Chương 383: 378. Widel - II

Widel tried to look past the enormous buildings. There was a lot of open ground ahead of them on the right, while on the left, she saw a smaller palisade wall that had to be the manor. There were a few wooden houses visible in the distance too, but no huts. No damaged and half-burnt shacks. It was weird. Really weird. Closer to them, on the right, she saw construction work underway.

She was looking at the workers there, wondering what they were building, when Tesyb stopped walking and turned around to face the refugees.

"Everyone who came from the camp, stay here for now," he announced in a loud voice.

"I'll be back soon to tell you where you're going to stay in Tiranat. Guards, stay here and help these people get water from a longhouse block. Trevalo, take the wagons to the manor. The baron will want them kept there again."

"A block of a… long house?" an old woman muttered, sounding completely lost. The merchant nodded, and once the elderly climbed down from the seats, the wagons started rolling forward again, wheels creaking as they moved away. The guards with them told the refugees they could sit nearby until water was brought. Once most of the group had settled down, Widel lowered herself onto the gravel road. It pressed into her palms and her legs, but she didn't care.

With how tired she felt, any place to sit was good enough right now. She watched the guards jog toward the huge buildings and noticed something else—all the villagers passing by gave those guards nods and small smiles, like they respected them. That couldn't happen if the guards treated people badly here. The more she looked around, the more the village looked… nice. The people going in and out of the big building didn't look scared. They didn't look tense or under stress.

Children were running around, and a group of kids were chasing each other in a game of tag, laughing as they dodged around adults. Everyone looked so... happy. Even more importantly, they all looked well fed here. There were no thin and gaunt frames amongst the locals—quite unlike the people from the camp. This didn't seem like a village which treated its people badly. Nothing like Krukzil, or the farms where they worked near that disgusting slave village.

Trying to distract herself from her past memories, Widel glanced to the right again and noticed something else. The square foundation of the new construction underway there looked similar in size to the big blocks on the left. Were they building another one of these long —houses? Ahead of where this third block was taking shape, she saw people finishing the stone sides of what looked like a newly dug well. She noticed other strange contraptions too.

A man pushed a cart with just one wheel, steadying it with both hands like it was the most normal thing in the world. Nearby, a pair of horses were hauling a bizarre wagon—with no wagon bed at all—loaded with long pieces of wood, and it had a pair of enormous wheels that looked almost ridiculous in size compared to the rest of the wagons she knew. Laborers were everywhere around the new block. Some carried long beams with help from others, moving in short careful steps.

Some pulled on ropes together, grunting as they worked to make the logs stand straight in the foundation. As Widel watched, more workers started returning from wherever they'd been sent. A lot of them were coal miners—their hands and feet blackened with coaldust—and were coming back through the same gate Widel's group had entered from. So the guards hadn't been lying when they said there was a lot of labor work available here. Real work.

Not just a few miserable chores to keep people busy and distracted from their wretched lives as slaves. Still, she wasn't sure she could do that kind of work—carrying beams, hauling rope. All her limbs were still working, but with her short frame, and poor diet nearly all her life, she simply didn't have the strength for it. And she had too much anger packed inside her anyway. Anger at the farm-lords who had owned them before they escaped, whipping them every chance they got.

Anger at the nobles who allowed it and even benefited from it. Anger at that bastard Zoricus who owned all those farmlands. If she was made a laborer here, she'd probably end up starting a fight with the first person who looked at her the wrong way. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Then she saw movement that made everything else vanish from her mind. A small group of men came out of the farther longhouse and started jogging toward them.

For a second, Widel didn't recognize them because of their healthier frames. But then she did. They were the missing men from their camp. They were alive. They were really alive. She noticed a few missing faces that weren't there, and the hole those absences left hit her hard, but perhaps that was the Goddess' punishment for attacking this miraculous village which cared for its people. However, the rest—brothers, husbands, sons—were running toward them on their own feet.

The moment they reached the camp people, all emotions broke open. People cried. People laughed. Arms wrapped around shoulders. Hands gripped so tight it hurt. There were sobs and relief and voices calling names again and again. Widel stood there, breathing too fast, watching it happen like she was afraid it might disappear if she blinked. It took a while for her to calm herself. That was when she noticed Tesyb jogging back toward them, with another small group walking slowly behind him.

For a moment, she caught herself smiling at the sight of the brawny guard—the man who had ensured everyone reached this village in one piece. It made her wonder if she could be recruited as a guard too. They would certainly be paid higher than the common laborers, and looking at all the respect people gave them, it seemed like a good job to have. She scoffed at herself. As if a slave like her would ever be trusted with that. If she even got a labor job, she should probably thank the goddess for it.

Soon, Tesyb reached them, and announced, "Both of the longhouse blocks are already full beyond capacity, so you can't stay there," he said. Then he pointed west.

"But there's enough empty space beyond this new longhouse block. You'll have to camp there for now. With the palisade walls surrounding the whole village now, you all will be safe here from any beast or bandits in the night." Widel scoffed under her breath. Of course —keep the new arrivals away from everyone else. It wasn't like they would be treated the same as the locals. Not really.

But at least no one had said out loud that they were going to be slaves again, although it couldn't be long now until then, if it was even going to happen. Tesyb kept speaking.

"It's only for a short time though. I've been told this new longhouse block will be finished in a few weeks, and then you all will be allotted bunks inside. Don't worry. This block is being built two stories high—it'll have more than enough space for each of you to get your own bunk." Widel frowned. A bunk? What did that even mean? Still, it sounded like they would eventually be living with everyone else in the village. At least that was good.

On their way here, she had heard the guards claiming again and again that there were no slaves in this village. She hadn't believed it. But after the way they'd been treated on the road, and after seeing most of their missing men alive—and free —she found herself wondering if it might actually be true. While the brawny guard spoke, other guards returned with one of those weird one-wheeled carts. A barrel of water sat in it, sloshing as they pushed the cart across the gravel.

They began handing out water to anyone who wanted it, passing wooden mugs, letting people drink until their mouths stopped feeling dry after conserving water for so long on the road. A little later, Widel saw the group that had been walking behind Tesyb draw close—half a dozen guards wearing leather armor, and two men dressed better than the rest. One of the guards was huge though. She'd thought Tesyb was big, but this man towered over him like it was nothing.

One of the two men in good clothes was bald and looked quite old. The other looked young, maybe only a little older than Widel herself. His hair was a strange silver color, cut to medium length. And the way the guards formed around him made it clear who mattered here. Was that the baron of this village? Lord Kivamus? He had to be. As he approached, he muttered something to the huge guard. The big man immediately sent some guards towards the gates of the longhouse blocks.

Those guards began calling out for people to gather for a new announcement. The other guards dragged a bench in front of the slowly growing crowd, and the baron climbed on it, looking regal in the light of the setting sun which hit his face in just the right way. Being curious about what was going to happen, Widel felt her own feet drift that way without thinking. The crowd grew, locals mixing with the new arrivals who had followed behind her.

She kept watching the baron, expecting cold eyes, a cruel mouth—the same look she'd seen on so many men of noble birth who thought they owned the world. Instead, she saw villagers smiling at him. Nodding. Bowing. Like they respected him. Not the forced kind either. It looked real. When there were enough people gathered, the baron raised his hand, and the noise died down.