Flight of the Wounded Falcon

It had been hours. Corporal Shin was sure of it. Hours and hours of rocking and fearing and feeling the ash falling around him. At one point he thought he fell asleep for a time, but it was a most uneasy sleep, filled with images of baked mud and bodies trapped in it.

  When he startled awake, he realized the nightmare was better than his reality. His mind had been reeling with terrified thoughts, and his hours filled with panic attacks and conversations with people who no longer existed. He just wanted it to stop, to let him do something else besides sitting and sobbing.

  Eventually he realized the air had become still. He peered out from his blanket that was heavy with the weight of several inches of ash, and didn’t see anything else falling. In fact, there seemed to be more light than he’d seen all day.

  He cautiously pushed the blanket off of him, trying to direct the ash fall away from him, and looked around.

  The air was clear, but nothing, nothing, looked as it had before. He couldn’t think as he slowly stood up, turned, and tried to discern anything in the landscape.

  There was no landscape left. Even the trees which sheltered him were caked in gray. Many of the branches had broken from the weight of the ash pushing on the leaves, and whatever leaves were left had withered. As far as Shin could see was a blanket of gray. His mind vaguely recalled the writings of one of the Salem astronomers who had fashioned different thicknesses of glass to look closely at The Great Moon as well as the Little Sister. His descriptions of what he saw were exactly what Shin saw before him. It no longer looked like the world he remembered.

  He slowly worked his way from the trees, pushing against the ash that came up to his knees, and stopped as he exited the stand and stared again to the north. His visibility was limited to less than a mile, but for that entire distance all around him was nothing but gray.

  He was all alone. Completely, totally. Nothing else, for as far as he could see, was moving.

  Shin felt an odd sensation in his belly, and what had happened began to make itself clear in his mind.

  He alone had been protected. He alone had been spared. There was no denying the fact. His heart surged with emotion, because he had beat it, all alone, only himself. He didn’t even ask for help. It was all nature’s will.

  He was invincible.

  You’re what?

  “Be quiet, old man,” he dared to say aloud. No one was around to hear. “I don’t need you anymore. Look what I’ve survived!”

  You think you did this?

  “Who else?”

  The combined prayers of your family, the fasting of your parents, the Creator telling me what to tell you—

  “My family doesn’t even know what’s going on here,” he said contemptuously. “No one does. But I do. I didn’t ask for help, and I made it anyway.”

  Weren’t you ready to follow everyone to the river? Leave the trees? How did you know to get your blanket?

  “The river!” he exclaimed. “That’s right. I need to check the river.”

  He stepped boldly out into what was an enormous field a few hours ago covered with tents, and tried to evaluate the situation. No tents, no horses, no men. He turned to the west and started to wade through the ash toward the river that was about one hundred thirty paces away. Except that he couldn’t actually step in paces, but in shuffling. He’d find it easily enough anyway.

  He stumbled in his progress and nearly fell because something had tripped him up. He stooped and felt around in the ash. Cloth. Something firm underneath. Cold. He quickly withdrew his hand and stepped away. It was a body, under the ash, not far from where he’d been hiding.

  His stomach churned. There’d be many more cold bodies.

  Maybe . . . maybe being the only survivor wasn’t going to be such a good thing. Suddenly he didn’t feel like talking anymore, and he noticed the silence, profound and eerie.

  His previous bravado gone, now replaced with increasing anxiousness, he tightened his kerchief around his nose and mouth, and faced west. The sun was hanging in the sky, showing dimly through the haze, about three hours from sundown. He’d been hiding in his makeshift tent for most of the day.

  Realizing how thirsty he was, he remembered that he had to get to the river. He trudged through the debris, trying not to think about what his leg brushed by, or his boot caught on, or how many bodies he had to skirt around. After about sixty paces he started to look in earnest for the river, but he didn’t hear it or see it.

  Instead he saw evidence of, well, a disaster of enormous proportions. First the ash he waded through turned to mud. Then the mud had a few trees in it. Then, as he progressed, the mud increased and was thickly strewn with trees, boulders, rocks, and, once Corporal Shin got a closer look, cloth.

  Animals. Bodies. All motionless, all stuck. It was his nightmare, but there was no waking up from it.

