“Move you miserable bitch!” The guard screamed, his voice a hoarse snarl. “If you want to save your wretched hide!” He put action to word, the whip in his hand deftly shooting out. The tip of braided rawhide caught the flank of a young maid, dragging a pained scream from her throat. This was not the first time such punishment had been administered. The backs and legs of the girls ahead and behind her in line bore the livid red marks of their captor’s whip. 

Keeping her head down, Jian shuffled forward in line. Only the day before, the short, slender, dark haired maid of 18 had been a common shopgirl, selling trinkets and baubles to the visitors who passed through the humble crossroads town she called home. Now, she was a naked, bound captive, trudging in line with hundreds of other women and girls, former neighbors and strangers unlucky enough to have been in town at the time. 

Jian, like most of them, had had little to do with the rebellion. Talk of overthrowing the Emperor, or the Usurper as the rebels deemed him, was the province of the idle gentry and nobles, those with the free time to pour over the ancient genealogies and recite verses of the old romances and fill their heads with heroic dreams while she and the rest of the common folk got on with the unheroic, but important jobs of keeping a roof overhead and food on the table, leaving such matters of legitimacy and rightful rule to their betters. 

Alas, it had been their town in which the rebels, once they had worked themselves into taking action rather than further talking, had raised the standard of the defunct dynasty in defiance of the Usurper. Thus, when their rabble of an army was crushed in the field by the might of the Imperial Legions, it was decreed the town in which they had begun their foolish crusade would suffer the fate of all rebel towns. All the men, whether they had fought or not, were killed. The women were handed over to the victorious soldiers to celebrate their victory and then the whole population marched off to be enslaved.

The girl behind Jian stumbled, the rope which tethered the captives together going taut suddenly. The maid gave a startled cry as she was yanked backwards. Her hands, lashed behind her back with rough rawhide thongs, were no help in keeping her balance. She went sprawling, which pulled the girl in front of her down too, the effects rippling up the line. 

Lying on the ground, Jian struggled to rise, hampered by her bonds and the coffle rope still joining her to the other girls tangled up on the ground. Desperation sped her along, she could hear the tramp of booted feet approaching…

“Up, you sluts!” The overseer had rushed over as soon as he saw the line stalled. His whip lashed out indiscriminately. Pained shrieks rose as the girls writhed under the stinging rawhide scourge. Somehow, Jian and the others got upright. The overseer cracked the whip a few more times, getting the captives moving again. Jian stumbled, her whole body aching, but she dared not fall again. 

Ahead, there still lay many long and painful miles for the captives to march before they reached the Imperial work camps where their new lives of slavery would begin…