Go on, Maral Eb. Walk out on to the plain and cross swords with Irkullas. Kill each other and then the rest of us can just walk away. Swords? Why such formality? Why not just bare hands and teeth? Tear each other to pieces! Like two wolves fighting to rule the pack-whichever one limps away triumphant will be eyed by the next one in line. And on it goes, and really, do any of the rest of us give a fuck? At least wolves don’t make other wolves fight their battles for them. No, our tyrants are smarter than wolves, aren’t they?
He halted and crouched down. He was in the place he was supposed to be.
The jade talons raked up from the southern horizon, and from the plain to the west a fox loosed an eerie, piercing cry. Night had arrived.
Estaral grasped the girl by her braid and flung her back. They had been trying to force goat shit into Hetan’s mouth-her face was smeared from the cheeks down.
Spitting in rage, the girl scrambled to her feet, her cohorts closing round her. Eyes blazed. ‘My father will see you hobbled for that!’
‘I doubt it,’ Estaral replied. ‘What man wants to take a woman stinking of shit? You’ll be lucky to keep your hide, Faranda. Now, all of you, get away from here-I know you all, and I’ve not yet decided whether to tell your fathers about this.’
They bolted.
Estaral knelt before Hetan, pulling up handfuls of grass to wipe her mouth and chin. ‘Even the bad rules are breaking,’ she said. ‘We keep falling and falling, Hetan. Be glad you cannot see what has become of your people.’
But those words rang false. Be glad? Be glad they chopped off the fronts of your feet? Be glad they raped you so many times you couldn’t feel a damned bhederin pounding into you by now? No. And if the Akrynnai chop off our feet and rape us come tomorrow, who will weep for the White Faces?
Not Cafal. ‘Not you, either, Hetan.’ She flung the soiled grasses away and helped Hetan to stand. ‘Here, your staff, lean on it.’ She grasped a handful of filthy shirt and began guiding the woman through the camp.
‘Don’t keep her too long!’ She glanced back to see a warrior behind them-he had been coming to take her and now stood with a grin that hovered on the edge of something dark and cruel.
‘They fed her shit-I’m taking her to get properly cleaned up.’
A flicker of disgust. ‘The children? Who were they? A solid beating-’
‘They ran before I got close enough. Ask around.’
Estaral tugged Hetan into motion once again.
The warrior did not pursue, but she heard him cursing as he wandered off. She didn’t think she’d run into many more like him-everyone was crowding around their clan cookfires, hungry and parched and short-tempered as they jostled and fought for position. There’d be a few flick-blade duels this night, she expected. There always were, night before battle. Stupid, of course. Pointless. But, as Onos Toolan might say, the real meaning of ‘tradition’ was… what had he called it? ‘Stupidity on purpose’, that’s what he said. I think. I never much listened.
I should have. We all should have.
They neared the western edge of the camp, where the wagons were already being positioned to form a defensive barricade. Just beyond, drovers were busy slaughtering stock, and the bleating cries of hundreds of animals filled the night. The first bonfires for offal had been lit using rotted cloth, bound rushes, dung and liberal splashes of lamp oil. The flames lit up terrified eyes from within crowded pens. Chaos and horror had come to the beasts and the air was thick with death.
She almost halted. She’d never before seen things in such a way; she’d never before felt the echo of misery and suffering assailing her from all directions-every scene painted into life by the fires was like a vision of madness. We do this. We do this all the time. To all these creatures who look to us for protection. We do this and think nothing of it.
We say we are great thinkers, but I think now, that most of what we do each and every day-and night-is in fact thoughtless. We will ourselves empty to numb us to our cruelty. We stiffen our faces and say we have needs. But to be empty is to have no purchase, nothing to grasp on to, and so in the emptiness we slide and we slide.
We fall.
Oh, when will it end?
She pulled Hetan to a position behind a wagon, the plains stretching westward before them. Thirty paces ahead, limned by the deepening remnants of the sunset, three warriors were busy digging a picket. ‘Sit down-no, don’t lift. Just sit.’
‘Listen, Strahl-you have done enough. Leave this night to me.’
‘Bakal-’
‘Please, old friend. This is all by my hand-I stood alone before Onos Toolan. There must be the hope… the hope for balance. In my soul. Leave me this, I beg you.’