  He refused to feel panic, even though the bile was rising and burning in his throat. Instead he stared straight ahead, picking his way through the thick debris pretending that each item that tripped him was nothing more than a twig.

  The river. He had to find the river. It had to be here! Finally he heard a trickle of water, and made his way to it, only to suddenly realize he was on top of it: a narrow channel of water slowly cutting its way through the sludge between his feet.

  It was the river, or what was left of it, narrow enough for him to block with his boot. Yesterday he would have had to wade in it up to his waist for thirty paces.

  Nauseated, and with growing dismay, he understood. He must have been walking through what used to be the river bed for the last twenty paces. He squatted, took as many sips of the murky water that he could force himself to swallow, and focused on what he was standing on.

  Mud. Rock. Branches. Ripped cloth. Glints of broken steel. Torn leather. This was Thorne’s army.

  “No!” Shin called out. His frail, terrified voice didn’t travel far. Downstream revealed only more trees, debris, steel, shapes of horses, blue and gray shapes—

  Wait—blue shapes, and not completely covered.

  Shin started to jog clumsily downstream, trying to jump from log to log to avoiding getting trapped in the mud. Not every body was covered. He stumbled to a cluster of blue and muddy cloth, and the first body he came to was still, but the body next to it stirred.

  Shin pulled down his kerchief and grabbed the soldier’s muddy face, also partially covered by a kerchief.

  “Hey! Hey! Are you all right?”

  The man’s eyes slowly opened. “Thank the spirits!” he mumbled. “Someone else is alive. Help me out, please!”

  “Of course, Sergeant,” Shin said, evaluating the mud that encased him and feeling immense relief that he wasn’t the last man alive after all. First he removed a log, then broke off a branch and used it to start digging around the man’s legs which were completely submerged in the mud. “Does anything feel broken?” he asked as he worked.

  “I don’t think so,” the sergeant said, already sounding more alert. “My head’s pounding, though. I think I got hit by something. I woke up not too long ago and couldn’t move my legs. I can feel them, but I don’t have enough strength to pull them out.”

  “Tell me what you remember,” Shin said as he dug.

  “It’s so hazy,” the sergeant sighed, and Shin wasn’t sure if he was referring to his memories or the air around them. “I received the call to follow the river, so we were coming here. Then suddenly there was a tremendous noise. It was all of this, this mud, trees . . . Some kind of mudslide? I can’t imagine where it came from.”

  Shin glance at one of the tree trunks near him and recognized the species. “This tree here, the Slow Growth Oak, grows only in the forests beyond Province 8 and the ruins of Moorland, or Province 0, I guess they call it. I haven’t seen it anywhere else. I’d guess the slide came from the mountains.”

  “The mountains?!” the man exclaimed, coming to even more. “That’s over fifty miles from here! That can’t be right.”

  ??
?More than sixty miles, actually,” Shin told him. “If a slide were to start up in the mountains, what is there to stop it before it reaches here?” Shin freed one of the man’s legs.

  “I really don’t know,” the sergeant said, wincing as he pulled it out of the mud. “I supposed nothing would stop it. The river bed is pretty wide. Or it was. I suppose it would just channel the slide all the way to . . . Creet!”

  “What?” Shin asked, stopping his digging. “Where does the river end?”

  “It empties in the south sea, just beyond Province . . . what number is that? Doesn’t matter—just beyond Flax. The mudslide may have gone all the way through the world!”

  “That’s over a hundred twenty miles, from forests to the sea,” Shin reminded him.

  The sergeant struggled to sit up, fully alert and fully astonished. “How wide would you estimate this patch of mud and muck is?”

  Shin shrugged. “I don’t know. At least thirty paces to the east, but I hadn’t looked to the west yet. From here I’d guess at least another fifty to sixty paces.”

  “And it was gathering more debris as it goes? And more speed?” the sergeant suggested.

  “Or slowing down as it gathers trees and rock?” Shin pointed out.

  The sergeant helped claw at the mud packed around the other leg Shin was digging out. “Do you know what this means, Corporal?”

  “Not really.”

  “It means Idumea may be wiped out! General Sargon will be crippled! The river flows right through the city and near the garrison. And the villages below, they’re ready to be invaded!”

