The time for action had finally come. Trevor was thoroughly disgusted by his commanding officer’s behavior. He had born witness as Otis, his aides-de-camp, and the scouts who had found the Vermaini women had violated them again and again over the last three days. Remembering General Otis’s words, he had held his tongue; to do otherwise would have meant the hangman’s noose. But tonight… well, if he survived tonight, none of that would matter.
He approached the recently built stockade where the prisoners were being kept under guard. It had been his fortune to draw guard duty for them tonight.
The guard currently posted was one of the scouts who had brought the women in. As Trevor advanced, the sentry nodded. “Corporal.”
Trevor returned the curt nod. “Private Dale. I’m your relief. Go get some sleep.”
Dale began the trudge back to his bunk. “Lucky you. Best job in camp. If you get bored, you can give one of ‘em a quick poke. The fat dame likes it in the arse.”
Trevor very much doubted it, but made no reply. He simply stood, biding his time. He could hear the poor women in the stockade behind him, the older mumbling in her own language and the younger weeping quietly and doing her best to provide comfort to her aunt.
About twenty minutes after the first bell has sounded, Trevor opened the gate. Dhesay huddled on the ground, her head resting against her niece’s thigh. The poor woman clung tenuously to her sanity, barely able to bear the torture and humiliation she’d endured.
Shasay looked up pleadingly. “Please… If… if you need, use me. No Dhesay. Please.”
“Venerate Shasay. I’m truly sorry for what you’ve endured.” He said in hushed tones. “Are you hurt?”
“Why you care?” She hissed in laboired Coltoni. “You only want hurt us. You only want…” She struggled, trying to remember a word that her instructors had never taught her. “You only want fuck us.”
“No! Please, Venerate. I don’t want that. I mean no harm. I want to help.”
Her captivity had made the young noble much less trusting “Why?”
“I… I have a wife, back home in Colby. I love her very much. What these motherless dogs did to you… I can’t imagine what I would do if I learned the same had been done to her. I won’t hurt you. I want to see you safely back with your people.”
“You will… free? Me and my father’s sister? You will die. The one-eye, Otis, he kill you.”
“Not if I leave with you.”
“But you are Coltoni. You leave, you… desert, you die.”
“I know the risks. I can’t stand idly by anymore. I couldn’t live with myself. I can free you, but I need your help.”
“What must we do?”
“I’ll lead you out, as if I’m escorting you. If another sentry happens across us, he won’t suspect anything. When we get to the tower at the far end of camp, I’ll slice the ropes off your wrists. We’ve got to scale the first stage of the tower quickly. From there, we hop the palisade and run away from camp as if the Ender himself were behind us. We can cross the Welkon at the shallows and be in Vermain by dawn. But you have to trust me.”
“I have no choice. I trust you, or they fuck me again. Fuck Dhesay again. She cannot… the last time, there were six of them. She cannot again.”
“Can you tell her what I just said?”
Shasay spoke to her aunt in rapid-fire Vermaini. This seemed to bring the older woman out of her funk, and both women seemed eager to make good their escape.
The two women walked out a pace ahead of him, and Trevor followed them, leveling his spear behind them to keep up appearances. The walk across camp was uneventful; none stopped to question them.
Quickly, Trevor sliced off the prisoners’ bonds with the blade of his spear. As soon as their hands were free, Shasay and Dhesay scaled the ladder to the first stage of the watchtower. He followed behind, silently praying to all the gods that their luck would hold and no one would raise the alarm.
Clearing the palisade, they took off running toward the river. The trek would be harrowing, but if the gods favored them they might just make it across the river to Vermain.
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