“Make more noise, and you’ll bring one of Horn’s patrols down on us, you great cursed ass.”
“More important, did you find anything?”
“Field was picked over,” said the sergeant. “Not a cursed thing worth carrying.”
One man pointed with his elbow, indicating Shai. “Found somewhat, you did.”
“Waste of time bringing this big dumb ox with us,” said the one called Twist.
A man holding an axe sniggered. “Look at those arms and shoulders! Whew! Bet he can chop wood! Save me the trouble.”
“There was others with him, including an ordinand we killt,” said the sergeant, “but I don’t know how many or where they come from or why they was there. That’s why we captured him and brung him back, you sorry fools. For your lack of thinking of it, is why I am sergeant and you will always be walking in my dust.”
A few men spat.
But the man the sergeant had scolded merely laughed. “Got him a ring, doesn’t he? I like that belt buckle, too. Very fancy.”
“They’re mine,” said the sergeant. “Finder’s rights.”
“What about me?” demanded Twist.
“You can have his good-quality sandals, eh?”
Shai weighed his chances, and did not struggle as they stripped off his ring and belt, his sandals and good tunic. A mewling cry whispered from the trees, maybe a trick of his ears, but it made him terribly uneasy. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes open as they prodded him away from the campfire and into the shelter of a brake of lush ferns. A man sat on a stool under the curving fronds, braiding the hair of a girl seated on the ground with her head bowed.
“Who is this?” the man asked without looking up.
The sergeant said, “We found him on the battlefield you sent us to search, lord. We killed an ordinand. There were others that eluded us. You know how spies plague us.”
The girl did not look up. The man did.
His was an unremarkable face, middle-aged and stout, not a man you would look at twice. He wore a cloak whose color Shai could not distinguish against the leaves. His hair was bound into a single long braid that fell almost to his waist, tied off around what Shai was sure was a finger bone.
Shai repressed a shudder as he regarded the cloaked man, awaiting the ugly verdict on his fate. He was afraid to die, but after all, what could he do about it now? Maybe he would use a few of the tricks Tohon had taught him, and at least take a few down before they slit his throat and punctured his belly.
Looking startled, the man dropped the girl’s unfinished braid. “You’re veiled to my sight. Yet you wear no cloak.”
“Eh?” Shai took a step back, into the prodding point of a spear. He eased forward off the pain.
The man cocked his head, as dogs did sometimes, trying to figure out a thing they could not comprehend. “He must be simpleminded, Sergeant. He’s got nothing in his head.”
“He’s an outlander.”
“That shouldn’t matter.” The clipped arrogance of the cloaked man’s tone made you want to answer. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Eh, eh,” said Shai, grunting to give himself time to think, cutting up his timing to make each word awkward. If they throw you rope, you’re damned if you don’t grab it. “Eh, ver. The master calls me Shai. I can chop wood.”
The men behind him chortled.
The cloaked man grasped the fraying end of the girl’s braid, although he seemed not to notice that she flinched. His attention shifted to her hair as suddenly as it had fixed on Shai before. “Best we take him to the lord commander, to explain this mystery. He should be easy to keep in line. We’ll move at dawn.”
They walked him back to camp, shoved him to the darkest corner of the encampment where other soldiers stood guard over many captives.
“Try to escape, and we kill you,” said Twist congenially as Shai maneuvered among bodies huddled on the ground, not wanting to trip. There were at least thirty, and they were small.
They were children.
Most curled around others, sleeping or pretending to sleep. One boy watched as Shai found a patch of ground and sank down. He wrapped his arms around bent knees and laid his head against his legs, hoping he could doze, but sleep did not come. For a while it drizzled, and even though it was a warm rain, he shuddered. The mewling nagged on and on until, at length, a soldier kicked through.
“Shut up! Shut up! Who’s making that cursed sound?”
The man reached into a bundle of shivering children and yanked a girl up by her braids, a little thing, not more than twelve or thirteen. She was sniveling, her shoulders bowing like the ferns as she folded forward to beg for forgiveness.
