Chapter Text
Leon urges Llamrei forward as the sun starts to dip. This close to the border with Essetir, he doesn't want to risk making camp.
Maybe Elyan was right. Maybe he shouldn't have escorted him to the border dressed as a Camelot knight. But it's much easier to pass the patrols like this. Also, the novelty of finally becoming a knight hasn't quite worn off yet.
He stops when he hears a rustling in the trees. That's not an animal. That's... voices. Multiple, angry voices.
"You broke it, you little brat."
"You shouldn't have hit me so hard then," says a high voice. Young. Quavering. "It's not my fault."
"You won't last long once we get to market like that. You need to learn some obedience."
"Get off of me," the young person snarls. There's a full-throated laugh.
"Hear that, Cador? The livestock thinks he can tell us what to do."
Slavers. Leon slides off Llamrei and draws his sword near-silently, peering out from behind a tree.
Two horses are attached to an open wagon, piled with what look like produce bags but probably don't contain grain or anything of the like. There's a fire pit with flickering orange flames, and two men nearby. The stockier of the two is sitting on– dear gods, he's just a boy. The man's sitting on his lower back, a hand pressing firmly between his shoulder blades, holding him down even as he struggles relentlessly. Leon thinks distantly that that cannot be good for his back.
"That's the best joke I've heard in a long time. A slave telling us what to do. He needs to learn his place, the animal."
"I'm right here. And I'm not an animal."
The stockier man's face turns puce and Leon steps out, unwilling to see what the boy's punishment will be for that kind of statement.
"Halt, in the name of Camelot."
The slaver already standing whirls around, and the other climbs off the boy to face him. Even the boy looks round, which is quite the feat in the shackles and rope.
"Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?"
"I'm Sir Leon of Camelot. You are in Camelot's lands. Slavery is illegal here. Let the boy go."
"Or what?" sneers the one Leon thinks is Cador.
"Or I do this." He stabs Cador through the heart and spins around, nearly decapitating the other as he slits his throat. Maybe it's not honourable. But neither are these men. He drops his sword and turns to the boy.
The boy, who flinches away at the sight of him.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"You're a red cape. That's what you do."
And oh, that hurts. But Leon nods respectfully. He doesn't know what the boy's been through to believe that (not all knights are honourable). He has to honour the statement.
"Well, I won't. I promise. Let me get you out of those."
Leon thinks the boy's nod is more out of resignation than actual belief. Not that he believes the boy wouldn't fight, it's just that Leon's very obviously more skilled at killing than the slavers. He strides over to the boy and bends down beside him. The boy flinches again when he pulls a knife from his boot. There's so many chains, but what attaches his wrists to the back of the wagon is rope. Tough, too, Leon has to saw, the boy watching closely as he does so.
"Partway there. Did you see where the slavers keep the key for the cuffs and collar?"
"On them. Maybe. It's fuzzy."
Leon helps the trembling boy to sitting as best he can, then methodically rummages through the slavers' pockets and bags. Finally he finds a tiny metal key.
"I think this is it." The boy responds with a pained grunt and Leon rushes back to him. "Here. Let me get your wrists first."
His logic is that once they're free, the boy can do the rest himself if he prefers. He doesn't get that far though, because that's when he notices the shackles are cold iron.
Oh. That's why the boy was so petrified, why he talked about red capes being so firmly synonymous to pain. That's why he didn't believe Leon. That's why–
The boy collapses into his arms.