‘The guards won’t let anyone go.’
‘I’ll tell them who I am. That will make them sit up.’
‘Do you have papers or a special pass?’
Nish had nothing. Most of his gear had been lost when the basket burned; the rest stolen the instant he arrived. ‘No, but I represent the scrutator.’
‘Not ours! They don’t like foreigners in this country and the guards have heard every story in the world. They won’t listen. They’ll just beat you senseless and throw you in the mud. They say we should have been left to the lyrinx.’
‘People must come in and out, in a camp this big.’
‘Only soldiers. Sometimes they take the young women out, but they don’t bring them back. My big sister is hiding.’
Nish could imagine why, all too well. The war was tearing society apart and in places like this the only thing that mattered was power. Getting it and keeping it.
‘Perhaps I could dress up as a woman,’ Nish said, half-joking.
Colm inspected Nish’s swollen face and sturdy body. ‘They wouldn’t take you, Nish.’
I deserved that, Nish thought. ‘Could I dig my way out?’
‘The soil is only this deep.’ Colm spread his fingers. ‘And under it, there’s rock.’
‘What about over the fence?’
‘The guards hang the bodies on the spikes. After they’ve finished with them.’
Nish shivered. His options were rapidly running out. ‘Do your mother and father know anyone important?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said the boy. ‘I’ll take you to meet them when it’s dark. It’s not safe in daytime. You haven’t got a sign.’
‘A sign?’
Colm held out his hand. On the back was a red, raised scar of jagged lines, like a jumble of triangles.
‘Did the guards do that to you?’
Colm nodded. ‘They did it to everyone, even the babies. With quicklime!’
‘It must have hurt.’
‘It still does, sometimes, and that was six months ago.’
‘You’ve been here six months?’
‘Yes, but we lost our home a long time before that. On my ninth birthday.’
‘How old are you now, Colm?’
‘Twelve and a half. I can join the army when I’m fourteen, if I’m big enough.’
‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry,’ said Nish.
‘I’ll be signing up on my birthday,’ said the boy proudly. ‘We have to fight for what is ours, else we may as well lie down and die.’
Nish felt a thousand years old, though he was only twenty. Colm would be sent to the front with minimal training and would probably be dead in a month. The tragedy had been played out a million times and was not going to end until humanity was no more. Well, perhaps what he, Nish, knew might make the difference, if only he could get out of here and find someone in authority.
From not far away came the barking of hounds. Someone screamed. ‘Come on!’ said Colm. ‘They’ve brought the dogs in. If they catch us, they’ll beat us half to death.’
Nish wormed his way out, the boy beside him. ‘Where are we going?’
Colm had his head around the corner. ‘It’s clear. Follow me.’
They ran a zigzag path between the hovels, Nish doing exactly as the boy told him to. Everything stank here. They dropped into a gully running with human waste, leapt the brown stream and continued along the other side. The ground was bare apart from bright-green, slimy strands of algae growing in the flow. Further down, Colm ducked into an embayment where a flood had undercut the bank, leaving a hollow the size of a small barrel.
‘This isn’t much of a hiding place,’ Nish said doubtfully.
Colm dug a chip of stone out of the wall with one finger, tossed it aside and excavated another. ‘We’ll only be here a minute. Give me your hand.’
Nish held it out. Colm turned the chip of stone around until he had a sharp edge and scored it across the back of Nish’s hand.
Nish yelped and tore his hand away. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You’ve got to have a mark,’ said the boy. ‘Without it, you’re nothing!’
Nish gave him his hand. The boy pressed harder, making a series of bloody cuts. Nish flinched.
‘It’s only a scratch,’ Colm said scornfully.
‘Heroes still feel pain, Colm.’
When it was done, Colm dabbed the surplus blood away, comparing the marks with the raised red welts on the back of his own hand. ‘It’s not very good, but it will probably look like the real thing, from a distance.’
‘What if they check it and discover it’s not?’
‘You could run for your life, but it’ll be worse when they catch you. Best thing is to just take the beating.’
‘Why do the guards hate us so much?’ Already Nish felt it was ‘us’ and ‘them’.
‘It’s not the guards who will beat you in the workhouse. It’s the boss refugees. They don’t want any attention, in case their own schemes are found out.’
They were off again, up the stinking gully, then towards a large ramshackle building made of reused timber. It looked as if a dozen houses, all different, had been pulled down to make it. A sentry, dressed in clothes as ragged and filthy as the boy’s, stood outside.
‘How do we get in?’ Nish hissed.
Colm did not answer but, after checking that the sentry was not looking, darted across the space between the gully and the side of the building, lifted a couple of loose boards and wriggled inside.
Nish only just managed it, his shoulders being as wide as the opening. He emerged in a gloomy space with timbers running along above his head, and more in front of him. Beyond were dozens of pairs of dirty feet. He was under a wide workbench that ran along the side of the building.
Colm turned right, crawling down next to the wall. Before long he stopped by a pair of grubby feet. Next was a smaller pair, clad in sadly stained and tattered slippers.
‘Stay down until I say so,’ he whispered in Nish’s ear, and with a twisting movement like an eel on a hook, Colm was out, up and standing between the two pairs of feet.
‘Where have you been, Colm?’ came a weary, worn-out female voice. ‘I’ve been worried sick about you.’
‘Just around,’ said Colm. ‘I –’
‘Get to work, son.’ The man’s voice was equally lifeless. ‘We’re behind in our quota and your slackness –’
‘I’ve found him!’ Colm hissed.
‘Can you fix this one?’ said his mother as if he had not spoken. ‘It doesn’t want to go together again.’
Silence, in which there was an occasional click or rattle, a muffled curse.
‘I’ve found the man who floated in on the balloon.’
‘Lose him! They’re looking for him and we don’t want to attract attention to ourselves, boy. I’ve told you that a hundred times.’
‘But –’
‘It’s dangerous, Colm,’ said the dead voice. ‘Keep your head down. Do your work. Say nothing. Never catch anyone’s eye.’
‘I might as well be dead!’
‘He’s a spy! Or in the pay of the enemy. We could all die if he’s linked to us. And there’s your sisters to think of, Colm. It’ll be worse for them. I didn’t think I’d have to remind you of that.’
‘He’s a hero!’ Colm said stubbornly. ‘He’s going to help us get Gothryme back.’
‘It’s gone forever,’ snapped the man. ‘We’re refugees and we will never get anything back. We’re lucky to be alive.’
‘We’re unlucky to be alive,’ said Colm. ‘What’s the point to life when we’ve lost everything, even our Histories?’
‘We can’t eat our Histories.’
‘I’m going to go back if it takes me all my life. Gothryme is my due and I won’t give it up.’
‘Anything you can’t carry on your back is worthless; it’s like chaining yourself to a rock.’
‘You don’t even tell us our family Histories any more.’
‘If you cling to the past, you’ll never make a new future.’
‘This man can help us. You should hear what he’s done, father. He’s a hero.’
Smack. Colm fell to his knees. For a second his eyes met Nish’s, then he climbed to his feet again.
‘I won’t hear another word, son,’ said the father. ‘The man is a liar and you’re a little fool for being taken in by him.’