Chapter 16: Making a bad choice

Moving as silently as he could through the undergrowth, Kira struggled to choose a direction in which to walk and, in the end, decided to simply follow the light of the moon. Then, at midnight, ignoring his body and mind's cries for rest, he continued in what he thought was a straight line with the moon moving behind him and creating a rippling shadow of his figure before him. The moon was soon lost to his sight entirely, and the sky turned a mixture of reds and yellows as the sun began to rise, peeping out from behind a set of low hills to mark the start of a new day.

Walking all morning without pause or rest gave Kira plenty of time to curse his own luck for getting himself into this situation. But, he guessed that it was his own fault for not gathering the resolve to leave Thea and Sadis earlier and having to have it handed to him by a second vision of the Progenitors. Trying desperately to find anything at all to take his mind off his grumbling stomach, he started practising the production of intricate shapes out of his own aura that he held out in front of himself. This practise certainly would exhaust him further, but he did not care and wanted to try anything to motivate himself to keep going a little way further. However, suddenly, his mind was taken back to food when he smelt freshly baked bread on the wind.

Unconsciously changing course to follow where it was coming from, he clambered up one of the hills that he had seen the sun peeking out from behind earlier and looked down upon a tranquil valley with a narrow road snaking through it heading west towards Ostermark. Down clustered around the road were a dozen buildings making up a small village, and one had smoke rising from its chimney and a porch in front of it facing the street. Such a small village surviving without protection served as a testimony for the stability within Krinestadt, compared to Arkadia's old territories.

When another breeze of wind passed him, it brought with it further smells of fresh bread, and he guessed that that particular house was no house at all but instead was the bakery in question, presenting itself to the road. Telling himself that going down to it would be a complete waste of time as he had no money to hand, from his vantage point, he looked around his side of the valley for a way to circumnavigate the settlement and continue on his way.

However, he hadn't had the time to find such a route before his stomach growled at him again, this time with much greater ferocity as though it could sense that a meal was near at hand. Before Kira really knew what he was doing, he had leapt down from the rock that he had perched on and was heading towards the village with a much-improved pace aided both by going downhill and the thought of a warm meal. This was pretty stupid, he thought, but I'll have to eat at some point, so it might as well be now to make the rest of this day go a little faster.

But how could he eat when he had no money? Deep within himself, he knew exactly what he had set out to do: to go and steal from innocent people. This thought didn't please him in the slightest, and he desperately thought of a way around it and wondered if he could get a meal banking on their kindness alone. If this didn't work, they would be aware of his presence, and so he would not get an opportunity for theft. Plus, if the robbery didn't work out and worse came to worse, perhaps he could simply use his aura to render the bakers unconscious and escape.

Promising himself that he would find a way to pay them back for what he took, he slowed his pace and crouched among several bushes to look for a way to sneak across to the back of the bakery that was now facing him.

From what he could see, there didn't seem to be any way to cross the open ground between the houses and to enter the bakery from behind whilst keeping hidden. So he instead watched for a time when there was no one about, or everyone's backs were turned to make a dash for it. This opportunity did not take long to come because, in such a tiny settlement, the streets were hardly packed with people, particularly here away from the road to Ostermark. Upon seeing that his path was clear, he got to his feet and tried to move simultaneously quietly and quickly towards his prize.

Having made it half way he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a child watching him. Momentarily panicking, he forced himself to stop and walk at a more measured pace towards his objective as though he actually belonged there, hoping that this person was too young to recognize that he did not. Fortunately, they didn't seem to display any reaction as he walked to the back entrance of the wooden hut that made up the bakery and grasped at the handle on its back door. However, pushing it both ways, the door did not budge, and Kira was about to give up on this act of thievery and instead try to appeal to the townspeople's kindness when he realized that the door was not locked but instead was simply jammed shut.

