13 Chapter - 14

It had been a month now since Minge had told me her story in the middle of the night. When I had returned to the basement that evening the bucket of gruel was still there untouched where he had left it that morning. She had lasted three weeks after that. At first Silvan tormented her by having Teka strip her naked in front of the rest of us and then he would strike her, sometimes with a whip and sometimes with his bare hand. When she stopped responding to that he began having Teka rape her, stating that she no longer excited him so someone else would need to perform the task. After a few days of this she had stopped responding altogether, her eyes as vacant as those of a porcelain doll.

Minge had also stopped eating and might have starved to death if given the chance but instead, Silvan flew into a rage at her lack of response and beat her to death in front of us. This served as another stark reminder of the reality of my situation. I was a slave who had been purchased by this elf and he would do whatever he wished with me until such time as he sold me, or I was dead. The magick collar around my throat meant there could be no escape. Things were rather quiet now with Minge gone. Silvan came in the mornings and deposited the gruel, would strike one of us at random just for something to do and then left. Without Minge to torment it seemed that he did not know how to spend his time and his frustration was growing.

Today, as Silvan and Teka left for the arena I was nervous and could hardly keep my eyes on the grass as I worked plucking the new growth until they had gone out of sight before I, like Beetle picked up my pace, trying to finish the task in as little time as possible to maximize how much time we would have in the grasslands today. I still had not managed to catch any rodents in our hunting excursions, but I was slowly getting faster and yesterday I had almost managed to catch up to a rat which narrowly escaped into its burrow. Eager and full of anticipation that today would be the day when I finally caught something, I followed Beetle out of the city and into the grasslands.

When we got there, Beetle spent only a moment fastening the enchanted sledgehammers to my feet with some rope before taking off to hunt on his own. I paused a moment to stretch out my weighted legs and my back and started warming up with a light jog. To an onlooker it must have looked as if not much was going on beyond a slave that was hunting rodents and another running in circles but after a few moments I began to feel my muscles loosen up and I decided I was ready to get started in earnest. Kicking a stone that was near my foot I sent it careening off into the grass and saw a squirrel take off running from where it had been hiding moments ago.

The earth beneath my feet compressed as my feet pushed down into it with each step as I took off at full speed after the squirrel. It was running with all its might and seemed to be nothing but a light brown blur to the naked eye but I was running just as fast and managed to catch up to it. I was reaching out to grasp it when I stepped on a sharp rock that was hidden in the grasses and in pain got distracted and lost sight of my quarry while loosing all of my momentum. 'Damn' I thought to myself in frustration. I had been so close that time. Casting my gaze around I look for more prey, there is still some time left and today I do not intend to go back empty handed.

*****

I was absolutely exhausted but feeling rather good about myself. I had managed to keep Beetle from scoring any hits against me while practicing with the weighted daggers despite the sledgehammers tied to my feet and now was eagerly awaiting my dinner. Generally speaking Beetle had the rodents cooked before I was done recovering but this time was different. Not only was I able to keep going until Beetle said to stop without collapsing but there was also something over the small fire that was taking a little longer than normal to cook. A fat rabbit was glistening over the fire, its juices dripping down into the flames, flaring up whenever they fell. My mouth was watering as I looked at it, the first meat bigger than a rat since I had come to this world.

"I think it's probably about done" said Beetle to me a short while later. He pulled the stick from over the fire and set it to the side to cool, glancing with amusement at my impatience to eat it. "I thought it was going to be longer until you were able to catch something truth be told," he said as we waited, sitting in the dimness of the evening. "I certainly never thought that you were going to improve enough to do so before we stopped using the hammers. My plan was to have you keep using them until you could walk and run like normal despite them but in the end you were able to surpass that speed even with them on so I let you keep going."

I looked at Beetle with mixed pride and anger on my face. "Somehow I wish you would have let me stop sooner," I said to him after a moment and then we both laughed with the first bit of honest levity that I had experienced since I had come to know this old slave. "I have a feeling that you will not be so lucky as to remain a house slave like this old man was able to do." Beetle said to me with his face growing somber once more. "Sooner or later I will be gone. Also, sooner or later something will happen to Teka. When either of these things happen, your life will get much harder. In anticipation of that, and since I cannot teach you any special skills, we should make you as strong as possible." With that he lapsed into silence. After a few moments of sitting in peaceful quiet Beetle seemed to startle and come to himself and then he reached over and passed me the rabbit, now cool and ready to eat.

I had experienced a lot of problems and worry since coming to this world, but I needed to put that aside for the moment and revel in my not so small victory. I had caught food, and not just any food but a fat rabbit which was rare in the grasslands near the city being sought after as a food item by many. Our celebration was short lived and then once more we needed to clean up and head back to the basement for the night.