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  What am I doing? I can’t run away, not without Fin and Lil!

  I had been running blindly from my attacker but came to a stop so I could assess my situation. I needed to be calm, but my heart was still pounding in my chest.

  I was out of sight of our camp, but I didn’t know how far. Fin and Lil were sleeping in our tent, hopefully. Most of the soldiers were drunk and sleeping it off, though I was certain the screaming from the man who had attacked me had awoken at least a few of them.

  What would happen to him?

  Like the rest, he was drunk and probably still screaming about his broken hand, so maybe nothing, other than someone eventually helping him to bandage it up.

  Is he going to tell others about me? Likely, but will anyone believe him? Who is going to believe a drunk broke his hand trying to hit a small guy like me?

  Still, if he woke up some army guards, they may be looking for me, or someone. So if I’m going to sneak back in, it may be best if I wait.

  So, what do I do? I could try to go to sleep for a few hours, but I would want to sneak back in before the sun comes up. I can’t miss the opportunity, so, no sleeping.

  I should probably get close enough to watch the camp. Hopefully, I will be able to see when it is safe.

  That’s what I decided to do. I carefully made my way back to where I could watch the camp. There didn’t seem to be much going on, but I didn’t want them to fool me. I needed to make sure I would not be caught. While I watched the camp, my mind continued to spiral with unanswered questions.

  Why did he think I was a girl? Did I even look like a girl? Hmm, I knew I was smaller than most men. My hair was longer, and I was wearing a scarf to cover my hair. Also, he was drunk and it was dark. So maybe?

  That thought bothered me. My father raised me to be a man, like him. Well, he tried to, anyway. But since I took more after my mother, physically as well as in personality, I wasn’t sure what that meant for me. Fin was definitely going to be more like Dad than me.

  My next question came to mind.

  What exactly happened to stop his powerful punch? Did I create some kind of physical shield with magic? Or did I nullify it, somehow? I thought null magic could only cancel magic. But a punch isn’t magic, right? Or was he enhanced with body forging magic? Maybe that’s why? Whatever happened, this will need more experimentation to figure it out.

  I had been waiting for a long time, watching the camp. I had seen several guards walking around, but fewer than there normally was. Then a brilliant idea hit me as I was pondering on how to get back in safely and without being noticed. Each camp had several trines covered by an outhouse, one on each side, which anyone could use at any time

  It seems obvious to me now, but, especially when you are under stress, you sometimes don’t think of the easy solution, until the moment you do. Maybe it was inspiration.

  So I moved to where I could see the closest trine to our tent and watched. I waited for another half hour to make sure no one was inside or coming. Then I casually went inside and did my business, since I was there anyway.

  I realized another problem while I was in the outhouse. My shirt was ripped almost in half and no longer covered me. I had been unconsciously holding it together all night, but that would never do. So, before going to my tent, I went to the undry area. I quickly searched for another shirt, but they were all too rge. There was no way I would wear a dress, so the best garment I found was a tunic. It was a little loose but would have to do

  Looking around and seeing I was still alone, I stripped off my torn shirt and added it to the undry pile. Then I pulled the tunic over my head. It was too loose around me so I found a sash I could use to cinch it tight, then made my way, as casually as I could, back to our tent.

  I didn’t know what time it was, but I tried to not wake Fin and Lil early as I slipped in. I id down, but I was too stirred up to sleep. So I just id there until the horn was blown for us to get up and begin our day. Laying there I noticed that my chest hurt, but I attributed that to the attack. It had only been a few hours since then.

  Dawn arrived far too soon. Luckily, most of the camp was still sleeping in, so we had little to do in the morning. But that was also bad.

  I kept falling asleep on my feet. Quack got the satisfaction of shocking me many times that day. I was able to cancel some of them, but he got me good multiple times, since I was dozing and not fully awake. I simply could not stay awake, no matter how hard I tried.

  “Are you alright?” Lil asked me, while we were washing dishes together after lunch.

  “No, but I can’t talk right now. I’ll tell you ter.”

  Later that night, I went to bed as early as I was allowed. I was totally exhausted. I had promised to talk to Fin and Lil ter, but I was asleep as soon as I id down.

  The next morning, as we were eating breakfast together, I asked them, “Do I look like a girl to you?”

  They both looked surprised at first, but stopped eating to take a closer look at me.

  “Now that you ask, you do, in a way,” Lil said. “Your face is a little different, rounder maybe. And your eyes, I really can’t say what, but you’ve changed.”

  Fin added, “I see what you mean. If you tried, I bet you could pass for a girl right now.”

  “That’s not good.” I said, disappointment evident in my voice. I couldn’t eat any more, suddenly nauseous.

  I lowered my voice to a whisper, and said, “I was attacked… after the celebration two nights ago. The soldier was drunk, and it was dark, but he thought I was a girl.”

  “What happened?” Lil asked.

