A cold wind blew on a dark sullen street where the homeless, the beggars, and a few dead bodies shared a place to rest. Being a quiet night, the trotting sound of 4 horses could be heard from a distance as they pulled a huge wooden wagon and its driver.
The people taking residence on the sidewalks could barely make out the cussing of the driver who glared at them with cold murderous eyes. The cold night had been brutal on him. His shivering was so extreme that it was almost hilarious.
Almost.
Under the illumination of the lamp he carried, he scanned the surroundings in search of a victim to 'lend' him some warm clothing.
Unfortunately for him, no one had anything that looked even remotely clean and the stench of dead bodies in the street was not helping the situation.
"Tsk. Stinking cowards," he muttered under his breath.
Everyone who met his gaze soon averted their eyes as it was obvious the wagon driver was looking for trouble. Preferring not to 'borrow' their dirty clothes, he soon gave up on his search and concentrated back on driving to his destination.
The people that managed to look at the back of the wagon let out little gasps by what they saw but soon got back to minding their own business.
A large fabric covered the back of the wagon and had a black logo at its center depicting a human skull and a blade stabbed into the forehead. It was attached to the walls and roof of the wagon to prevent it from blowing in the wind, but to everyone else, it looked like a warning to any would-be trouble makers.
The underside of the logo fabric was not attached to the wagon and allowed 4 pairs of small bare feet chained to one another to protrude underneath. It wouldn't take a genius to know that these feet belonged to children between the ages of 6 and 10. Everyone who saw the logo and chained feet knew that the children where slaves, since the logo belonged to the most notorious slave traders and bandit crew in the city.
But such was the life here and one could only survive by minding their own business. Even though the city was called Liberdade which meant 'freedom', it was better to call it by its nickname, the city of bandits, which was more fitting.
***
In the outskirt region of northern parts of Liberdade city, 8 guards stood at the entrance to a campsite surrounded by huge walls and thinly-spaced red luminous magical lights that shot up into the night sky, giving it the look of an enormous cage. The guards were paying close attention to an approaching wagon driven my 4 horses and a pale-skinned man, visibly shivering.
A little bit of edginess would be inevitable if one was in charge of controlling who entered or left a renowned bandit/slave-trading campsite... and also if one's psychopathic boss was paying them a visit on that particular day. The guards were therefore noticeably relieved that the shivering driver of the approaching wagon was a fellow bandit who had been sent out a few weeks ago to capture new slaves.
The wagon came to a stop in front of the guards for a routine search. As the other 7 guards were searching every portion of the wagon for anyone trying to sneak in, the 8th guard, who was also the captain of the guards at the gate, decided to talk to the driver instead.
"You look like sh*t," the captain said, suppressing a peal of laughter that was stuck at his throat from the time he saw how funny the driver was shivering.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Try traveling through this night without any blankets or body heating spells," responded the driver. He was not in the mood for jokes.
"Oi, has the boss picked up the cargo yet?" the driver asked, hoping that he did not travel through the cold night only to have to wait for the next time his boss passed through to get paid.
"No, not yet. He sent word that he would be arriving after making a stop somewhere. But that was yesterday so he might arrive in the morning," the captain replied.
"Nice. I brought some fantastic merchandise you see. Take a look," the driver smiled. His uncomfortable journey through the hellish cold night would finally prove to be worth it so his mood brightened up a little.
At the same time, one of the guards gestured to the captain to come and take a look at the 'merchandise' in the wagon.
The captain and driver walked to the back of the wagon; the captain filled with a sense of expectancy. His eyes lit up when he saw 15 little girls between the ages of at least 6 and 10 in the wagons cage, with all their hands and feet chained.
"Hoh?" he happily said, as a malicious smile formed on his face. Young girls sold for huge prices and their boss was generous in rewarding his subordinates after each sale. Plus, the captain thought, he could have a little fun with them before they were picked up by the boss.
"Parents?" the captain inquired. He wanted to know if he would get to kill some pathetic wandering fathers in search of their kidnapped daughters that wandered to his doorstep.
The driver gave a disgusting smile as he moved his index finger from one ear to the other across his neck, signifying that the parents had been killed.
"Shame," the captain sighed, he always liked the desperate parents since guarding the gate of a feared bandit crew didn't really bring much action. His mood had sunk a little but he quickly overcame it when he caught sight of one of the girls in the cage.
"What's your name little one?" he smilingly asked, grabbing her by the hair violently and pulling it behind her to get a better look at her face. He almost salivated as he had picked out a pretty one, disgustingly thinking about what he would do to her before the boss arrived.
Unlike most girls in the cage, she did not have the 'dead-eyes' look the other girls had. She seemed to have some fighting spirit left in her and angrily looked at the man pulling her hair back. She spat in his face and received a heavy punch to her chin, knocking her out instantly.
"Get these filthy rats inside already!" The captain ordered the driver, wiping his face and trying to control his emotions. He wanted to kill that little girl so badly.