Mozenrath stumbled, kicking up more hot sand and grit that burned his throat and eyes. He spluttered, cursing at his own clumsiness and the man behind him who kept an infuriatingly hard hand on his shoulder, urging him forward still. So he trekked on, ignoring the dull ache the manacles clapped on his rubbed-sore wrists induced, just like he trekked away from the burning wreckage of his village, his home, his life. He had been growing up in a small town on the border of a neighboring country, but nobody ever went there, as the political and religious differences between their and his people were ripe for conflict. In any case, the relative peace and safety they thought they had lived in was rudely shattered when a cloud of war cries, men, horses and wagons descended up on them and their unprepared and sparse defenders. They were immediately overwhelmed.

Mozenrath found himself wondering the same thing as he was shuffled from prisoner to hostage, blindfolded on the back of a horse riding countless hours, to being shoved in the back of a cart with the other survivors of the attack to here. Would his parents ever find him? What of their fate? Would they know he had lived in the chaos following the siege? The atmosphere of forced cooperation didn't help soothe his anxieties. For this, his new home it seemed, was a slave camp.

Nameless faces were moving, always moving, and the slaves were easy to pick out from the slavers. They were miserable men, women and children, with dirty faces and irons just like his. The sounds were hectic, shouts; bids and yells swimming in and out through the little shacks that made up the compound, almost bleached white by the continual scorching heat, waves of it riding low on the sand even after the sun retired for the night.

Mozenrath was herded into a large, fenced in area, jammed ridiculously full of people like him, guarded by a stone-faced men in faded red vests who held long, double edged scimitars. Dwarfed as he was, Mozenrath immediately fell to the bottom of the totem pole. The nine year old ducked a fist that came flying when he bumped into a man, the barred gate locking behind him. It was hot, crowded, a wriggling mass of unhappy people. The man he had bumped into was an extremely thin, sharp angled man, stooped, around 40 or so, with frazzled hair and veins crawling across his tanned skin like spiders. He looked down at Mozenrath fiercely.

In any other situation, Mozenrath would not have taken such treatment, but the chain link of the fence was digging in his back and he didn't quite feel up to confrontation. It was just; he was scared, he wasn't afraid to admit that, should he? He was uprooted, violently, away from friends and family, his home, and who know what staggering number of those he knew were dead. It looked sure he would never sleep in his own bed again, and there wasn't one caring face in the world for him now. His freedom was gone, his childhood, essentially, was gone, and the only thing that held any childish tears at bay was the absolute, no argument belief in his mind his parents, somehow, someday, would come for him, after all, they weren't there at the time of the attack, now were they? No, there was no sense getting his self worked up when it was only a matter of time.

But still...

The man accosting him must have sensed the conflicting misery swelling up inside Mozenrath, because his face softened, and he backed down, no longer bearing down on Mozenrath like a riled bear.

"Look, I'm sorry kid. It's just, this is a bad situation, you know?" His older company said uneasily, sounding guilty and ashamed, but still desperately unhappy. Mozenrath nodded mutely, sniffing, wiping a grubby sleeve across his face to wipe away the apparent tears he hadn't noticed himself cry. They both looked up as one of their guards yelled over their heads, emotionless.

"Heads up, food you grub worms!"

Mozenrath watched as cold-eyed slaves, never meeting the eyes of anyone, handed out rusty, flimsy little tin cups. He was alarmed when everyone pressed to the outside of the inner barrier of the fence, clamoring for food, as it became clear no one was going to make sure everyone got fed if they remained trapped on the inside of the crowd. He felt disgust rise in him, lashing out with his foot when he was shoved, pushed and finally, without care to his well being, cast into a foul smelling mud puddle slipping under the bottom wire. He cursed, and once again felt tears well, but quelled them. What good would they do him? He pulled himself up with as much dignity as he could manage, brushing as much dirt as he could off stiffly. He may be small, but he had his pride.