Leaning on it with all of his weight, he was able to get it to swing inwards, creaking and protesting as it did so, with flakes of rotted wood falling from its surface and coming away in his hands. Inside was a dark room with a large wooden table in the centre partially covered by flour. Opposite Kira was a second door, most likely leading to the shop area as he could now hear several voices coming through it and to his left were a couple large ovens that were probably producing the smoke he had seen before. Over to his right were several shelves stacked with various loaves of bread and other pastries so, whilst straining his ears to ensure that the baker was still busy with his customer, he made his way over to them and reached out to take a pasty for himself.

That was when a quiet and high-pitched voice rang out behind him, "You shouldn't be in here; you're meant to be in the front."

Startled, he whirled around to see the child from before, a young girl, standing across the table and looking at him, "You shouldn't be in here!" she repeated, more urgently before, whilst gesturing at the door to the shop where the voices had stopped, and footsteps could be heard approaching from. "I'll tell my parents if you don't leave." she threatened.

But at this point, nothing that he said to her could have helped him and nor could he have left because the baker, still wearing a white apron, banged through the second door, followed closely by the customer that Kira guessed he had been serving. "Are you alright, Lily?" he asked the girl, noting the open back door, before looking around and seeing Kira.

Aware that he probably didn't appear in the best of lights being crouched by the baker's produce with a scared child in the room with him and having essentially broken the bakery's back door, he got to his feet to try and explain himself. Before he could, the baker snatched up a rather thick rolling pin and said to his companion, "Well, look what we have here," before nudging at Lily, who took that as her cue to leave.

"I can explain myself," pleaded Kira, failing to find the resolve or the remaining strength to gather up his aura and run from them.

"Do you know what we do to thieves, lad?" the other man questioned rhetorically as he walked around the other side of the table, blocking any route for escape and causing Kira to think back to the people he had seen missing fingers as a punishment for thievery in Krinestadt.

Lifting his rolling pin and slapping it back into his free hand with a resounding thwack, the baker asked, "Are you here alone?" and Kira had little chance to even nod before he continued looking around at his friend, "Well then, you know what's coming around here tomorrow, don't you Ryan?"

Ryan smiled and nodded, "It'd be better for everyone then if we didn't relieve him of a finger."

"What's tomorrow?" asked Kira, tentatively expecting that he wouldn't like the answer.

"Slavers are coming by," stated the baker, "It'd be best for everyone if we sold you to 'em; I'd get money back to fix my door, and you'd get fed, maybe not very well, so then you won't have to steal!"

The baker probably expected quite an adverse reaction from Kira or for him to plead with him to not be sold into slavery, but at that instant, Kira was just happy that he wasn't going to lose a finger. Besides, what the man had said was true. At least as a slave he would be fed and, as he was a manipulator, escape should be easy in the absence of any conditions being placed upon him. Trying to simultaneously pretend to struggle against the strong hands of the baker, who had now put down his rolling pin, whilst also attempting to not struggle enough to warrant being struck for disobedience, he allowed himself to be led through the front of the bakery.

His journey took him past a line of customers who shot him terribly disapproving looks whilst they discussed what to do with him. Having reached a consensus agreeing with the baker, he was led outside and taken to a two-story house further back from the road that was the baker's place of residence. Here he was pushed through some surprisingly well-kept corridors with thick carpets lining the floors and towards a sturdy wooden door nestled under the stairs. This, as it turned out, was the entrance to where he would be staying the night.

Being pushed through the door frame, he barely stopped himself falling down the steep set of stairs on the other side, and he hardly had the time to turn and tentatively ask, "Will I be fed?" before the door was slammed in his face and he heard a key turning in the lock.

With nothing else to do, Kira turned back and carefully felt his way down the stairs that creaked and bent under his feet and were so steeply constructed that he would have struggled going down them even in full visibility. Now, the only meagre light was coming through a small window positioned high in the wall across the cellar from him. Once his eyes adjusted to the conditions, he was able to make out several different shelves stacked high with sacks for flour and other resources for baking.

Looking around, he couldn't find anything that would actually be edible, and so, using an empty sack as a mattress, he curled up on the floor pressed up against one of the walls. A short while later, he started to shiver as the cold from the ground crept through the sack and then his clothes and he was debating getting back up to try and get something thicker when he was given another reason for getting to his feet.