  “I can’t say much, but I was able to get away. I’ll tell you more when I can.” Just thinking about it made my legs weak— and my chest hurt again.

  After that we had to go to our assignments. The army was preparing that day for another attack, and we had been ordered to take down the camp again. We had done it often enough by then that it didn’t take long.

  Everyone slept on the ground that night. Our sleep was cut short because the whole camp was roused before dawn again. After a quick meal they marched the soldiers away.

  The rest of us, servants, sves and task masters, followed behind the wagons, which were thankfully moving at a much slower pace than before. Once we left the foothills we were able to see the surrounding ndscape better. A longstride away was what looked like a small vilge. As we drew near, however, I could see that the vilge had been destroyed and most of the buildings and surrounding fields burned.

  It made me sick to look at the destruction and know that the people were likely all dead.

  We passed by that vilge and continued traveling throughout the day. When evening came we camped again. We hadn't met up with our soldiers yet, so we only set up a few tents since we would be leaving again the next morning

  The next day we met the soldiers coming back from their test raids. They all looked happy but more tired than st time. We set up camp again, this time in some alfalfa fields. I guess they didn't care about trampling down the lush green seedlings. At least the horses and oxen were happy grazing away.

  We stayed there a few days, with the soldiers leaving during the day to do more raids and coming back in the evenings. While that was happening, however, they changed what we were doing.

  They sent us into the newly razed towns to look for supplies. It was obvious we were running low.

  We didn’t find much in the first town, other than dead bodies everywhere we looked. I won’t go into gory details, but I was sick the entire day. After searching for hours for supplies in vain, my thoughts were extremely negative.

  This could have been Hampston! How could people do this to other human beings? How could they be happy and celebrating after doing this?

  Part of me wanted to just destroy them all, as if I could. But that would just lower myself to their level of depravity.

  My thoughts continued to spiral downward.

  No matter what, I vowed, we were going to get away, somewhere safe. If they could do this to others, they could easily do this to us. We were from Landria, too! It was a miracle they hadn’t just killed us from the beginning.

  As I continued to look around another thought hit me.

  If you needed supplies so badly, it was extremely foolish of the leaders to allow the soldiers to burn most everything to the ground. They probably even ordered them to do it. It serves them right, if they have to endure a little hunger.

  Of course, we would be the first to go without food, so maybe that wasn’t a great curse to wish upon them.

  The next day we were taken by several empty wagons to another town a little farther away. This one was rger and more intact. We found several stores with lots of food and supplies. As we were hauling things to our wagons, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. But when I looked around, I didn’t see anything.

  But I was a little nervous after that.

  Throughout the afternoon, I kept a closer watch on my surroundings. I didn’t want to be ambushed. Even though I was around plenty of other people, none of us were fighters. The only weapons were carried by the few guards that came with us and our task masters.

  After loading up our wagons, we had to walk back to camp, since there was no room to ride any more. I thought I saw a few children peeking around some houses as we left the town.

  Children! What will happen to them now? We had taken all of the supplies we could find.

  I was depressed and sick to my stomach the entire way back to our camp.

  For the next three weeks we continued like this. Sometimes moving our camp, other times going into the destroyed towns to salvage food and supplies. A few times, I saw soldiers round up some survivors. I assumed they would be made into sves like us, that is if the people allowed that to happen. If not, I knew they wouldn’t survive.

  As the days wore on, my chest continued to hurt, even though the scratches I received that night had long since healed. When I looked at my chest in private I could see two lumps starting to grow. Initially, I had assumed it was somehow due to the attack. I’m a little ashamed to say it here, but I began to notice my boy parts getting smaller too.

  My hair continued to grow out a different color— vender, Lil called it. It seemed to be growing faster than before, with my older, blond hair now touching my shoulders. I had to find a rger scarf to wear to make sure to cover it completely.

  I couldn’t deny what was happening to me any more.

  It began to feel like my body was betraying me. I was born a boy and raised my whole life to be a man. I wanted to grow up to be like Dad. To take care of my wife and family, providing for them, protecting them. That was the way things were supposed to be.

  The more I dwelt on these thoughts, the more depressed I became. For days I walked around in a daze. I did whatever was asked of me, but with no energy. I didn’t smile any more. I hadn’t smiled in weeks, actually.

  I didn’t even care when Quack disciplined me for being slow. I even let him do it, without protecting myself. His evil grin just reminded me of this entire evil army.

  It felt like God was punishing me. He had abandoned us to this horrible fate.

  Was there even a God?

  Mom had always taught us there was a loving, all seeing, all knowing God in heaven, the creator of all things. I think Dad believed too, but he didn’t talk about it much.

  But how could He allow these horrible things to happen? How could He allow this evil army to destroy these unprotected towns, allow all these people to be sughtered?

  How could He allow Mother to be killed, Father to be either captured or killed and us abandoned as sves?