaled another man in the chest just because the foot soldier insulted him.
It was disgustingly barbaric and self-righteous.
"This shiarri spat on me! How dare she degrade a warrior! I shall punish her with the whip until she begs for mercy!"
She did not understand what came into her. Other captives were killed for doing lesser acts. If today would be her last day to live, then she would live her last seconds with pride and dignity.
Lakas gazed at her, and she gazed back with no trace of fear. He turned back to the furious man with a bored look. "You must have done something that deserved her action."
The warrior gritted his teeth. "What did you say?"
"I said, this girl is mute. Flagging her till she begs for mercy is out of the question. She will die and not ever speak a word."
"All the better!"
"Then, you wish to disobey the emperor's direct order?" Lakas challenged. "He specifically said that these girls will be sold as slaves as soon as we return to Arrao. You know this white-washed color is popular among the aristocracy. How much will she fetch us? A merchant's year-worth of taxes? Will you rob our treasury of the money it is due? Or do you have enough gold coins stashed in your bag to pay for her life?"
The man suddenly stopped, taken aback by the consequences that Lakas had just narrated. "Forget it!" He spat at her before he marched away. She wiped the disgusting slime on her arm with the smelly hay layering the insides of her cage.
She was grinning.
"You find this funny, Silver?" This was the first time that Lakas had directly addressed her in a conversation. She could not help but shudder at the slight amusement that colored his normally stern voice. "He could have killed you."
Her smile widened.
Lakas almost mirrored her expression, but then when he realized that he had spectators in the form of the other three girls inside her cage, he erased any trace of emotion from his face. "The four of you are currently part of the most prized collection of the emperor, but let me warn you. Not all warriors in this camp think the same as I do. You girls are precious, but you are replaceable. Think before you act."
As soon as he left, the oldest of the girls, a beauty with curly flaxen hair and foliage green eyes scooted close to her. It was the first time anyone attempted to communicate with her. Most of the time, she was simply left alone in her corner of the cage. "That man just protected you, Silver," Green Eyes laughed excitedly. "He might be the key to our escape."
A dirty blonde with hair sheared off just above the shoulders nodded vigorously. "Yes! Whatever you're doing, continue to do it! Get his attention! Make him very fond of you."
"Oh, I know! Why don't you seduce him?"
"Convince him to free us! Promise him favors!"
The third girl, a petite blonde with eyes the color of amethyst, did not share the first two's sentiments. "Margaruette, Loisa, stop with your daydreaming. We will not get out of here that easily."
Green Eyes frowned. "Stop being pessimistic, Vivienne. If you have a better plan, then let us hear it."
Vivienne did not back down. "We stay."
"I will not become a servant to those barbarians!" shouted the second girl, the dirty blonde. "This is not the life my father planned for me."
"Well, I bet none of our fathers planned for the South to invade either." Vivienne brushed an insect off her skirt. "Listen, as long as we are within their camp, as long as this campaign lasts, we cannot attempt any form of escape. We might get out of this iron cage, but we cannot leave this army fast enough. If you listened to the soldiers talking, you could have found out that there are ten thousand men under this fleet. Can you run fast enough without anyone spotting you? With our color, it is unlikely we can blend in. I assure you, they will immediately kill us once they recapture us."
"B-But we are the emperor's property!" the dirty blonde argued.
"Did you not listen to that heathen, Loisa? We are merchandise. Rare, but we are merely possessions that can be dispensed with if we prove to be too much trouble."
Loisa started crying. A flicker of recognition hit Enna. Loisa was the girl from that night. The girl who cried like an injured animal.
The memory made Enna smile.
Vivienne simply shook her head. "You have a dangerous smile, our dearest Silver. Keep doing that and you might end up dead . . . or nevermind. Keep doing that. It is entertaining to watch, these heathens' reactions to you. Be warned though, there are more important things than life. Never forget."
Heavy silence burdened them. The green-eyed girl tried to lift up their spirits.
"Shall we do introductions?" She gestured to the other prisoners in question. Each of them offered sad smiles. "All right. I am Lady Margaruette vi Lavadia, second daughter to the Marquis of Pelton. My friend here is Miss Eloisa White, daughter of the merchant guild head of Cardia."
"Just call me Loisa," the dirty blonde sniffed. "Titles mean nothing now,"
The petite girl with amethyst eyes growled at her. "Nonsense! How can you think that way? These heathens can take away our liberty, but they cannot take away our pride and our identity! Our minds and hearts will forever be ours. Those, they cannot rob!"
The prisoners stared at each other in silence.
"I-I'm sorry, Vivienne. You are right." Loisa casted her eyes downward.
Vivienne nodded and then turned to face Enna once again. "I am Vivienne of the House of Percival, sister to the wife of the Minister of East. I am the vice-captain of the White Knights stationed at Cardia."
The blonde was in the military. That explained her attitude and strong personality.
Vivienne's expression turned grimmer as she continued. "Unfortunately, I was in the healer's quarters when the attack occurred. I know this is no excuse but my left knee was injured in the first battle of Larchen. I was sent home by Captain Philip with strict orders of bed rest. If I were not heavily sedated, I . . . I could have done something to save the village."
There was heavy regret in her tone, but Enna knew that not one person could be blamed for the fall of Cardia. She understood. Offering a secretive smile of sharing, she reached out to touch Vivienne's calloused hand.
"Call me Enna," she whispered softly. The three women jumped in shock. It was the first time she spoke for weeks.
"You are not mute!" Margaruette exclaimed.
"I am not."
Vivienne had an expression of incredulity, which she shared with their companions. "Enna? As in the battlefield of Enna? That Enna?"
She nodded. "I cannot remember my real name nor my position nor the reason why I passed out, but Enna is the place where I woke up." It was the only real clue she had of her past, and she longed to escape the confines of these prisons to continue her self-inflicted quest of finding her identity.
"Enna is where the Lord General was said to have perished," Vivienne mused. She suddenly perked up. "You must be a knight like me."
Enna smiled, her silvery eyes held in a faraway gaze.
"Perhaps."