Will you join me, Alla?

The children we pardoned, the women we tossed in the sea, and the men we buried alive, up to their necks. We took them to The Rice Road, made them dig their graves, threw them in, filled in the graves, and left them there with only their heads exposed. Travelers often stopped to urinate on the rebels. Some died in two or three days, others lasted five. Up to today, their skulls still litter the roadside, bleached white by the sun.

- This first-hand account of the Burials On The Rice Road was sourced from The Fury Of The Fight, an instructional manual for Baenarite officer recruits penned by Roland Molyndyrus Gaissonbhurg, Lord Commander of the 31st Royal Regiment. It is the only extant written eyewitness description of the punishment meted out to rebellious slaves in the aftermath of the Battle Of The Red Paddy, the final battle of Hvirak's Revolt, a battle the then 16-year-old Roland Gaissonbhurg fought in.

"Get back to work, you lazy whore," Brutch, the overseer, barked.

Allara's head snapped as she realized she had been slacking, gazing out of the window and daydreaming instead of working. Brutch was one of the better ones. He hurled obscenities all day but if you ignored that, he was a good man, a thing that couldn't be said of many overseers in Siiruch's Roost.

Allara's fingers were sore and cramped from sewing all day but she had bigger problems. It was more of one massive problem and its name was Bogdyr. Will you join me, Alla? The words rang in her head for what had to be the thousandth time.

As luck would have it, her brother, her idiot brother Bogdyr, was plotting a slave revolt. The Grand Escape, he was calling it. He wanted Allara to join him but she didn't think she had a choice. If Bogdyr pulled it off, no one would believe she wasn't involved. She had tried to discourage that kind of foolishness but Bogdyr's courage had always outweighed his commonsense.

Ragtag bands of slaves didn't beat Baenarites. Hvirak tried it forty years ago. He had 100,000 men and he failed. Bogdyr had a grand total of twenty men in his budding army. If his objective was suicide, he couldn't have come up with a more convoluted way to commit it.

Allara expelled the big problem from her mind and focused on the smaller ones. Small problems were somehow solvable, even comforting.

She badly wanted to scratch her head. The mud she'd rubbed into it that morning had dried and was pulling tightly on her scalp. Some of the other girls cut their hair off completely but Allara still retained a little vanity. She kept her hair reasonably short and rubbed mud into it to more easily compress it.

Her face also hurt. She felt the skin tightening over her cheekbones and feared it might crack like old cowhide if she made any sudden facial movements. She wished she could rub some oil onto it so it felt smoother and looked less ashy but she couldn't. The ashy look was not just the fashionable one but the pragmatic one.

The irony wasn't lost on her. Women her age in every corner of the world were doing their best to look as pretty as possible while Allara and her peers at The Roost were doing the exact opposite. Here, looking too attractive could have you turned into The Beast's lay of the day.

Allara turned her attention back to the woolen tunic in front of her. The wool was thick, if a little scratchy. It was winter wear for one of her fellow slaves. It would protect the wearer well in the coming chill of autumn and winter. She finished with it and picked up two more rectangles of cut fabric from the stack beside her. She sewed the two rectangles together to form a tunic then sewed on the sleeves. She put it on the pile of completed tunics next to her, inserted more thread through the eye of her needle, and picked up two more rectangles of cut cloth, repeating the process over and over again.

Allara and her twenty-two companions had spent the whole day doing the same thing. They used to be twenty-six but four had caught the disease. The swollen neck disease. It was claiming more and more people every passing day. Allara feared that one day it would be her. She feared dying before atoning for her sins.

She spied Lucinda and Marietta, flashing each other hostile glances from opposite corners of the room. Lucinda was the best seamstress at Siiruch's Roost. Marietta was the second-best. The two women had never been friends but now that Lucinda was convinced Marietta had tried to kill her in the night, their mutual hostility had intensified.

Allara wished to confess that it was she who had thrown the knife that stabbed Lucinda in the thigh but every time she got close to the woman, courage failed her. No permanent harm was done, she rationalized the whole thing to herself. Lucinda got a shallow wound that healed quickly. Marietta had received a few undeserved punches before the other woman pulled them apart that fateful night.

Allara glanced at the fading scar on her wrist. It had been a month since she had tried and failed to kill herself. She had lied about the wound when Bogdyr and Sylvia asked. "Got scratched by a nail," she said. They believed it.

