18
Only One Escapes
The slave caravan moved through progressively drier land. On the tenth day, the trail veered away from the river into dry grassland, much like the Serengeti in drought season. This brought a break in the routine. The mid-afternoon rest was brief—just enough to unshackle one hand, give everyone water and a piece of bread to eat while walking. After sunset, they stopped at a small cluster of abandoned buildings, notable only for a well.
A work detail of slaves was told to collect water skins from one of the buildings and fill them at the well. Once filled, the water skins were taken back to the same building, and the door was locked.
While the water detail worked, two enforcers removed the ankle chains from Zalika and the few men who still wore them. The slavers selected their favorite samplers and retired to the one structure that still had a roof, leaving the work detail unshackled for the night.
thought Zalika.
“What are you doing? You must know that struggling is pointless unless you want to waste your energy. Your torment is one of the few things I take pleasure in. It sustains me." Abida arrived to taunt her again.
“Shut up, you cow, and help me hold the remaining shackle. Keep it steady so it won’t tilt when I pull.” Zalika was pulling with all her strength to free her left hand.
“Why should I help you? You are the reason I am here.”
“Because we are leaving tonight, we should make water by morning, and from there you can find your way home. I will get myself lost in the forest.”
Abida’s face was a mix of shock, hatred, and homesickness. After a brief hesitation, she grabbed the shackle and pulled harder than she had ever pulled on anything before. With a crack that was Zalika’s wrist, her hand came free from the shackle. Together, they drank as much as they could from the well before starting back the way they had come. None of the others dared to follow, but they stayed quiet.
Zalika’s plan was very simple and just as flawed. Abida might not have been missed until morning, but Zalika was missed just an hour after leaving camp when the Leader’s son got up to relieve himself. When she heard the distant sounds of alarm in the camp, Zalika knew their freedom would end very soon if they didn’t do something right now. “Abida, follow the tracks back to the river and follow that home. I will head south looking for a forest. They will be looking for my tracks and may not notice yours. Now go quickly.”
You must show me the way, or I will get lost. You got me into this, and it’s you who must get me out.
If you wish, but can you outrun a horse? Do you want to face Leader again? I can lead them away. They will follow my tracks. They may not even realize you are gone until daylight. When you reach the river, follow it until morning, then hide in the brush and reeds along the shore until dark. Travel all night, hide in the shade during the day.
What of wild animals? Don't they hunt at night?
“Would you rather run from the slavers? Now go! While you argue, they get closer.” Zalika headed south at a casual trot, careful to leave good tracks.
Abida hesitated just a bit longer before she started back towards the river.
thought Zalika as she trotted south. If the slavers followed her tracks, she could lead them on a chase they would never forget. She had such a significant head start that she needed to be careful not to lose them too quickly, or they would still have time to realize Abida was gone and catch her again.
Zalika sensed the horses nearby. Looking for signs of pursuit, she was caught off guard when Leader and one of the enforcers came from an unexpected direction on horseback. She tried to run, but without any lead or cover, the chase was short and the end brutal. Leader and the enforcer rode past her on either side, each reaching out to grab her mane. They lifted her briefly into the air and then let go. She tumbled to a stop near the bottom of the small hill she had just climbed. The two men reached her before she could stand up.
Zalika struggled briefly before a blow to her head made her see stars, then nothing. When she came to, she was bound hand and foot across the back of a horse. At camp, her hands were shackled again, and the ankle shackle was reapplied. Her shackles were attached to the long chain, and her ankle chain was locked to it as well. While Leader was making sure the zebra wouldn't escape again, one of the enforcers approached. “One of the others is gone.”
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"Damn!" Leader cursed and kicked Zalika, mostly for being within easy reach. “Which one is it?”
The singer, all the others are accounted for.
“I am losing my touch. I thought she was too weak-willed and soft to take any real risk.” Leader kicked Zalika again in frustration. “The desert may have her. We have places to go.”
“Leader, have you noticed that this one shows no marks? The fur under the shackles should be gone by now, and the flesh raw, but it is as fresh as the day we captured it.” There was a mixture of awe and confusion in the enforcer’s voice.
“A horse recovers quickly, and a dameer-farow even quicker. This is nothing more than the animal’s vigor, and not some magic. If it were magical, how could we have recaptured it so easily?” Leader looked at the horizon, “It will be light soon. Get them moving.” Then, taking Zalika by the chin and looking her in the eye. “Run again, and I will shoot you. Your skin will bring enough for me to live out my days in comfort.”
