The passage aboard the prison ship had taken days. How many? It must be five or six. Kael was never allowed out of his cell, so he couldn’t be sure. But now it was evening. The stars were out as they led him from the docks into a stone fortress in the side of a mountain. There was no hood over his head this time as the Orud soldiers prodded him down a hallway. On both sides were cells. Some were empty, but most contained at least one person, huddled in the corner. They quickly left the cells behind and continued down a corridor that seemed to stretch on forever. Kael shuddered at the thought of going so deep into the mountain.

Finally, at the end of the hall were two torches flanking an iron gate. One guard lowered his spear toward Kael’s chest, while the other pulled out a knife and grabbed hold of his tunic.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” the guard said.

He began to cut Kael’s tunic from his body, while Kael held as still as he could, helpless with his hands tied behind his back. When the tunic was gone, the guard grabbed Kael’s loincloth and cut one side, nicking the skin.

Kael flinched, then felt a trickle of blood move down his thigh.

“Hold still,” the guard snapped.

Tears of shame began to roll down his face and he shut his eyes to make them stop. He was completely naked now.

“Go,” the soldier ordered.

Kael slowly walked through the unlocked gate, fearing what he would find inside. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the harsh sound of the slamming gate rang out among the stone walls and floor, making him jump. In the darkness he could see movement. There were other people in the cell, lots of them. And the cell was big. But it was too dark to see clearly.

Moving to his right, Kael felt for the wall, then slid down and huddled on the floor. He pulled his knees up to his chin and waited. For what, he didn’t know. He wasn’t about to sleep, so he just stared into the darkness and waited.

Hours later, a guard lit torches along a hallway outside the chamber opposite from Kael. With the illumination, Kael could begin to make out the features of his surroundings. It was a circular chamber, a hundred feet across. The only way in or out was the gate that Kael came through, behind and to his left. On the opposite wall were three barred windows showing a view of the hallway outside their cell. It was like a pen used to corral animals. Only there were no animals. There were children, dozens of them, all boys like himself. None of them had clothing.

Kael shifted his weight and a fist-sized chunk of rock fell from the wall behind his shoulder. He reached out and grabbed the jagged shard and placed it back in the void it left. Then he paused. I wonder if there’s a way out of this place. Scanning the walls, his eyes settled on the barred windows. He wondered how far apart each bar was and if he might be able to squeeze through.

And Kael wasn’t the only one. Just as the thought occurred to him, a boy climbed up into one of the windows and reached his arm through the bars. A small group quickly formed around the boy, cheering him on. He was small, smaller than Kael, but it was obvious that he wouldn’t fit through. His shoulder and chest could fit, but the bars were too close together to allow his head to get through.

Kael stood up and started to walk over, then stopped abruptly as he saw something dark sprout from between the boy’s shoulder blades. Some in the group let out screams of shock, and scattered like rats. The boy fell backward off the window ledge and landed hard on the stone floor. His lifeless body lay perfectly still with a spear thrust through his chest.

“Stay back from the windows,” a guard yelled from somewhere in the hallway.

Kael instantly lost his breath and slumped to the ground. His heart raced with fear, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the boy. His motionless body lay on the ground, his mouth open in a grimace of pain. Where a living being used to be, there was now only dead flesh. Just like a rat! He started to cry and covered his face with his hands so that the others wouldn’t see him.

The day dragged on, if it was in fact daytime. Kael kept to himself, as did most of the other children. The dead boy’s body still lay under the window; no one had come to take it away. Kael overheard some of the boys talking about food. Usually they were given something to eat in the middle of the day, but that didn’t happen this day. When nightfall came, signaled by the guard extinguishing the torches in the hallway, the air grew cold and Kael found himself shivering. It’s never this cold in Bastul. Where have they taken me? And what kind of jail is this? As the temperature continued to drop, he huddled against the wall and wrapped his arms around his legs in an attempt to keep warm. It worked for a while, but then the shivering returned. He tried sleeping, but was too uncomfortable. His stomach began to growl. The minutes crept by slowly and Kael couldn’t help himself as he started to cry again.

