New Fic: Back from the Well - Part One

[xanthefic]

Back from the Well
Part One
By Xanthe

Every step hurt; the sun burned down onto his naked, lacerated shoulders, enflaming his already burning back, and the damaged fingers on his right hand throbbed incessantly. The road stretched endlessly ahead of them, with the dunes from the previous dust storm piled high on either side. Rodney hoped they weren't due for another dust storm – out here, on the road like this, naked and exposed, he didn't see how either he or the other slaves could survive. The Karkaran slavers would be fine – they were dressed from head to foot in long robes, the light, graceful fabric covering their faces entirely, shielding their eyes with a thin strip of gauze, but the slaves they were shepherding along the sweltering road were mostly naked, or else wearing only tattered rags. The soles of Rodney's feet were blistered from walking on the hot dust, but he hurt in too many other places to notice or care about the pain in his feet particularly; all his energies were spent on just putting one of them in front of the other. At the back of his mind there was a vague, nagging worry about Radek, now all alone back at the plantation. Radek was already sick and without Rodney to take some of his workload he doubted the other man would survive for long. Rodney couldn't help but blame himself; getting sold at this point was the worst thing that could have happened. Not that he was sorry to leave that goddamn shithole of a plantation far behind, but now Radek would be alone and friendless and Rodney had experienced enough of this dog eat dog world to know that he wouldn't last long.

There was a slight dip in the road, and, his feet dragging, Rodney tripped and fell. He lay there for a moment, winded, as the pain kicked in and his torn shoulders screamed their protest. Instinct had caused him to put out his injured hand to break his fall, and a sickening wave of pain engulfed him, making him vomit up bile onto the dusty dune. There was little enough to come up – they were fed such meagre rations that his stomach was never full. Rodney spewed and retched for a few seconds and then dropped back onto the dust, too exhausted to move. A harsh shout sounded somewhere along the road and then he heard hoof beats, and one of the Karkaran overseers loomed into sight.

"Get up!" he snapped, his horse's hooves drumming dangerously close to Rodney's head. Rodney closed his eyes, hoping one of the hooves would land on his skull, longing for the comfortable oblivion of blacking out, no longer caring what happened to him. "If you don't get up we'll leave you here by the side of the road," the Karkaran said, and Rodney felt the searing swipe of the man's whip as it flicked hard against the bare skin of his chest.

"I really don't give a damn," he muttered into the dust, thinking that being left out here, naked and alone, in the middle of nowhere, was probably preferable to the fate that awaited him once they got to the slave market.

"With your throat cut," the Karkaran added, in an ugly tone. Rodney didn't consciously move, but some instinct took over and he found himself rolling onto his side and staggering to his feet. He resumed his place in the line, walking on autopilot.

They walked for three days, and rested by night. The days were blisteringly hot, the nights freezing cold, and Rodney hated the stench of the slaves as they huddled together for warmth. They weren't give blankets, they were barely given food and there was only just enough water to sate his constantly dry throat. Was Radek still alive, he wondered, as he lay in the middle of all that human flotsam and jetsam by the side of the dusty road. Were any of the others?

The Karkarans had taken Atlantis by surprise several months previously; nobody had heard of them, and nobody knew anything about them, but they had gated in stealthily one night, which shouldn't have been possible. Rodney had since learned that the Karkarans were extremely efficient bandits who went from gate to gate, plundering what they could, and they had perfected a device that enabled them to lower the shields on their victims' gates, allowing them to sweep in and overpower them. This was their way of life, and they were very good at it. They'd swiftly corralled the Atlanteans before they'd even had a chance to mount any kind of defence of the city. Rodney had been sleeping one minute, his arm slung across Carson's thigh, John's chest pressed against his back, and the next minute he woke to find five armed Karkarans with nets and ropes in the room. He knew John had tried to fight and had been taken out by a savage blow across the head from the butt of a gun. He also knew that he would never forget the sound of Carson's scream as he'd scrabbled over the bed towards John's unconscious body. Rodney had tried to reach both his lovers but had been caught in a net, and as he struggled to get free he must have been hit as well because the next thing he knew he was waking up in a holding pen in a slave market on Karkara with a dozen or so other Atlanteans, all of whom he knew by sight but none of whom he knew very well. He hadn't seen either of his lovers again since that night and he had no way of knowing whether John had died back in their room on Atlantis or whether he too had been sold in a dusty Karakaran slave market. In some ways he almost hoped it was the former; he couldn't bear the idea of John bowing his head to these rapacious aliens, of them stealing his lover's dignity and making him into a slave. John was a soldier and his instinct would be to fight, and Rodney couldn't see how that would have made him tempting to any prospective buyer. He'd learned himself, the hard way, not to talk back, which wasn't easy for someone with his temperament. John at least knew how to hold his tongue – but his fists? If he was pushed hard enough? Rodney doubted it. As for Carson – Rodney couldn't even bring himself to go there. Carson was the kindest, gentlest soul he'd ever met, and the thought of Carson being beaten as Rodney had been beaten by various of his Karkaran overseers since his capture made tears of despair prick at the back of his eyes, so he'd long since forced himself not to think about what might have happened to Carson. It hurt too much.

