Trojan Slave (Book 1)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Elpis was trying her hardest to block the sounds of devastation. From the battle-field at her back, the sounds took her back to that night, what seemed like another life-time ago. She turned her attention instead to the silence of the Temple in front of her. She had stopped hearing screams a while ago; her soul had gone quiet with it. They had wanted her help. She had turned her back on the only people she could have called family. Had she really treated them as those around them had treated her for the last year? Replaceable? She knew they weren't, wanting to turn back time, make it right.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, a silent goodbye to those who went into the afterlife with no one else who cared for them. She was supposed to be one of them. Surviving, being here, she felt she had betrayed them. The Temple in front of her had turned from a place she had hated to the final resting place of her fellow slaves. She had wanted to live. But had never thought how she would survive if she was the only one to endure.

The precious metal was growing in a pile around her. It seemed there was more to this group than the original four. The first two guards had been replaced by two similar looking warriors. Just as immense, just as unapproachable. Every so often more would stop by, look her over, judging her as the possession she was as they were dropping more items on the pile next to her.

Rubbing her wrist from where she had been grabbed and dragged from the alcove earlier, she made note of the bruise forming beneath her skin. The golden overtones darkening beneath. She knew it would be a long lasting one. She had managed to learn what would heal quickly and what wouldn't. Her wrist would be stiff for the next few days.

Many times during his life Theodulus had both railed at the gods and prayed for their interference in equal measure. He did not see the work of the gods here; no, this was all the will of man. After seeing once more the destruction of life, he knew this would be the last war he would wage for others. He had seen many shores, most of them ended up littered with broken bodies, too many innocent lives taken. All for the advancement of rich men, playing a game like the gods with the lives of those they should be protecting.

"Your Elpis could probably show us where they stored anything particularly valuable or special to the Temple. Things that they don't usually keep out in the open. And they would have seen us coming; who knows what they could have stored away somewhere. There have to be plenty of hidden doors and tunnels around here." Androc turned slowly, as if by his presence those secret ways would open up to him.

"Normally, I would agree..."

"I know, Theod. I know you too well. If she was male, this would be different. You get too over protective of the women." At the glare sent his way, he backtracked slightly. "I completely understand why, Theod. They were my family too. Since then I have found myself acting differently with women. But this could help us Theod."

Wiping a hand down his face, he tried to see anything else that they could take that was out in the open. "I don't want her seeing this. With what she would have heard from where she was, she does not need to see the mess the others have left behind." He could barely stomach it himself, and he was a seasoned warrior. How could a small slip of a woman handle what he scarcely could?

"So we don't let her see."

"And how do you propose we do that? The steps are strewn with guards, the Temple proper with what was once her fellow slaves." Exasperated with his cousin, he went to walk back out. There was nothing of use here.

"There has to be another way in." That made him pause. His cousin often thought out loud, and when he did Theod listened. For that was some of his cousin's best work. Not that he'd ever admit that. "If there are tunnels, there has to be a way out. An escape route for those trapped beneath. The could not have run from such a fleet as what has just descended, but maybe a few could have sought refuge in the country until we retreat from the Temple. Come in under cover of darkness perhaps. Take what has been hidden away. Allow them to flee for good?"