by Kara Timmins
The shadows were on his side. At the back of the tent, the fabric folded light and shadow like ribbon. A few fighters walked ahead of him. Tents blocked sight from those around him. A quick look over his shoulder showed him no one walked close behind him. He slipped away from the flow of movement into a fold of darkened tarp.
Sick rolled up from his stomach. He swallowed it back. If someone noticed him, how would he explain himself? He wouldn’t be able to. Maybe throwing up would help. He could say he was delirious and sick. But no one noticed. The intense murmur around the camp remained the same, devoid of alarm cries.
Eloy crouched down and felt for the bottom of the tent. He curled his fingers around the hem and lifted it over his feet and slid backward into the tent. His head went in last, his eyes scanning to see if anyone noticed him on the ground.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but the saturated musk of rot and iron hit him immediately. Anso’s bed and table were to his left. He was so close. In a moment, his eyes could see. He took a few steps in the dark. The toe of his shoe hit something meaty and soft. He kept moving. All he had to do was get his hands on the bag and scatter the erum. His sight homed in, and he saw the outline of the drawer where Anso kept his pouch.
A cry of alarm filtered through the flap at the front of the tent. A line of light cut like a gash as Eloy looked.
“Someone has breached the tent!” someone cried from far away.
Maybe Anso.
Eloy thought about rushing to the drawer and scattering the erum. If he did, he wouldn’t have enough time to escape. He had to choose.
Another boom of chaos sounded from somewhere at the front of the camp. Eloy found the hem of the tent again and rolled under, back into the light.
He waited for a sword to come down on him, for someone to grab him, or for some of the running feet to kick him.
Two rough hands grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him up.
“No time to be sick,” a man said. “The lowers are throwing fire. Let’s go set some order.”
Eloy focused on the man, a blur in the light.
His eyes adjusted, and he saw a frantic flow of fighters heading toward the barricade. Eloy moved with the river of fighters. The mass parted at its center, and a group pushed forward in the opposite direction toward Anso’s tent with an enraged Anso at the center.
Eloy ducked down and moved the knot of his headband to the side. If the fighters guarding the barricade saw him, he wanted the cloth to look jostled.
In a blurry wave of panic and confusion, he moved. He funneled with the others through the barricade and took out his sword, just like the others, but he didn’t use it to slash at already falling tents. He didn’t see many lowers around, just as it had been that morning, but he didn’t see Neasa, Goodwin, and Malatic either.
He had a feeling he knew where the fire had come from, so he ran. The point of his sword led the way. Did he look like a rabid dog sent to attack? He hoped so. If anyone saw him, he hoped that’s what they thought and not the truth, which was that his sprint through fallen tents, crumpled shelters, and meaty mounds was a dash to find the tent in a derelict area of camp that he hoped his friends were sitting in, waiting for him.
The early evening air ached in his lungs, and when he saw what he hoped was the right tent, he almost cried out. With his sword held in front of him, he slipped into the opening of the small tent. Three pointed blades welcomed him.
Neasa huffed and let her sword drop. “Oh, thank everything.”
Malatic and Goodwin dropped their swords to their sides too.
“Did you do it?” Goodwin whispered.
Eloy shook his head.
Malatic’s shoulders dropped. “We heard him yell that someone was in his tent. Who knows how he knew? Goodwin grabbed a stick out of the fire and threw it.”
Eloy put a hand on Goodwin’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have made it out if you hadn’t.”
“What do we do now?”
“Wait until things calm down,” Malatic said. “I don’t think anyone saw us, but we need to move to the forest as soon as we can. We’ll think of something else.”
Eloy shook his head. “I should have gone for it.”
“We can’t play the game of should-haves,” Neasa said. “We’ll think of something better. For now, we need to shut up and wait.”
In the middle of the night, Eloy followed Malatic through a now-quiet camp. Goodwin kept close behind Eloy, and Neasa kept watch at the back. Eloy heard the singing of night insects before he passed through the door in the main gate. A great sense of relief unclenched something inside of Eloy when he got on the other side of the wall. He hadn’t realized how suffocated he had felt, despite the apparent openness of the camp; it felt just as confining as the forest of Valia.
They moved through the gangly forest with keen senses. The dead leaves would warn of approaching feet. They made camp in what was still Anso’s terrain, but they had a little gift of distance, and the buffer calmed Eloy’s nerves.