From talking to the others in the holding pen he'd quickly pieced together that Atlantis had fallen to the Karkarans, and they, as spoils of that victory, had been brought back to Karkara to be sold as slaves. At first Rodney had hoped that because of his scientific knowledge he'd at least be of some value to the Karkarans and treated well because of what he could do for them, but that hope was soon quashed as he found out more about his captors. The Karkarans were afraid of technology for some reason he hadn't yet been able to figure out, and while the bandits who roamed offworld were clearly adept at using it, no technology of any kind was allowed on the homeworld itself. The penalty for having so much as a watch on your wrist was death but the Atlanteans had been stripped of all their personal effects in any case to prepare them for their new lives as commodities on the buoyant Karkaran slave market. That was his first experience of enforced nakedness and at first it had bothered him a lot – until he found out there was worst yet to come. The fitting of his collar had been one of many low points. All slaves on Karkara wore thick leather collars - they weren't locked on, but it was an offence punishable by a severe beating to remove them. Rodney hated the way the collar chafed at the skin on his neck – you could never forget about it - it was always there, rubbing the sore skin underneath. There was a thick ring set into the buckle which the Karakarans used to attach leashes in order to herd and corral their slaves; it was all so incredibly soul-destroying.

On the afternoon of the fourth day the slave convoy arrived in Shalla, one of the largest towns in the area. They were hustled along a bustling street to the slave market, which was nothing more than a cluster of big cages, surrounded by white tents. Rodney was relieved to be shoved into a cage with twelve others from the convoy of slaves who'd just walked in from the country. He sank down against the side of the cage and closed his eyes, grateful for a chance to rest. The cage was in the shadow of one of the tents so it at least afforded him some shade. He didn't feel right – he knew that his fingers were broken, and he wondered whether they'd eventually heal in the same misshapen position they were currently in, but it was his back that was particularly hurting him, and he could feel the fever sweeping through his body. Even in the shade, his forehead was beaded with sweat that dripped down the side of his face and into his beard, and he could tell by the heat in his shoulders that the lacerations had become infected. If he turned his face he could just about make out the purple swellings that criss-crossed his back in long, hard, raised welts. He was sweating off more than he was taking in and he longed for water but knew from experience that they'd get food and water only twice a day, at sunrise and sunset. Slaves were fed and watered after the horses – the Karkarans knew their priorities.

Rodney had been sold twice before so the market itself held little fear for him. The first time he'd been sold to some kind of travelling trading consortium to work in their kitchens. That hadn't been bad work – at least he'd got to eat well enough, even if he did spend most of his days and half his nights peeling vegetables and scrubbing pots. He'd learned there that you never looked a Karkaran freeman in the eye unless you wanted a beating – and he'd been on the receiving end of several before that lesson had finally sunk in. He'd been there for a few months before being sold on, in an entirely random way, to work on a massive plantation that needed extra manpower to bring in the harvest. Their only crop was rinula - something akin to cotton – it left your fingers covered in tiny cuts when you picked it but when it was woven and dyed it produced the light, graceful robes that the Karkarans – and only the Karkarans – wore. It was against the law for slaves to wear robes – if you were lucky, you got to drag a piece of old sackcloth over your body, but just as often slaves went naked, and although Rodney had long since lost his embarrassment about that, he had never entirely become accustomed to it either.

One of the slavers came into the cage and began jotting down the various numbers tattooed or burned onto the slave's wrists. Rodney gazed at his without emotion but that hadn't been the case when they'd first marked him. For some reason this indignity had hurt more than the loss of his clothes, perhaps because it signified to him, for the first time, what his status on this planet was. He'd kicked up a fuss, shouted and screamed, but they'd just knocked him down, sat on him, and tattooed his wrist anyway, laughing and jeering at him the entire time. Now the dark green-blue markings on his wrist were irrelevant to him and he couldn't exactly remember why they had upset him so much at the time; there had been so many worse humiliations since. He held up his arm wearily to the slaver as he came by, and the man looked up the number in his sales' ledger.

"Says here you've worked in kitchens and in the fields," the slaver said, glancing at him.

"Yeah – and before that I was an exceptionally brilliant physicist and mechanical engineer but you don't seem to have much call for those professions around here," Rodney told him, the fever making him flippant. The slaver grinned.