  “Sir,” Shin said, “who’s going to invade? You and me?”

  The sergeant looked around him. “Where are the other soldiers?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Shin said, pulling on his other leg until it was free. “Feel all right?”

  “Yes,” the sergeant said. “Amazingly, yes! Nothing broken. Still a huge headache, though.” He flinched at his own voice.

  “Here,” Shin said. “Let me take a look. Where does it hurt?”

  “Around here,” the sergeant waved his hand over the side of his head.

  “Yes, I see it. Large contusion, just behind your ear, about two inches in diameter. No blood loss though. That’s good. Let me see your eyes. No current dilation. You probably have a concussion, but nothing more serious.”

  “Are you a surgeon’s assistant?”

  Shin smiled vaguely. “Just a frequent accident victim. You should be all right, just take it easy.”

  “Sure. Take it easy. Soldier, we have an army to find!”

  Shin sighed. “Where do you suggest we begin?”

  “Downstream, of course!” He struggled to his feet. “Staff Sergeant Quod, Province 10,” and he extended his hand.

  Shin took it. “Corporal Shin. Province 8.”

  The sergeant smirked. “Shin? Province 8? Gutsy, boy. Really gutsy.”

  Shin shrugged. “Fogged, sir. Really fogged.”

  Quod chuckled. “Come on, let’s start finding more lucky men.” The sergeant slipped, then caught himself and stood up again shakily. He smiled staunchly at the corporal. “Right there, a group of soldiers. Check for pulses.”

  The two of them stepped gingerly to a group of men lying in the mud. None of the seven soldiers were still alive. Same with the next group of soldiers they encountered. But Shin noticed a slight movement to the east, near the edge of the slide, and heard a faint voice.

  “Sergeant!” Shin said, “Over there!”

  Quod stood up from a still body he was checking and picked his way through the debris over to Shin. Together they made their way to another cluster of muddy bodies.

  One of them was calling feebly, “Anyone there?”

  “We’re coming!” Quod called. “Hold on!”

  They reached the soldier whose arm was obviously broken, and most of him was buried in mud.

  “Soldier, you’re going to be all right,” Quod assured him as he looked around for a branch to use to start digging.

  “Here’s another one!” Shin called. “Still breathing!” he said, taking the pulse of a man almost entirely gray. Shin removed the dirt that was caking the kerchief around his nose and mouth, and the soldier began to breathe more easily.

  “I’ve got this one,” Quod called. “You work on that one there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Shin called back. “Soldier!” he said loudly to the mud-caked man. “Can you hear me? I’m going to try to get you out.”

  The man grunted softly.

  “Anything broken? Anything hurting?”

  The man didn’t respond.

  Shin removed a few branches that lay across his chest, then started to dig him free. “You’re going to be all right,” he said as he worked. “Everything’s fine. You’re going to be all right.” He repeated the words more for himself than for anyone else. Constant movement kept him from panicking about the numerous dead bodies around him.

  “Got another one here, Shin!” Sergeant Quod called to him as he pulled out the soldier with the broken arm. “How’s it going over there?”

  “This might take some time, but I’ll get him out.”

  The man with the broken arm cradled it as he managed an awkward crawl over to another body. “Another one here! Soldier, can you hear me? Wiggle those fingers.”

  Shin kept digging, feeling an urgency to retrieve as many men as possible. Idumea was ripe for an invasion. He could still feel it and taste it. He just needed an army.

  “Another one here!” Quod called. “We’ll get you out, son! Just hang on.”

  A voice in the distance called to them. “Hey! Help! Get this log off of me, and I can help you dig.”

  “All right!” Quod called enthusiastically. “Going to take a lot more than a little mudslide to slow down this army!”

  “There’s only one man I know who would see this mudslide as a mere inconvenience,” the voice called back. “You’re just a blob of gray, but Quod, that’s got to be you!”

  “Choolet? Choolet! The spirits are with you, aren’t they! I’m coming for you,” Quod said, rushing over to his friend.

  Shin smiled as he freed the man’s left arm. Every moment they were finding more men alive. The offensive was merely postponed. Idumea had to be in worse shape.

