Chapter 14
Hillside was a farming community more than a single settlement.
There was a central, fortified village where the marketplace was housed, and where some of the farm workers lived, but it was otherwise made up of small farms that dotted the area around the base of a high, steep hill.
Some had small flocks of livestock, while others held fields of crops.
These were humble operations, farmed by hand, the way Asha had seen in old movies at the Cave.
A thin river snaked through the landscape, and a few of the farms had waterwheels to power their mills.
Asha appreciated the soft, rolling hills and the hustle and bustle of the people, all hard at work. Every so often, however, she saw those who clearly did not belong: men with feather tattoos, carrying weapons of various kinds: clubs, bats, and a few with guns. Angel’s men.
“Grunts don’t get guns,” Cade explained when she asked. “There aren’t enough to go around, so only higher-ranking Guardians get them.”
He led her and the rest of the Blackguard into the village, which was surrounded by stone walls, with feather-tattooed guards posted at the entrance. While the village itself was populated by regular folks, it was clear that Angel’s men were the ones who controlled and ran the place.
The guard waved them in, though he gave Asha a second, curious glance. But he knew Cade, and he didn’t question it. Asha was used to people deferring to Cade by now, but it still surprised her a little.
The village was small, but the market was bustling with busy stalls that sold a variety of goods: mostly food, drugs, and weapons.
Asha was shocked by how openly drugs were advertised and sold, and the wide range of people who bartered for them; recreational drugs were so tightly controlled back at home.
Some looked like regular folks, but a large contingent were rail-thin and desperate-looking.
“Why does Angel allow drugs here?” Asha asked Cade in a low voice. “Surely that can’t be good for…for anyone.”
Cade shrugged. “If they didn’t get it here, they’d get it somewhere else. It also makes it easier to get them to work, if you promise them their fix in exchange.”
He said this as though it were entirely normal to use addiction against an entire population to get them to perform slave labour.
Asha shot him an appalled look. “That’s barbaric.”
“I don’t disagree, but that’s not why we’re here,” he replied dismissively, then raised his voice: “Blackguard, assemble! Let’s get set up.”
They got to work setting up a table in the marketplace where residents could come to drop off their rent payments.
These mostly came in the form of food, tools, and clothing.
Cade also had a list of supplies that had been requested by people back at the Nest, and residents could fulfill their rents by supplying these items. A handful of the Blackguard stayed by the table, guarding their horse-drawn wagon, which they filled with the supplies, while others patrolled the market.
Cade had Asha sit with him at the table, though he handled the transactions with residents.
She watched Cade closely throughout the day, surprised by the two sides of him that once again emerged.
He was stern and commandeering to residents who gave him a hard time, especially if he judged that they were well-fed and simply complaining about paying their share.
But to those who were clearly struggling—with poor harvests, family deaths, or something else—he was a different man altogether.
“It’s fine, Archie,” Cade said, reassuring an older man who looked about to burst into tears over his crop failing that season. “We’ll figure it out. Shit happens.”
Archie fumbled with the buttons on the threadbare knitted shirt he wore. “You…you won’t tell A-Angel?”
Asha tried not to show her disgust at how much Angel obviously petrified every person who lived here. She couldn’t imagine what he’d done to make them so.
“He’ll never know,” Cade replied gently. “You keep whatever you have for your family. I’ll make up the difference somewhere else.”
Archie thanked him profusely, so enthusiastically that it turned Asha’s stomach a little. He shouldn’t have to beg for mercy over a fucking bushel of vegetables, she thought, anger resurfacing from the constantly-simmering well of emotion under her skin.
“I need a break,” she snapped at Cade, then strode away before he could respond. He didn’t follow her immediately, and she was glad. She needed some alone time after being stuck with a bunch of men for over a week.
Asha walked through the rest of the market, which—relative to the size of the village—was large and full of interesting wares.
A man shouted at her about farm-fresh produce; another advertised his fine selection of weapons outside what appeared to be a blacksmith shop; and a little girl offered to sell her flowers.
At the end of one of the aisles, there was a woman selling human-hair wigs.
Asha didn’t want to know how she’d obtained the hair, but she had to admit that whoever made them knew their craft well.
At the back of the market, towards the stone wall, there was a flat wooden platform that looked all too familiar.
A small crowd of men gathered around, and perhaps a dozen terrified-looking young women stood above them, hands bound, their wide eyes on the ground.
A short, chubby bald man carrying a large black whip stood to the side, calling out numbers like an auction.
It was a slave market. Like the one she’d been rescued from.
Hot, putrid bile rose in Asha’s throat, which somehow also felt as though it was closing up.
She was suddenly burning hot all over, as though she’d been dipped into a cauldron of boiling water.
Her mouth was dry as sawdust, and she could hear nothing more, as a loud ringing began in her ears that shut out all sound.
She tried to speak, but no words would form.
All she could do was grapple at her side for her pistol. Somehow, getting it out of its holster was proving impossible; her hands were shaking too badly.
I’m going to shoot him, she thought, looking toward the trafficker with the whip, even as her vision blurred with rage and something else far more potent. I’m going to kill him. I don’t care.
“Stand down!” Cade’s order was frantic behind her, but she didn’t care. She’d finally managed to retrieve her gun. “I said stand down, soldier!”
Half a second later, she was tackled to the ground by his mass of muscle and military gear. She didn’t fight him because she didn’t quite understand what’d happened, or what she was doing. The last few moments felt like she’d been sleepwalking.
Breathing heavily, Cade barked in a harsh whisper, “What the fuck are you doing? I turn my back on you for five minutes—”
“They’re selling women.” Asha’s voice was low and hollow. She lay back on the hard ground and stared blankly at the sky.