"That smart mouth get you into much trouble?" he asked.

"Plenty," Rodney replied.

"Well, hold your scum tongue when we've got buyers looking at you or I'll cut it out myself," the slaver told him.

"I would expect nothing less," Rodney said wearily, resting his head on the back of the cage.

"Stand up," the man ordered. Rodney did as he was told, heaving himself to his feet and then swaying slightly, the sweat trickling into his eyes. The man looked him up and down and wrote something in the ledger, then motioned with his finger. "Turn around." Rodney did as ordered, beyond humiliation. "Says here you stole from your previous owner," the slaver said. "Is that why they flogged you?"

"I never even met my previous owner," Rodney replied, glancing back over his shoulder, "but I really doubt that the stale old loaf of bread and rotten vegetables I took from the gutter at the back of the kitchens was food he was intending to feast on himself. However, yes, that's why I was punished."

"So, we've got one fairly useless slave who steals and he has the marks on his back to prove it to any prospective buyer," the slaver growled, motioning that Rodney could turn around again. "We'll put you down for half a zenari and if you don't fetch it we'll throw you in the junk cage at the end of tomorrow's trading."

"You're so kind." Rodney sat back down with a thud, and leaned his head back on the cage. So this was it – he'd seen the junk cages at the end of the trading day, filled with slaves who they couldn't even give away. They were herded together and their throats were cut and their carcasses sold for god knows what purpose – to be boiled up for glue like old horses maybe, Rodney wondered. He had no idea whether he'd reach the modest sale price – half a zenari was hardly going to make the trader rich, but Rodney knew he wasn't in good condition, and if *he* was a prospective purchaser he doubted that he'd look twice at himself. He wasn't brawny enough for physical labour, or pretty enough to adorn the bedroom of any prospective master or mistress, and with his swollen, misshapen fingers it was clear he wasn't going to be able to do much by way of skilled work either.

"Great. Here I am, the most brilliant physicist of my generation, and I'm unlikely to even fetch half a zenari on this god forsaken hellhole world," Rodney muttered to himself. Last time he'd been here, he'd fetched two zenaris, but that had been before the plantation and that place chewed people up and spat them out half dead. The plantation…Rodney closed his eyes, and thought about Radek, who was still back there, rotting to death out in the rinula fields.

~*~

The plantation stretched as far as the eye could see – row upon row of neatly tended plants, baking in the hot afternoon sun. Rodney stumbled down from the cart with a dozen or so other newly purchased slaves and was taken to a huddle of rundown, ramshackle huts. He smelled them before he got close and retched – the stink of human sweat, faeces and despair was overwhelming, and he longed suddenly for the massive bowls of vegetables he'd been peeling for the past few months, even if they did come complete with the bad-tempered fist of the chef who ruled the place like a martinet.

The plantation overseers were dressed in coarse linen pants and loose shirts; only high-caste Karkarans wore fine rinula robes – these overseers were low-caste Karkaran freemen and they couldn't afford the expensive fabric. Rodney was wearing an old, coarse tunic made of sackcloth which he'd been given in the kitchens where he'd previously worked and he was glad of that much at least. The new slaves had no possessions so they didn't need to settle in and they were simply put straight to work. Rodney did six hours in the fields until sunset, and quickly learned how to snap the rinula off at the bud and throw it into his sack. It was hardly mentally stimulating work, but it was hard, back-breaking labour. The overseers roamed the plantation looking bored. If they thought you weren't working quickly enough they flicked their whips lazily in your direction - and sometimes they just did that anyway, for something to do to relieve the tedium. Rodney's fingers were soon cut and bleeding from the sharp rinula branches and he had several slashes of blood over his body as well from the whips. He was relieved when time was called and they were all herded back to the huts for a paltry meal of stale bread and dried meat. Labour was plentiful and cheap on Karkara, courtesy of the offworld bandits and the constant supply of slaves they brought home, and there was little need to keep your slaves in good condition when you could just buy new ones if they died. When the meal arrived, the slaves swarmed forward, each fighting to get their share of the small amount that was on offer. Rodney was still in reasonably good condition and managed to shove his way to the front and get a fair handful of food. As he pushed his way out again he noticed another man on the outskirts of the crowd, bone thin, his skin stretched like paper over his ribs, trying in vain to push his way in towards the food. The man was wearing a pair of tattered pants but had nothing to cover his chest and his skinny body was liberally adorned with numerous vivid red whip marks so Rodney guessed he wasn't exactly popular with the overseers either. The man looked at Rodney, and then ran towards him. Rodney held the food defensively against his chest and prepared to be ambushed. The man reached him, put out two skinny hands…and patted his face.

