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Being young, not yet out of his teens (indeed, barely into them) and slightly built like all of his people, it was generally agreed that Cramp wouldn't have been of much use in a fight anyway.

He had often overheard his master, a lower-ranking knight named Picktallio Thull, half-apologizing for bringing along such a puny, second-rate camp slave by claiming that "little Cramp" was as tough as treebark and could carry his weight in cast iron. But the fact was that Picktallio's family was relatively poor, as Hithan nobility went, and they simply couldn't afford the big, burly, tough slaves that were traditional among the more wealthy military officers.

Slaves from Bromley, Cramp's home province, were cheap, as human chattels went, not because they were bad slaves, being neither stupid nor lazy, but simply because they were small and dark, and the Hithans were crude enough to equate mere size with worth, in slaves and in soldiers and in nearly everything else.

So the Thull's estates were farmed, for the most part, by Bromlians, leavened with a smattering of less expensive, physically and sometimes mentally impaired slaves from other territories. As a result, when the Thull sons were required to go out on military expeditions, (as all Hithan nobles, rich and poor, were required to do) all their father had been able to provide for them as personal slaves were young Bromlians who weren't yet old enough to do any of the really heavy work in the fields and who were therefore expendable to the struggling estate.

To the young Thulls it was embarrassing, but not so embarrassing as having been no slaves whatsoever. Picktallio had tried to smooth over the awkwardness of having such a scrawny little run trailing along behind him with boasting. None of his fellows really believed him but they were too polite to tell him so. To Hithians the term "officer and gentleman" (or lady) was so deeply ingrained as to be automatic, and part of the code by which they lived was not to humiliate a fellow aristocrat down on his luck.

But despite his youth and small size, Cramp had been able to do what was expected of him; setting up his master's camp, preparing his food, and packing the supplies every morning before they could set out for another fruitless trek through the mountains.

The loss of the horses had been a problem, for the slaves had been called upon to shoulder as many supplies as possible to make up the difference and Cramp simply didn't have the size to be an effective pack animal. But even there he had borne up surprisingly well. The load that he shouldered nearly buried him where he stood, very much as the packs on the backs of the donkeys nearly hid their small bodies from sight, but he found, to his own surprise if no one else's, that his endurance was fully equal to that of his much larger fellow slaves.

The Hithan nobles themselves shouldered their share of the supplies, for despite their fascination with birth and position they were professional soldiers, after all, and prided themselves on their iron bodies and unyielding will. And if Picktallio carried a great deal more than his small slave no one remarked on it.

But all that ended with the ambush. By chance, Cramp had been near the center of the straggling line of men, women, and donkeys when the centaurs had swept down on them from all sides. Immediately when he had realized what was happening- and he seemed to catch on more quickly than most of the others, who trusted their own military might more, perhaps, than Cramp did- the young slave dropped onto his stomach, with his backpack covering most of his body. What it didn't already hide he managed to pull up beneath its bulky folds, like a turtle beneath an ungainly shell of pots, pans, blankets, and sticks of sausage as thick as a man's forearm.

In fact he was probably in no more danger than anyone else, even if he had stood bare-chested in the front lines. The centaurs seemed to go out of their way not to kill any more of their opponents than absolutely necessary, and they never so much as raised a hand against the unarmed (all of whom were, of course, slaves). But because he was hidden, he remained undiscovered until their captors began going through the spoils of their victory.

His heart thumping wildly with fear, Cramp was unable to tell what was going on, since he was afraid to lift his head from the cold, hard earth and see what was happening. But he couldn't help but hear the grunts of battle and the occasional groans of pain, followed by the clatter of hooves on the hard, half-frozen ground on every side of him.

Blind and helpless, he imagined the worst, that there had been total slaughter and he was the only one left alive, at least until they found where he was hiding. He tried not to flinch as he thought of blades thrusting down through the bundle on his back to impale him against the ground like a bug on a hat pin.

If he had known that the centaurs had no swords he may have been somewhat more reassured, on that account, at least. But whatever the means they might choose, he was well aware that there was nothing to prevent them from killing an unwanted little nothing like himself virtually at will.

All he could do was hope they wouldn't find him, but even he wasn't naive enough to believe that the raiders would just leave such an inviting pile of loot just lying there forever. Sooner or later they were going to start gathering it up, and when they did he was finished.

He recited every prayer his slave parents had taught him to the distant gods and goddesses of forgotten Bromley, but not with any confidence. He had long since decided that those particular deities must not have been much good or his family would never have been taken captive to Hithia in the first place. But it was all he had to fall back on, right then. So he prayed.

His silent pleas did about as much good as he expected them to. He was pressing his face into the dirt, trying not to moan with fear (he refused even to think about crying) when suddenly he felt a hand grasp his ankle. Before he knew what was happening he was pulled backward. Not out from beneath the pile of camping supplies; that was impossible because they were strapped to his back. The insistent tug turned them all upside down, with him on top, arms and legs flailing, blinking up into the sudden glare of the bright mountain sunlight.

"Well well well, what have we here?" a mocking voice snickered. "Do these humans bring along even their babies to fight us?"

Though the words were in centaurian, Cramp understood them perhaps as well as any human there. Generally the aristocratic Hithans refused to learn any language but their own (though the peculiar nature of their expedition had made it mandatory that as many as possible of the Hithans learn at least some centaurian ). For the most part they schooled their slaves to do intellectual work such as translating for them. As a result the slave population of the Empire were, for the most part, much more highly educated than their masters. And Cramp had been taught centaurian almost from birth. It had been something of a fad in the empire at the time, so soon after the discovery of the great herds of the mythical beasts on the distant Infinite Plain.