But her life hadn't gotten any better. Sir Zemil kept choosing a new woman every day. More people she knew succumbed to the swollen neck disease. These were sequestered and sent to the fields. They were lepers in all but name. No one wanted to sit or sleep near them. Some died, others survived, but nobody wanted to be friends with a swolly-necky. Every day, Allara feared that she'd wake up with a swollen neck herself. Nobody knew what caused the disease or how to treat it.

Allara did have something to look forward to. In five days, summer would come to an end. They would celebrate Aeduisia to say goodbye to summer and celebrate Ambauria on the very next day to welcome autumn. Aeduisia and Aembauria were two of the twelve holy days at the beginning, middle, and end of each season.

Allara looked forward to Aeduisia. It had become her favorite holiday. Not just because she got to eat meat, not work, and became immune to punishment. Aeduisa had another special significance for the slaves: it was Manumission Day.

Each year, on Aeduisia, a man was expected to free a small portion of his slaves as an offering to Aeduia. The number wasn't specified though the priests advised freeing either a twentieth, in the case of men with many slaves, or freeing a slave after twenty years of loyal service in the case of men with only a handful.

Bogdyr dismissed the practice as a ploy to keep slaves docile and for once, he was right. Aeduisia was traditionally the day of mercy. King Daegan's brother Baeon The Bard had started the practice of freeing slaves on Aeduisia following Hvirak's Revolt, the largest slave revolt in the history of the 100 Realms.

Allara didn't care whether it was a ploy or not. It was something to look forward to even if her chances of going free were slim. The Roost had 7,000 slaves. Her odds of being one of the 350 chosen ones weren't great but all Allara could do was hope. Hope for freedom. Hope for a better tomorrow.

Allara also worried that she might never see Aeduisia. It was only five days away but a lot could happen in five days. Bogdyr could attempt his stupid revolt and they'd all die. Zemil Kantbhurg could pick her as his woman of the night. She could catch the swollen neck disease. She could catch an infection from an open back wound after a flogging and die. It had happened before. Allara was thankful that Brutch didn't take a thrill in peeling their backs like some of the other overseers. She got bruises but no permanent scars. She wondered how long that would last.

While Allara had stayed at The Roost for six years, she had only been flogged seven times. Five of those had been in the previous nine days. Carman Kantbhurg had been setting increasingly unreasonable quotas for the past month and working the slaves harder with each passing day.

They didn't even rest on Aephyr's Day anymore. They worked all five days of a lichum instead of the traditional four. Allara had worked from sunrise to sunset without a rest day for 24 days straight. Somehow, her work got worse the longer she worked. Everyone knew why Lord Carman was working then so hard: The Thunderbolt was coming to The Roost. He would the first royal to visit the castle in over a decade.

Siiruch's Roost had first been constructed as a royal residence, a role it served for either 1,100 years, or 150 years, depending on whom you asked because for the nine and a half centuries of The Lost Millenium, the kings "ruling" from The Roost had been prisoners in all but name. They were ceremonial figureheads confined to the castle by their nobles for the entirety of their lives while the said nobles ruled as they saw fit and vied against each other for power and custody of the king. Their games resulted in a thousand years of ceaseless civil wars and a parade of child king after child king. Kings and princes changed custodians frequently, often dying in suspiciously convenient circumstances when they grew too old or too headstrong to be easily controlled.

Caedmyr The Restorer, the first king in a millennium to successfully break free of the yoke of his nobles and reassert his authority, had abandoned Siiruch's Roost 300 years ago. Now it was just another castle the crown owned.

"It is unseemly for a king to reside in a castle that holds the unbeatable record of being the most besieged fortification in all of the 100 Realms, probably all of the world," The Restorer had explained his abandonment of the ancient seat. That record was 77 sieges in 1,400 years. Second-place Salandport, a frequent target of raiders and conquerors over the ages, had only endured thirteen sieges in its 2,000-year history.

According to the long-term slaves of The Roost, King Daegan's brother Caedmyr The Navigator had visited often but the King of Kings himself hadn't set foot in The Roost since his coronation 32 years ago. With The Thunderbolt's upcoming visit, Lord Carman was working the slaves as hard as he could to impress his master's son.