  The soldier he was working on slowly moved his arm.

  “Can you hear me?” Shin asked the gray man. “How’s the arm?”

  “All right,” came a faint whisper.

  “Good. Working on your legs now. Not really too bad. Just hang on, all right?”

  “What’s your rank?”

  That seemed to be a petty thing to be worried about right now, Shin thought, as he looked at the man’s mud-caked face. “If it’s not high enough, will you want me to stop working?” he asked cheekily.

  “No,” the gray man whispered.

  Shin kept digging and soon pulled free the man’s right leg, then eventually his left. “Can you stand?”

  “Not sure,” the man mumbled, wincing as he tried to sit up. “Pain. Middle.”

  “All right,” Shin said. “Let me take a look.”

  “Surgeon?”

  “By now, practically,” Shin muttered. The man’s eyes remained closed as Shin peeled off sections of cracking mud from the front of the uniform and undid the buttons. He opened the jacket.

  “I don’t see any blood, so no open wounds. Maybe an internal injury, though. I’m going to pull up your shirt to look for bruising and feel around, all right?”

  “Yes,” came the weak whisper.

  Shin pulled up the man’s shirt, and the first thing that caught his eye was a long scar along the side of his body. “Quite a wound you sustained a while ago.”

  “Yes,” was the whisper again.

  “Tell me where it hurts as I press. Here? Here? Here? How about here?”

  “Yes!” he gasped.

  “May be the kidney,” Shin decided, trying to remember his few weeks of an
atomy courses he took almost a year ago. “Nothing’s protruding or swollen, however, so let’s hope you only suffered a nasty punch from a branch. How about your ribs?”

  “All right, I think” the soldier whispered. “Help me up.”

  “How about I just drag you over to the river bank?”

  “No. Help me walk.”

  “Are you sure you can?”

  “I’m not the type to be dragged, soldier!” the man said with renewed energy.

  Shin almost smiled. “Do you want your jacket buttoned again?”

  “Yes.”

  Shin started to pull down the shirt and glanced at the scar again. “Good work on those stitches. How long ago did you get that wound?”

  “Years ago. As a young man.”

  Shin looked up at his face. The man didn’t seem that old. Then again, there were no definable features under the mud. “How many stitches?” he asked.

  “Thirty.”

  Shin started to fasten up his jacket. “Whew. That’s a lot. How’d it happen—”

  Immediately he regretted asking, because a conversation from one year ago came to him. He knew what the answer would be and he felt the strength leave his arms as he began to understand who lay in the mud beneath him.

  “Sword. Guarder.”

  Something caught in Shin’s throat as he stared at the man’s right arm. He hadn’t moved it at all the entire time he worked. Shin swallowed hard, but the lump nearly choking him didn’t move.

  This was General Lemuel Thorne, again.

  “Ready to get up, sir?” Shin struggled to find his voice.

  “Yes,” the man whispered. “My left shoulder was injured earlier, and my right arm’s no good. But just pull up on the right.”

  “Of course,” Shin said, taking Thorne’s shriveled right arm and pulling. Thorne’s torso was still encased in the mud and he cringed in pain as he struggled to get out.

  “Sure it was just the kidney?” he asked as he opened his eyes for the first time.

  Shin’s eyes locked with Thorne’s, and the corporal held his breath in anticipation as he stared down at the general. He’d been waiting for moons for this moment—

  But Thorne didn’t give him a second look. He glanced at his uniform and said, “What a mess. Up, soldier. Now.”

  Obediently, Shin pulled up General Thorne. He hastily put a supporting arm under the general, helped him over a log, and they slowly headed to where the bank of the river may have been.

  “Need to establish a command center,” Thorne said, surveying his options. “Over there,” he indicated with a tip of his head. “That cluster of logs. Plenty of places to sit. We may be able to fashion a shelter out of it. We’ll need to also erect a banner to tell other survivors where we are, and establish a camp.”

  “Sir, I think I should go back and try to find more survivors,” Shin said, picking his way through the debris and helping the general around still and buried bodies. Shin thought it interesting that Thorne didn’t seem to be bothered by stepping on his dead soldiers. Maybe he didn’t notice.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Send anyone you find over to me. You’re not an officer anyway, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Shin sighed. “Just a corporal.”