“Sleep and you may never wake. There is only one place where you can go that I cannot follow." Zalika knew it was a bad idea to speak, let alone provoke a man who had her in chains, but she just did not have the will to stay quiet. Cooperation had failed, and she was quickly becoming Leader’s favorite outlet for frustration. The reaction was exactly as expected. Leader and an enforcer beat her down, breaking her left arm at the elbow in the process. The pain was as intense as anything she could remember, but it would heal by tonight, maybe sooner.
The day’s march began before sunrise, and before Zalika’s bleeding stopped. They marched until dark without the afternoon break or meal. Zalika kept her silence until mid-afternoon, when the slavers ate on the march, and the slaves went without. “Where is our food? Do you mean to march us until we collapse and die on this trail?”
“One of you fled, and for this all are punished.” This was one of the enforcers, and it sounded too rehearsed. It was part of a carefully practiced plan. The day ended with them eating a cold meal at the base of a small outcrop of rock. Nearby, there was a water cache that nearly refilled the water skins they carried. Zalika knew this because she could hear the work detail filling the skins, but she couldn’t hear any sounds of a well being used.
When the moon came up, other than the outcropping of barren rock, all that was visible in any direction was flat, dry desert. The slaves were all freed from their chains and gathered into a circle. Zalika was unshackled and pushed into the center. Leader and an enforcer, Zalika, thought of as Pisser for the bad-tasting water he tended to bring, began walking in circles around her. Each holding a stick.
“This dameer-farow seems to have trouble learning, so we shall teach it.” It was Leader speaking. He went on to say, “Any of you can take its place if you wish. Not everyone who is instructed in this way makes it to the river, but none ever misbehaves again.”
As they continued to circle, the fear of what was to come started to grow in Zalika’s heart. The delay of a certainty was as hard to bear as anything Zalika had ever faced. Until now, her mind had a way of blocking out the memories of sudden attacks, regardless of the outcome. She could remember being chased by lions more than once, but she could never recall how they ended, even though she knew very well how such chases usually end. Similarly, she couldn’t remember in any detail the beatings she received in the past week, only the pain of recovery. This time, it would be different, and she knew it. She would remember this in detail. “I am Zalika of the Tutsi, born to be a priestess and member of the council. I …”
The first blow hit her elbow, which had been broken that morning. The pain from that strike took her breath away. Anything else she might have wanted to say died in her throat. The beating was confined to her arms, where the bones broke with a noise that the other slaves could hear. Some screamed, some fainted, but Zalika couldn’t make a sound. When a slave fainted, the beating stopped, and the slave revived before the beating resumed. For Zalika, the occasional pause only extended the ordeal. They kept beating her until she could no longer lift her arms. When they stopped, she could barely stand. ‘she thought.
Without thinking about what she was doing, she stumbled toward her place on the long chain. After a few steps, an enforcer grabbed her mane from behind, and Leader hit her in the face and chest with water. The shock of the cold water snapped her out of the daze she had fallen into and shattered whatever little spirit she had left. Her legs gave out completely, but the enforcer kept her upright, and the beating continued.
This was the methodical work of two men, particularly adept at inflicting a great deal of pain, and they took pleasure in their work.
After the beating, they tied her to a post, forcing her to stand. Leader spoke as he tied her hands around fist-sized rocks. “This will hold your arms straight. When you heal, they will look almost normal. Early on, most of my students quickly died, often the first knight, but I've improved with practice. Now, only a few die, and very few even regain the use of a hand. Since I never keep them past Cairo, I don’t know if the pain ever stops or even...” He stopped speaking and took hold of her chin, turning her face to his. “As fast as you heal, you probably will heal by Cairo, but you won’t ever forget this, will you? No one forgets something like this. I could have done worse, but with you alive, the leopard’s skin can’t easily be passed off as a fake. Not with you standing there now, can it?”
Before Leader left, he placed something on a rock in front of Zalika. “I am not as skilled with leather as I am with bone, but I am proud of all my work.”
In the morning, when one of the enforcers came to collect her, she swung at him with the rock still tied in her hand. The blow caught him completely off guard. Aside from the dull, almost hollow sound as the rock hit the side of his head, he made no noise as he fell.
She heard a pistol shot and a man's scream just before darkness overtook her.