Allara and the other seamstresses spent their days sewing clothes for the guards, overseers, and scribes on the estate and their families, but for the past month, Lord Carman had set them to sewing clothes for the slaves, something he had never bothered with before. The reason for Carman Kantbhurg's sudden concern for the welfare of the slaves was plain: he didn't want The Thunderbolt to see his father's slaves in tatters.

The Thunderbolt was somewhere north, marching south towards Pharasandria by The Conqueror's Path. His route would take him right by The Roost. Reports from travelers spoke of an army without end. An army that vanished into the horizon. This was the army Bogdyr would have to face if his slave revolt became even moderately successful.

The Thunderbolt had just crushed barbarian horsemen that breached a pass in the mountains and ravaged the northern provinces. Singers said the barbarian army numbered in the millions and The Thunderbolt had defeated them with 30,000 men.

Allara remembered when the war started two years ago. Streams of refugees from the north clogged the road with carts and the river with barges and canoes, all heading south. They told tales of the atrocities barbarians were committing, burning farms and temples, raping priestesses, and killing every man they could find. The barbarians slaughtered any garrisons of the northern cities that dared face them in battle and pushed as far south as Sritanya, a town only 200 miles north of The Roost. "A ten-day march to here," the guardsmen at the castle kept saying.

But barbarian successes ground to a halt once The Thunderbolt sailed north to confront them. He defeated them in battle after battle and chased them all the way to the northwestern border of the 100 Realms. This border was demarcated by the Lilaur Gorge, a canyon running diagonally from north to southwest, cutting a roughly triangular chunk off northern Bhai Andium. This triangular chunk was the kingdom of Trevantum, the only holdout to Rhexbhurg rule south of The Drapes of Aembaur, mountains that touched heaven itself and separated the lands of civilized men from the barbarous wastes of uncultured savages.

The Thunderbolt trapped the barbarians with their backs to Lilaur Gorge, slaughtered a reported one million of them, then packed their corpses into the canyon like so many bricks, forming a causeway of corpses that he used to cross into Trevantum.

Nestled in the northwestern corner of Bhai Andium with the impenetrable Drapes of Aembaur to the north, treacherous seas to the west, and a canyon a mile wide in some places and so deep that its bottom was shrouded in darkness protecting its eastern and southern borders, Trevantum had proven impossible to conquer. The entire nation was one giant natural fortress. Every army either ripped the hulls of its ships on the jagged underwater rocks off the Trevantene coast or got stopped by the impassable canyon when advancing by land.

Trevantum's defiance towards The Purple Hat had lasted until The Thunderbolt filled in the impassable canyon with a million corpses, crossed into its territory, crushed its armies, and captured its king. Caedmyr One-Ear conquered the formerly unconquerable kingdom that had resisted his ancestors for 300 years in three months. Now he was marching his victorious army home and stupid Bogdyr thought he could somehow start a slave revolt with 20 men in the middle of Rhexia, in the king's own castle, and succeed.

The bells tolled 12 times, signaling the end of the workday and interrupting Allara's thoughts. They were supposed to have stopped an hour earlier but Carman Kantbhurg had extended the workday by an hour to meet his goals.

Exhausted as she was, Allara dreaded the end of the workday. She hadn't met her quota. It was impossible enough but Lord Carman kept raising it. She was supposed to sew 70 tunics. She had sewn 62. By Lord Carman's new rules, she was in for eight lashings of the whip.

"Against the wall," Brutch commanded. 22 women and girls from a 15-year-old Lola to Cassia and Mira, both of whom were pushing sixty, shuffled silently to the wall opposite the window. Allara watched silently as farmhands, artisans, and herdsmen streamed into the castle courtyard below. A scribe came in to help Brutch with the tally.

"Did you meet your quota?" Lola asked Allara in a terrified whisper. The poor girl was on the verge of tears. It was obvious that she hadn't met hers. Lola was new. She had only been at The Roost for a month and had gotten herself whipped every single day since. Allara couldn't help feeling sorry for her.

Allara slowly shook her head. Lola responded with a whimper.

"Lucinda. Eighty-one. You can go," Brutch said with a half-pleased, half-awed tone and handed Lucinda a token for extra rations. The rest of them looked at Lucinda with barely concealed envy. The woman's abilities were beyond comprehension. Next came Marietta who had sewn 74 tunics. She too got a token for extra rations and was dismissed. Brutch also dismissed Cassia, Mira, and four other women who had been assigned lower quotas because of their age.

