Again. It was happening again.

  At this point Jessica was glad Morkal had taken her connection with the Tapestry, otherwise this whole getting captured repeatedly thing would’ve entailed reckoning with some part of her. Not that the reality was any more appealing.

  The camouflaged bandits had tied her and John’s hands and put them in a marching line with Burnish and Bertha behind. The old mare had gone along quietly but the war horse reared up at the mere suggestion of making him do anything he didn’t want to do. The first bandit who tried won themselves a hefty concussion.

  Fearing what they might do with an uncooperative horse, Jessica talked Burnish down with the promise of candy if he cooperated. The stallion continued snorting at anyone who tried to take his reins but came along just the same.

  The bandits took them down the same mountain trail they’d already been following and several miles into the forest until, after hours of exhausting marching, they arrived at a camp.

  Upon seeing the camp, Jessica realized they’d never had a chance.

  For one, the ‘camp,’ which was situated in the middle of the only road through the forest, mountains, sprawled as far as the eye could see. There had to be ten times as many bandits as the entire population of Barleyfield and all of them were armed. Some had spears or bows, but most held the same muskets as the cadre who captured them.

  There would’ve been no point mass-producing a prototype, Jessica thought. Whoever their adventurer leader was, he knew how to make rudimentary guns that didn’t blow up in your face. That was unusual for a teenager.

  The other unusual thing was how well-organized everyone and everything seemed to be. With everyone calling them bandits and rebels, her mental image had been something between a pirate crew and Robin Hood’s Merry Men. Instead, the entire camp was laid out in a fixed grid with a gate at the entrance.

  There was also a‘uniform’ of sorts consisting of a blue cloak, a white shirt, and a baggy red hat. How these things were procured and dyed seemed to be up to the individual, with some hats being a faded pink and others bright crimson. Those that weren’t wearing the uniform had on camouflage. Either the rock-colored cloaks of Jessica’s captors or a twig-and-leaf-covered suit that looked like something a sniper would wear.

  And, out of the hundreds of ears she looked at, not a single pair were human. Every single person in the camp besides her and John was either an elf or anaimalar. The reason for this was obvious: These were either escaped slaves or, like Riza, in immediate danger of being captured and sold to adventurers.

  “Any chance you could bring us to your head honcho?” Jessica asked.

  “He’ll be coming to you,” replied the man in charge of the little squadron. She couldn’t see much of him but occasionally his white wolf ears flicked against the hood of his cloak.

  “Great. And how long is that going to take?” she asked.

  “We sent a falcon to J?rvistad the moment you crossed the border. The commandant should arrive two days from now.”

  Jessica felt her heart sink. Two days in captivity in the middle of nowhere with no lamia to squeeze the daylights out of her was going to drive her insane.

  “Are the accommodations any good, at least?” Jessica asked. “My companion’s having a rough time with… uh… his eyeballs.”

  “He seems fine to me. In fact…” The wolf sniffed at John. “He smells like a serf. Is that true, boy?”

  “I-I am, yeah. It’s in my name n’everythin’,” John Serf replied.

  Jessica sniffed to see if she could smell what a serf smelled like but her nose was still dry, bloody, and stuffed.

  “So this one”—the wolf man yanked Jessica up by her arm, forcing her onto her tiptoes—“Is she an adventurer holding you hostage? Your bondholder?”

  “She’s a friend. A good one. Wherever she goes, I go. Please put her down,” John said.

  “We’d be happy to set you free, y’know. You don’t have to follow anyone. Just say the word. Otherwise you’re going in the slammer, same as her.”

  “Then I s’pose I am.”

  Jessica appreciated his steadfastness but it was also kind of stupid. If John was free to move about the camp he could gather intel, learn about this commandant, and figure out leverage they could use to make him stop his assault on Elsifeya. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell him out loud to do that.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “So be it. Sometimes it takes a while for southern folk like you to de-program, but you’ll get there,” the wolf said.

  “Doubtful,” John said, “on account a’ I don’t know what that means.”

  Right up until they arrived at the holding tent, Jessica held out hope that their situation wouldn’t be worse than the Elsifeyan dungeons. Sadly this was not the case. The holding tent itself was large and spacious, but this was for the purpose of containing seven bowl-shaped pits in the ground with grates of thick pine branches laid over them. The pits were ten feet in diameter and arranged in a hexagon with one in the middle.

  The pits were shallow enough Jessica could see into them. Of the two they passed, the first held a trio of animalar dressed in merchant clothes who resembled the slave-dealers she rescued Riza from.

