“Just leave him? Leave him to die? That’s crap. This whole stupid thing is crap, but that’s the worst of it. We’re really just going to turn on each other, abandon each other?” The Smith glared at the grey-eyed boy and was shocked to find a look of fear on his face.

  “Smith, calm down, listen. He tried to run-”

  “So did I!” the Smith roared back at him. “I tried to run away too! Of course I did! Anybody would! Nobody wants to be a slave! We all got caught, but that’s not our fault! We didn’t ask for this! It’s their fault, they’re in the wrong! And yeah, we can’t get away, not with our classes, not with these stupid shackles, but, but…” The Smith took a ragged breath, exhaled, and breathed in deeply before looking each and every one of the other boys in the eye. “That doesn’t mean we need to abandon each other. Stop caring about each other. Stop helping each other. We don’t need to leave each other to die just because they’re injured, just because they got whipped! We don’t need to turn on each other!”

  The grey-eyed boy stepped forward and hissed at the Smith. “So what would you have us do, then? There’s no healer, there’s no medicine, there’s barely enough food to go around as it is, and it’s almost winter. And we need to put out more iron, or we’re all getting the whip. And who’s going to help all of us when everyone is down and whipped?”

  The Smith opened his mouth to argue but the grey-eyed boy cut him off. “No, whatever you’re going to say, just no. The only way we’re getting out of this,” he lowered his voice a bit, “is if the entire camp gets discovered and we get rescued. That’s the only way. There’s no way we could take down even just one slaver, even just Coin, even if we all ganged up on him. It’d never work. We just don’t have the classes for it, not with our magic sealed. Not even you, Smith. Yeah, you might get one lucky hit in with your hammer, but then you’d take a dagger to the heart and that’s it, you’re dead. The rest of us wouldn’t even get that far. So all we can do is just sit tight, survive, and wait until we get rescued.”

  “And in the meantime? You say we all just survive, but not him, huh?” The Smith gestured down at the injured boy, who although he hadn’t moved, had stopped groaning, apparently listening to the argument. “So we just let him die, look the other way, and then what when the next one of us gets injured? The same thing? We all just survive, except we don’t, and one by one accidents or the whip or the cold just finish us off, one by one, and then what? Last one standing gets to get rescued?” The Smith glared at the grey-eyed boy. “We have no idea when, or even if, this camp will get discovered, and even if it does, we have no idea if help will come.”

  The grey-eyed boy dropped his pick-axe and grabbed the Smith by the shoulders, desperately, as hard as he could grasp.

  It felt so, so weak to the Smith, that grasp.

  “There’s nothing else.” He rasped, just louder than a whisper. “There’s nothing else we can do. That’s the only hope. Anything else we do other than wait for rescue will just get us killed faster.”

  “I refuse.” The Smith said, clearly, so everyone could hear. “I won’t just give up and wait, not when there’s something I can do to help.”

  The grey-eyed boy stared him in the eye, pleading. “...Please.”

  The Smith shook off the grey-eyed boy’s hands, scooped up the fallen pick-axe, and thrust it out to the other boy. “Do as you like, then. I’ll do what I like, too.”

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  One of the other boys, silent until now, stammered. “B-but, the iron…”

  The Smith responded. “I’ll cover it. If any of the slavers complain about the amount of iron we’re putting out, blame me. Not that they will.”

  The grey-eyed boy glared at the Smith, holding his pick-axe. “...This won’t work.”

  “I won’t know unless I try, and I’ll at least try.” replied the Smith. Then he bent down to the injured boy again.

  “Hey, are you awake?” he asked.

  “...Yeah.” the boy groaned back.

  “Can you walk?”

  “N-not really.”

  “I’ll help you then.”

  Awkwardly, trying not to irritate the wounds on the injured boy’s back while also keeping the weight off his broken ankle, the Smith helped him out of the cave and took him to the creek. On the way, the whip-using slaver started to approach them, but on recognizing the Smith, he stopped. A moment later the spear-using slaver joined him, and they both kept an eye on the two slaves.

  The Smith cleaned the boy’s wounds as best he could, angry red lines weeping blood having had dirt mixed into them on the dirty floor of the mine. Still lacking cloth for any kind of bandage, he figured the best he could do was wait for the blood to coagulate and seal the wound on its own, then avoid breaking the scabs as they formed.

  Once the injured boy was cleaned up, the Smith helped him to the lean to and laid him down to rest on his side.

  “I’ll bring you some food later, just rest up. Try to recover as fast as you can.”

  The injured boy looked up at him sullenly.

  “...You’re not planning to try and run again, are you?” the Smith whispered.

  The boy glared up at him. “Why not? It’s a better shot than staying here and waiting to die, living in terror of the whip. Even animals live better than this, are treated better than this.”

  He paused, as through trying to find the right words to explain a difficult concept.

  “Do you know how they found me?” he asked, quietly.

  “Huh? Uh, you got spotted, right? The slavers keep a watch around the camp.” the Smith responded, matching the injured boy’s volume.

  “No, I’m not stupid.” The boy said indignantly. “I made sure none of the slavers were watching the way I went. I should have been able to make it at least far enough they wouldn’t be able to track me down right away, but this whole damn camp is warded.” The injured boy bit his lip bitterly.

  “Warded?” the Smith asked, remembering the enchantment he had memorized from the metal stake.

  “Yeah, they got a ward set up around the camp on these metal stakes. Not just a simple one to keep monsters away, though. It’s set up to keep monsters and people away, and on top of that, it’s got a special alarm that goes off thanks to these-” the boy swore extensively, “-damn shackles. The shackles started glowing bright, really bright, and the slaver with the whip was on me so fast…” he trailed off for a moment, lost in memory, then resumed. “So, I heard you and the other boy arguing in the mine. The thing is, you’re wrong, both of you. There’s no hope at all here. We can’t get away from the slavers, not with the alarm, and nobody’s ever going to find this place. No people, not even a strong monster’s ever going to wander in here and give us a chance to get away. We’re just… all going to die here…” He closed his eyes, not to sleep, just signaling he was done talking.