Shortly after the guard came to light the torches, the air grew warmer. Kael stayed huddled against the wall and slept for a few minutes, enjoying the relief from the cold. When he awoke, he could see that most of the other boys were clustered in groups now, except for a few others scattered around the chamber that were still asleep. But after a few minutes, he noticed that they weren’t sleeping. Their skin looked pale and they weren’t moving. They froze to death! Kael suddenly felt nauseous and his stomach heaved, but there was nothing to vomit.

By midday, the hunger pains in Kael’s stomach returned, and with them, a growing anger. We’re all starving to death. How can they treat children like this? A sudden squeal and the sound of the opening gate brought Kael out of his thoughts and turned everyone’s attention to the one side of the room.

Running through the opening came a wild boar, grunting in agitation. It ran forward about ten feet and stopped, looking around at its new surroundings.

Kael immediately backed away, knowing that boars were extremely dangerous.

The other boys did the same, all except one. He had dark hair and scars on his back like he had endured many beatings. He walked forward cautiously, with his hands held out to either side.

The boar turned its head to look, then shifted its weight nervously. As the boy approached, it grew more agitated, grunting and turning toward the threat.

The boy continued to come forward, slowly making his way to the animal.

The boar charged forward, squealing as it ran.

The boy turned to run just as the wild beast made contact with his legs. He tripped and fell to the ground.

The boar was on him in an instant, biting mercilessly amid screams of pain and desperation.

Another boy ran forward and kicked the boar in the side of the abdomen, but the animal easily absorbed the blow and turned to attack him as well.

The rest of the boys, including Kael, backed away from the savage struggle. After a few minutes, it was over. The screaming had stopped and the air was still. The boar was breathing heavily, blood dripping from its sharp tusks. The two bodies of the boys lay on the floor, their skin lacerated beyond recognition.

Kael clenched his fists in rage. They were without food. They were naked and left to freeze in the night. And now, they were trapped in a cage with a dangerous animal. It was all too much!

A few of the boys broke away from the group and started moving slowly toward the boar. That’s when it dawned on Kael. We can eat it! If we can kill it.

“We have to do this together,” one of the boys said, “or we’ll just end up like the others.”

Kael searched the crowd and found the one who had spoken the first intelligible words since their captivity. He was short, with sandy colored hair. He looked to be about twelve, just a couple years older than Kael.

“We need to surround it and attack at the same time,” he told the small group that was now forming around him. Roughly half of the remaining boys were joining in, while the other half backed away, scared by the prospect of death.

Kael walked over. If there was going to be a meal, he was going to make sure that he was included. As he approached, the other boys began to spread out and move in the general direction of the boar. There were thirteen including Kael. They started slowly, getting into position so that they formed a circle around the animal. Then, they began to close in and make the circle tighter.

“Tighten up over there,” the boy instructed. “He’s going to run as soon as he gets nervous. Don’t let him out of the circle.”

When they were within ten feet, the boar bolted and tried to run between two boys who dropped on the animal’s back. The circle closed in quickly and fell on the animal, but not before it turned on the first two boys. After a few seconds of struggle, one of them fell to the ground, bleeding from the stomach and screaming.

The rest of the group pounced on the animal and beat it furiously with their fists, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Someone else tripped and the boar was on him in an instant.

Kael reached in and grabbed hold of the animal’s neck, attempting to pull it off the boy. But the boar turned quickly and punctured his left forearm with its tusk. Kael stumbled back a few steps, squeezing his arm as the blood flowed down to his hand. Anger boiled inside him. I have to kill it. I have to eat. I can’t die here. Then a thought came to him.

He ran over to the section of wall where he had spent the first night. Feeling along the stone blocks, his hand settled on the loose chunk that had fallen out. He pulled the jagged rock out of the wall and turned it over in his hands so that the sharpest point faced outward. Then he ran back and jumped over the crowd, landing on the animal’s back. Grabbing a fistful of coarse hair to keep from being thrown off, Kael brought the rock down as hard as he could on the animal’s head. It flinched and let out a squeal—its first sign of weakness.

Kael held on with all his might and continued to beat on the animal’s skull while the other boys punched with their fists and kicked with their feet. After a few seconds, the animal fell over on its side. Kael fell to the ground with it, but kept hammering with the rock until his arms and face were covered in its blood. The group slowly backed away when they realized that the animal was dead.

