Traveling at night

Carriages were driving on a road sparingly lit by the moon which only showed parts from under the thick layer of clouds. There was a constant rattling from the wheels on the ground, sometimes when the wagon would drive over a bigger stone or into a hole you could feel the whole carriage shake.

Inside it where only a couple of people, some cloths and dry rations for food. Most of the humans inside of it were grown men with robust builds and some even with battle scars. There were four of them two on each side and the ones on the left were currently sleeping whereas the rest just rested but maintained a watchful eye on the other passengers.

They were a small boy and a girl more or less the same age. The soldiers were told to keep an eye on them and not let them escape so they did just that. As long as the children didn't do anything stupid they wouldn't bother too much with them.

One of the children was sleeping as it was pretty normal for a child to sleep at this hour. Even though her face was full of tears and marks her hands had left behind from all the wiping were clearly visible, her face still was extraordinarily stunning and was already showing the signs of becoming even more charming in the future. Lying in a rolled-up position she was muttering in her sleep. Most often the words 'father' or 'don't leave me!' would leave her mouth but sometimes she would just weep in silence as well. Albeit it wasn't a good sleep she still found some kind of rest tonight, the boy next to her wasn't as lucky.

Sitting on the hard ground in the rear of the waggon was Tang He. He had wanted to see the last specks of the village he had spent his life so far in vanish behind the horizon – that was 3 hours ago.

Now the only thing he saw was darkness but even though this darkness would clear up sometimes when the moon came out of the clouds the darkness in his heart wouldn't follow.

This night wasn't beautiful by any means but it wasn't too bad either, there was no storm to vent one's rage into and no starry sky to send one hopes into. It was just overcast. Gloomily overcast.

It was pretty cold outside as well, spring had just recently set in and albeit all the snow from the winter had melted, it wasn't warm yet, especially at night. Even though Tang He had a warm cloth to help him keep his warmth, it wouldn't help him. Or maybe it did, but he just wasn't able to feel it.

Two emotions were trying to get a hold inside of him. Of course, he was calm, he sat there still like any unliving object would and sometimes the gloominess would win at which he would question his life and missing his family. He would try and see if there was anything he could have done to prevent this from happening but very soon when he found out that he had acted by his believes and so his other emotion would kick in.

Or rather it was the absence of emotions that would be filling him. Emptiness, sometimes it was the emptiness of indifference, sometimes the one of hopelessness or just the one someone would feel after losing something beloved and vital to them.

It wasn't even the biggest misfortune that he was leaving his home village. He had planned to do that sooner or later anyways. Go out and travel the world, see far places and discover its secrets.

Even though he was indeed traveling now, he wasn't a free man anymore, he was a slave.

Just because he had tried to resolve a small issue and said one sentence which only reiterated common knowledge, he had lost his freedom.

Maybe he had been called a servant by that boy master, but Tang He knew exactly that there was no real difference between that and a slave. Either way his life wouldn't belong to himself anymore.

Even Frank was rather shocked still. It was he, who had proposed what exactly to say and so at least partly it was his fault as well that they were in this situation. Even though it was very unlikely that anything he could have said would have changed anything but still he was at fault as well. At fault that an innocent boy got pulled into slavery.

As he felt the grief and emptiness he too got influenced by it but his emptiness was more like an emptiness of ideas. In his opinion there was always a way to cope with any situation – a way out.

Right now, the most obvious one was to jump out of the waggon and run into the forest. Their carriage was the last one of the caravan so there were only 2 guards he needed to be faster than. Two full grown trained adults stood between him and potential freedom.

Of course, what freedom would that be? Where would he go? He couldn't return home, obviously and living in the woods was quite dangerous as well. Somehow, he would need to reach another settlement of humans where he could maybe do something? …

That would be if he were alone.

But he wasn't!

Firstly, letting Su Liling fend for herself would defy the whole idea of helping her so she would have to come with them and secondly, there were still his parents not too far away from here. As long as they remained in the area they were basically hostages as well.

If the young master didn't like what he got or if it would suddenly disappear he could decide to exert revenge on the village and their close ones. Only if such a revenge was meaningless could they escape and right now this would only be possible if they were dead as nobody would bother doing too much because of a corpse.

Somehow, they needed to find a way to make it seem like they died and then escape unnoticed, and that would be evidently difficult.

Frank was very happy that his boy's constitution became rather strong in the recent time. Tang He had trained a very long time to become as enduring as possible his muscles did hide surprising flexibility and power as well.

The only question remained whether his mind would hold up through this test.

'Don't worry about me! I am fine!'

< Yeah, you are most definitely not… >

'Okay, I am not alright, but how could I? Who knows what that guy is going to do to us?!'

< His personality is not the best that is true. >

'Not the best? Haha good joke you have there… Didn't you see his eyes when he looked at Ling'er?'

'That guy is not normal! We are all at great risk being here'

< Hmm… he is the son of a merchant first and foremost hence he shouldn't do anything that could make him lose out on anything. We are his products right now and if he wants to do anything with us, he will probably treat us accordingly… >

'You want to compare him to those cultured Romans you spoke of before, right? But even then, there are all kinds of slavers and all kinds of treatments…'

'And the more pressing question would be: What is our value to him?'

'And why the hell would he even need us?'

< That is indeed the question… >

< He is to become one of those immortals your mama warned us about as well… >

'That is what he claimed and why he said he bought the stone for…'

< So many unanswered questions… Even though this trip will likely not be a pleasant one, maybe we'll get a chance to answer some… >

'Wuuuaaaaaa…'

'Let's hope so!'

With another yawn Tang He turned to look away from the rear and back into the carriage. The same 4 soldiers were still sitting either resting or sleeping and still Su Liling was lying in one of the corners curled up into a ball under warm cloths.

This time her sleep seemed to be more peaceful, she even had one of those smiles on her face when she would listen to Tang He's adventures.

After checking up on the girl Tang He shifted his body more into the waggon as to be more inside and less exposed to the night. Taking the warm cloth and covering himself with it he too slowly calmed down from all the emotional turmoil he had been through in the last hours.

As his heartbeat slowed his thinking followed suit and soon he dozed off with a confident and slightly hopeful expression on his face.