"Get off me," Rodney protested, pushing the insistent hands away. "You can have some of the food but take your hands off me.

"R…Rodney?" the skinny man squeaked. "Is that you? I can't see very well without my glasses."

"Radek?" Rodney gazed at the other man in astonishment. Radek seemed to have aged by 10 years. He had a long, straggly beard the colour of dark wheat, and his collarbones were so prominent they looked as if they would cut through the thin layer of skin that protected them.

"It *is* you! Oh thank god!" Radek beamed happily at him.

"Well there's no need to be so pleased. It's not like I've brought the cavalry or anything. It's just me," Rodney said, grabbing Radek's arm and leading him away from the throng around the food.

"Yes. It's just you," Radek said happily. "I'm sorry – it's been a long time since I last saw anyone from Atlantis."

"There were others? Who?" Rodney asked quickly, handing Radek half the bread and meat, and stuffing some of the rest in his mouth and chewing furiously, desperate for the sustenance to relieve the ache in his belly. Radek's eyes were luminous and sympathetic in his gaunt face.

"Not either of the two you would like to know about. I haven't seen either Doctor Beckett or Colonel Sheppard - I'm sorry, Rodney," he said softly and Rodney felt hopes he hadn't even realized he'd been nurturing fade painfully in his chest. "I was with a couple of the women to begin with," Radek said, his face shadowed with sadness. "Laura Cadman and Katie Brown?"

"Yes?" Rodney asked eagerly, desperate for any news.

"I was sent here, to work in the fields, but they were…they were sent to work up at the house," Radek said and there was something about the way he said it that made Rodney's heart sink.

"They're pretty women." Radek shrugged his shoulders and Rodney felt his hands curling into fists, understanding what that meant all too well.

"Are they still there?" he asked.

"Katie is. Laura…she died," Radek told him softly. Rodney glanced up in shock. Although he'd never exactly viewed Laura Cadman as a friend, he'd come to appreciate her gung-ho style and sharp wit.

"How?" he asked. Radek bit on his lip.

"You know Laura. She was a fighter – a marine. They tried to rape her but she fought back. She never gave in, no matter how much they tried to break her spirit - so in the end they killed her. That's what I heard anyway." Radek gabbled through the story with as few words as possible but even so, Rodney could barely take in the horror of what he was being told.

"Oh god. Oh no. Poor Cadman." He could almost hear her strident, combative voice and he could imagine her dying this way; she just wasn't the kind of woman who'd roll over and give in. "And Katie?"

"She has a more docile temperament I think. She didn't give them any trouble so they kept her," Radek said. Rodney bowed his head. No matter how bad his own circumstances, it still hurt to hear what was being done to the rest of his people.

"How long have you been here?" he asked Radek.

"Since the beginning," Radek replied. "It's not good here, Rodney."

"It's not good anywhere on this garbage heap of a planet," Rodney snapped.

"No, but you…you look as if you’ve been fed," Radek muttered. Rodney glanced down at his own body and realized that even though he'd lost a few pounds, it was nothing to the dramatic weight loss Radek had experienced – and he'd been slim enough to begin with.

"I'm sorry, Radek," he said softly, handing the man the rest of his food. Radek took it gratefully and stuffed it into his mouth.

"I'm not strong any more," Radek told him between chews. "At first I was able to fight my way to the front and get more food, but now…" he shook his head."It's harder now."

"Well, I'll get your food for you. I'm good at shoving people out of the way," Rodney told him, with only the barest glimmer of a smile.

"Thank you." Radek smiled back, and for a moment Rodney saw a glimmer of the man he'd worked so closely with for the past couple of years. "Come on – I'll show you where we sleep," Radek said, swallowing the last of the food. The sleeping quarters were no more than stinking mud huts with reed mats on the floor and some extremely ragged blankets, but Rodney was too exhausted to care. He threw himself down next to Radek, pulled a blanket over his aching body and closed his eyes. Radek settled beside him, his breath coming in wheezing gasps.

"You're ill," Rodney said.

"Just…asthma," Radek replied. Rodney opened his eyes and turned his head to gaze at the other man. He'd forgotten that back on Atlantis Radek had taken regular doses of his inhaler. How the hell was he coping out here without any medication? No wonder he looked so old and ill.

"There's something in the crop that makes it worse," Radek explained.

Rodney fought back a wave of angry helplessness. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't take Radek away from here, couldn't somehow ease his strained breathing, and he felt so damn useless.

"Tomorrow you'll work with me," Rodney said firmly, because the only one thing he could do was help Radek with his workload; judging by the slashes of red all over the other man's body, the overseers weren't exactly pleased with Radek's output.