“Eihi! I can’t take that sound!” He plunged his sword into her belly.
She screamed. Shai leaped to his feet as the children who had been huddling with her scrambled away like so many insects scattering from a disturbed nest. The soldier stuck her a second time, and a third, all done so quickly that Shai barely had time to take a step as her shrieks turned the air cold. A hand grasped Shai’s ankle. He looked down into the dark face of the watchful boy.
“They’ll just kill you, too,” the boy whispered. “Sit down.”
It had been too late already when the first thrust cut into her abdomen. The stink of entrails filled the air, and Shai coughed, retching, as the boy’s hand clutched more tightly.
“Sit down, ver. You can’t help her.”
Her screaming twisted into a rising and falling moan as the pain tore into her and her life leaked out. The soldier slit her throat and let her go, stepping back from the gush of blood. Shai fell to his knees.
Merciful One! Give me refuge!
He mouthed the words, but uttered no sound. Not one of the captives made a noise as the girl died. Rain hissed in the leaves and wind rattled through the branches, almost drowning out her last hoarse gasp.
In night, the spirit rises like luminescent pale smoke out of lifeless flesh, twisting in confusion as the girl reached first here and then there toward those who could not see her. Even in death, she mewled, as though she had had her tongue cut out and could form no speaking sound. Her ghost drifted in the damp night wind, and then she saw him seeing her. He ducked his head, but her ghost sailed over and began to pluck at his sleeve to get his attention, although obviously her fingers had no substance with which to grasp.
A hush stilled the camp. Soldiers coughed and shuffled as a tangible presence moved among them.
“The stink offends me.”
“Yes, lord. We’ll move the corpse away at once, lord.”
“Here, now.” A man moved up beside Shai as captives shrank away. The hem of a long cloak brushed his right arm. “Look up.”
Shai swallowed, hard to do with that choking knot in his throat, and slowly raised his head as he remembered all those awful family evenings when arguments had raged around the dining chamber while he kept his face empty and his mouth closed. The ghost was patting his hair, tugging at the unraveling topknot.
“Do you see her?” His gaze bent on Shai as though to dig deep into his heart, but Father Mei’s rages were twice as frightening, and this man didn’t look strong enough to have any force if he backhanded Shai. If they meant to kill him with a sword or spear, there was nothing he could do but run and be ready for arrows to take him in the back, but even if they chose to beat him it wouldn’t be worse than what his older brothers had done to toughen him up. Even Hari had slapped him around to try to stop him sitting in dull silence while the others teased him. Be a man. Speak up for yourself. He’d gotten used to their ridicule.
“Eh, Master?” he said as stupidly as he could. “I’m cold. I’m hungry.”
The cloaked man studied him and the ghost a moment longer, then turned away. “Get that stink away from camp.”
“Up, you! Get rid of the body.”
A whip descended on Shai’s shoulders, and he yelped just because he was so surprised. But he shuffled over to the corpse as the c
aptives scooted away. The smell gagged him, harder by far than the slash of a whip to suffer easily. Her limbs fell every which way as he grabbed her under the armpits. His hands became smeary with the blood that coated her chest. His feet pressed into moist, warm nubs and rubbery leavings that squelched as his feet shifted to gain purchase. He dragged her backward. A trio of soldiers hustled up to guard him as a thorn-ornamented thicket scraped his neck and back, branches catching in his hair.
“That’s far enough!” barked one of the guards.
Her ghost shimmered up to him, child’s face working in a distorted grimace as insubstantial tears sparkled on white cheeks. He staggered away to heave, afterward made the mistake of wiping his mouth with a bloodstained hand, and the metallic taste made him retch again. His throat burned. He tried to wipe his hands on leaves, on dirt, but her blood wouldn’t come off.
“Come on now.” The guard poked him with a spear.
He took a slow step sideways, thinking to bolt. Even if the ghost followed him, they could not see it.