"Lola!" Brutch barked. "Thirty-two? All day?" The girl broke into tears but Brutch was unmoved. "None of you have met the quotas. Face the wall!"

The women turned slowly, half-hoping that Brutch would forego their punishment. He did that sometimes. But the scribe Rormil was here. He was one of the many Kantbhurgs that Lord Carman had brought to The Roost.

Allara closed her eyes and whispered a prayer to Aeduia. She kept them closed as she heard the swish of the whip and the sound of women whimpering and crying. As the sound moved closer, she stiffened her back and prayed harder. She no longer prayed for miracles. Only strength.

Allara sensed Brutch behind her and then heard the whoosh of the whip as it sliced through the air. Allara stiffened her back in anticipation. The whip struck Lola. The girl let out a blood-curdling scream.

"Shut up!" Brutch screamed back. Lola obeyed, suppressing her screams into sniffles. Allara felt sorry for poor Lola. How was the girl to endure 37 more lashes? Allara said another prayer to Aeduia for Lola and relaxed her own back. That's when the whip sent pain streaming from Allara's back into her chest. She let out a low scream, more out of surprise than pain.

Allara braced for a second lash but it never came. Brutch moved to whip the girl next to her. "Get out of here!" Brutch barked after he was done.

"Wait!" the scribe, Rormil Kantbhurg, interjected. Rormil was fifteen or sixteen. He was a skinny thing, a distant Kantbhurg cousin from a lesser branch. He imitated all the mannerisms of his cousin Sir Zemil but lacked the physical presence to be truly threatening. "Only one lash? These lazy bitches deserve at least five each. That wretched crybaby," he said pointing at Lola, "should be getting 38."

"Do it yourself then," Brutch spat. "I'm tired." He dumped the whip at Rormil's feet and left. The scribe picked up the whip, stared at it, stared at the women, stared back at the whip, stared at the door, and muttered a curse under his breath.

"Get out!" Rormil yelled at them. They stood still, unsure of whether he intended to continue whipping them or not. "Out!" he screamed again and cracked the whip in the air. They ran. Someone started giggling once they were out of earshot. It was Lola. They all joined in the giggling. Allara had no idea why she was giggling but it felt great.

Allara joined the slow-moving queue for supper. Her brother Bogdyr detached himself from a group of farmhands and joined her.

The stench of sweat, sheep, cattle, and horses clung to Bogdyr like a disgusting perfume. It reminded Allara of just how fortunate she was to work indoors all day doing reasonably light work. It was harvest season and the other slaves had spent the day threshing wheat in the hot summer sun and carrying 100-pound sacks of grain on their backs, all while an overseer marched behind them, ready to bring his whip down on any laggard's back. Bogdyr had probably been wrestling bulls and running after wayward sheep since morning, but you wouldn't know that from the perpetual half-smile on his face.

"You look happy. What happened?" Bogdyr asked. "Share the joy."

"We just got flogged."

"And that's funny because?"

Allara recounted the events from the sewing room. "Mmmh," Bogdyr hummed. "All Kantbhurgs are cunts and Little Rormil is scared of girls. What else is new?"

"Keep your voice down!" Allara reprimanded in a harsh whisper.

Bogdyr looked around and turned to her with a conspiratorial smile, "You're not going to tell on me, are you?"

"How could you think that?"

"You know I don't think much. It makes my head hurt."

Allara rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "How is your back?"

He shrugged. "It could be better."

"You didn't get scourged again, did you?"

"Oh no," he said with a shake of his head and showed her a token for extra rations in his palm. Then in a chillingly accurate imitation of Carman Kantbhurg's voice said, "Bogdyr has been the model slave today."

"Bogdyr!" Allara hissed.

"What?" he responded with mock incredulity.

"You know very well that Lord Carman doesn't like anyone doing impressions of him. You could lose your tongue for that!" she whispered harshly.

He smiled, unconcerned. Then he repeated the same impression, only louder. Some slaves nearby chuckled.

"Do you have a death wish, you fool?" Allara could barely contain her rage at his carelessness.

"Dying would significantly improve my station."

The stubborn little wretch refused to back down. If only I could slap some sense into him, Allara thought. But he had grown a foot in the past year. He was now a head taller than her. In another year she may have to jump in order to slap him. His bravado had grown at thrice the rate of his height

"Continue wagging your tongue like that and see Lord Carman make your wishes come true," Allara hissed. Bogdyr just chuckled.

