Chapter two:
Life continued like this for a while, with other things randomly thrown in. Master Alan taught me to use a whip, knife, sword, and bow and arrow. I was also taught to fight hand to hand. The reason for all of this, I learned, was that there were five of the Masters and five people above them. Master Alan's master, Master Natalia, was the only blood path mage, but the others loved to cause pain. Master Alan simplified it down to Masters, Servants, and Slaves.
Master Alan also brought in tutors to teach me reading, writing, sums, and geography. I taught what I could to the other kids, but when your head is spinning with pain, you don't really want to learn much.
All of our burns were filled in with ink. At the end of the whip was blood dripping down forming the name "Alan." Now anyone could see who we belonged to easily. We were told that all of the servants branded their slaves like this. They each had their version of a chosen one who had the back tattoo. We all healed, then were introduced to Master Alan's torture machines. I had to learn to use them, and then to whip the kids in the machines. I learned quickly how to make it look worse then it was.
After we had lived there for a year, Master Alan took me to a meeting with the other servants. I met the other chosen slaves and had to participate in the "challenges." If you were challenged in hand to hand fighting, it was fought until someone yielded. Swords were until someone was disarmed. Knives were thrown at a target and you tried to make your knife stick in the handle of the person's who threw first. The knives we used had a special base that was flat. Bow and Arrow was just who could hit closest to the target. Whips were a little more painful. You held the whip in one hand and held it out to the side. The other person snapped the whip at your arm or hand to try to get you to drop the whip. They got one shot, then you got one shot. It went back and forth until someone dropped the whip.
On the way to the meeting Master Alan told me the rules. I wasn't allowed to show anyone the tattoo on my back. All of the Masters and Servants had nicknames and were only called them. Master Alan was Whip and his Master was Blood. The other Servants were Knife, Sword, Hands, and Bow. They weren't very original, but they worked. The Masters were Blood, a blood mage, Wind, whose gift was fetching, Mind, whose gift was mindspeech, Flame, whose gift was firestarting, and Longsight, whose gift was farsight. I wasn't allowed to say whose slave I was. No one else was to tell me whose Master was theirs either. The rest of the rules were along those lines.
I was challenged a few times at that meeting and at the meetings following it, but I never challenged anyone else. I won every whip challenge I fought, and most of the other challenges. Eventually they stopped challenging me, because they couldn't get the reaction they wanted out of me. They seemed to have fun with the challenges, and I'd pretty mush forgotten how to have fun. My life was used up with taking care of the other kids and being hit by Master Alan.
In our second year at Master Alan's home, I developed mindspeech. Master Alan had another tutor brought in, and I learned to control it well. Eventually it grew powerful enough that I could talk to the other kids even though they didn't have the gift. I also got the gift of thought sensing, so I could pick up from their minds what they wanted to reply. We got very adept at speaking to each other this way and soon it was pretty much the only way we spoke to each other.
Everything settled down into a routine pretty much. None of us liked it, but we accepted it because we had no choice. From the books in my room, I learned about Heralds and Companions. I made up stories for the others about Heralds coming and rescuing us. Nobody believed them, but they sounded nice.
Life continued like this for a while, with other things randomly thrown in. Master Alan taught me to use a whip, knife, sword, and bow and arrow. I was also taught to fight hand to hand. The reason for all of this, I learned, was that there were five of the Masters and five people above them. Master Alan's master, Master Natalia, was the only blood path mage, but the others loved to cause pain. Master Alan simplified it down to Masters, Servants, and Slaves.
Master Alan also brought in tutors to teach me reading, writing, sums, and geography. I taught what I could to the other kids, but when your head is spinning with pain, you don't really want to learn much.
All of our burns were filled in with ink. At the end of the whip was blood dripping down forming the name "Alan." Now anyone could see who we belonged to easily. We were told that all of the servants branded their slaves like this. They each had their version of a chosen one who had the back tattoo. We all healed, then were introduced to Master Alan's torture machines. I had to learn to use them, and then to whip the kids in the machines. I learned quickly how to make it look worse then it was.
After we had lived there for a year, Master Alan took me to a meeting with the other servants. I met the other chosen slaves and had to participate in the "challenges." If you were challenged in hand to hand fighting, it was fought until someone yielded. Swords were until someone was disarmed. Knives were thrown at a target and you tried to make your knife stick in the handle of the person's who threw first. The knives we used had a special base that was flat. Bow and Arrow was just who could hit closest to the target. Whips were a little more painful. You held the whip in one hand and held it out to the side. The other person snapped the whip at your arm or hand to try to get you to drop the whip. They got one shot, then you got one shot. It went back and forth until someone dropped the whip.
On the way to the meeting Master Alan told me the rules. I wasn't allowed to show anyone the tattoo on my back. All of the Masters and Servants had nicknames and were only called them. Master Alan was Whip and his Master was Blood. The other Servants were Knife, Sword, Hands, and Bow. They weren't very original, but they worked. The Masters were Blood, a blood mage, Wind, whose gift was fetching, Mind, whose gift was mindspeech, Flame, whose gift was firestarting, and Longsight, whose gift was farsight. I wasn't allowed to say whose slave I was. No one else was to tell me whose Master was theirs either. The rest of the rules were along those lines.
I was challenged a few times at that meeting and at the meetings following it, but I never challenged anyone else. I won every whip challenge I fought, and most of the other challenges. Eventually they stopped challenging me, because they couldn't get the reaction they wanted out of me. They seemed to have fun with the challenges, and I'd pretty mush forgotten how to have fun. My life was used up with taking care of the other kids and being hit by Master Alan.
In our second year at Master Alan's home, I developed mindspeech. Master Alan had another tutor brought in, and I learned to control it well. Eventually it grew powerful enough that I could talk to the other kids even though they didn't have the gift. I also got the gift of thought sensing, so I could pick up from their minds what they wanted to reply. We got very adept at speaking to each other this way and soon it was pretty much the only way we spoke to each other.
Everything settled down into a routine pretty much. None of us liked it, but we accepted it because we had no choice. From the books in my room, I learned about Heralds and Companions. I made up stories for the others about Heralds coming and rescuing us. Nobody believed them, but they sounded nice.