  “A corporal? There seem to be a lot of you in the army today.”

  “Is that so?” Shin said. He felt his chest tighten and wondered why he didn’t identify himself. Now was his chance to tell him his name, tell him of his willingness to serve—

  “Guess it’s not your fault you’re nothing more than a corporal,” Thorne said glibly. “Still, aiding me should qualify you for a medal. I should put you in for one when all of this is over.”

  “Yes, sir.” Shin waited for the general to ask his name as they came to the log jam, in order to put in for that medal.

  Instead, all Thorne said was, “Find me an officer, Corporal,” as Shin lowered him to sit on a log.

  “Yes, sir,” Shin answered, and it happened again: Thorne looked up into Shin’s face, and this time his muddied eyebrows furrowed as their eyes connected.

  Shin held his breath, waiting for the moment that Thorne recognized his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his height, and he wondered what he would say if the general was too direct. Thorne was definitely studying him, confusion in his expression.

  “Soldier,” Thorne finally said, “why is it your nose and mouth are clear, but your eyes and face are gray?”

  Shin stared back at him, disappointed that was all he noticed. “Uh . . . oh. My kerchief.” He pulled it back up over his nose.

  Thorne nodded. “Of course. Wished more men did that. I thought of it as well, and it probably saved my lungs. But it gives you an odd-looking face,” Thorne smiled partway, then he nodded dismissively. “An officer? Go get me one?”

  Shin pulled the kerchief down again. “Yes, sir. Any particular rank?” He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt so bold. Maybe because Thorne suggested the kerchief idea was his as well, even if there was no way he could have tied one on himself without help. Maybe that’s just what officers did, taking credit for other people’s ideas.

  Thorne narrowed his eyes, as if trying to figure out if the corporal was being impertinent or just inquisitive. “As high as you can find them, Corporal.” He dismissed the corporal with a weakened left-handed salute.

  Shin returned it and jogged back to the river.

  Taking credit for other’s ideas is not what all officers do.

  Shin ignored the voice and stopped by the soldier with a broken arm. He glanced at the dust-caked insignia on his shoulder. Just another corporal. “Who else was breathing?” he asked him.

  “Right there,” the man gestured feebly. “But this one might be easier to free—”

  Shouts in the distance interrupted him, and they looked up to the east. About a dozen filthy men were making their way to them.

  “Over here!” Shin cried out, standing up and waving.

  The men cheered and started jogging.

  Quod waved them over. “Dig here! Plenty of survivors, and we don’t have much daylight left.”

  “Any of you officers?” Shin called.

  One man raised his hand. “Colonel Ferrim here!”

  “General Thorne will be wanting to see you, sir. Over at that log jam.”

  “Thorne’s alive?” Ferrim called back. “I swear, nothing can kill that man.” Shin couldn’t tell if he was pleased or disappointed by that as the officer broke away from the group and headed toward Shin. “Not Guarders, not lightning, not even an exploding mountain or a mudslide!” he said as he jogged closer.

  “Exploding mountain?” Shin asked as the officer neared.

  “Mount Deceit has awakened. I mean, it seems to have exploded. This is it, right here, soldier.” He spread his hands out in front of him.

  “The volcano?” Shin gulped. This couldn’t be it, could it?

  “And well-named, too. See any thick, black dirt around us?” the colonel motioned to the terrain. “Deceitful. Not a bit of dirt came from that blasted mountain. Just . . . Creet, I don’t even know what to call this. But it’s a slagging mess! Where’s the general again?”

  Shin pointed to the pile of logs.

  Ferrim took off in a jog, hurdling obstacles in his way. “General! How’d you get through all of this?”

  Shin didn’t hear the answer. He had a feeling he didn’t want to know what Thorne would say. Perhaps another story was in the making.

  Instead, Shin found a digging stick and started to stab in frustration at the mud that encased another moaning soldier.

  ---

  Peto took a deep breath and opened his wardrobe. He reached in under the sweaters and pulled out a thick parchment envelope. He already knew by heart the words on the document inside, but he wanted to read them one more time.