"Thank you, Rodney. I am very happy you are here," Radek said softly.

~*~

Rodney woke at dawn, as the sounds of the marketplace began to erupt around him. It took him a few seconds to realise where he was and for a moment he thought he was back on the plantation with Radek. He could hear someone's strained, noisy breathing, and he reached out to check that Radek was still alive, as he did most mornings, but instead found thin air, and realized that the wheezing was his own. He came to, blearily, to find that the fire in his back had kept the chill of the night at bay, and his body was burning up. He felt much worse today than he had the previous day and that wasn't good because if he didn't get sold today he'd be lying in the middle of a pile of corpses with this throat cut by the evening and his chances of being sold were slim if he looked like he was about to die anyway. Who'd waste good money on a slave with infected skin, broken fingers and a high fever?

The door of the cage was opened briefly and some food and a pail of water were placed on the floor. Rodney tried to get up, but the slightest movement sent shockwaves of pain through his body so he stayed where he was. He wasn't hungry anyway – or at least his stomach was contracted in semi-starvation but he didn't feel like eating. He was too ill.

The sun had risen higher in the sky next time he opened his eyes, and there was a prospective purchaser prowling around the cage. He didn't even look at Rodney – he just stepped over him and grabbed the arm of the man beside him.

"He looks strong enough. He'll do," he said. "Take him outside so I can get a better look at him."

Rodney turned his face back to the side of the cage. Now, even despite the hot sun overhead, his skin felt cold and clammy. He could no longer feel his broken fingers but maybe that was a good thing; they'd hurt so much. Maybe he'd die before Radek, he thought to himself, and a crooked smile tugged at his lips. There was some irony in that. Not that he'd know whether Radek was alive or dead.

He'd worked beside Radek for a few months, bringing in the seemingly endless rinula harvest. Radek was slow, his laboured breathing and starved condition making it hard for him to push his way between the sturdy bushes, especially carrying the heavy sack, but he did have slender, nimble fingers and found it easier to divest the branches of their buds than Rodney, who had much bigger hands. So they pooled their resources, and Rodney carried both sacks, and held the branches back, while Radek picked the rinula. It worked well enough and the overseers mostly left them alone. Rodney fought his way through the crowd for food for both of them every night, but Radek's physical condition was a constant concern to him. The other man was so very frail that Rodney doubted he'd last long unless he was allowed to rest and could build up his strength with food – and neither of those things was likely to happen.

After a couple of weeks on the plantation the routine was already taking its toll on Rodney. He noticed how it was always the most recently acquired slaves who got the best portions of food, simply because they were stronger, and it worried him that his own strength was fading with every passing day. Each morning it seemed there was a new body to leave outside the door for the overseers to feed to the dogs, and he dreaded that one day it would be Radek. As they were leaving in a long queue to go to the fields one day, he saw Radek, further up the line, flinch as a big overseer, with his long red hair plaited into a Karkaran braid, rode past. The man rode back again, examining the line carefully, and then his gaze fell on Radek. He grabbed Radek's arm and pulled him away from the line of slaves, and Rodney felt his throat go dry. He broke out of line, and ran after them, purely on instinct.

"Can I help? He's not very well. He has trouble breathing. If you needed someone to fetch something I could do that?" he offered. Radek put a trembling hand up to his mouth, and Rodney gazed at them both blankly, wondering what the hell was going on. The overseer leaned down in his saddle and grinned at Rodney.

"I like him – I like the way he wails like a baby, but as you're so keen to take his place why not? You're new aren't you?" Rodney didn't have time to reply because the overseer grabbed his arm and dragged him over towards the big well where they drew their water, and then dismounted, Radek in one hand, Rodney in the other. He threw Radek down by the side of the well and Radek pushed his hand into his mouth and began to tremble.