“I ordered you to stand down, and you disobeyed—”
“They’re selling women, Cade,” she repeated, in the same tone, as though she hadn’t heard him. “Aren’t they?”
For the first time, he softened a little. “Yes. But unless you want to get yourself killed, and me right after you, you have to stop. This isn’t the way.”
“What is the way?” she asked blankly, staring past his shoulder at the sky, listless. “If this can happen to any of us, and no one says a thing, what’s the point, Captain?”
People were starting to stare at them, in a heap on the ground.
Cade ignored her question, took her gun, and helped her to her feet.
He took a moment to reassure the bystanders that all was well, trying to pass it off as a ‘training exercise,’ which Asha doubted anyone would believe, but she didn’t really care.
She didn’t care about anything right now; everything felt as though it was being filtered through a haze of brutal despair, unlike she’d ever felt before.
She didn’t know how something could make her feel so numb and so terrified at the same time.
Cade led her through the streets towards two houses near the gate. One was a small, white-washed cottage, while the other was a larger building with its door open. Inside, a bunch of bunk beds were visible, and one of the Blackguard—Raph—was fiddling with one of them.
“Where the men stay,” Cade explained, then nodded at the cottage. “This is the Captain’s quarters. There’s one at every settlement.”
He brought Asha inside the one-room house, which was sparsely furnished with a large double bed, a dresser, a closet, and a washstand with a cracked mirror above it.
The walls and floor were bare stone. It was clearly a fairly new structure, since it didn’t suffer from the decay that was obvious in Old World buildings.
“Sit,” Cade ordered, gesturing at the bed, which had been made up by someone.
Probably one of the many slaves that live here, Asha thought, her disgust and shame threatening to engulf her.
Nonetheless, she obeyed, perching on the edge of the mattress, her arms hanging uselessly beside her. She felt emptied out, as though someone had scooped out every bit of hope she’d begun to build.
“Look at me,” Cade said firmly, his arms folded, and she forced herself to look up. “You cannot do this again. There will be more slave markets at the other settlements, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. We’re here to do a job. That’s the end of it.”
Right now, he wasn’t the soft, understanding man he’d been when he comforted her after her nightmares, or when he’d held her in his arms and told her he wanted to train her to defend herself. Now, he was every inch the military commander—her superior—and he was giving her another order.
“Promise me that you will not endanger yourself or the rest of us again like that,” he demanded. “Or I’ll have to confine you to the captain’s quarters at every settlement, and post a guard to make sure you stay put.”
A spider crack of outrage made its way over the smooth, featureless glass of Asha’s numbness.
“You’d imprison me,” she said slowly, “to stop me from interfering with the process of human trafficking.”
Cade raised an eyebrow. “I would. For your own safety, as well as mine. You have to know that if you had attacked them, and anyone had retaliated, I’d have gone down with you.”
If that was supposed to make her feel supported, it didn’t. Instead, despair creeped back in. This was her life now. She was part of facilitating this horrible system of pain and misery and torture.
“You can’t do anything about this, Asha,” Cade said, his jaw tightening. “It’s how it is. Do we like it? No, but we have to live with it to survive out here.”
She took a shaky inhale, staring at the floor again. She couldn’t look at him.
“Before I came along, Angel used to do these trips himself,” he continued.
“It’s why everyone is scared of him. Every time he showed up, there was mass chaos—looting, pillaging, rape.
It’s why I volunteered to take over with a team of soldiers I selected and trained myself.
I know my men won’t cause trouble, bully the residents, or hurt anyone without a direct order.
It’s one way that I tried to make things better for the people here. Sometimes change happens slowly.”
“It’s not enough,” Asha replied, still avoiding his gaze.
He gave a weary sigh. “That may be true. But it doesn’t change anything. If I tried to unilaterally free everyone here, I’d succeed in nothing but ensuring my own death, plus yours and everyone I’m responsible for. Angel wouldn’t think twice.”
Asha knew that was certainly true. Yet it still wasn’t enough. He stared at her for a long time, evidently hoping for her to say more, but she wouldn’t.
“Can I trust you to stay here for the rest of the day, until I finish my work?” Cade finally asked.
She nodded mutely. She didn’t think she could muster the energy to leave anyway, in her current state. She felt hollow, like she’d felt after Angel raped her.
With a searching look, Cade left the cottage, and Asha crawled under the covers on the bed, cocooning herself.
It was dark outside before he finally returned at the end of the day. Asha had done nothing all afternoon but stare straight ahead at the wall. She wondered if she’d even had any thoughts in that time.
Cade carried a lantern with a candle inside, and he did a quick washup before undressing and climbing into bed beside her. He blew out the flame and moved closer to her. She instinctively scooted back toward the edge of the bed, away from him.
“Asha,” he murmured, much gentler than hours earlier.
She didn’t reply. A moment later, his hand found hers under the covers.
“You’re clammy,” he said softly, and he held her arm against his chest. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Asha finally answered. “You said it before: it’s how it is. I have to accept that I’m nothing more than property. Chattel.”
He rubbed her hand between his, massaging her fingers, which had been clenched tightly into a fist. He knew there was no point in denying her statement, even though his silence told her that he didn’t agree.
“I know you’re angry,” he sighed eventually. “You’re right to be. It’s just me and the dark again, darling.”
The sincerity in his voice told her that he wanted to hear it, and the darkness provided the cover she needed to whisper her ugly truth: that she wanted every man at that slave market dead, and that nothing but the blood of all those like them would sate her thirst for vengeance.