The work changed without announcement.
No one told them they had been reassigned. No guard shouted orders or explained the reason. They were simply moved, redirected toward the far edge of the field where carts no longer turned neatly and the ground sloped unevenly.
This was where things were finished.
She recognized it not by sight alone, but by the way the guards behaved. Their steps slowed. Their attention loosened. They stood farther back, weapons held low, eyes drifting rather than fixing.
Here, nothing was expected to move on its own.
The bodies were older.
Some had been dead long enough that skin had pulled tight over bone, mouths fixed open as if mid-word. Others were bloated, swollen into shapes that no longer resembled people. Limbs tangled together where carts had dumped them without care.
They were not arranged.
They were accumulated.
The delayed group was put to work here.
Not because the task required skill, but because it required time. Bodies that had begun to stiffen were harder to move. Weight had to be shifted carefully or joints would snap, forcing more effort.
Efficiency still mattered.
She learned quickly how to drag without tearing skin, how to brace her foot against the earth to leverage weight, how to roll a body rather than lift it outright. The others did the same, movements slow and economical.
No one spoke.
The smell was constant now, layered and thick. It did not shock anymore. It settled, became part of the air, like smoke after a fire that never quite went out.
A guard stood nearby, leaning against a cart with one foot raised, hands resting loosely on his belt. He watched them with the dull expression of someone waiting for time to pass.
When someone gagged, he did not react.
When someone stumbled, he did not react.
Only when a body slipped from a grip and struck the ground hard did he glance over, irritation flickering briefly across his face.
"Careful," he said.
Not because of the body.
Because broken bodies were harder to move.
Carts arrived at irregular intervals.
Some carried corpses from the pen—people who had not risen when ordered, or who had collapsed mid-work and not been allowed to recover. Others came from elsewhere, bodies marked by different wounds, different equipment.
All of them ended here.
She watched how the carts were unloaded. Two slaves per body, swinging them down and letting them fall wherever space allowed. No effort was made to align them or cover faces.
Once dropped, they were forgotten.
The cart rolled away.
The pile grew.
She understood then why guards avoided walking too close. Not because of disease or superstition, but because proximity served no purpose. The pile did not require supervision. It did not resist. It did not change.
It was complete.
As the day wore on, heat pressed down harder, drawing a sheen of moisture over everything. Flies gathered in thick clusters, crawling freely over exposed skin. No one bothered to brush them away.
Movement was slow now. Heavy.
At some point, a man near the edge of the group sat down abruptly, legs folding beneath him. He did not cry out. He simply stopped.
A guard noticed after a moment and walked over, boot scuffing dirt.
"Up," he said.
The man did not move.
The guard struck him once across the shoulder. The sound was dull, without anger.
The man still did not rise.
The guard sighed, signaled with two fingers.
Two slaves were ordered to drag the man away. They did so quietly, hauling him toward the pile.
The man did not resist.
He was placed with the others.
Work continued.
She felt the leather tag at her wrist tug with each movement. The cut she had made earlier had weakened it, but it still held. Fibers strained silently beneath the surface.
Not yet.
Patience here was not waiting for freedom.
It was waiting for indifference.
By midday, a disturbance rippled across the field. Shouts carried from the central work area, sharp and overlapping. Guards straightened, attention pulling away from the pile.
The one watching them turned his head, squinting toward the noise.
She noted the shift.
Not acted on it.
Too many eyes were still nearby.
Instead, she adjusted her grip on a body she was dragging—an older corpse, stiff and heavy. She angled it so that when she pulled, the weight shifted awkwardly.
Her foot slipped.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
She went down on one knee beside the pile, shoulder striking the ground. Pain flared briefly, sharp and contained.
"Get up," someone muttered behind her.
She did not.
She breathed shallowly, letting her body remain slack.
A guard's voice carried from somewhere nearby. "Leave her. Delayed group. If she's done, she's done."
Hands grabbed her ankles and dragged her the remaining distance.
She felt herself rolled, her back striking against something soft, then firm as bodies settled around her. Weight pressed down, uneven and heavy.
She did not move.
The smell intensified immediately, thick enough to make breathing difficult. She controlled it carefully, shallow draws through her nose, letting air circulate without expanding her chest too much.
Bodies were added on top of her without pause. One struck her leg, another slid against her shoulder. A third pressed across her midsection, weight forcing air from her lungs slowly.
She endured it.
She listened.
Footsteps moved nearby, then away. Voices faded. The disturbance elsewhere resolved, attention snapping back into routine.
Time stretched.
She did not know how long she lay there. Long enough for the heat to cool slightly. Long enough for the pile to settle as weight redistributed.
When she tested her fingers, moving one at a time, nothing shifted.
Good.
She waited longer.
When she finally pulled at the leather tag again, she did so gently, changing the angle. The fibers strained, then gave.
The tear was soft.
Her wrist was free.
She did not move it.
Not yet.
Freedom was not distance.
It was invisibility.
She remained where she was, heart steady, mind alert, surrounded by the discarded.
Night crept closer. Torches flared in the distance, their light flickering across the field but not reaching the pile.
No one returned.
She lay among the dead, unnoticed, uncounted.