The haft of a spear cracked across his back, pitching him to his knees, and thwacked again, catching him at the base of the neck. Ears ringing, he stumbled up, too dazed to run, and they herded him at spearpoint back into camp. His face and hands and arms were scratched up by thorns, his head was pounding, and blinking made him dizzy. Once he grasped at the ghost, thinking to steady himself, but his hand passed right through her and he reeled to his left, brought up short by a soldier shoving him back.
“Aui! You reek!”
It started to rain.
“Heya! Get the big oaf over here to hold up the canvas what’s coming down. Sergeant don’t want to get wet while he’s doing his business.”
He caught his foot on a root and went down, his weight jarring up through the knee. Another soldier prodded him up, and he staggered to where a length of canvas tied up to form a lean-to was indeed caving in as rainwater pooled in a sag in the cloth. The watchful boy was already yanking on the cloth but he wasn’t strong enough to keep it taut, so Shai grasped the cloth and tugged hard, making water splash onto the ground.
The side was wide open. It was too dark to see clearly, but he heard panting, a release, and a sigh. Rain poured. Another man slid under the canvas.
“Heya. My turn. Get out.”
“Eiya! It’s wet out there! Just go ahead.”
“Get out!”
And so on, one grumbling as he slid out into the rain and another ducking under to take his turn, and then another, and another, men too wet to sleep or perhaps he had truly fallen into one of the hells where the rains, like lust and fear, could never slacken. The watchful boy swayed with exhaustion, and Shai took on more and more of the weight, sure that if the boy dropped he would be murdered right there for slacking his duty. His thoughts turned numb, the night blurred, but at length the rain eased and no more men came. The sergeant returned to chase out a girl.
“Eh! I want a dry cover for my head. Here, you, filthy slave. Get out. I’m going to sleep.”
She crawled out and lay curled in a ball off to one side with drizzle spitting over her. She’d been wearing a taloos—women’s garb—but the cloth was bunched up. The soles of her feet showed pale in the darkness. Shai eased the ache in his back by shifting. Wasn’t there a way to hook the canvas up so the water didn’t pool? He stretched, stood tiptoe, found a way to loop the guide-rope once around the stub of a broken branch. Carefully, he loosened his hold. Nodded to the boy who, waking from a standing doze, cautiously released his hold on his corner.
The lean-to held. Within, the sergeant snored peacefully.
The air had a thick texture, heavy enough to spoon; he’d never tasted so much moisture on the wind in his life. Kartu was desert country, the town alive because of its miraculous spring, which was said to rise from the heel print of the Merciful One walking the path of enlightenment, whatever that meant.
The ghost drifted in front of him, gesturing with open palms, trying to get him to listen to her, although her voice was a thread so fine he could not distinguish words. Had the blows to his head and back damaged his hearing?
“Uh, uh.” The girl who had been used under the shelter started crawling.
He wasn’t sure where she meant to go, but he leaned down to grasp her shoulders. Feeling her go rigid when he touched her was worse than being kicked.
“Here, now,” he whispered. “I’m just helping you.”
He eased her to her feet. She would have fallen without his arm braced around her back. He moved her toward the other captives, hoping he didn’t trip over anyone in the dark.
“Uh, uh, uh.” Her grunts were soft, a palliative against the pain, and he heard them only because she was pressed against him. He glanced back. Where had the watchful boy gone?
But it was all dark. They were lost in night. He had fallen into one of the hells, among demons.
BEFORE DAWN, SOLDIERS whipped the captives into line. Shai helped the shuddering girl to her feet. She was young, fifteen or sixteen, although it was hard to tell with her body made slight by lack of food. She flinched at everything, even his efforts to help her. Her hair was matted, her fingernails caked with dirt as though she had been digging with her hands. She could barely walk.
Once the captives stood in marching order, the soldiers led packhorses and mounts into line. The lord appeared from out of the forest cover, the watchful boy following three paces behind him with head bowed.
