I may not been the most educated man, but I am no fool. I was not about to start a rebellion across the lands of P’Tah and the Empire to free every slave that I found. No I understood that in the world I lived in slaves were necessary, every road, building, and aqueduct; every pound of grain, mutton, and fruit was touched by slave hands. It was the dirty nature of the world I lived in and it was necessary. I hated being a slave, to be property of another man, and most of all being unable to go, nor do as I chose. Bhati, the failed business man, embraced slavery, he was clothed all be it simply, fed, and under the protection of his master relatively safe from abuses of the law abiding citizens of this world. My goal was to free the men of my cohort, if others get freed alongside then so be it.

But for right now I was a slave, and I made it in my mind to be above reproach in my duties. During the day a horn echoed in the valleys, it was another horn of alarm. My flock was nestled in a pocket of a valley that I partially secured with a stone wall and I was able to leave them for a time. I rushed into the direction of the horn.

Arriving at the source of the alarm one of the other slaves had been surrounded by a pack of feral dogs. Not the wild predators of the land of P’Tah but those that have been forgotten by their owners and left to rove the wilds. There were only a few dogs, but I’d rather it be a pack of men; the dogs had surrounded my fellow slave and one was about to hamstring him when I caught it with the hook of my shepherd’s crook and threw it to the side with a yike.

Approaching my fellow slave I ordered “get to my right and keep them in front of us. If you don’t we will die.” The dogs snapped and growled as they attacked once again “Attack together, shout together!” There was no fire to maneuver around, nor was there shields and armor to protect us, it was two guys with sticks fighting feral dogs. The first dog attacked and met my thrust as I yelled while in the air. To my right I heard the yelp of another dog being struck and the shout of the slave.

Another slave showed up in time for the dogs to regroup I indicated the slave on my right and said “get to his right, attack as one, shout as one!” The sheep and goats bleated and squealed in panic behinds us as the dogs attacked once again. The dog closest to me bit my shepherd’s crook and I pushed forward. The dog kept a grip on the crook and fell back. In its struggle my crook twisted and snapped. It scrambled to get back up and I thrust the splintered end of my staff the soft part of the dogs throat.

Another dog was about the take advantage of my dropped guard but its head was cracked hard by the slave to my right. It yelped and ran off, after that the dogs wounded, and bruised found that the flock was too difficult to attack and choose to attack one another before finding the weakest of the pack and tearing that apart.

When satisfied that the flock was safe I returned to my own. That night the three of us were rewarded with an extra bottle of date wine and a whole yearling sheep for our meal. As slave we were nothing but property but, that evening we lived it up like nobles.

The next morning came way too soon, my head ached, I had to squint even more so than normal, and there was a foul taste on my tongue. The heat was nearly unbearable and I felt like my movements were jerky, and stiff. The hours passed slowly, and it seemed that my water skin was less than adequate to quench my thirst. I knew exactly why I felt such illness upon my body, it was the date wine. Heavy drink, and not enough sleep caused this and the entertainment I had the night before was outlasted by the discomfort of the day after.

At midday I took a break, I did not sleep but I found a place of shad near a spring. I drank the cool water and sat in the shade. From time to time a sheep or goat would come to visit me, I would pet them, and at the same time check them for wounds, thorns, or anything else that may have done them harm. They would then just as quietly leave once again and drink some water and return to the flock.

As the evening came, the headache went away as all pain does over time, my tongue was cleansed of the disgusting taste and the sun seemed more forgiving. It was soon time to lead the sheep back to their pasture for the night where they could be watched for the entire night. I stood and began leading the sheep and contemplated the difference on how a butcher leads VS how a shepherd even on such as myself leads. I lead in front of the flock making sure that there was no danger in its path and looking back to make sure that they were not being attacked. A butcher had to drive a flock from the back and force it to go where he wanted them to.

Autumn was drawing near, and with it the time to sell, rams for breeding, wethers for meat, and late lambs for feasts during the fall and winter months. We would keep the main body of our flock until the spring, but the our rams and all of our goats will be sold. With any luck they would sell for a good price. Not all slaves would go, there were still flocks to manage after all. For this task Abasi chose Bhati and myself to go with him.