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“Pick those up yourself.” I said.

“They won’t fit me.” he replied. “You know you’re a slave, in chains or out.”

I blinked at him. “If you try to sell me, you might end up a slave as well.”

He snorted. “Might? My entry price into Domina Scaro Pelletus’ household is you. Having put on chains willingly, so that you can’t challenge your status.”

“Miletus.” I said. “Do you want one of us to slay the other?”

“One of us? I’ve been watching you. You can’t be at full health.”

I smacked my lips. “I have scales. And my claws are coming back in. You’ve lost, Miletus.”

He turned back the edge of his sleeve, showing the chainmail beneath. “Live as a slave, or die denying your truth.”

.....

“So.” I said, “You prepared. You truly want this.”

“It’s the best life that I can have here.” he said. “No more hunger. No more need to be the merchant, thanking adults for spitting on me while stealing from me. I’ll never hold power; my birth as a male has seen to that. But I can live in better chains than anyone else here.”

I had to pause, and rub my eyes. When I opened them, he had a nasty looking axe in his hands. “Why don’t you just make a better life for yourselves elsewhere?”

“Oh? Where? Down Deep, where the dwarves won’t even let us be ourselves? The surface, where we need to choose whether it’s spiders or cyclopses that eat us? No. Damn the dragon, for gathering us all together here, where we’re trapped inside a mountain. Do you know what we were, before he came?”

“I doubt anyone truly knows that.” I said. “Perhaps not even the Dragon of Wands himself.”

Miletus wasn’t daunted. “We once walked the surface, tended orchards, raised flocks of sheep and goats. Sure, the women were in charge, but a man could earn a living, if he was willing to work for it. Look around you. Are we going to earn a living, no matter how hard we work?”

“I think we can help each other.” I said, eventually. “If there are...”

“Whatcha up to?” Decima said, Caesarius pulsing in her arms.

“Decima.” Miletus said. To me, “We will help each other. Put on those chains, and let’s go.”

“Go?” Decima said, dropping the leech. “But you can’t go, Miletus. You just can’t. You’re the smartest of us, even Hexie says so. Don’t LEAVE us!”

She rushed toward him, but stopped when he swept the axe through the air before her. “Go away, Decima.” he said. “It’s time for me to become a man. And YOU, stop stalling and put those on.”

I sighed. “No, I have other things that I need to do. I’m not your path to prosperity, Miletus.”

He adjusted his grip on the axe, stood tall. He might have been intimidating, if he weren’t so lean. “Say the words, then.”

“Oh, what words are you looking for?” I asked.

He curled his lip at me. “I claim you, slave, for the house of Domina Scaro Pelletus.”

“Oh, no.” Domina said, and began running.

“Miletus. Look at the numbers. Your Might...”

“I CLAIM YOU, SLAVE!” he bellowed.

There was no help for it, then. “I reject your claim.” I said, sliding my left arm into the meager shield that just a few days before had been a chair.

“And?” he asked.

I yawned, and he nearly charged me then. “I reject your claim by force of arm and steel.” I said.

He thrust his chest forward, his head up, and let out a credible bellow. When he lowered his head to look at me, he was frothing at the lips.

“Ah, crap.” I said.

He charged; of course he charged. I’d spent enough time among the Norvik to recognize Berserker class features. Miletus, the gentle mathematician and merchant, procurer of food for the pride, was also a single-minded killing machine.

It really was one or the other of us.

And damn you, Miletus, it was never a contest. I had the Valor; I had the skills. The knife in my hand might not have been Heart’s Protector, kept safe in the dwarven vaults below, but it sufficed. Had it come down to it, I could have finished him with only my claws.

It ended with me standing over his body, leaking out the last of his blood onto the floor. My own mingled with his, primarily from a gap left by one of my cheeks, deftly removed by one of his better strikes.

“Why?” I asked him. “Why did you force it to this?”

He spat blood at me, shook a final time, and died silently.

The knife had never been meant for combat; the tip was gone, the edge missing two pieces, and there were cracks throughout. I let it drop to the floor.

They were gathered, the other fourteen of them.

“What just happened here?” Hexanter asked.

I kicked the manacles, still there on the floor. “Does anyone else mistake me for a slave?”

It was pure bravado, of course. I summoned the Miko Light, but it takes two days to regrow a cheek. Longer, the way we were fed. Or more to the point, not fed.

“Miletus was our contact with the markets.” one of the younger boys said.

“They know me.” Hexanter said. To me, she said, “What will we sell to them, though?”

I walked over to Miletus, ripped his shirt open. “What about a suit of chainmail?” I asked.

“Set to the frame of a starveling?” she asked. “They’ll call it scrap.”

They would. Just as human merchants would. Greedy bastards.

“The axe is still serviceable. I can work the chainmail, given tools and time.” I said.

“Coins.” said Arcturus. “Miletus kept a supply of coins for emergencies.”

Hexanter held up a small leather pouch. “This supply?” She upended it, dropping three silver coins and one of copper into her hand. “Still, how did he afford such equipment?”

“He mentioned Domina Scaro Pelletus.” I said. “But she’s one of the middle families, I thought.”

“Lower middle families, perhaps.” Gregorious said. “She couldn’t afford this. Not unless she got an advance from one of the ladies above you.”

“What makes you so valuable, anyway?” Domina asked.

“Rude!” Hexanter rebuked. “But she has a point. You have skills, and magic, but there’s better at both running free in the marketplace.”

“It’s the symbol.” Gregorious said. “Three of the big four have tried to claim him a slave, and failed. Plus there was that big brawl in the arena. He’s not just free, he’s the incarnation of everyone who’s stomped a foot and said, not me.”

“I’m really not.” I said.

Hexanter glared at me. “Miletus seemed to feel otherwise. You clean up your own mess. Then back to work. I have a pride to feed.”

“I have an idea on that, as well.” I said.

She turned her back on me. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“The odds won’t be as good as they were when my skills were unknown.” I said, “But throw me into the arena. I’m tired of just facing these claims, one after another. Let me fight them off, one a week.”

She lowered her head. “I was wrong.” she said. “You eventually die in the arena, and until then, you kill a scum a week? Sounds like a win for all of us.”

I got to work. Half of the day, I would work on restorations. The other half, I split links, joined them. A chainmail coif may not be the best of helmets, but it isn’t the worst, either.

By the time of the next Wrathday, I was as ready as I was going to get. The axe looked ridiculous in my arms, but I had the Might to wield it without penalty (according to my System, at any rate).

I worried about what I would do without a shield, but my first victory would take care of that. Even at my reduced odds, the winnings from a decent match would buy me one.

And the pride could eat.

My siblings, were they eating? Were they truly happy in the Block? When I left, should I offer to take them with me?

What position would they have in Achea?

Should I leave them here?

Would they have been better off if I’d left them in the lagoon?

And how was I worried about THAT when I should have instead been working myself up for an arena battle against a stronger, better armored opponent?

One of these days, I was going to be challenged by the minotaur equivalent of myself. No contest; if someone with my level of skills and higher statistics faced me, I was just dead.

Ah, there it was. The familiar lack of saliva in my mouth, the irrational level of calm as my emotions and I temporarily parted ways.

I made my way around to the announcers, surrounded by the bet-keepers. They remembered me, were eager to schedule me against Banarius Gothicus Antares, champion of Lady Mendotica Erogenesis Stampsfoot, who had in a claim.

“I’ll be facing a claim a week until I’m dead, or until there are no more claims.”