“We must move quickly through the Aua Gap.” The lord had to work to make his voice carry; he did not have natural authority, but it was evident by the averted gazes and cringing stances that everyone there was frightened of him. “The Horn militia will have an eye open for armed companies traveling out of Olo’osson. They’ll fight any small groups they see, like ours. So we make haste. Show no mercy to those who could talk about us if they fell into the hands of our enemies. Kill anyone who falls behind.”
He walked into the trees as the watchful boy sidled into the line of captives. Ignored by the other prisoners, he stood beside Shai.
“Where did you go?” Shai asked him. “You just vanished last night. Did he—uh—hurt you?”
“Neh. There’s two of us, that he likes to braid our hair.” Indeed, the boy’s hair was neatly combed and braided, not a strand out of place; his braid fell to his lower back, glossy hair cleaner than the rest of him. “The rest don’t like me and Dena because of the attention he gives us, not that we asked for it! Maybe you’ll scorn me now, too.” He squared his shoulders, ready to move away.
“Can you help me with her?” Shai asked. “What’s your name? I’m Shai.”
“Vali.” With a pleased smile, the boy slipped an arm around the girl’s back. The order was called down the line and the ranks moved along a path cut through woodland. It was slow going, them in a narrow file never more than two abreast, but the pace remained steady and any captive who, by faltering, made the person behind cut their steps, got a whip slash across the back to chivvy her on. As dawn brightened into day, the ghost, her face set in a determined grimace, appeared as a wisp walking alongside a young lad who did not see her.
Under the cover of trees the light had a hazy glamour, and the smells seemed as thick as the muggy heat. Pockets of mud slurped under Shai’s bare feet. Water dripped from leaves, and if he tilted his head back, he caught drops to moisten his parched mouth. Now and again the canopy opened into a clearing. Clouds glowed overhead, as if the sun was about to break through. Once, he saw a noble mountain blocking half of the northern sky, but the path twisted and trees rose, and the mountain vanished from view.
He got a better look at his companions. The youngest seemed to be ten or eleven—small enough!—and Shai was the only one with the heft of full growth. Vali slogged along in front of Shai, but soon enough one of the younger ones began to lag, so Vali put his arm around the littler girl’s waist and kept her moving. Captives helped each other as well as they could. Even the ghost tried to aid that boy, may
be her kin, whenever he stumbled. But of course, she had no substance.
Shai was still dizzy from the blow to the head, and he was beginning to get truly hungry. Soldiers walked in groups of four, several always in view. Hard to sneak off into the forest cover with them so watchful. Anyway, if he let the girl go in order to save himself, she’d be killed.
“What’s your name?” he whispered.
After a long time, she said, “Yudit.” Nothing more.
They walked.
Rain washed through. Yudit stumbled more frequently. The path crossed a stream at a ford. The captives fell to their knees to scoop water in cupped palms. The soldiers led the horses upstream, muddying the water where the captives drank. Was it thoughtlessness, or cruelty?
He helped the girl kneel. She leaned on one arm, spilling more than got down.
“Slow down.” Shai sucked water, savoring its cold bite. Then he cupped his hands so she could lie down and drink what he tipped into her mouth.
Vali knelt beside them, gaze darting along the bank, up into the trees, always seeking, never still. The ghost fluttered her hands helplessly as the boy she followed splashed into the water and flung himself into the current.
Roaring with anger, guards waded after him. They paddled; he dropped beneath the surface where the current streamed close against a high bank on the opposite shore. His hair floated atop the water, marking his position, and then he and his pursuers vanished around a bend. The ghost chased along the bank in their wake. Shai kept drinking, not sure when they’d be allowed to drink again.
“Drink more,” he said to the girl.
“I can’t walk.” She rubbed at her grimy thighs. A runnel of blood had dried at one knee.
The soldiers came splashing back through the shallows, dragging the boy, who sobbed and struggled. They threw him on the stones and began beating him methodically with the hafts of spears as he tried to protect his head with upraised arms.