  Ever since Relf told him a few days ago that Young Pere had joined the army, albeit only as a corporal, Peto had a sinking feeling inside.

  Everyone e
lse was still at the Briters, but Peto made an excuse to come back to the quiet house. He opened the envelope, pulled out the parchment, ran his hand over the signature of his grandfather, then raised his eyes to the line he dreaded to read.

  . . .he had a dream, many times. He saw that his son, Perrin Shin, would become the greatest general Idumea . . .

  Peto closed his eyes and sat down on the bed. “No . . . no . . . no . . .” he whispered. “That can’t be.” He opened his eyes and looked at it again. He wondered why he didn’t ask his grandfather more details about what he saw. Why did he just accept it that it referred to his father?

  “Maybe it didn’t,” he whispered. “So many times I’ve wondered why we named him Perrin Shin the Younger. It never made sense to me, but now?” He looked up to the ceiling. “Grandfather, what if in your dreams you didn’t see your son, but your great-grandson? He looks nearly identical, and his name is Perrin Shin—”

  But he hated that thought, with every inch of his soul. Peto dropped the parchment on the bed and held his head. “No . . . no . . . not my son. He’s not supposed to become the greatest general in Idumea, is he?”

  He knew he had to say the words out loud to see how they felt, and they felt horrible. This couldn’t be right. How could someone so flippant and self-centered and reckless become the greatest general—

  Except that was the very definition of every worldly general—

  No. That was all there was to it. Not Young Pere.

  Peto picked up the document and folded it almost forcefully. He shoved it into the envelope and slapped it back in his wardrobe under the sweaters.

  Not Young Pere. He wasn’t meant to fulfill the Papa Pere Prophecy.

  Peto sat again on the bed and folded his arms.

  But what if he was?

  ---

  By sundown, the army of survivors had grown to several hundred. Men, scattered everywhere by the mudslide, made their way to what used to be the river and found the torn blanket banner waving over a large bonfire, with a much-improved General Thorne standing nearby shouting orders and welcoming all the soldiers who wearily joined the camp.

  Shin never left the river, or what was left of it, finding survivor after survivor, and digging out man after man. The more men he retrieved, the greater their army. The greater their army, the better chance they had to take Idumea.

  And the better Shin might look when all of this was done.

  Besides, how could he leave men in the mud all night long? He’d lost track of how many soldiers he found alive, but he didn’t lose track of how often he went back to the makeshift camp and called for more volunteers to help him. It seemed many of the soldiers dug out a man or two, then felt too tired to continue and meandered back to Thorne’s log jam.

  By Shin’s fourth visit back, he was losing his temper. There were only a few dozen men digging, but hundreds lounging around the logs. He couldn’t understand it, nor did he want to. Such self-centered laziness would never have occurred in Salem.

  “What’s going on here?” he shouted as he strode out of the dark over to a group of men sitting around one of the many fires. “Scared of a little hard work in the dark? Then bring a torch! We’ve got survivors still waiting to be rescued, and you men feel no guilt about sitting here and relaxing?”

  One of the soldiers defiantly stood up, apparently thinking he was bigger than the corporal. Marching over to him made him realize he wasn’t. Still, he wasn’t about to back down.

  “I’ve been caked in mud all day. I’m exhausted—”

  “Wait,” Shin stopped him with a firm hand on his chest. “So you confess to lying around all day in the mud? How can you be exhausted now?”

  Several of the men snickered.

  “I haven’t eaten since breakfast!” the soldier defended.

  “Neither have I, and neither have the men still suffering out there!”

  “Let others dig them out. I already dug out three men.”

  “You really think that’s enough?” Shin yelled. “Because I don’t!”

  The argument was enough to draw the attention of a group of officers several dozen paces away, talking with Thorne.

  Thorne signaled for some of the officers to see what the commotion was about, and three of them went over to the arguing soldiers.

  But Shin didn’t bother with them. He was too worked up, bellowing at the crowd, “No one should be resting here until every last breathing man has had his time by the fire! If you can walk, you’re able-bodied. If you can crawl, you can help identify the breathing. Now I want some of you to grab burning logs for light, and all of you to get back out there!”

  Conversations around other fires died away and many men stood up to watch the shouting match.

