distracting him.
Yudit tapped Shai's wrist. 'Eska's stumbling.'
Back stinging, he walked backward as the others walked forward, and hoisted Eska to his back before her faltering drew the attention of the soldiers. Fortunately the whip had only welted him this morning, not drawn blood, so the pain wasn't too bad as her weight — such as it was, her being little more than skin and bones — rubbed his bare skin. But he was thirsty, and of course the hollow in his stomach was a constant torture. Yet he must not show the weakness he felt. Up and down the line of prisoners, faces turned to mark his progress at the rear of the ground. He nodded at Wori, with his tear-streaked face, and at Jasya, who had bruised eyes. Yudit plodded along, her chin lifted with stubborn defiance, and when Dena began dropping back through the line, Shai handed Eska to Yudit and carried the heavier Dena instead.
The soldier called Twist walked up alongside. 'Heh. You there, packhorse. You tasted the girls yet? Or are you fashioned for men, eh?'
'Greetings of the day to you, ver,' said Shai with his biggest grin. 'You got food, maybe? I'm sure hungry.'
Twist snorted and called to his comrades. 'Cursed fool says the same thing every day. You think we should set him on the girls tonight, like? We could see if he's hung like a horse, way he packs them all day, eh?'
So they laughed, and when they laughed they weren't likely to be beating on the children.
All morning they struggled to keep the pace set by the soldiers. For days and days and days they had pushed north along the ragged skirts of a range of hills, through sparsely inhabited countryside. At midday they paused to water the horses at a stream. After setting down Dena, Shai ranged the line, making sure none of the children drank too much, which would cause them to founder, or too little, which would weaken them further.
'Drink more,' he said, coaxing Jasya.
'I'd be better dead.'
'If you let yourself die, then they've won. We're going to win by surviving.'
She sighed, but she drank.
Once the horses were watered, they marched on. And on. To his sight, the woodland never seemed to change, but just as they waded across another stream, Yudit whispered, 'We're getting close to a village,' seeing something in the way trees were spaced and bushes flourished in open spaces. The children pointed at berry-laden branches, but none dared leave the line of march to grab them while the soldiers watched.
A command rang down from the vanguard. Abruptly, the captives were herded into a tight group and left with six guards while the rest ran down the path. The children shivered as they heard screams and shouts in the distance. Vegetation rattled in the woods, sounding exactly like folk running for their lives. Eska began to snivel, shocked by fear, and Shai hugged her against him to stifle her sobs. Of the rest, some stared at Shai while others covered their faces with their hands.
To his horror, a pair of ghosts drifted into view, wisps with still enough self-identity that one could identify them as farmers by their misty garb. They were so busy talking to each other, as if intent on escape, that they did not notice Shai's attention.
'Eiya! I thought we'd escaped the calamity! Now they come down on us, when they missed us last time! Did you hide the feast bread and the nai cakes?'
'Eh, I did. Under the boards on the weaving house porch. Good thing the children are still hidden at the refuge. Think you we bought time for the women to get away?'
'I heard them running out here-'
A living cry roused their guards. 'Heya! Heya! Bring in the prisoners! We'll have roofs over our heads tonight, lads!'
As they marched in, Shai walked beside Yudit. 'Listen,' he whispered, 'I'll create some manner of diversion. There might be loose boards on the porch of the weaving house, and food hidden beneath it. Be quick, if you can find it. Don't let the soldiers see. Everyone gets a share.'
She looked startled, but nodded. The woods opened up into a small settlement, a village of three longhouses and a number of outbuildings, including a weaving shed. One of the longhouses and half of the outbuildings had been burned recently and left in disrepair,
but the soldiers ripped through the intact ones, looting anything they could carry and smashing cupboards and walls as they laughed and howled. A trio ripped the roof off a thatched altar, while others trampled on prayer banners. Three farmers lay dead on the dirt, and two had faces Shai recognized: they'd been the ghosts on the path. Soldiers hooted as the sergeant opened the gate to the byre and was bowled over by a pair of nervous ewes rushing to escape.
Shai had spent much of his youth herding sheep up on Dezara Mountain, a good way to stay out of family quarrels. He knew every kind of story about shepherds, single men too poor to avail themselves of brothel fare, lads working the upper pastures for months at a time. Sometimes they did for each other, no shame in that up in the highlands among lads. But one time — hu! — he'd come across a man working at a ewe. Never would he forget that sight.
'Heya! Twist!' he shouted in a louder voice than he'd known he possessed. 'I fancy those ones!'
He galloped after the ewes, grabbed clumsily at them and missed, purposefully tripped over his own feet in a mud-slopped puddle, and generally made such a horse's ass of himself that the soldiers, roaring with laughter, all rushed to watch, cheering him on. He was soon winded and aching, but he kept on until Yudit made a show of getting in his way, and then he collapsed, heaving on hands and knees while the soldiers caught the ewes and, just like that, killed both to make a feast. The prisoners, rounded in to haul wood and set up camp, were all surreptitiously licking their fingers and wiping their mouths on their arms.
'Heya!' he said to the sergeant. 'I know how to carve up a sheep.'
'Heh! Heh! Seems you do. But we're eating these, not devouring them.' He walked away without handing Shai a knife. Indeed, the soldiers did all the work skinning and butchering the sheep, keeping the prisoners away from anything sharp. The big open hearth soon blazed, and Shai's mouth watered as meat began to sizzle.
Yudit crept up beside him and slipped a pair of nai cakes, like flat bread, into his hand. 'How did you know?' she whispered.
'Eh, ah, it's a trick we did at home, eh?' He gulped them down when no one was looking.
She pressed leaves into his palm. 'Se leaves. Very nourishing.'
They had an unpleasant, spicy flavor, but they went down easily
and for all that they weren't much to taste, they were filling. For the first time in days, he didn't feel light- headed.
'Did you really?' she asked him.
'With sheep? I did not!'
She laughed, and he saw she'd been teasing, that she'd understood all along, and the sight of a smile briefly on her face made it all worth it.
'Heya, girl!' called the sergeant, beckoning to Yudit. She winced, let go of Shai's hand, and rose. 'Heh. He may have broad shoulders and brawny arms, but he's not fashioned for the likes of you, eh?' The soldiers chortled. Head bowed, Yudit trudged over to the sergeant, and he led her into one of the longhouses. The men's blood was up after the fight, and they quarreled, there being too many soldiers who wanted a piece and too few captives old enough to be marked for the taking.
'What about one of the younger ones?' said one of the soldiers, eyeing Vali and Dena, who sat apart with their perfectly groomed hair now rather undone by a day's hard walking.
The others jeered and cursed. 'What? That's disgusting.'
'If the lord does it, it must be good for the rest of us-'
'Shut up! You gods-rotted imbecile. You want to get us all punished?'
'Hush! Lookya. Here he comes.'
The lord, his leaf-green cloak swagged behind him, walked into the clearing leading his winged horse. All fell silent, heads bowed, and after a troubling silence in which no one spoke, the sergeant burst out of the longhouse, tying up his trousers.
'Eh, lord, sorry to keep you waiting. What's your wish?'
'Why have you stopped marching while there's still light for walking?'
'Ah, eh, had a bit of a fight with some locals, here, and afterward I thought we might cook up two sheep to
