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Getting By
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One day the rains stopped, and the wind slowed, and the early spring sun shone down onto the new shoots of grass. The miserable young man had been cramped in his tiny quarters for weeks, and was grown gaunt and pale, when they finally brought him out. But he had also taken thought within himself, and resolved to exercise the patience and restraint he should have had when he lost his foster folk, and bide his time.
Now they let him out under restraint, and set him to do the hardest jobs of lifting and digging under close supervision of the drivers. "Get on then, Mulost!" the ganger growled when he finally opened the cage door, "and let us see if you are worth the trouble it took to catch you." For so he had named himself, fearing his true name could swiftly earn him a trip to Angband directly to see the Lord of Darkness himself.
Mulost labored to dig planting rows and catch ponds and little canals. They had him fell trees and chop wood and cart bricks and stones and other loads here and there. It was a hard lot of toilsome labor, and it was not long before he grew very weary. Not a few times did he get the whip again, against the back, or the heels, or the hands again. Other times it was a shove, or kick to the back of the knee, causing him to fall into whatever filth he was shoveling for them. Still other times they would set their dogs to nip and bark and bare their teeth - and more than once he saw some poor soul take a grievous injury from the beasts the master's men had trained to be as ruthless and savage as they. Punishments were for such crimes as pausing too long for breath, and others just for the pleasure of the master and his drivers. But the young man stayed quiet, and took the abuse, and he kept his head down and kept on working.
For a year he kept this up, laboring from dawn through dusk nearly every day, sometimes to the point of collapsing, taking the punishments in silence, and sleeping cramped and uncomfortable in that large cage. But he was fantastically strong, and despite his near constant weariness could complete a lot in one day. And he was careful not to speak to any of the others, though he often did what he could to cover the weaker and smaller folks among the slaves, to spare them the drivers' cruelties. Finally one day he was told to report to the bunkhouses set aside for the slaves, rather than back to the cages in the barns.
That was a welcome change. It had doors, and wooden floors, and wooden cots with woolen blankets. After Mulost had got himself washed up in the evening as usual he lay down - finally able to lie fully stretched out after these many months. He cradled the back of his head in his hands and stared up at the ceiling as he waited for sleep to come, thinking of the things such experiences as the past year of his life will make you appreciate. His mind drifted back to his upbringing and his foster family. He wondered where they were, if they were even still alive, whether they had made it safely over the roads of Beleriand to the Havens or if they had been captured by Orcs and taken as slaves to the enemy's mines. In that moment of relative comfort and quiet he suddenly realized how deeply he missed them, and in that dark room as the deep night drew on outside he wept in silence, and finally fell asleep.
*.*.*
The next day to his surprise he received a lighter duty: construction and maintenance of the houses and other structures. Though still weary work it was far easier than all the digging and carrying (though his strength had grown much because of all that). And for this, work would often end earlier in the day, and when the heights of the gray mountains standing tall to the east glowed in soft pinks and lavenders in the waning sun at dusk Mulost often found himself gazing wistfully toward the land of his upbringing, wondering if any of his friends and foster folk had retreated back to that place after the attack.
For his diligent and obedient service he was now also rewarded with bigger meals, with better, more varied contents, an even more welcome change after those many long miserable months with bowls of cold thin gruel or small loaves of stale bread. He would often pocket bits of the meat, and began tossing pieces to the dogs when the masters and their gangers were not looking, at the time with only the thought of sparing himself the threat posed by the master's beasts. But for the most part he was still kept under close supervision, and at this more privileged and relaxed position the other slaves were even more wary of speaking to each other. And so he continued on, keeping his head down as always, rendering his bows and courtesies to the drivers and gangers and their masters.
More days and weeks and months passed by, and it was a lonely existence, and only the dogs would give him any attention of friendship and affection. The Easterlings who now ran the region would collect more slaves now and then, other older ones were worked to the death, and workers who were defiant were cruelly injured or worse, and he saw that not a few of the women from his people had been taken to wife by force, and new captures of young men were obliged to endure the barn cages as he once had. Mulost would many times feel the anger rise back up in his heart, and it would take all the power of his will not to lash out and fight them all and burn down their master's house. (Indeed he often wondered to whom this estate had originally belonged, for the other Easterlings would set up their own tents and huts nearby, and they were clearly not of the same craftsmanship.) But deep down he knew the time was not ripe, and he would push these thoughts and feelings to the back of his mind, and kept on laboring in silence and submission.