"Radek, what's…?" Rodney began but next thing he knew he'd been thrown forward, headfirst, towards the well wall. He nearly went over the rim but reached out desperate hands to scrabble for purchase on the stone. He felt his sackcloth tunic being ripped open, and then rough hands grabbed his ass. He knew what would happen before it did because of the wrenching sobbing sounds Radek was making beside him, and he tried to kick back, to struggle, but then he remembered Laura Cadman and he knew he didn't want to die out here. He wished he could be as brave as she'd been, but Carson and John might both be alive out there somewhere, and while he still had that hope to cling to he didn't want to die. There were no gentle hands caressing him, no murmured voices in his ear, no lube, no skilled fingers moving inside him, no John making wisecracking comments about the way Rodney mewled like a kitten, or Carson stroking his hair and kissing him deeply. There was only a sharp wrenching sensation in his ass, and a scream that came from deep within his gut and rose up, forced and guttural, out of his throat. He could feel the hard stone wall of the well rubbing the front of his thighs and genitals and the thick length of the overseer pounding in his ass, causing little rivulets of warm blood to run down his thighs and somewhere beside him he could hear Radek, still sobbing. It seemed to go on forever but he suspected it only lasted a couple of minutes. His fingers slid helplessly on the rough surface of the well but he couldn't get any purchase. His ass was in the air, and the overseer was bigger than him, and well fed; there was simply no contest. He tried to block out what was being done to him, and gazed down into the deep, dark blackness far beneath. Someone was staring back at him from the inky depths and he realized, with a dim hint of recognition, that it was him. He could see his own desperate face, with the agonized eyes and wild, unkempt hair and beard gazing up at him, beseeching him to stop this, to save them both, but he couldn't and there was nothing to be done but lie there until the overseer came deep inside him, shouting a bellow of triumph as he shot his load into Rodney's unwilling body. The man withdrew and rearranged his pants, then dragged Rodney up by the scruff of his neck.

"You know, I think I like you as much as I like him," he grinned, glancing from Rodney to Radek and back again. "You cry like a girl." Rodney gazed at him, still numb, his body aching from the assault, blood and semen running down his legs. He wished he hated the man, but he felt nothing but pain. On this world, this treatment was somehow inevitable. In fact, he couldn't think why he hadn't been expecting this all along. How naïve had he been?

"If you're done, we should get to work," he managed to say finally.

"Yeah – I'm done – 'til next time," the man chuckled, and then he put a big arm around Rodney's neck, pulled him close, and deposited a sloppy, aggressive, wet kiss on his lips. For some reason, that hurt more than the rape had, and Rodney shoved the man away. "Play nice now," the overseer said, backhanding him casually across the jaw with a force that sent him flying onto the wet ground beside the well, and then he turned back to his horse, hauled his large frame into the saddle and rode off in the direction of the fields. Rodney wiped away the thin trickle of blood that was flowing from his cut jaw, and glanced over at Radek, who was lying in a little huddled heap on the earth by the well, still sobbing.

"We have to go, Radek," Rodney said, grabbing the other man's arm and hauling them both to their feet. "If we're late we'll be punished."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Radek babbled as Rodney hurried him down towards the field.

"Shut up," Rodney hissed, as he grabbed their sacks from the cart, ready for the day's work. "Just shut the fuck up all right?" Radek nodded nervously, and his sobbing subsided, but for the rest of the day he kept shooting worried little glances in Rodney's direction. That night it was Radek who pushed his way through the crowds for food, while Rodney went outside to the well to try and wash the blood and semen from his body. Rodney hated himself for still being hungry after what had happened, but when Radek brought him the food he stuffed it into his mouth as eagerly as ever. They sat on the side of the well, neither of them talking, for a long time, and then Rodney finally spoke.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he said quietly.

"Because I only had sorrow to share and there was too much of it as it was," Radek said, his eyes fixed on the ground. "And also, Rodney, it was not an easy thing to speak of, to you of all people, but I had no idea…I should have told you…I didn't think this would happen as it did today. I'm so sorry."

"What do you mean, to me of all people?" Rodney asked.

"You - Rodney McKay. You, my boss. How was this something I wanted you to know? That this man did these things to me."

Rodney shook his head, sort of understanding, but appalled anyway. There was nothing to be done about it and no way to escape it. What it all boiled down to was survival – and if he wanted to survive then he just had to take everything they threw at him and somehow live through it. For now, all he could do was scrub his sore body clean and hope there wouldn't be a next time but he was realistic about that as well.

"How many times?" he asked. Radek screwed up his face, and glanced at the food squashed into his hands.

"I don't remember. Does it matter? Many times," he whispered.

"I'm sorry," Rodney said quietly, staring at the water beneath them, and his own reflection, pale and shocked, staring back at him.

"I too…yes." Radek said no more, and they sat out there silently until it was completely dark and the second moon had risen and it was too cold to remain there.

~*~

It was late afternoon when Rodney woke – there were long shadows on the ground, and he realized he was alone in the cage – everyone else had been sold. A soft, black, hide boot was nudging his foot.

"This one?" The slaver sounded surprised. "He's hardly worth looking at. Give him a couple of hours and we'll throw him in the junk cage."

"Then he'll be going cheap," a voice replied, in a hard, guttural Karkaran accent. Rodney glanced up to find himself face-to-face with the tall, black-clad figure of a Karkaran warrior. The man's body was completely covered, from head to foot, in expensive rinula, and he had a gleaming silver blade hanging from his belt. Wrapped around his head was the kind of turban that only a high-caste Karkaran could afford, and he wore a long Karkaran braid down the right hand side of his face. His eyes were just visible behind a layer of the thinnest black gauze, fully protecting him from any dust storms. He wore an under-layer of tight black shirt and pants, to keep the dust out, soft hide boots that came up to his knees, and a long, light, floating coat over the top of this ensemble.