"Move it!" a guard barked.

They scurried forward to get their food. The cooks were serving rice and beans. Allara got a ladleful of each. The rice was soggy and overcooked, more brown paste than rice. The ladle of beans was full of water with only about seven beans floating on top of a soup the color of day-old blood.

With his token for extra rations, Bogdyr got a double portion: two ladlefuls of rice and two ladlefuls of beans. They also tacked on two pieces of meat and an apple. Bogdyr immediately gobbled up the larger piece of meat and offered Allara the smaller one.

"Thank you," she said sarcastically as she slowly chewed on the meat, relishing the flavor.

"Thou shalt not despair, my lady," he responded in the exaggerated cadence of a man reciting epic poetry. "Thou shalt have half an apple for evenmeal and three grains of beans courtesy of thee. After you." He bowed mockingly. Allara wanted to punch his face in.

They washed their hands, with Bogdyr insisting on using her water, then scouted the perfect place to sit. They found a spot in the yard that wasn't too dusty or too crowded. Here they ran into Bogdyr's friend Roror.

Roror was 21, only two years older than Allara, but he looked forty. His face was bruised from a beating. Roror was the actual leader of the conspiracy. Bogdyr was merely an overeager lieutenant. "Roror, you wrinkled bastard," Bogdyr said in greeting. "I was having a perfectly nice day. Then I saw your ugly face."

"Better get used to it. Your pretty sister here will be popping out little duplicates of me by this time next year," Roror shot back.

Allara wagged a finger at him but Roror just laughed it off. "Where's your supper?" Bogdyr asked as they sat down next to him.

"Don't have any," Roror said. "Got in a fight with an overseer. Gotta go to bed hungry today."

Bogdyr waved one of his hands expansively. "Why go hungry when there's so much soil to eat?"

"I was just asking myself that question," Roror said seriously. "Then I tried a mouthful. It tasted like your farts."

"My farts are delicious," Bogdyr said half-laughing.

"Of course, you would think that," Roror replied.

Allara let out a small whimper of surprise as Bogdyr snatched away her plate and offered it to Roror. "I was about to eat that," she protested.

"You can eat this." Bogdyr pointed at his plate.

"All of it?" she asked hopefully.

"Half."

Allara favored him with a hostile look and then shrugged. Roror nodded at them with gratitude and dug into his newly acquired meal. Allara and Bogdyr dug into theirs too. She insisted he partition the meal in the middle before they began. He always ate faster than her. Starting without some ground rules would have resulted in him wiping the plate clean while she was still chewing on her second bite. They didn't talk for as long as they ate, which was only a short while. There wasn't much food to begin with.

The food was bland and unsalted. Allara missed salt. It had been three months since she had last tasted a salted meal. She thought back to her childhood when she would splash through her father's saltpans and was filled with regret. She just wanted a pinch but Carman Kantbhurg had decided that salt was too valuable for the likes of her. Allara took the last of her beans off the plate and tried not to think of how much empty space there was in her stomach. She was always hungry these days.

Bogdyr interrupted her with a nudge. "Here." He offered her his waterskin.

Allara took her own waterskin and shook it in front of his face. "I have water in my canteen."

He ignored her and shoved his waterskin into her mouth anyway. A liquid poured into Allara's mouth. She was about to spit it out and slap the waterskin away when she tasted it. Milk. Raw, sweet, and creamy. It was the best thing she had tasted for as long as she could remember. She gulped it down greedily and kept gulping until Bogdyr pulled the canteen away "You'll drink it all," he complained.

Allara put on an innocent face and shrugged. Bogdyr gulped down some more milk and passed the canteen to Roror, whose eyes widened after he took his first swig. He turned to Bogdyr and whispered, "Don't they flog you if a cow produces too little milk?"

Bogdyr nodded slowly. "They do."

"And you milked one anyway? You don't really like your back, do you?"

"I didn't milk one," Bogdyr said. "I milked thirty. Took a few squirts of milk from each until I had enough. Overseers are too stupid to notice that."

Roror gave Bogdyr a look of pure admiration, looked around, and then gulped down the milk like a thirsty man seeing water for the first time. He put down the waterskin only when it was empty and let out a luxuriant belch. "I feel strong enough to kill all the guards," Roror said while slowly rubbing his stomach and looking around with a self-satisfied smile.