  The colonel sent by Thorne raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Soldier, soldier. Do we have a problem here?”

  Shin nearly rolled his eyes at his inanity. “Your army’s out there waiting for a rescue! Get out there and dig them up!”

  “Watch yourself, boy!” the colonel shouted back. “Just who do you think you are, issuing orders?”

  “I’m nobody. I know that. But I also know that at least two dozen of these men wouldn’t be here if I didn’t personally dig them out. Now they each need to do the same for another dozen more, or so help me, I will take each of them and stick them back in the mud!”

  The colonel’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but the two other officers with him smiled in appreciation.

  “Son, you’re absolutely correct,” said a major.

  “But we’re tired!” cried out a voice.

  “And I haven’t eaten!” whined another. Dozens of others chorused in agreement.

  Shin’s chest heaved. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing!” he roared. “The greatest army the world has ever produced, whining like little children? What’s wrong with you, men? So your tummies are grumbling. So your eyes are sleepy. Next you’re going to ask for a bedtime story and a kiss goodnight? I thought I was serving with men! I thought this was going to be the day of our greatest triumph! I fully expected to be sleeping in Idumea tonight with nicks on my sword and other men’s blood on my jacket. Instead, I’ll be doing something greater. I’ll be digging out my fellow soldiers with my bare hands and saving lives, not taking them. I still plan to march into Idumea, with my sword ready. But when I go it will be with arms stronger from digging. I still plan to be triumphant.” He drew his sword and held it up, gesturing as if he could puncture holes in the dark sky. “And I also plan to bloody this. Does anyone here want to be the first to break in my sword?! Because I’m more than ready to use it tonight! Or are you going to join me out there to dig up our army?”

  The three officers stared, stunned by Shin’s brazenness.

  But another soldier stood up. “Tell me where to go, sir, and I’ll go.” Several other men stood up as well.

  The colonel was starting to open his mouth, but Shin shouted again. “Who else wants glory? Who else wants to claim he helped take over the world? Who else is with me?!”

  Dozens of men jumped to their feet, raising their swords. Dozens more followed, cheering, until every soldier who could stand was on his feet with his sword raised, shouting.

  “Now get out there, two by two, spread out, and find the rest of our army! We still have Idumea to take!” Shin shouted.

  Hundreds of men cheered and rushed out to the mud, many of them grabbing flaming logs from the bonfire for light.

  Shin sheathed his sword with a furious motion, spun on his heel, and marched back to the darkness.

  And THAT is how you run an army—by taking care of the men!

  And THAT, he thought to himself, is how you run an army: by taking care of the men.

  ---

  The colonel stared at the major. “He’s only a corporal. I could make out the patch under the mud.”

  The major immediately understood. They couldn’t have anyone appear to be undermining the general. He jogged af
ter the tall corporal and caught him by the arm.

  “Whoa, whoa, son—” But the ferocity in the young soldier’s eyes caught him by surprise.

  He released his arm, because he wanted to keep in working order. “Just wanted to congratulate you, soldier. Good work. Didn’t catch your name, though.”

  He stared right through him. “Doesn’t matter. I’m nothing more than a corporal, after all.” He turned and jogged away.

  “Oh, boy,” the major murmured. Nervously, he turned around and noticed that General Thorne had joined the waiting colonel and lieutenant colonel. The colonels’ expressions were stiff with apprehension as the major returned.

  “That was quite a show, wasn’t it?” Thorne said with a nasty edge to his tone. “I believe I ordered each of the able-bodied men to dig out five soldiers. What has he ordered?”

  “A dozen per man,” the colonel said hesitantly. “And he seems to have a different definition of able-bodied.”

  Thorne’s face went taut. “What was his name?”

  “Not sure, sir,” answered the colonel.

  “Rank?”

  “Corporal,” the major told him.

  “A corporal . . .” Thorne mumbled. “He was tall, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Very.”

  “Dark hair?”

  “Unsure. Everyone looks gray tonight.”

  “Belong to any of you?”

  The officers shook their heads.

  “Did he . . . did he strike any of you as familiar?”

  “No sir,” said the colonel, and the other men frowned.

