Intermission - Unchained (4)

I had Clair tell me in detail all that she knew about how different masters were treating their slaves. We slaves were prohibited from leaving the farm, so our knowledge of what was going on in other farms was limited. As a human Clair enjoyed a much greater freedom of movement and got to talk to many more people.

I selected a farm that was close enough that I could walk to it within a reasonable amount of time who's masters Clair said had treated their slaves horrendously. I had Clair and Pamela wait on the farm while I followed the directions she gave me. I stalked the masters throughout the morning, killing them one by one and hiding the bodies. I was done before it was even time for lunch.

When the slaves realized that no one was controlling their collars they turned on their master's family in a rage, massacring everyone I hadn't killed myself before I had the opportunity to stop them.

I noticed that this group of slaves was far smaller than the one from my farm. Clair told me it was because the farmer was one of the ones who enjoyed playing games of torture and death with his slaves, and those who were too badly damaged to be useful any more would be beaten to death. I waited until they seemed to have calmed down somewhat, then introduced myself and explained what I did.

They accepted my invitation to join my group at Silver Lake, then swiftly ransacked the house before departing. I had to work hard to convince them not to burn the farm down. A fire would be far too conspicuous and would draw unwanted attention, making it impossible for me to free any more slaves, and much harder for all of us to escape without getting caught.

I repeated the process with another farm Clair told me about, with similar results. I was surprised at how easy it was to kill all those humans without any of them noticing what was happening, but I supposed they relied too much on the control collars to keep their victims in line, and didn't expect anyone to attack from the outside.

I returned to Clair's farm. By now the sun was setting, and I would need a good meal and a good night's rest if I was going to reach Silver Lake before the deadline. Pamela had already lost all patience, forcing Clair to keep her locked up in the stockade to prevent her from bursting into the upstairs bedrooms and stumbling across the bodies. Seeing the mangled corpses of her family would have been too shocking for such a small child.

Clair told me that Pamela reacted by screaming at the top of her lungs until she got tired and fell asleep, but since the stockade was far from the house, that didn't bother Clair too much.

For her part, Clair spent the day cooking and packing hers and Pamela's belongings. I ate the supper she served me without reservations. If she wanted me dead then she could have killed me with the collar earlier. Since she freed me instead, I trusted her.

The next day I set out early, with Clair and Pamela in tow. Pamela kept complaining the whole time, but I left it up to Clair to deal with her. I focused on finding our way, hiding our tracks, and keeping an eye out for any hostile people, human or beast-kin alike. I didn't trust my new bloodthirsty recruits not to kill Clair and Pamela first before I had a chance to clarify the situation.

Pamela got tired quickly. Clair carried her for a while, but it wasn't too long before she got tired out too, so after a short rest I found myself being the one to carry her, but not before letting Clair touch my collar again. It would be difficult to carry Pamela without her coming into contact with my collar, and I didn't want to find myself subjected to the whims of a spoiled little girl.

When we arrived at the lake I sniffed and listened around to try to find my people, but before I did I was greeted with a shout.

"Dad! We're here!" I heard Ash call out.

I saw him come out of the bushes some distance away. I led my small group over to him and found over a dozen free beast-kin camping together. The ones that I had freed yesterday rose in alarm when they saw the human girls who were with me, and some of them moved as if to attack.

"Stop!" I commanded, and they froze. "These two girls are innocent. They had no part in the crimes that our masters committed against us, and I will not allow them to be harmed. They're with us now".

"How can they be with us when they're human? We'll have to sleep with our eyes open to make sure they don't touch our collars", one of the new arrivals said.

"Then we'll tie them up or keep them under guard at night, I don't care, but they're coming with us and they will not be harmed. Is that clear?" I said while firmly looking each of them in the eye. One by one they looked away and backed off.

"I don't want to be here", Pamela muttered under her breath, so quietly that only I could hear her, but she seemed scared. At some point she must have started to understand what was going on. I wondered when Clair would tell her about what I did to their family. Pamela would learn the truth eventually, since people would talk about it. It was better if it came from her big sister, who would now have to play the role of her parent.

From there we kept traveling for a few weeks, hunting and gathering our food while doing our best to hide and confuse our tracks, until we finally found a place far from all human civilization in which to settle down. While the others focused on building a camp and starting a new life, I kept going out on expeditions, looking for more slaves that I could free and bringing them to our new home.

I didn't limit myself only to my home village. Instead, I went as far as I could away from both my old home and my new home. I didn't want to be predictable, or to make it easy for the Royal Militia to find our refuge. As I gathered more and more people, our community slowly grew, and the camp became a village.