Straining his neck Raijen saw few empire uniforms scattered around the ground as men were preparing to change.

“Whose is that?!”

Staring around on each adept near him one of them stepped forward.

“It is mine, senior.”

The senior adept reached for his sword, ready to gut him. As the sword cleared the sheath a horn roared from the direction of the scouts. Ignoring the adept, the senior turned to face the forest.

“All men prepare for assault!”

All of them started to form the line as soon as the horn sounded.

“We need to get out and help them!”

Maori said urgently as he fumbled with the planks under the lock of the cage. Ripping the cracked wood off he pulled out a key and started opening the door. At the same moment, the foliage around the clearing erupted into hundreds of splinters, dirt and leaves giving way to a charge of the cavalry with over a hundred riders.

Dark blue and yellow colors of lively adorning iron armor and marking horses was all Raijen spotted before they rammed into the formed ranks of the vultures and the slaughter ensued.

“We need to help them!”

Maori shouted again and was about to jump out of the cage. Before he could leave the iron bars Raijen grabbed him by the collar of the tunic and pulled him back into the cage. Slamming his head against the wooden floor Raijen was holding onto the boys' clothes holding him down and looking him in the eyes.

“What in the Namiras darkness Raijen, he is right.”

“No.”

Maori’s blue eyes were staring at Raijen with questioning, dwindling patience.

“Look around, there is too many of them, we stand no chance. If you leave the cage and fight you die if you try to run you die.”

Releasing his collar Raijen went for the door and closed it, stashing the key under the planks again. As no one stopped him, he hoped they started thinking, they had a mission to accomplish and dying wasn’t part of it.

“We have only one choice, and that is to stay here, wait it out and think about how to escape afterward. Do you want to please the Vultures? Then finish the bloody task, follow the instructions, they are specific enough.”

Screams penetrated the forest which was preparing for the night. By the time Raijen sat down and started assessing the situation all of the adepts were dead or running. The Atagare’s branch family soldiers were making sure no one was left alive, stomping the men to death with horses or running spears into their hearts and heads. He couldn’t see any of the clan's soldiers dead, no fallen horses.

It was clean and fast, they are professionals. But what the hell are they doing here? We are still days from the border and from what we know there shouldn’t be any fighting so deep in the territory. Did the empire actually progress so deep, so fast? Or did some local lord start taking action on his own?

“All clear my lord. We are chasing down a few stragglers but it shouldn’t take long.”

“Good.”

One of the soldiers with dark blue armor and gold Nara engraved into patters of one of the houses led his horse to the cage.

“Slaves, I guess I’m supposed to believe them to be. That bunch of masked empire soldiers tried to penetrate our borders in disguise as a bunch of slave traders.”

Staring the boys in the face the men were contemplating what to do with the group of teenage boys. No one dared to look up or maintain any stoic composure. Raijen could feel them all shaking and suppressing sobs as if not to break into tears.

He was the same, the training they all went through didn’t allow for any other action in the current situation.

If they think they just slaughtered a group of empire spies or saboteur then we should be able to find a way out, slip in their attention would be enough. But if these men decided we are anything else other then a bunch of random peasants taken as slaves, we would be all dead or tortured, and we all knew it.

“Should we kill them all then?”

Glancing up Raijen saw similarly dressed men approaching the leader.

The lieutenant who knows the commander well enough to be casual with the main officer, I can use that. If anything these clans is extremely Asian centric, similar to my old memories, there has to be something I can use.

Blood was pumping in Raijen’s ears from the excitement of finally getting the chance to escape, he was planning for this day over the last four years almost every single day. For the day when they leave the mountain and will be left to their own devices to make the ultimate choice.

There had to be a system in place for the eventual deserters, or were they so confident, that no one will desert?

“No, they are not a threat. We will take them to the city and sell them for provisions. We can always use extra food on the front lines.”

The more Raijen was turning the ideas around in his head the colder the chill on his back. There was no way to escape, not with so many riders with horses. Frantically thinking what to do, it slowly started dawning on him, there was nothing they could do to get themselves from this position.

The soldiers mounted the carriage with the cage and started leading the convoy away from the slaughter. Raijen had no idea where they were going, or where they were now. One thing was clear to everyone, it wasn’t the border. They were going alongside it to the east, the Atagi soldiers were mostly quiet, but talk about popular wines in Merqes lingered in the air.

Probably one of the cities far enough from the border to not get destroyed by the flames of war, but near enough to profit from it.

It didn’t take long for them to join the main force which was over five hundred strong plus cavalry.

So this guy is, in fact, a senior captain going to fight the Empire.

Not having anything to do Raijen’s mind was working without pause. Going from the moment they left the mountain forest to the second they met the sprawled corpses. The caravan didn’t meet any resistance either from the beasts or men. The forest was disturbingly quiet, no birds or insects made any noise, as if a beast was roaming between the woods and bushes.

Men, the beast of hundreds of men changing the landscape.

Unless we were really lucky to avoid all life in the forest, the massacre on the road was no accident, but the real encounter of the empire saboteurs with the Atagi. And the results were nothing short of disturbing since we were to fight the clan. Were we lucky in the end? Did getting captured actually saved our lives?

Merqes came into the view when the sun rose, soldiers were marching nonstop and Raijens guess was that they will take just short break in the city and move on to the front lines.

After selling us.

Staring at the lock and planks beneath it Raijen contemplated the likelihood of escaping were he to attempt to force his way out. When locking eyes with the rest of the cadets in the cage he realized they all knew. The boys knew there was no way in all hells they are going to be able to pull something like that off.

And for some strange, perverted reason, he wasn’t able to reason with himself about death is better than living as a slave again. So he just sat, slowly coming to terms with another man again deciding the course of his life.

Was it even my life? In the end, what does it matter, it is not like there is something I want to do here.

Staring at the approaching gates of the city his mind started to take him onto the path he wasn’t sure he wanted to be on, but he didn’t really care.