At the top of the stairs, the door was unlocked and then pushed open, revealing the baker's figure outlined against a bright golden light coming from behind him. Without bothering to go down into the basement himself, the baker stayed where he was and threw down a couple of flasks before closing the door and locking it behind him, leaving Kira alone in the dark once more. Making his way over and stubbing a toe on the bottom of a shelf, Kira went and picked up the flasks finding that one was filled with a soup-like substance and the other with water. Assuming that they were intended for him, he downed both flasks in one long draught gasping for breath afterwards and feeling the complaints from his stomach fade away.

Having eaten and feeling the length of the day catch up with him after the adrenaline caused by being caught in the act of thievery, sleep did not take long to find him, even if it were atop such a rough surface.

The morning was heralded through the only window, but it was still dark inside, and Kira had little choice but to sit and wait. He knew that the slaver was coming that day, but when was another matter and so he looked around for something to occupy him. However, even now that everything was slightly better illuminated than before, there didn't seem to be anything of interest around him. This meant that he was reduced to simply waiting and watching clouds tracing meandering paths across the sky as he had already decided not to try and practise any type of manipulation until he learnt how far he would have to walk that day.

Seemingly only a moment later, he was woken by the sound of voices from outside of the window, and he realized that he must have drifted off again in his own little nest of sacks. Having failed to pull himself up to the window to see through it, he strained his ears to try and make out what was being said, but this seemed to be impossible because the faint wisps of sound were far too faint for him to understand.

After this failure, he didn't have to wait for long for them to come and collect him as the basement door creaked back open and the baker stood at its top, flanked by two other, stern-looking men. "Come, on." the baker said, but Kira had needed no encouragement and was already making his way over.

In the main hall of the baker's house, the two slavers took over and led him outside whilst the baker pocketed a few bronze coins behind him. Outside, along the road running through the village, was a long column of around two hundred people linked together by a single chain that prevented any individual from trying to escape. Gathered around in a small group of their own was a company of guards who sat atop horses, of which two were empty, and Kira guessed that those belonged to the two men now leading him to the back of the column.

"We'll stop three times a day," one of the guards told him as they grabbed at Kira's right wrist and held it out before them, "That's when you'll get fed and be allowed to rest." Then, the guard closed a link of the chain around Kira's outstretched arm before finally adding, "If you try to run or can't continue, we will kill you." with a cheery smile and whilst turning away to remount their horse with over by their comrades.

At a word from the slaver's leader, the column lurched forwards and began heading down the road west towards Ostermark as several guards rode up and down it whipping at any slave that fell below the desired pace. Fortunately for Kira, his training as a manipulator meant that he could easily keep up with the pace of the other slaves, despite the shared weight of the chain, and he counted several children among their number who had to strain themselves just to keep on their feet.

This gave Kira plenty of time to look around at the countryside, mainly composed of gently rolling hills and farmed fields that had low stone walls between them, marking off the individual territories of the various farmers. Some of the farms that they passed seemed to have so little land belonging to them that Kira wondered how they would sustain themselves, let alone create an excess for sale in the markets. But these thoughts failed to hold his attention for long, so he looked out in front of him at his fellow slaves. Observing them now, it was obvious that the vast majority were demi-humans despite them being the minority in the broader populations.

The guard had been true in his word and at midday, with the sun beating down upon them from its position high in the sky, the column was stopped, and a ration of food and water was shared out among the slaves. Now it was well and truly autumn. This was evident not just by the trees changing in colour from green to a beautiful array of bright reds and oranges that, when he walked by, reminded Kira of the dancing flames of a fire but also by the temperature of the day.

It was much reduced, and by now the summer sun, which would cause many to hide inside to shelter from its sweltering heat, had diminished in stature to be a helpful necessity that kept people from being cold when they were outside. As such, people now avoided the shade rather than clinging to it to hide from the light.

