Go with the wagon.

You settle onto the wagon between the two drivers, Pollock and Esio, and the slow plod of the draft horses begins again. Your mind is aflame with images of dragons from stories, and the mural that once decorated the walls in the village inn. The village elders eventually covered over the mural, deeming it inappropriate for a public place, but since your childhood the picture has stayed with you. Its subject, the beast, was huge beyond belief, roaring fires leaping from its jaws, its armoured tail striking down its **** mortal opponents while its talons closed around the body of a pale maiden. The picture bore an inscription, you now recall;

“ Let no man think himself World's master,
For a master the World hath full ready,
And no man his match”

Lost in your reveries, you barely notice the turns of the road, and the glum silence of your traveling companions. As for the slaves concealed in the back of the wagon, they make no sound at all, until suddenly, one voice shrieks out. The voice is high, the scream wordless and terrified, and you are startled back into reality. There is only one scream, and then silence once more from the slaves. You still have not seen them, and as you turn to look into the wagon Pollock discourages you with a heavy hand upon your shoulder.

“Doesn't do, that”, he says. Reluctantly, you turn your eyes back to the road ahead.

There isn't much road left. Ahead is a space of level ground, floored with gravel and demarked on the outside by white, lichen covered boulders. The boulders vary in size but none is smaller than the wagon, and the open area is no less broad than the village green. Esio stops the wagon just before the nearest of the boulders, and, with a nod, he and Pollock clamber off, to release the wagon's occupants.

The girls dismount from the back of the wagon, gingerly stretching cramped limbs. Esio wasn't lying about the standards of the Maiden Tithe. They are young, around your age, and every one of them is shockingly beautiful. Dressed in wisps of white silk, their skins glinting with olive oil, they file past, moving slowly, wordlessly, their doe eyes darting around the natural theatre. The last, the eleventh, is a petite girl with a short head of golden curls; she turns her head and looks you straight in the eye. Her own eyes, huge and blue, seem lost, and you feel certain she was the one who screamed. She says nothing, and turns again to follow her sister slaves. Pollock and Esio stand by, swords on their belts but not drawn; as the slaves move out of earshot, Esio informs you why.

“ There'll be no escaping this now, not for them. Night draws in, but Lord Yuurgas will be here before the sun sets. Now, you'd best stay with us and the wagon til this is over.”