Allara didn't know how Roror managed to be so jovial. Less than a month had passed since his brother had died from a back infection following a severe flogging for the great crime of dropping a crate of eggs. The flogger, Magyr The Skinner, walked by laughing with two other overseers. Roror's face hardened and his eyes followed The Skinner until the overseer vanished into the mess hall. The mess hall that had once been a throne when kings ruled from Siiruch's Roost.

"About our plan," Bogdyr said. "I was talking to Alla and she says it's stupid. It can't work."

"Yes," Roror agreed, finally diverting his gaze from the mess hall door. "These cowards will never fight even if we wait a hundred years. They're too scared. They keep mentioning Hvirak and his fate. They would sooner die from an overseer's whip than kill one."

"That's why I was thinking we should escape," Bogdyr suggested, "Forget all about creating a slave army from all the plantations and towns around here and just make a run for it. Kill the guards and run. If we do it well, we will be miles away before they start looking. We have what, fifty men now?"

Roror's face turned sad. "Twelve."

"Twelve?" Bogdyr gasped. "When did that happen? We were up to forty-eight the day before yesterday?"

"The Thunderbolt coming has many scared. They think he will use their corpses to build a wall or something."

"Fucking cowards!" Bogdyr cursed. "We can't do shit with twelve. Guard duty has what, thirty guards? Perhaps we'll have better luck after The Thunderbolt leaves? He's only going to stay here a few days anyway. I mean, I'm not stupid enough to fight him either but just flat out backing out and waiting to die here? How is that better?"

Roror nodded. "I like your idea of running. I'm fed up with begging these cowards to fight and risking my own neck while at it. Why wait for them to change their minds when they will just grow cold feet again at the first excuse? Running is better with fewer people anyway. We should escape before The Thunderbolt gets here and brings all those Baenarites. They're saying it's only three or four days before he arrives so the earlier we can escape the better. Tonight is our best chance. The worst guards are on rotation. Can you get us the horses tonight?"

"Yes," Bogdyr said.

"Nice," Roror said. "Ervin is on guard duty tonight and he's an idiot. Him and his squad don't do any patrols. They just drink at The Skinner's house until morning. Me and the others can kill them quietly while you get the horses. If we ambush them around midnight, they will be too drunk to fight back and it will be morning before anybody else knows we're gone. We can flee west. Cross into Mekhros, find a ship in one of the smaller port towns, and be on our way across the Khars Sea before any pursuers catch up."

"They could still pursue you," Allara pointed out. "With horses and dogs. Even if you ride hard, it will still take you days to get to the coast. That's a lot of time for them to catch up with you."

"I already thought of that," Bogdyr said. "I recruited Mynah from the kennels. We'll take the hounds and pretend to be slave catchers for some rich merchant in Confluencia and let them loose once we are far enough. They can't chase us without dogs. We'll take all the horses and lame the ones we leave behind. I know a few tricks to make a horse hop around like it's lame for a day or two."

"That is brilliant," Roror gushed. "They'll be looking for escaped slaves, not slavecatchers."

"You are forgetting the birds," Allara said. "A pigeon can outfly a horse. A simple message to the next town and you're done. There will be checkpoints everywhere."

"Then we'll kill the bloody birds, won't we?" Roror said.

"You don't need to kill them," Allara advised. "Pigeons only fly to one place. You just open their cages and release them. They will all fly home and the ones that remain will be those bred here. They won't go anywhere and can't be used to send any messages."

"The problem is getting to them," Bogdyr lamented. "They keep them in the inner castle. We have to get through two sets of walls to get to them. There is no way we can do that undetected."

"Then screw them," Roror said. "My guys are tired and eager to leave. We take the dogs and kill them once we're far enough. Dump them in the river and keep going. We can pretend to be travelers or pilgrims instead of slave catchers. The pigeons outflying us is just a risk we have to live with. I've seen that swollen neck disease before. It's going to kill us all. We won't see winter if we stay here."

"But if you're caught?" Allara asked.

"Then I'll kill myself," Roror said matter-of-factly. "I'm not coming back here."

"We should go north then," Allara advised.

"North?" Roror spat. "So we can run smack into The Thunderbolt and his whole army? Why would I do something so stupid?"

