"Get on you lot! Move faster!" The Whipmaster yelled as he cracked his whip on the back of the ten year old boy who had just fallen in the muck.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
My mouth was full of mud, and the pain across my shoulders was so hot I thought my shirt had caught fire. Someone pulled on the chain around my ankle. My leg straightened, but the rest of me stayed where it was.
"Up, boy," the woman behind me whispered. "Please."
I tried. My hands slid out from under me.
The Whipmaster raised his arm again.
"He gets it," someone called. "You'll mark him up worse than he already is."
The whip stopped.
That was what saved me. Not that I was ten. Not that I hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. Not even that the woman behind me was crying.
Marks made us worth less.
I got my knees beneath me and stood.
"There you are, Trash," the Whipmaster said. "Knew you had it in you."
My name was Milo.
I didn't tell him that anymore.
The first time I had, he'd laughed. The second time, he'd hit me with the handle of his whip. After that, I learned that Trash was a name I could answer to without losing a tooth.
We shuffled between the trees, twelve of us tied together by our ankles. Every time someone stumbled, everyone felt it. The woman behind me kept one hand against my back, below where the whip had landed.
Her name was Mara. She wasn't my mother.
My mother was still in Bellweather.
So was my father.
I watched my feet and tried not to think about where we'd left them.
Before the men came, Bellweather had smelled like sheep and wet wood. Father said that was the smell of honest work. Mother said it was the smell of him forgetting to take his boots off outside.
Our house had a crooked chimney and a door that stuck when it rained. My sister Lottie slept in the bed beside mine. She was six and stole the blanket, even in summer.
I used to hate that.
The raiders came before breakfast.
I remembered Mother cutting an apple into pieces. She gave the biggest piece to Lottie because her loose tooth made the smaller pieces difficult to bite. Father was outside arguing with our neighbor about a broken fence.
Then someone screamed.
Mother stopped cutting.
I had never seen her look frightened before. Angry, yes. Mostly when I tracked mud across the floor or let Lottie follow me down to the creek.
But not frightened.
She pushed us beneath the bed and told us to stay quiet.
Lottie held my hand so hard her nails hurt.
Through the space beneath the blanket, I saw Mother's shoes cross the floor. I saw another pair come through the doorway.
Then Mother fell.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Lottie screamed.
A hand caught my ankle and pulled me out. I kicked and shouted until something struck the side of my head.
When I woke, our roof was burning.
Father lay beside the broken fence. I knew him by his boots.
I couldn't find Lottie.
I asked about her until my voice stopped working. A man told me she'd been put in another wagon. Another told me to shut up unless I wanted to join my parents.
I decided the first man was telling the truth.
I still hadn't decided anything else.
"Keep moving!"
The chain jerked me back into the forest.
Ahead, one of the guards kept looking over his shoulder. He had an arrow ready, but his hands shook so badly the point tapped against his bow.
Something had happened on the road.
We'd heard the men shouting, then those strange, dull popping sounds. A little while later, some of the guards came running back without their friends.
One had blood all down his sleeve.
He said a boy was coming.
The Whipmaster slapped him.
Then he ordered us out of the cages.
Now we were being marched toward a narrow trail behind the camp. Through the trees, I could still see tents and the big cooking pot nobody had let us touch.
A sack of bread lay beside it.
I stared at that bread until Mara nudged me forward.
"Don't," she whispered.
I hadn't realized I'd stopped.
The guard with the bow turned toward the camp.
"What was that?"
Nobody answered.
The Whipmaster caught the front of my shirt and hauled me against him. His other hand pulled a knife from his belt.
I smelled old beer on his breath.
"Come out!" he shouted. "Or I'll open the little bastard!"
Mara made a sound behind me.
The knife pressed beneath my chin.
I looked straight ahead. I didn't swallow. There was a beetle on a leaf near my face, turning slowly around the edge.
Then a voice came from somewhere to our left.
"That's a pretty stupid bargaining position."
The Whipmaster turned, dragging me with him.
"Show yourself!"
"You first. Drop the knife."
The voice really did belong to a boy.
He sounded annoyed.
That frightened me more than shouting would have. Whoever he was, he didn't sound as though he understood the knife was touching me.
The bowstring snapped beside us.
A dull thump answered it.
The guard fell before I heard his arrow land.
The Whipmaster flinched. His knife scraped my neck.
"I'll kill him!"
"No."
Another thump.
The hand holding my shirt opened.
Something warm struck my ear. The Whipmaster's weight dragged against me, then disappeared. I stumbled forward, and Mara caught me before the chain could pull anyone down.
I looked back.
I wished I hadn't.
"Eyes here, kid."
A boy stepped out from between the trees.
He wasn't much older than the boys who used to help Father shear sheep. His clothes were good, though there was mud up his boots, and he carried a long black thing against his shoulder.
He pointed it past us.
Three more thumps came so quickly they nearly sounded like one.
Someone crashed into the bushes.
Then it was quiet.
Not completely. A man was groaning near the tents. Birds called somewhere overhead. Mara's breathing scraped against my hair.
But nobody told us to move.
The boy watched the trees for a long moment.
"Anybody else with them?" he asked.
Nobody spoke.
He lowered the black thing a little.
"The slavers. Were there more?"
"Two by the wagons," Mara said. "And one with the cages."
He nodded.
"Stay down. I'll be right back."
I grabbed her sleeve when he left.
I didn't mean to. My hand just closed by itself.
"It's all right," she whispered.
I hated those words. Mother had said them while she pushed us beneath the bed.
We crouched in the mud and waited.
There were more of the strange sounds from the camp. A shout. Something wooden broke.
Then the boy came back carrying a ring of keys.
"Right," he said. "Let's get those off."
He knelt beside the first prisoner and tried three keys before finding the right one. When he reached me, I pulled my foot away.
He stopped.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
I watched his hands.
He waited until I put my foot down again.
The iron opened with a little click. Beneath it, my ankle was red and wet.
I kept expecting him to put something else around it.
Instead, he moved to Mara.
"You got a name?" he asked me.
"Trash."
The key stopped turning.
For a moment, his face looked different. Not older exactly. Just harder than it had before.
"No," he said quietly. "Your name."
My throat hurt.
"Milo."
"I'm Dare."
He opened Mara's shackle and stood.
"Come on, Milo. There's food back there."
I got up too quickly. My ankle folded, and he caught my elbow.
I flinched.
He let go as soon as I had my balance.
"Sorry."
I couldn't remember the last time anyone had said that to me.
We walked toward the camp slowly. Dare stayed beside us, watching the trees instead of telling us to hurry.
At the edge of the clearing, I stopped.
There were wagons beyond the tents. Three of them.
One had a blue cloth tied around its rear wheel.
Lottie had been holding a blue ribbon when they dragged me out of our house.
I knew it might be nothing. Mother had bought hers from a peddler who carried dozens.
Still, I caught Dare's sleeve.
"Please," I said. "Can we look in that one?"