It wasn't easy to make out the features behind the gauze, but Rodney did see the deep scar that covered the man's left eye, closing half the lid and standing out as a livid gash, confirming his suspicion that the title of Warrior wasn't honorary, and this man was not to be messed with. He dropped his gaze quickly, because experience had taught him that Karkaran noblemen viewed eye contact by a slave to be deeply offensive.

"I'm sure I could sell your master something better," the slaver said, glancing over his shoulder towards the tent outside. Rodney followed his gaze and saw the man sitting on his horse by the tent, surrounded by an entourage of free born Karkaran warriors and attendants. Rodney had never seen such a wealthy Karkaran up close before – he'd never seen either of his previous owners at all, as he'd simply been part of a job lot of slaves, bought to do a menial job. This man though, was clearly extremely wealthy. He was dressed all in white, a colour only the highest caste Karkarans wore, and his white turban was decorated with golden jewels. The rings sparkled on his gloved fingers, and the horse between his legs was a magnificent silver stallion. He had several black-clad warriors around him, each of them heavily and visibly armed, their faces all covered against the dust storms. As Rodney watched, an attendant brought the nobleman a glass of wine which he sipped casually in the late afternoon sun.

"Don't tell my master what he wants to buy," the scarred warrior growled angrily to the slaver. "I am his quartermaster, not you."

"This one has only worked in the fields and kitchens," the slaver continued, licking his lips nervously. "He won't be any use in a fancy household like your master's. He even stole from his previous owner – look." Rodney was dragged to his feet, and he let out a yelp of pain as he was turned around and thrown bodily against the wall of the cage. "He was whipped for his crime," the slaver said, displaying Rodney's lacerated back to the warrior. "Come on – let me show your master something worth buying."

"Turn him around again – I want to look at his face," the warrior said, in a low, hard tone.

Rodney swallowed. He was used to dealing with slavers and overseers but he had never been looked at by a high-caste warrior before and he was acutely aware that if he said or did the wrong thing then this warrior would slit his throat and walk away without a backward glance. The slaver dragged him back and turned him around and Rodney gazed carefully at the warrior's black hide boots, feeling nauseous and trying his hardest not to faint. Maybe there was a small chance that this rich Karkaran would buy him and judging by how low the sun hung in the sky, this might be his last chance at avoiding being thrown into the junk cage this evening.

"I suppose he might wash up all right," the slaver said, grabbing Rodney's head and turning it this way and that so that the warrior could view him.

"Can he read and write?" the warrior asked.

"I don't know but he's got a quick tongue on him so he probably learns fast," the slaver said, clearly having decided that this sale was better than none if the rich nobleman's quartermaster couldn't be persuaded to view any of his more expensive slaves. "He'd probably look all right in your master's library. Maybe he could fetch and carry for him? That might be a use for him," the slaver said, clearly racking his brains for a selling point. "Think you could do that?" he asked Rodney, poking him in the ribs.

Rodney sighed. It was stupid of him – he knew that the minute the words were out of his mouth, but he was too ill and too heartsick to care. "Well, I've got a doctorate in physics so I guess I could manage some light fetching and carrying for a race of priapic technophobes, yes," he said, sarcasm dripping from his tongue.

The slaver raised his hand for the blow Rodney was entirely ready for, but the warrior stopped him with a laugh.

"He's smart. My master wants someone smart. He'll do."

"Really?" The slaver glared at Rodney who sank to his knees, too shaky to stand, and unsure why he was even still alive. "Was your master looking for a fuckslave?" the slaver asked anxiously. "Because if he is, then we have some younger, prettier specimens over here."

"Those boys would bore him," the warrior said, glancing over to the other cage where some naked youths lolled in the sun. "My master wanted someone older. Less malleable. Smarter. He likes a challenge," the warrior said.

"Fine," the slaver sighed, finally running out of ways to convince the quartermaster to buy a more expensive slave. There was no accounting for taste after all, although it was clear from the look in his eyes that he thought the rich nobleman could have afforded someone more promising than Rodney. The slaver grabbed Rodney's arm, pulled him to his feet again and shoved him out of the cage door. He took him over to the ledger, where the warrior was busy counting out some money from a bag. The warrior was given a bill of sale, and then a leash was attached to Rodney's collar and he was handed over to the warrior. The man pulled him over to the horses, and he staggered behind him, barely able to stand upright. The white-clad nobleman leaned forwards in his saddle and surveyed his new purchase intently, and then nodded at the warrior and the two exchanged a glance. It wasn't possible to see his expression behind the fine white gauze that covered the nobleman's face but he didn't seem particularly pleased with his purchase. His gloved hands clenched down on the reins of his horse and he reached into his robes and pulled something out. Rodney suppressed a shudder wondering now whether he had just escaped death merely in order to experience something even worse.