"You can't outrun pursuit, Roror," Allara said. "Sooner or later they will catch you. They aren't letting escaped slaves kill guards and get away with it. They will send a bird to every town and castle within 200 miles of this place if they have to. Every man will be hunting you. At best, it will take you two days to get to the Mekhrosi border and another three or four to get to the coast if you ride hard and never rest. A pigeon dispatched at sunrise would arrive by noon. They could send ten pigeons back and forth before you even arrive. They will be waiting for you days in advance. They will stop and detain every man on a horse and close all the ports if they have to. Even if you kill all the castle's dogs, they will just get a tracker from any of the neighboring villages to hunt you. You may buy yourself a day but no more. If I'm to escape with you, I don't want to get caught."

"You say you don't want to be caught and yet you want to go north?" Roror scoffed.

"Nobody will be looking for us there," Allara said. "Create a false trail heading west, double back, and follow one of the streams north to throw off the dogs before getting back on the road. There are always pilgrims going to Mount Mautr and The Drapes. The army won't bother us. They'll assume we're pilgrims and leave us alone, especially if we ditch the horses and proceed on foot."

"On foot?" Roror gasped. "You are insane."

"No, no. It's a good plan," Bogdyr cut in. "Carman won't want The Thunderbolt to know that he got outwitted by a bunch of slaves. It makes him look incompetent. As long as we give him a false trail, he will hurriedly follow it and hope to catch us quickly. North is our safest direction. They will be looking in every direction but north."

"Which brings me to my second concern," Allara said. "How do you plan to survive on the run without money? How will you pay for passage across the sea? What will you do there?"

"I have a little gold," Roror said. "We won't have to steal. Across the sea, we will join The Bastards' Brigade. They're always looking for strong men who can fight. There's a war going on now in Melos. Once we're away from these shores we'll be set."

"Even you?" Allara asked Bogdyr. "You're going to become a sellsword?"

"Why not?" Bogdyr asked. "I'm ferocious and I'm deadly with a bow, sling, spear."

"When did that happen?" Allara asked. Slaves weren't trained to arms.

"I don't watch cows and sheep graze all day," Bogdyr said. "Sheepdogs do half the work and unless there's a wolf nearby, I have a little bit of free time which I use to train. I've gotten quite good. "

Allara gave her brother one of those looks she saved for times when she was impressed but didn't want to swell his pride any more than it already was. "What about me? I can't be a sellsword."

"Soldiers can't make their own clothes, Alla," Roror said. "You can join The Brigade too. My mother was a tailor for The Brigade."

"She was?" an incredulous Allara asked. Slaves never discussed their backgrounds but that sounded like an awful coincidence.

Roror nodded. "Yes. Perhaps she still is."

"How did you end up here then?"

"Some of my cousins talked me into joining their crew for a little mischief on the high seas. It was quick money, they said. One merchantman loaded with silk or wine and we would be rich men. We managed to capture one but then got caught in a storm. It blew us right into the hands of a naval patrol."

"I thought they hanged pirates?"

"They do. All my cousins got the rope. But me and my brother…" he trailed off, grief tinging his face. "He was fourteen. I was thirteen. Too young to hang. So they made us slaves."

"So you know the Reendeni tongue?"

"Yes, I was born there."

"But your name isn't Reendeni."

"My family was originally from Mekhros. We still keep to the customs. My grandfather's grandfather got exiled after the 2nd Wife War with all the others who fought against the king. It was these exiles who formed The Bastards' Brigade. The Reendeni fight all the time but aren't men enough to die in their own wars. So they hire sellswords. The Brigade is a Bhaandini company. There are a few Reendeni there but it's mostly our countrymen. Exiles, fugitives, and Baenarites expelled from the army. We will be in good company. Even that Salandrian rebel, Masden Salandbhurg, the brother of Smandan, he is there."

"Masden Salandbhurg?" Allara and Bogdyr asked as one.

"Yes," Roror said. He's a captain in The Brigade. At least he was the last time I was there. He brought a lot of Salandrian rebels with him so they made him a captain.

"I can't wait to introduce myself to him," Bogdyr said.

"I can help you with that. I know a few people who can introduce you," Roror promised, oblivious to the ice in Bogdyr's voice.

"Gather around!" a sharp voice cut through their conversation. Allara turned to see Carman Kantbhurg appear on the balcony above the mess hall, surrounded by guards. The Lord Castellan rarely addressed the slaves. Whatever it was, it had to be important.