When he looked up, he was irate to find all of the food handlers were gone. He gazed from face to face. Surely no one would let a kid go hungry? He was surprised when all he got were averted looks. After more than his share of this, he flopped down and crossed his arms over his chest, determined to ignore his rumbling stomach.

"Little thing like you? Had no chance at all, did you boy?"

Mozenrath looked up into a warm, brown face, a woman, hair haphazardly tied up, loose strands falling around worn brown eyes. She was an older woman, who curiously enough, was holding out a tin cup. Surely it was hers? Didn't she want it? She knelt, still holding it out, with a tired smile she spoke to Mozenrath.

"Well, take it. Aren't you hungry?"

"Aren't you?" Mozenrath countered cheekily, eyeing the food suspiciously.

The woman seemed to find his daring amusing, as she laughed.

"Good point. But this stuff is wasted on me, it won't matter soon enough, oh dearie me no. I'm just old, youth like you need your strength for what's come. "

Her smile turned sad, and she closed Mozenrath's hands around the cup for him. Her hands were rough, but still gentle. Mozenrath put it from his mind, however, when he caught a whiff of the stuff inside the container. Sure, it wasn't the most neat or sanitary of concoctions, some sort of dark brown, indeterminable stew, but the smell alone was enough to remind Mozenrath he hadn't eaten in quite some time. Muttering a rudimentary 'thank you' and throwing dignity aside, he slurped it down hurriedly, not really tasting. Hey, at least it was warm. He looked up at her as he ate, squinting in the failing daylight, taking in her dowdy, torn clothes and shoeless feet.

" Are you already a slave here?" he asked between mouthfuls, with the bubbling inquisitive manner only small children have.

"Well yes and no, " she answered compliantly. "Unless you are bought at one of the auctions, you're just a potential slave. But yes, I've been here for most of my life, since I was a little girl. Never was sold, you see?" she patted her right leg, "Bad knee, couldn't work as much as they wanted me to. Wasn't pretty enough to be sold as anything else either."

Young Mozenrath mulled that over, wondering why she laughed so carelessly at such a serious matter. Full, he set the empty tin cup aside, and faced her with an unabashedly open face, asking in all honesty.

"Are they going to kill us?"

In Mozenrath's mind, there was no sense in beating around the bush. If he was going to die, Mozenrath at least wanted to know before hand. It was only natural. The woman's eyes widened, and she looked shocked at her young conversationalist.

"Mercy me, no, you're only here to be sorted, you see. What ever gave you such an idea?"

Whatever Mozenrath might have said in answer was drowned out in a majority silence that cascaded across the compound, and those who didn't immediately quiet were sharply reprimanded. Mozenrath looked 'round for the source, and when he located it, his benefactor's hand went to his shoulder supportively.

She was a tall, impressive woman, cream white, decked in fiercely red skirt, boots and a pearl-bedecked blouse that highlighted the firm line of her shoulders and straight nose. She was a strong red head, shorthaired in the cut of a man. She wasn't beautiful. She wasn't even pretty. She was handsome, a handsome woman with cold, strange gold-flecked eyes.

Her voice ran out like an echoing bell across the compound.

"Okay, people. We'll make this quick. Go where you are directed. Do this and keep your life for one more day."

Then she started, pointing in a direct sweep, having her flunkies that escorted her, thick, emotionless men, to do the same. The guards, who invaded the fenced in area to line them up and move them out, rooted out those selected. There was immediate panic. Screaming mothers held on desperately to the hands of their children. Names were cried out into the air, families, and lovers, ripped apart forcibly. Mozenrath was selected, and stood rooted to the spot. What to do? Resist? Run? Run where, moreover? Then he spotted the woman he had made friends with, walking behind the man he had first met, who was sobbing brokenly, following the line going the opposite direction. She called back, ignoring her fellow adult.

"Go with them! You'll have your opportunity for better things!" Then she was jostled away, out of Mozenrath's life.

For his life was indeed, changing yet again.