After their short break, the slaves were made to get to their feet by the raised voices of their captors and continued on their way further down the road. However, not all of the slaves were able to rise to this request and one of the older demi-humans stayed down, unable to get up, having been worn down by marching for day after day whilst enduring constant beatings. After realizing that beatings wouldn't be of any use, and ignoring the protests from his fellow slaves surrounding him, two of the guards dismounted.

They then finally released him from the chain before dragging him into a clump of trees off to the side of the road. Kira could not see what happened next, but after a few minutes the two guards reappeared alone, and one was cleaning his sword with a cloth that he had taken from his back pocket. They then remounted, and the slaves were made to continue onwards with one additional link in the chain hanging empty.

Bearing witness to this drew Kira's attention to the other links in the chain that hung vacant and he counted at least eight of them. This confirmed to him that he had made the right decision in escaping a service to Krinestadt because, even if it may have been easier to enforce change from within the nation, he didn't know if he could ever have been content knowing that the people he worked for allowed such atrocities.

Surprisingly, a Marxan road marker informed Kira that they were no more than an afternoon's march away and so that they'd arrive at Ostermark later that same day, saving him from an uncomfortable night at the side of the road. He was then pleasantly surprised for a second time when, sooner than he had been expecting, they crested a hill and were able to look down onto the sprawling mess that made up Ostermark way below them.

Down in the valley below, the road continued and cut a straight path through the city like a river that had forged its own ravine. On the right of the road were several open areas that were now filled with market stalls and people from all walks of life going about their business. These squares were closely surrounded and encroached on by many towering wooden buildings that appeared to be much larger than the majority within the city and so were most likely owned by the city's merchants and upper classes and probably doubled as shops for more wealthy clients.

Just to the left of the main street was a large, stone-walled compound that appeared to contain a small cathedral, recently built to honour Krinestadt's national deity and the old imperial palace. This was constructed of a lighter stone than the surrounding wall and was an obvious statement of wealth and power over the city as that stone would have had to be imported at great expense. In addition, the palace boasted three silver towers that rose even higher than the one attached to the cathedral.

These structures provided magnificent views over the surrounding area. One even had large glass windows near its summit, yet another glorious statement of wealth that was visibly taunting the city's lower classes. From this particular tower, the mayor and their advisers could observe the bustling activities of the masses without ever exposing themselves to them or other potential threats.

Around the mayor's compound and the accommodations of the merchants were hundreds of ramshackle smaller wooden dwellings that followed no coherent organization and were so cramped together in places that a person would have to edge along sideways to pass along some of the supposed roads. From the looks of it, they had sprung up in the decades after the fall of Arkadia when the land around the imperial palace had been opened to the public. From the distance that Kira was at, it almost appeared as though there were no roads between these structures and instead just a dizzying rising and falling of roofs that appeared to move, as he did, like the surface of the sea.

As the group of slaves was led down and closer to the city, with Kira in tow, his attention was drawn to the numerous rotting stumps of trees surrounding the settlement. It was clear that a forest had once stood here, but it seemed to have been hastily removed to provide the materials for the town's recent expansion. The rotting stumps each sported a dozen brown mushrooms that Kira recognized as the type that had been transported by the man whose boat he had left Neuverie on, which fueled a crisis of addiction that persisted despite Krinestadt trying to ban the trade.

His attention was soon stolen from the mushrooms to the various other travellers who began to fill the road heading towards Ostermark. Some walked, and others rode or hitched rides in the back of carriages being pulled by horses or oxen. They all shared something in common: they all seemed to take long glances at the slaves they were passing and sharing the road with. Being aware of their critical looks, Kira became quite conscious of his current situation and status in society. Trying to ignore them, he repeatedly told himself that being a slave wouldn't be too bad and that he would be able to escape from it whenever he desired to.

It was in this manner, stealing many looks from curious passersby, that they arrived into the city itself and passed between the first few haphazardly constructed buildings that seemed to creak and strain against the weight that they were entrusted with as though they were ready to give way at any moment. Being shepherded by their guards, who often had to draw their blades and raise their voices to clear a path, the slaves were led deeper into the city through a mire of traffic to a wide marketplace which was empty aside from a large stage at one end.