So he knew what his captor had said, enough to sting at the term 'babies.' He shook out of the straps of his enormous backpack and scrambled to his feet, clenching his fists angrily. They might kill him, but they didn't have to insult him!

"I'm no baby!" he shouted back in the same language. "All of my people are small! I can't help it!"

He didn't realize it, but he had said precisely the right thing. Standing defiantly next to his enormous pack, with the ruins of the Hithan scouting party scattered on every side of him and the centaurs systematically tying their sullen captives' hands behind their backs, he struck a chord that couldn't help but resonate with the centaurs who had overcome them.

Being a mountain herd, they were smaller than the large centaurs who lived down on the free plains, where size was an advantage rather than a detriment. In the mountains, a large equine body could easily tumble over a narrow ledge where a smaller centaur could pass without difficulty.

But there as everywhere, the small are scorned by the large, and the band of mountain centaurs who crowded around the defeated humans had for generations borne the contempt of their larger fellows, in their own minds if nowhere else. To find a adult human (well relatively adult, anyway) who was, like them, smaller than the average for his kind was like finding a sort of brother in an unexpected way.

Blinking against the light, Cramp found that the centaur who had hauled him free was a female perhaps the age of his own mother. She carried a staff of hard black wood, shiny as if it were polished with fine oils. Her hair was long and gray, scraggly and straight as if she never bothered to comb it (and probably didn't need to, really). She wore a rock-colored, brassiere-like halter that was the female centaur's only concession to modesty. Her face was lined and serious, her expression hard but not hateful as she gazed down on her small captive.

"So what are you doing here, then?" she demanded. "You're no kind of warrior. You didn't join in the fighting. What are you, a coward?"

Cramp's face burned. "I'm not a coward, either! I'm a-" he struggled for a word in centaurian but couldn't find it. Finally he had to resort to Hithan. "A slave. We're not allowed to fight," he explained.

The female centaur leaned on her staff to bring her face close to his. "What sort of honor is there in you, that you allow someone to deny you the right to fight? Why don't you fight them, then?"

Cramp just looked at her for a moment. How could he explain to such an obvious barbarian? "Ah, the- those guys-" he waved his hand to the Hithan knights- "they conquered our people- they defeated us in battle. And then when we couldn't fight back anymore they took us for- possessions. Things." He hunted desperately for another word that might explain slavery to a culture which had never before heard of the concept.

The female centaur snorted in contempt. He braced himself another blast of abuse for allowing his people to be disarmed and humiliated, but instead she spat from the side of her mouth and waved her staff in the air. "Upolan!" she called in a commanding voice.

The male centaur who had demanded the surrender of the Hithan leader- though of course Cramp had been unaware of that, since he had been hiding beneath his baggage at the time- came trotting over. "Yes, Apanna?" he asked impatiently.

"It appears some of these humans have been brought there against their will," she told him. "The ones with arms have been abusing the ones who are weaponless."

"So what?" Upolan asked, impatient with her obvious disgust.

The female gave him a withering look. "So everything. You must divide the captives so that the innocent are not treated as are the guilty."

Upolan frowned. "And even if we wanted to do such a thing, just how are we to determine which are which?"

"I already told you; the ones with weapons are the enemy. The others are their prisoners. One would assume those who are all dressed the same in fine garments are allied together, while the ones dressed in tatters and rags are the victims."

Upolan shook his head and looked as if he wanted to argue, but Apanna gave him a look that could have crushed a stone at ten paces. "Where is your honor, Upolan?" she demanded.

"Who has time for honor?" he muttered rebelliously, and turned away.

"Wait!" she boomed before he could begin to carry out her orders (for such they obviously were). "Simply because the others have been brought here under force of arms does not mean that they oppose their masters," she told him. "Do not treat them as harshly as the others, but do not allow them any measure of freedom until there has been an opportunity to decide the proper course of action toward them."

"Very well," the male said, still with his back turned to her. "They will not be bound, but they will be watched." His disapproval was obvious in his stiff posture.

Apanna simply snorted and let him clatter away, stepping high with anger. She turned back to Cramp, whose understanding of centaurian had been severely strained as he had tried to follow their conversation.

"And what of you?" she asked him, with no hint of emotion in her voice. "Do you support the one who claims to own you as a thing, or do you see yourself as your own man?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Cramp stared at her as if she were crazy. "No one chooses to be a slave," he told her. It wasn't something his family made a big issue of, since there was nothing they could do about it except die, but no Bromlian would ever be comfortable under anyone else's yoke.

The female centaur massaged her right earlobe thoughtfully. "It is said that humans can say things which are not as they truly are," she remarked, as if to no one in particular.

"You mean-" Once again Cramp was caught up short as he hunted for the centaurian word for 'lie.' For the first time he realized that he had never been taught one.

But the female misunderstood what he was intending to say., "I mean how can we trust those who use their words as a cloud to hide their true intentions behind? You say you repudiate your master, but how can I believe your words?"

Well, Cramp hadn't really intended to repudiate anyone, but he tried to straighten his spine just a notch further as he looked the female in the eye. "I don't seek any harm to anybody, not even those who treat my family like pet dogs," he said. "But if I had a chance for freedom I'd take it. That's no cloud to hide behind."

Apanna gave him a grim smile. "Of course you could be spinning another cloud right there," she pointed out.

"Maybe," Cramp agreed. "But I'm not."

"We shall see," she said enigmatically.

Part Three 

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