Chapter 10

The sounds of the big city have long since faded away behind them as they make their way east. It is slow, but methodical.

They ride for two days straight. It is nightfall of the second day and shortly after they cross the Trend River that separates Venloring from Hisperia when they pull up and set up camp. Christopher chooses the area well. It is a clearing within the forest next to a well-traveled road, and it has a stream nearby, and it is a very defensible place.

Christopher isn't really worried about outside interference, but with what little he can do for the slaves right now, he will do. The nights have begun to get cooler, so Christopher circles up the wagons and orders some of his soldiers to gather lots of wood for a fire that he will place in the center of the wagons, so its heat can radiate out and warm them at least a little.

The dark mage has a column of personal servants to attend to his every beck and call, so Christopher doesn't have to deal with him. Once the servants set the Dark Mage's tent up they start cooking and tending the horses.

Christopher has no orders to the contrary, so he decides to let the prisoners out a couple at a time so they can relieve themselves and wash in the stream if they want to. He knows when he catches four of the guards staring hungrily at the girls; he will have to give them tasks to keep them occupied. The four Christopher sees, he comes down on them like a clap of thunder and orders them to go out into the forest and hunt some deer for the column.

"I wouldn't trust these scum if one the Gods themselves commanded me to!"

The only one Christopher has any confidence in is Sarge, so he orders him to take up a position five paces north of the stream. Any other soldier that he put there he would have to order them to turn their back to the ladies while they wash, but with Sarge he knows he doesn't have to. Christopher will stay south and escort the groups back and forth, four at a time. Since each wagon holds four prisoners it makes sense. Of the twenty wagons, ten hold four women or girls each. The wizard has his own. All the others are the mage's servants and supplies.

Christopher orders, "You five conscripts go a hundred paces out southwest from the main camp and bed down there."

He gives the same order to two other groups of five, but to go southeast and the other north. The remaining troops he orders to surround the dark mage's tent. It seems to annoy some of the servants. Oh well, small victories.

As Christopher is getting ready to release the first group of women and girls, the sorcerer comes strolling forward and asks him, "Just what do you think you are doing?"

Christopher tells him direct and explains, "I have the forces arrayed in such a fashion that no one can leave the camp without being seen. If we do not let these people out of their cages, we are the ones that will have to deal with the smell eventually."

The Dark Mage seems dubious, but lets it go at that.

"They were my responsibility, and since we were alike in darkness it could easily go without saying, that if any of the slaves were to escape it would come out of my pay or worse. Whatever."

As the sorcerer is walking back to his tent he shoots back over his shoulder, "As soon as one of the pretty women is clean, send her to my tent, and leave the wizard alone."

Oh, Christopher doesn't like the sound of that. He is not pleased that he will have to be the one to pick a woman to send to the dark mage to do the abyss knows what with.

"I remembered back to my thought before we left, that once things got into motion they seemed to take on a life of their own. I began to wonder if I would have to make my move sooner rather than later. I didn't really have an immediate contingency plan for this, and the way I had positioned the forces would make it near suicidal right now."

One of the women in the first wagon Christopher is to let out sees many of the questions that are flashing across his face, and she says to him, "I will be willing to do it so one of the younger ones won't have to."

Christopher is numb, and he stares at her for many a minutes before he moves to open the chained door. He never speaks to her. In fact he can't even look her in the eyes. She must be in her forties, though plain, she is still beyond a fine looking woman with her medium long brunette hair and flashing hazel eyes, and he wonders if she understands like he does, that the only way to survive is to embrace the horror.

"I started to say I'm sorry, but the audacity and fruitlessness of it all made it catch in my throat. My sorrow grew proportionately to my rage. I wondered just how long I could do this."

By the time all the slaves are washed and fed, it is late towards the next morning. Christopher orders Sarge to sleep to the west of the circled wagons, and he will sleep to the east. As Christopher is walking back to Shadow to get his bedroll and finish attending to him, since he won't let any of the dark mage's servants near him, Christopher is sure that he is as pissed as he is about this whole thing, Christopher finally remembers the wizard.

"I knew Zend would never allow me to let him out, but I became worried when I realized the wizard could not eat with his mouth sewn shut.