When he knew that he was finally out of danger, Kael slumped to the floor in exhaustion. His left arm was numb from the puncture wound. He let go of the bloody rock and as it fell to the ground, he saw that two of the fingers on his right hand were broken and sticking out at odd angles.

There was no wood to make a fire, so the boys tore at the flesh of the boar like ravenous wolves. They had all gone without food for so long that taste meant nothing. They were going to die if they didn’t eat the raw meat. By the time the guard came to light the torches, two others died from their injuries. But despite the growing numbers of human bodies now littering the chamber, Kael slept a little better, without the gnawing hunger pains. His small group also huddled close together for warmth. It was strange at first, being naked. But they all knew that survival was more important than their pride.

For the next few days, Kael’s group continued to eat off the animal carcass, while the others began to die off from starvation and exposure to the cold night air. Every morning they woke to find a few more bodies on the floor. Kael thought that they should give some food to the others, but he didn’t say anything. They had risked their lives to kill the boar while the others stood back in fear. The consensus among his group was that they had earned it.

Kael’s face exploded with pain. He flinched and rolled to the side, stopping in a crouching position. It was dark. Is it night? Was I sleeping? What’s happening? In the darkness, he could just barely see that the others were attacking as a group. The carcass of the boar was being dragged away. And the boy who had punched him lunged forward again.

Kael thrashed from side to side as the boy, who was much bigger, grabbed hold of his wrists and wrestled him to the ground. He pinned Kael on his back and began to drive a knee into his side. With each blow, Kael felt a shooting pain through his ribs and the air pounded from his lungs. In a moment of panic, he lifted his head and lashed out with his teeth, catching the larger boy in the neck. When Kael realized where his mouth was, he bit hard with his teeth and immediately felt blood fill his mouth. The boy screamed and thrashed violently, but Kael just bit harder until the flesh came off in his mouth.

The boy released his grip on Kael’s wrists and slumped over, convulsing for a few seconds before going still. Kael pushed him off and struggled to his feet. The fight was over, and most of his group had survived. The others were all dead. It had been a fight for survival. But that fact didn’t make Kael feel any better. He knew he had just killed someone and the thought made him feel more horrible than he’d ever felt. He leaned over and tried to spit the blood out of his mouth, but the taste wouldn’t go away. His stomach heaved and he vomited on the cold stone floor. When he finished, he walked away from everyone and slumped down against the wall. He started to cry again and didn’t stop until he fell asleep.

“How many?”

“All of them.”

Kael woke at the sound of the voices which echoed through the chamber.

“I’ll pay you a fair price,” someone said.

The voices were coming from outside the gate where the boar had been let in. But then the conversation was over and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of retreating footsteps.

Kael wondered what the exchange of words meant. The only interaction with whoever was on the other side of the wall had been negative. The boy they killed. The boar. What’s it going to be this time?

After what seemed like half an hour, the iron gate opened. Growing up in the port city of Bastul, Kael had seen many foreigners from different parts of the surrounding territories, but never anyone who looked like the man walking through the gate.

His skin was pale, but with a yellowish tint. His black hair was pulled back into a single braid that ran all the way down to his waist. His oversized clothing consisted of what looked like a skirt that reached down to sandaled feet, with a jacket that covered his arms. The deep blue fabric shimmered in the torchlight, like the most expensive kind that his mother used to buy in Bastul. In his hands, the man carried several small loaves of bread. And behind him, five other men followed who looked just like him, but dressed in long robes of a dull brown color. Each of these men also carried bread and folded clothing as well.

The strange man walked over to Kael’s group.

The boys shrank against the wall.

“My sons,” he spoke softly. “Do not be afraid. They cannot hurt you any longer. You are mine now and I will protect you.” As he spoke, the man leaned down and began to hand out the loaves of bread, one by one, to each of the boys.

When Kael accepted his loaf, he looked into the dark, slanted eyes and saw compassion.

“After you’ve eaten, please clothe yourselves. We will make a journey to my home where you will be my guests.”

Kael accepted the folded brown clothes and sandals from one of the other men, and dressed quickly. He was relieved to be able to cover himself. And for the first time in many days, he felt some measure of relief.