Species - Retribution part 1

The slave had been in his master’s employ for just over two months, which was something of a record. Most Vel-Dion slaves were usually sold on within five months but his current master’s rage is legendary. His slaves nearly always ended up dead within two weeks. He waited patiently while the master sampled the food.. The Vel-Dion growled with pleasure and the slave took this as a good sign. He slowly backed off; keeping his eyes to the floor and did his best to make his way to the vast doors as quietly as possible

The slave closed the doors, blinked and attempted to sow his heart down to a slower speed. ‘Favoured indeed’ He hurried off, eager to put as much distance as possible between him and his master.

Vel-Nisster hooded his eyes and pretended to ignore his slave slipping out of the doors. He sighed. He actually thought he had found his ideal Bayan worker. The young slave was so efficient, quiet and respectful. He wondered why the slave’s old master had let him go at such a low price. He had always considered Vel-Tesk to be a fool; the pit co-ordinator wouldn’t know a good slave if it bit him on the snout. Then again Vel-Tesk only looked for slow and large built slaves who had a temper and Bayan’s didn’t really fit into that category. Vel-Nisster had visited pit fights a few times, usually when he was drunk and had money to spare, and Bayan’s would last very long, certainly not long enough for the crowd to get their money’s worth.

For some reason most of the Bayan house slaves who were unlucky enough to find their way into his service were clumsy, useless and really only fit for the cooking pot. This didn’t bother him too much as he found Bayan meat rather tasty but in the long run he always ended up having to buy yet another slave to replace the old one. He hoped his credit would last until he would be posted somewhere else. He put his thoughts aside and continued to eat his meal then remembered what he was eating and spat a chunk of half chewed flesh onto his floor. His meal was the boiled up carcass of his previous chef who had neglected to heat his food up to the correct temperature.

Dalisius stopped for a second to remove the fur from his eyes, luckily the overseers back was turned so he didn’t risk the wrath of a whipping. He had only been caught once, a few weeks ago. The overseer was in a foul mood that day and consequently most of the slaves in the field went back to their shacks with dozens of ugly welts across their backs. Dalissius hoped that the scars would fade in time. He quickly returned to his ploughing and hoped that the Vel-Dion overseer hadn’t seen him slacking. There were sixty-eight Bayan slaves under the command of the overseer; almost all were young unspoilt males. The females went into domestic service while the old, crippled and a certain percentage of the young were killed and fed to the Vel-Dion soldiers.

The overseer had indeed spotted that the young slave had paused, he decided not to react just yet; that could wait until he restarted his shift, it was always more enjoyable to terrorise the little slaves when they didn’t know what they had done. Soon this shift would be over, which was good, as it would be very close to feeding time then sleeping time.