"I asked Zend, "What about the wizard? He can't eat with his mouth sewn shut."

"The Dark Mage replied, "To the abyss with him, let him die.""

Every other instance of this journey Christopher is on, pushes him further onto the tip of a blade and begs him to fall. Christopher makes a mush type concoction and rigs a hollow reed type thing and takes it to the wizard. Even then, he doubts if he can get the straw into his mouth so tightly sewn shut are his lips.

Christopher looks around to see if he is being observed. Christopher goes inside the circled wagons and again looks around to see if he is being watched. He notices several of the girls in the wagons taking notice of him, so they immediately start looking outside the wagons, and when they don't see anybody looking their way they nod their amazing heads to Christopher. Christopher wants to smile at them, but he is afraid he will start to cry and won't be able to stop. These girls are headed to who knows what horrors, and yet they still are looking out for others.

Now that Christopher knows he isn't being observed, he silently motions the wizard over to the edge of the wagon. His cell. Christopher again quickly looks around, and at the girls who also do a double check, and then kneels down to his boot as if he is scratching an annoyance, and comes up with his most sharp dagger hidden in his hand.

With the dancing flames of the fire that are giving everything an ominous glow and making it hard to get a good angle, Christopher cuts just one stitch, just enough to get the hollow stem in there so he can get some sustenance. He knows if he cuts too many it will be noticeable, and that won't do any of them any good. He seems to understand, and is grateful for that and the fact that Christopher holds the bowl so he can eat.

"It was confusing for me to have such dark and demented plans for the future, and yet I was showing kindness. The strain began to take its toll. Added to the road I had already traveled my sanity started its final slide into oblivion."

Sarah comes to him in his dream, and acts all too good and pleased about his actions for his personal taste. Apparently she has seen his fall only to reach out now and again. To her it means that he is not yet lost.

"The gods know I love my baby sister, but she was starting to aggravate me to no end. It didn't help that every other little girl I saw in the wagons looked just like her."

Then in Christopher's confusion and amongst his highs of alcohol and hash he can no longer tell if she is actually just in his dreams or if she has crossed over into this plane of existence to haunt him.

"What was going on? I was not amused. I began not wanting to sleep. That decision played right into the hands of the chaos that was enveloping me. Things really started getting strange at that point."

By the sixth day into their journey, Christopher is seeing and hearing things that nobody else ever reacts to. It seems even Shadow is becoming agitated with him, for he keeps talking babble to him and keeps trying to get him to charge an imaginary foe.

"I needed sleep. I needed a new plan. I needed something that I couldn't put into words. I needed more alcohol and hash. Embrace the horror, baby."

Christopher doesn't know how long or far they have traveled. The forest blends together and the people's faces disappear. Christopher thinks Zend may even of tried to hold a conversation with him, but gives up and has Sarge carry out his orders.

"I think if it weren't for the fact that the dark mage could sense my suffering as I slipped further into darkness, which of course amused him greatly, he would have killed me. No such luck."

Christopher's misery is his own, and he'll be damned if he is going to share it with anybody. Then he laughs as if deranged beyond all hope, as he thinks he catches a flash of a memory that which is exactly what he wants to do. Or something. What? Christopher's near comatose sleep comes without dreams. The more he doesn't allow Sarah to come to him in his dreams, the more persistent she becomes in the waking world. Or at least he thinks. What?

Daylight is bright and nighttime is home. Thankfully about the second week into the journey the column runs out of both alcohol and hash. Christopher is pissed, but it is fortuitous.

"Oh, man, where are we?" Christopher wonders.

It will take another full week to pass before his head has become clear enough to have some semblance of a rational thought.

"Damn, I smell. I need a bath, a meal and a long night's sleep. For about a week in a row."

Every thing seems the same around him as far as the wagon train goes, although he can swear that he hears some soft whispered giggles behind him now and again. At least from the other conscripts that aren't in the same shape as he is.

"The Dark Mage never seemed concerned, so to me that spoke volumes about arrogance, and I knew that to be a trait that was malleable. Useful for when the time came to react."

Every day that passes, Christopher notices the wizard is getting weaker and weaker. He is already an old man, but now he looks more like a fossil than a human. Also Christopher notices that the women and girls are looking pretty ragged.