“We only want what’s rightfully ours!” Bultum’s small but terrifying wife, Emani, yells from behind him.
“Our portion of grain doesn’t belong to you,” Iree spits back, and several others in his company agree. “If your family squandered your portion, you can’t dip back into the grain and take ours.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve had nothing for days—can’t you see that?” Bultum gestures to his family, who do, indeed, look rather emaciated. But no more than anyone else. Between the snow-covered grasslands and the punishing sand, Ashkar is not a bountiful or forgiving place in the winter. We’re all slowly starving.
I join Serik in the center of the fray, which causes both sides to retreat even farther. “What’s going on? Who’s stealing from whom? And why? We portioned rations just this week.”
It was an excruciating process. We had to convince all of the shepherds to place their provisions into a common collection, which was then redistributed evenly to ensure everyone had food. The ones with plenty were obviously incensed and the ones with empty oil casks and grain sacks reached greedily for the piles.
“Exactly!” Iree jumps in. “We were all given portions, but they’re dipping into ours.” He points at the half-filled burlap sack in Bultum’s hands.
“Because we had no portion after you stole ours!”
“How dare you accuse us of thievery!” a young man behind Iree shouts.
I wait for them to stop yelling, trying to keep calm, since Serik is rubbing his temples like he might explode. “What do you mean you had no portion?” I ask Bultum.
“I mean exactly that! When I came to collect our rations, there was nothing to collect. Iree has never liked me because my sheep produce finer wool, so I knew he was to blame and I made restitutions where necessary.”
Iree’s eyes look as if they’re going to pop from his skull. “Your wool is no finer than ours!”
“I’m certain your portion is here.” I rush to the stacks to conduct a thorough search. “Maybe it just fell behind the rocks or was misplaced in a different pile?” But there’s nothing in any of the potholes, nothing tucked behind the outcroppings.
“You want us to perish so there will be more for you!” Emani cries, melting onto the shoulder of an old woman next to her.
“You want us to perish!” Iree’s family shoots back.
“You’re bickering over nothing!” Serik’s boot knocks the bag of grain from Bultum’s hands. Everyone falls silent as wheat scatters across the wet cave floor. “These meager rations won’t keep us alive for much longer anyway.”
“Serik!” He’s right, of course. But I want to kick his head as hard as he kicked the grain for admitting it out loud. For giving the shepherds even more reason to fear and doubt. “Thankfully, we won’t need the rations much longer,” I say quickly, making my voice cheerful. “We’ll find King Minoak soon. Then we’ll rise against the imperial governor and retake Verdenet. Once we’re in Lutaar City, there will be plenty of food. It’s only a matter of days.”
Serik cuts me a weary look. Temujin is the one who informed me of the Sky King’s attempt to assassinate King Minoak. Temujin is also the one who claimed Minoak survived and escaped. And Temujin has proven less than trustworthy.
“You said it would be a matter of days when we arrived last week,” Iree groans.
“Precisely,” I say with more conviction than I feel. “We’ve only been searching for a week. That’s hardly any time.”
I look to Serik for support, and even though I can tell he’d rather continue spewing his depressing realism, his hazel eyes meet mine and he nods. “These things take time. We must continue to have faith.”
“Time is the last thing we have,” Bultum says, snatching up the now empty grain sack. “We won’t survive much longer.”
“You and Iree can split our portion to counteract the shortage,” I offer, because I clearly have to give them something.
Serik gapes with horror, but it’s too late—I’m already handing over the bag of wheat.
“And we’ll assign Azamat to guard the cavern,” I say. He’s old and far from honorable—he stole my staff as soon as I entered the winter grazing lands back when I first left Ikh Zuree—but he has no family, no loyalty, and, most important, he’s so stubborn, he cannot be bought.
This seems to appease Iree, Bultum, and their families. Though, they don’t thank me. That would require acknowledging I did something right.
“Do you know how hungry I am?” Serik mutters as the groups trundle their separate ways.
“Did you have a better solution?”
“Oh, I can think of a few…. If you let me knock out their teeth, they won’t be able to eat. Problem solved. Or we could let nature take its course and allow the shepherds to starve. Then the survivors can eat the weaker people who perish first.”
“Serik!” I swat him hard.
“I know, I know. Patience, resilience, no cannibalism. Blah, blah, blah.”
“There’s nothing ‘blah, blah, blah’ about it. You’ve always wanted to be a warrior. Well, here we are. In the heat of battle.” I gesture across the cramped cavern, so overrun with bleating animals and bickering shepherds, it’s impossible to hear yourself think.
Serik appraises the group with narrowed eyes. “I guess I imagined being a Kalima warrior would involve more adoration and swordplay and less … thankless drudgery.”
He massages his blistered palms. Barely an hour passes when he isn’t required to warm the chilly air or heat the bathing water or clear a path through the drifts of snow and sand so the shepherds can leave the caves in search of roughage for their animals. Half the time he doesn’t even manage to accomplish these tasks. His power is too new, too volatile. He stands there, ears red and face grim, as the shepherds shake their heads in disappointment—as if
