I looked and saw it was the prisoner I had approached at the factory slave pen.
"I just wanted to get away and be safe. Don’t hurt me please! I will do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me," he begged.
"Shut up!" I told him.
"Where are you from and how long did you work at the factory?" I asked him.
"I was living in a small farm community in the hills just east of the old city of Los Angeles. We were able to scratch out a living with a little leftover to trade for goods and other food stuffs. About a year ago a band of raiders from the old city swept thru and raided and burned our village. They looted our store house taking all of our food and goods. They gathered most of us up and marched us to the south with other prisoners they already had. We were taken to a large farming compound.
Most of the women and kids and a few of the men were left at the farm as workers. About 45 or 50 able bodied men were taken into the mountains to cut trees and make charcoal. Some of the men loaded charcoal into wagons and some were assigned to haul it away.
About six months after that most of us were taken farther into the mountains to mine sulfur. When we had gathered several wagon loads of sulfur, six of us drove the wagons to the gunpowder factory. The rest stayed to mine sulfur. We had been there about three months when you came last night and set us free," he said.
"Well, I sure hope they don’t connect us to the problems and prisoner escapes of last night," I said.
"I think if there are any guards still alive they are still running south. They treated us so badly some of the prisoners would have been out for revenge once they were free," he replied.
"Damn, I wish we had finished off the boss, rather than leaving him trussed up," I said looking over at Cain.
"Don't worry. He won’t be causing any problems for us," Cain said.
The look in his eyes told me that he had made sure of that. It had been driven into us during our apprenticeship to leave no witness that could implicate you or complicate a mission. Although I felt it unnecessary to always kill witnesses, I did see the wisdom in this case.
"Ok, where are you going to go now?" I asked.
"I was hoping to stick with you guys," he said.
"Sorry, but we don’t need any farmers. And we are going south to the old city. Surely, you aren’t interested in going there are you?" I inquired of him.
"I don’t care where you are going. I would rather travel with you than be on my own out here. I can cook and keep camp. I’m sure I can make contributions that will pay my way," he said.
I looked over at Cain. He just shrugged and shook his head in disgust.
"Ok, but you work for Sari. She is in charge of camp and she will give you work to do. By the way, what name do you go by?" I asked him.
"Nate, my name is Nate," he said smiling.
With Nate to help Sari with the camp, Saam was freed of the mundane task of gathering firewood and starting the fire each time we struck camp. Cain took advantage of Saam’s free time by sparring with him as Saam's shoulder had healed.
Cain started teaching him to use a spear as a long range weapon. I even started showing him how to use a sling. Saam was eager to learn to use the weapons and was also in need of basic tracking skills.
Sari spent her spare time talking to Saam about whatever new skill he was acquiring. Sari could be seen practicing with the sling. I noticed that she was always on the lookout for the fist sized round stones that worked best in the sling. Sari used her sling to add the occasional rabbit to our meals.
Nate performed the cooking duties. With Sari to show him herbs that could be used for seasoning Nate turned out to be a fairly good cook. We settled into a happy traveling group.
As we traveled south past the compound that had been the gunpowder plant, it appeared to be totally abandoned. We continued past it without stopping. I did notice buzzards in the general area where we had left the boss bound and bleeding.
In order to put as much distance as possible between us and the destroyed gunpowder plant, we were traveling fast without midday breaks. Saam, Cain and I took turns with outrider duties while one of us traveled with the cart.
On the tenth day of traveling, we met a heavily armed party traveling north. Saam and Cain had melted into the brush along the roadway. A gruff fellow asked who we were and where we were going.
I advised him I was a tracker from the Three Rivers district. I told him I was on a wander with my wife and slave. He asked if we had passed a compound a couple of weeks travel north of here. I told him we had passed the ruins of a compound, but it had been abandoned. I also told him that we needed to keep traveling, wasting no more daylight. He looked at me but said nothing more about the compound.
"Go safe and with good speed," he said.
"A safe journey to you as well," I said.
I turned to Sari and said, "Come woman, we need to be on our way."
We continued south leaving the party watching us depart.
I told Nate to watch them and to tell me when the party started traveling north on their way. When Nate said they were leaving, I swung down from my saddle and told him to climb on my horse and continue on down the road with Sari. I started back north on foot. When I met Cain and Saam coming in our direction, I joined them.
"What did they decide?" I asked Cain.
"They argued a bit but the leader decided to allow you to continue on your way. He said the General could deal with you. He didn’t want any trouble with the Three Rivers group right now and they didn’t want to be encumbered with slaves or prisoners until after they determined what had occurred at the plant," Cain said.