But today, it seemed, was not going to be one of those days.
The grounders were already moving. One of them kicked dirt over the fire. The others lifted their hide cloaks over their shoulders, and picked up their spears, and tucked knives into their skins. They started shouting, laughing, throwing punches at each other. Me, with a shudder of dread, recognised their mood. It was going to be another day of running and fighting and killing, and the grounders were getting themselves ready.
One of the grounders came over to the Leafies. He slashed through their tethers, wrapped the ropes around his wrist, and snarled at the children until they moved.
The grounders formed up and set off across the clearing at a heavy jog. The Leafies, driven ahead, ran in the horror of the open air. If one of them stumbled the reward was a kick or a prod with a stabbing spear.
But as Me ran, as always, the cold of the night worked out of his bones and muscles, his legs pumping, the breath sliding into his lungs. Me was young and healthy. He would have enjoyed the run, if not for the sheer terror of the openness, and the uncertainty of what was to come. Before the sun was much higher in the sky they came to a landscape that was even stranger to the Leafy Boys, a place where water glimmered everywhere, in streams and ponds choked with reeds, and shallow islands rose up, and there was scarcely a scrap of forest.
The grounders charged on, making for the bits of high ground, driving the Leafies on through mud and marsh and shallow open water. Soon Me’s bare legs were soaked, and clinging mud dragged at his feet. Huge flocks of birds rose up and flapped away, cawing their disapproval, and the air was full of noise and sprayed water. All the Leafies were terrified. But when he got the chance Me scooped up water, shook out the living things that swam in it, and sucked it down his dry throat.
One boy went down in a flooded gully, gurgling in terror. Me saw it was the little boy who hadn’t been able to fight for the food. The grounder holding the tethers had to stop and drag the boy’s scrawny body out of the murk, yelling with anger and impatience. But after a few paces the boy fell again. The handler hauled him up once more and shook him.
The boy spewed water from his mouth. He reached out to the grounder, like a baby reaching for its mother.
The handler thrust the boy into the water, driving down his neck with his strong outstretched arm. One of the other grounders called over. The handler shouted back, laughing, keeping his arm in place. When he raised his arm again the boy dangled, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, his lips blue. The grounder dropped him in the water, cut the tether with a slice of his knife, and turned to run on.
Me and the others had no choice but to follow. He knew he would never think of the boy again. They approached one of the larger islands. There were grounders living here. Me could see houses, squat cones plastered with dried reeds, with smoke seeping out. A bigger fire burned in an open hearth, and there were stands where fish and eels were drying. Boats clustered, broad, flat-bottomed, some dragged up onto the dry land, some on the water where men pushed them to and fro with long poles. There were grounders everywhere, adults working in the water or loading eel on the racks or just lazing around, and children, many naked, their skinny legs muddy.
This was the target, then. The grounders and Leafies ran on without breaking stride.
A woman with a basket of fish saw them first. She just stared, for a long heartbeat. Then, yelling warnings, she dropped her basket and plunged into the water to grab one of the children.
More adults came out of the houses. Some of the men ran to a stack of weapons, like spears but with hooked points, perhaps meant for catching fish. One man, on a raft floating on the water, poled desperately to get away from the island.
All of this was too late, for the grounders were almost on them.
They let the Leafies go in first. Me scrambled up a shallow muddy beach. Children ran screaming, but Me charged through a pack of them, using his fists to slam them aside.
Soon Me and the others were in among the houses. Adults turned to face them, armed with spears and clubs. The girl who had been used during the night was close to Me, and she seemed filled with rage. She leapt at a man who was swinging a club. Me joined her, going for the man’s legs as her lithe body wrapped around his neck. The man got in one blow with his club that winded Me, but then the girl’s teeth were in his throat.
And now the grounders were on the island, roaring and laughing as they swung their weapons. Me saw one island boy armed with a spear, facing a grounder. The grounder stumbled, and the boy had a moment of advantage. But he hesitated. With a swing of the blunt end of his spear the grounder smashed the boy’s skull.
Now dogs came running through the houses, snarling and snapping, to take on the Leafies. Me got hold of a dead man’s club and swung it at the animals.
The air was filled with screams and cries, with the crunch of bone and the howling of the dogs, and the stink of blood.
69
Shade waded to the island, with Hollow and Bark at his side, their feet and legs caked in mud.
The fighting was done. The adults were dead or subdued, the survivors bound together near the ruin of their big outdoor hearth. Shade could hear that his men were still busy with some of the women. The small children had all been killed or driven off. Some of the men were still walking around the island, throwing little carcasses into the muck, and using the poles the islanders had used to push their flat-bottomed boats to shove the surviving kids back into the water, ignoring their cries and pleas.
The Leafy Boys, those who lived, had been fixed with their tethers, and had been thrown the carcasses of dogs to eat. It was extraordinary to see the naked creatures rip the skin of the animals with their teeth. The islanders cowered from them.
Shade inspected one of the islanders’ sturdy houses. He stepped inside its reed cover and let his eyes adjust to the dark. The big support beams were stained black with smoke and, in the middle of this marsh, had somehow been kept as dry as old bones. The posts were of oak, the right wood for the task, and must have been hauled to this soggy place from far away. He wondered how they kept the ground drained to stop the beams rotting. There was stuff on the floor, clothes, half-prepared food, a necklace of fish bones, a toy animal made of straw that looked as if it had been much played with. The people who lived here not been long gone, but were never coming back.
He went to the fire, picked out an ember glowing red hot, cupped it in a bit of hide and brought it to a wall. He knelt down and teased out dry straw from the wall, set the ember down, and began to breathe on it delicately.
‘Generations old,’ he whispered to the house. ‘Parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. This very morning a family woke here, thinking it was just another day.’ The straw had caught; flames licked, and he stepped back. ‘And now it’s over.’
‘And that pleases you.’
He turned.
Zesi stood by the door flap, silhouetted against the daylight. ‘The ability to destroy, on a whim. To kill, or not to kill. The most fundamental power of all. And you don’t even have to lift a finger to wield it. Feels good, doesn’t it?’
And it did, though Shade sometimes felt uneasy to admit it. What did that say about him, about the state of his own spirit? Not for the first time he wished he had a decent priest to talk this over with. Maybe he ought to do something about getting Resin off the poppy.
Smoke was already gathering in the house, so Shade followed Zesi outside, where Bark waited. Then he watched with thoughtful interest as the fire ate up the reed cover of the house, leaving only a skeleton of posts, lit up by the flames. Then the oak, too, began to burn.
He was aware of the captive islanders sitting in their loops of rope, watching apathetically. He turned, looking around at the island, the shining water that spread around this place, the drifting boats, the banks of gravel and mud. This soggy place, in the north of Albia, was rich and populous, comparatively, and peaceful. Now its human story was over. But some of the birds were coming back, to swim on the water and to plunge for food. The birds always came back, he had observed, as soon as the human fuss was over – and the other birds, the buzzards that enjoyed human flesh, and had, he suspected, learned to follow the Pretani around.