"Here," the nobleman said, handing the warrior the flask he'd fished out of his robes. The warrior nodded and turned back to Rodney. Rodney eyed the flask suspiciously, suddenly recalling the slaver's words and the warrior's reply. A fuckslave? Was that what he was now? He didn't see how that could be any worse than what had happened to him back at the plantation but he had heard stories about the games the Karkarans liked to play with their more unfortunate fuckslaves, and the more highborn the nobleman the more cruel they seemed to be. Was that why he'd been purchased, to be strapped down and exposed to even more pain and suffering, writhing in agony at the whim of this wealthy, high-caste stranger? The stories he'd heard had been vague and frightening but there had been talk of potions that made you particularly susceptible to pain. Was that why they'd bought him? Because he was already in such a condition that it wouldn't take much to make him scream?

"Drink this," the warrior said, handing him the flask. "All of it." Rodney gazed at it blindly.

"Please…don't…" he cried incoherently, throwing himself at the nobleman, imploring him, but his unsteady legs gave way beneath him and he found himself hanging onto a white sleeve. He was dimly aware that he would be punished for laying hands on a Karkaran nobleman and he steeled himself for the blow. The nobleman circled the horse backwards, shaking Rodney off his sleeve, and glanced around to see if anyone else had witnessed his honour being sullied by the unclean hands of a slave but the marketplace was now nearly empty and nobody was watching.

The warrior grabbed Rodney from behind and held him tight, handing the flask back to his master. The nobleman took it and nodded at the warrior, and next thing Rodney knew his mouth was being forced open by the warrior's hard, black-gloved hand. The nobleman undid the flask, leaned forward in his saddle, and poured the foul-tasting fluid down Rodney's throat. Rodney spluttered and gasped for air, but the warrior held him fast and didn't let him go until he'd swallowed all the liquid. Then the nobleman put the flask back in his robes, glanced at the warrior again, and nodded once more.

"Get him on the damn horse quickly," he said, his voice so low and taut that it practically vibrated.

Rodney stood there, still choking on the liquid. His legs felt heavy, and his broken hand was throbbing from where it had been knocked in the melee. Next thing he knew he was going down, and the warrior caught him as he fell, and dragged him over to his horse. He was dimly aware of the warrior throwing a thin linen cloak over his body – it was mercifully soft but he still cried out as it settled around his torn shoulders. Then the warrior vaulted onto his horse and two of the other warriors took hold of Rodney and handed him up so that he was sitting in the saddle in front of the warrior. The warrior's body was hard and muscled behind his, and he put one strong arm around Rodney's waist to keep him upright, grabbed the reins, and then nudged his horse out into the convoy. Somewhere ahead, Rodney could just make out the nobleman's flowing white robes, surrounded as he was by the bobbing black-turbaned heads of his warriors around him, and then he felt his eyes growing heavy. His belly felt warm from whatever potion they'd fed him, and the pain in his back and hand seemed to fade. He didn't sleep but the steady motion of the horse's footsteps lulled him into a state of pleasant numbness. Perhaps, after all, the drink in the flask had merely been given to him to make him drowsy and malleable for the journey. He was glad that the warrior had both his sinewy arms wrapped around his waist because he thought that otherwise he might have fallen off the horse sideways and he doubted the white-clad nobleman would have taken too kindly to that. He wondered what the man intended to do to him when he got him back to his house and shivered in fear. The warrior's arms tightened around him as if he thought Rodney was going to jump off the horse and make a run for it but Rodney knew there was no escape. Now he wished he was back at the plantation and he closed his eyes and hoped that Radek was having a better day than he was.

~*~

End of Part One

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Back from the Well - Part Two

Comments

[lillyjk.livejournal.com]

*Cries*

oh you make them hurt so prettily. the descriptions were so vivid...*runs to next part*

[xanthestories.livejournal.com]

I know. I'm really, really mean...*g*

[fawkesielady-ed.livejournal.com]

beautifully heart breaking! Poor Rodney and Radek!
I really love your writing, you do it so well and it takes no effort on my part to see what's happening in my head as I read!
I told you I was going to read more of your stuff... and so far I'm not disappointed in my decision to start with this one!

[xanthestories.livejournal.com]

I have to say this is one my favourites of my SGA fics so I hope you enjoy it :-)

Thank you for your kind comments, as always!