Have you ever known true hunger? The long winter's gripping your stomach to find only your ribs, kind of hunger? Have you been hungry for so long your body forgets how to process food? This I have known. However, it was not food I lacked. For what good are powerful bodies if unfed, how can they pull the wagons without strength? So we WERE fed and we DID labor.

What our captors withheld were those other needful things - companionship, intelligent conversation, a chance to learn new things, shared wisdom, read books, write out thoughts, freedom to dream, and dreams of freedom.

I do not recall how this happened. I was very young when we ran free, then one morning when I woke we were captives of the orc. Perhaps magic was employed, it mattered not. We were all lost. Each of my people was housed singularly, lest we devise a plan or give each other the spark of hope. Thus did my youth pass. I grew strong in body, frustrated by my captivity, angered in my isolation and hopeless about freeing myself without my conclave.

One day the strands of fate twisted or perhaps a god smiled. The orc mounted a heavy assault to the north. My people had hauled the overloaded wagons of food and weapons closer to the intended target. Free from our former fortress, yet not free in the middle of the army, which surrounded us. We were enclosed together in a makeshift stockade of timbers, the guard at one small gate.

Needless to say, the orc lost the battle in your fair city, you know this, you routed them and drove them back to the southern wilds. There they drank stolen ale and whiskey and pounded the ground as they roared of their success, reviewing in bloody detail the deaths of great adventurers each had caused. Orc have little self-discipline in the best of times, the entire camp was soon drunk or sleeping off their wounds.

What they did not know was someone had followed them south, not a hard task, the path they leave is wide and torn though the confines of the forest. One person with more daring than sense and more courage than fear, a lad named Jodan. He found our stockade guarded by a dozing sentry. Creeping to the rear of the enclosure he used the orc's own tools to remove several of the long saplings, while we covered the noise with the strike of hoof on rock or the low murmur of voices. Soon a gap appeared and through it a freedom I had never known beckoned.

Fourteen of us left in the dead of night. Walking quietly around the perimeter, we stole unguarded weapons and food from the furthest tents and hurried to be gone - long gone before first light.

The conclave and Jodan headed west, perhaps that was where he was from. Where we went made little difference to any of us. We were free, we ran free. Single file through the moonlit night, following deer trails, feeling the rush of blood singing freedom's sweet song in our ears and smelling the crush of pine needles under our hooves, we ran. We stopped for water and to share food, and ran again. Distance was our only goal.

Did you know Centaurs sleep standing up? Tired from pulling wagons, tired from two days of ceaseless running, I did so. When I woke only the quiet of the forest assailed my ears, only my own scent wafted on the breeze. I followed their tracks until the ground turned rocky and I lost even that hint. I found myself totally alone and remembered the city to the north. Cities mean roads, and it was not long to find the Western Road and follow to the gates. No guards challenged me, even in my pitiful state; instead, they directed me to the Guild of Immigrants where I was welcomed with friendliness and helpfulness.

So here I will make my stand, to fight my once captors from within the city they most want. It smacks of justice in a small way. Here too I find those things I most hunger for; knowledge, companionship, dreams and FREEDOM.