  Thorne stared off into the distance, rotated his left shoulder, then pulled down on his jacket. “Go find him. Keep an eye on him.”

  “Any suggestions on how to find him now, sir?” asked the colonel almost timidly.

  General Thorne glared at him before turning to his fire.

  ---

  Corporal Shin awoke on the 58th Day of Weeding to see a hazy sun rising in the east. He lifted his head wearily and realized the side of his face was stiff and itchy with mud. Eventually he sat up and looked around. He was in the middle of the mudslide, west of the trickling river. How and when he fell asleep he still wasn’t sure.

  There were no bodies around him, but holes were men had been. Patches of what happened came back to him. It was very late. He’d found three men still conscious but in too deep to pull themselves out. He’d dug out one, then together they excavated the other two. He remembered watching them crawl to the far riverbank, making their way upstream to the bonfires. That must have been when he fell asleep.

  He looked up to the log jam and saw the smoke of several fires still going. It was too much to hope that someone had figured out breakfast.

  Noticing he was alone, he took off his pack and found in it the four biscuits he’d snatched at breakfast the day before. He wished he had listened when his conscience told him to grab a dozen more. He pulled out two biscuits and quickly ate them, hoping it would be enough to calm the growling in his stomach. Then he replaced the pack, stood up, noticing every muscle aching, and trudged back to the camp.

  As he neared he realized more men had arrived. Two thousand had come from the eastern forts, having lost one third of their soldiers to the blowing ash. Those soldiers had emergency rations with them which were promptly cut up and divided up among the survivors.

  The camp now held nearly four thousand soldiers, most of them still hungry.

  Shin got there just in time to receive a chunk of hard bread and a slice of dried pork. He chewed on them as he listened to the soldiers around him telling their stories to those who had just arrived from the coast.

  “It just came out of nowhere! Huge cloud, then the wall of mud.”

  “Some are saying now it was Mount Deceit. The general’s sent scouts north to see what happened and to try to find supplies. The supply barns in the south were only a few hundred paces away from the river, so no one’s sure if the food reserves survived. Thorne’s battle captain is supposed to be there in charge. We’re hoping someone comes with good news by midday meal time.”

  “Honestly, I’ll be amazed if any of us survive,” said a sullen voice. “We may wish we were with those dead in the mud.”

  “Now, don’t talk like that! We’ve got the greatest general leading us! If Thorne can survive, so can all of us!”

  “Did you hear about that?”

  “No, what happened?”

  “Well, first the cloud came and one of Thorne’s officers was bucked off his horse. He hit his head or something. So Thorne single-handedly carried him to some colonel’s camp, then went back to a clump of trees and rescued a soldier who was lost over there.”

  Shin stopped chewing and tried to think when that might have happened.

  “Then Thorne and a lieutenant realized a chain of men were trying to make their way to the river, but before he could stop them, the mudslide came through. Thorne was even caught in it and was knocked unconscious, but came to and was able to dig his way out. He found other survivors and got everyone digging out the rest of the army.”

  Shin didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, and didn’t swallow. He just sat there, silently fuming like an angry volcano. No one noticed.

  “Last night—who was that officer who got everyone out to the river to dig again?”

  “Not sure. Heard he was related to Thorne somehow, like a long-lost nephew or something. Thorne was trying to give him a chance at leading the men.”

  “He got me up and moving, that’s all I know. I wouldn’t want to meet up with him in a dark alley. The man was huge!”

  Shin’s jaw shifted as he pondered just how deftly the stories had grown—or maybe they were deliberately planted—to place Thorne in the best possible light.

  But a small smile developed. After all, it wasn’t the story’s veracity, it was its effect. And the effect, he realized, was to get the soldiers to do great things.

  He’d noticed how each of the dozens of faces around him reflected hope when they heard how Thorne had “escaped” the mudslide. If a one-armed man could persevere, so could they.

  For a moment Shin considered exposing Thorne’s lies and revealing himself as the soldier from last night, but it occurred to him that he, too, was now a part of the stories, as Thorne’s “relative” or something, as someone “huge,” and therefore, as someone with power.

  He let the stories go, and pondered how he could keep himself as a main character.

  Chapter 36--“Third problem is the identity of that corporal.”