  The second pit held something that made Jessica do a double-take: The adventurer whose party Min-Woo had dismantled. For the life of her she couldn’t remember his name other than it being Chinese. He didn’t look up as she passed, not that he would’ve recognized her anyway since she’d been hiding while his party members were butchered. She was nonetheless curious how he ended up here.

  The third pit they passed was empty and it was into this one she and John were dumped via a small hatch in the grate. She tried to see if there was any obvious way to dismantle it, but the locking mechanism looked surprisingly modern. The metal it was made from was also stainless steel.

  “Do you all have a steelmaking operation somewhere?” Jessica asked.

  “Shut it, oppressor. The only one you need to speak to is the commandant,” said a vixen animalar from the recon party.

  Their captors departed without bothering to unbind their wrists so the first thing Jessica did was have John help her with them before they started chafing. This was easier said than done, and several minutes of whispery grunts barely managed to loosen the ropes. At one point Jessica stopped to take a break.

  “Ugh! This sucks. This sucks! ‘Only speak to the commandant’ my ass. How about that stupid fox bitch speak to my knuckles?” Jessica muttered.

  “Jessica, I—”

  “Oh jeez, I’m sorry, John. I know this has to be ten times as annoying with a neon sign flashing across everything. You don’t have to wait for this commandant guy to pick a—”

  “I already did,” John said with a guilty grimace. “I-I didn’t mean to. It was an accident and it just…”

  In a strange way it was a relief to her as well. Worrying about sub-optimal builds could wait.

  She bumped into him with her shoulder. “I told you it’s fine, buddy. What’d ya pick?”

  “Sentinel.”

  “What’s that do?”

  “Ain’t got a clue.”

  She should’ve expected that. A few seconds later, John said, “Actually, that’s a fib. I think I do know on account a’ how I got it.”

  “And how’s that?”

  He blushed. “When we got ambushed I thought real hard about… about wanting to protect you. My ma’ says it’s a man’s job to protect a lady but I did a real bad job. Even ol’ Burnish did more’n me. I felt crumby about it and all of a sudden the little words on my eyes said ‘Job Selected’ and it was Sentinel. I think that means the job’s about protectin’ people.”

  “I see. Just to be clear though, your mom’s advice applies to people of the same age. Right now I’m the grown adult in the situation, so it’s my responsibility to keep you safe. Not the other way around,” Jessica said.

  John’s face fell when she told him he wasn’t grown enough to defend her. Not that she was doing a bang-up job in the other direction. The safest John could’ve been was if they had never met.

  “But I’m the one with the job now, ain’t I?” he asked.

  “You’re also Level 1 with no way to gain experience. I can’t ask you to fight anyone or anything. Especially not when you’re still a kid.”

  “I ain’t any younger than most adventurers!”

  “Sure, and those idiots do more harm than good,” Jessica said.

  She regretted saying this as soon as it left her mouth. Against all odds and common sense, this serf boy had touched the Tapestry and with it gained a shot at becoming like his childhood heroes. And she’d just implied he would do more harm than good.

  “John, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  He shook his head. “No, I getcha. Adventurers burned my home down so it ain’t like I don’t know. I wanna think I’d be better. I wanna think that so bad. But you know more about these things than I do, Jessica. You’re smart, unlike me. You look out and see a whole world I’m blind to. So when you say adventurers are no good then I know they’re no good. I won’t use my job for anything. It’ll be like I don’t even have it.”

  “No, no, John, that’s not what I meant. It’s— it’s complicated. And there’s moving parts, and—” Jessica deflated. She had run out of brain thread to string her words. “Let’s just get these bindings off and get some rest. No use thinking about things while we’re tired and scared. How’s that sound?”

  John nodded. As though waiting for permission to appear, fatigue finally showed on his face.

  With a few more minutes of fumbling their hands were both untied. There was nothing else in the pit besides a foul-smelling hole off to the side so this was as cozy as they were going to get. Already she was missing the shared comfort Naga provided when they were imprisoned together. She glanced over at John rolled over on his in the dirt.

  “Hey, John, wanna rest your head in my lap?” she asked.

  His face, when he looked up, was solid, unbroken red. “Y-Y-You’re joking, ri— right?”

  “I got you stuck here, so the least I can do is keep your head off the ground,” she said.

  He protested for another minute or so before she managed to convince him she wasn’t going to think less of him for taking up the offer. Eventually, he laid his head down on her thigh, eyes shut like he was on the drop of a roller coaster.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Y-Y-Yeah…”

  Jessica leaned back into the dirt, arms folded, ready to take her own nap.

  For his part, John was kind enough not to mention the fact that her legs were straight bone.