Neasa and Malatic found firewood, and if he tried hard enough, Eloy could make himself believe that they were still at the beginning of their journey, far away from what he had seen and done beyond Anso’s wall. The quiet around them made it easier to pretend. He tried not to see the absence of campfires and notice the silence among the trees for what it was. Eloy and the others had only been inside Anso’s camp for a few days, but the fighters they had heard only a few days ago were already gone.
41
Eloy tried to think of another way to get to Anso’s erum, but he didn’t know how Anso had known someone had gone into his tent. Without knowing what had happened, Eloy couldn’t plan around it.
At Malatic’s urging, they moved their camp for the next five mornings around the gray-hued forest outside of Anso’s main wall. Eloy stopped talking in the days after his failed attempt to take the erum. Neasa, Goodwin, and Malatic held the silence too. Part of Eloy’s concern was that if they broke the cemetery hush of the forest, someone would notice them—maybe someone who would see him and remember him from the chaos—and the fragile floor of safety would shatter. But no one from the higher camp seemed to be exploring the outer forest. They were waiting, Eloy was sure, rendered immobile by the anticipation of the erum.
Eloy kept his mouth closed and thought, scraping the corners of his mind for a fragment of an idea. The monotony of it all threatened to become his new concept of normal. He fought against it, despite the attractiveness of complacency. While moving around the forest, Eloy saw so many blackening appendages, bloated torsos, and bulging eyes that it started to become normal. He fought against it. If he let his mind go there, something would change in him. He would lose something that he would never be able to get back. Every time he felt himself doing it, he would remind himself of the misery, what it meant, and what it could mean for the people he cared about. The constant cracking open of attempts at emotional scabs made him exhausted and resentful.
After five days of wandering the forest, Eloy thought he was about to lose his grip on his composure. Every crunch and snap around him shocked his system. He didn’t sleep well. He had failed, and now he was sitting in front of a low-burning fire at the mouth of a monster’s den. Leaving wasn’t an option; he hadn’t accomplished what he came for. But he couldn’t move forward without a plan. He was stuck. Lost in his miserable thoughts, he stared at the snaking smoke in the late afternoon light.
Neasa sat up straight next to him, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“Something’s happening,” she said.
Malatic stood up. “People are moving.”
The shift wasn’t much, and it probably would have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the quiet they had come to know, but Eloy heard it too—a rustling.
Goodwin stood next to Malatic and looked off through the forest toward the path leading to the
main gate. Eloy got up too and turned his back to the others to try to see the source of the movement. The ashen trees weren’t densely packed together, but they were enough to block the cause of the commotion. Something moved a hundred strides ahead, making shutters of color through the gaps in the trees.
Eloy looked over his shoulder. “That has to be the ones with the erum. Let’s get an idea of who these people are before we do anything.”
Neasa moved to his side. “What’re we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Eloy said. “But be ready. We might just find out what’s going on here.”
Eloy pointed diagonally toward the gate, and they moved through the trees. At the entrance to the camp, Eloy saw that the commotion had brought a larger crowd than he thought possible. Fighters wobbled against trees that flanked the outside of the gate. Cries of desperation and excitement sounded from up the path.
“It has to be the delivery,” Neasa said.
“Yeah, it has to be.” Eloy walked through the frail and eager fighters.
When the people carrying the erum came into view, Eloy realized he had been waiting for something grand. He had images of trader wagons adorned with finery bought with the profits from such a potent and vital product. But the people had no finery or carts. They didn’t even have any horses, only four men walking in a four-point formation. Every step they took, they did in unison. The amplified crunch of dried leaves made them sound like one large creature.
Eloy moved around them in a wide arch so as to not draw attention to himself. The feeble fighters didn’t notice him. They were too consumed by the people with the erum. He knew he and his companions would already stand out due to their health, and he didn’t want to walk directly into the deliverers. The fighters with enough energy to grab at those carrying the erum were enough of a buffer to keep Eloy and the others hidden long enough to get behind the strangers.
Eloy felt better once he was at the deliverers’ backs. They were all clad in matching uniforms that hugged their tall, narrow bodies. It seemed like one of the deliverers was female, but even with her slight curves of femininity, they all looked as if they could be one person replicated to make four. Eloy couldn’t tell how similar they actually were, as the fabric of their outfits wrapped around their necks and heads, leaving only a gap for them to see through. The muted colors of the dye, undoubtedly intentionally matched to the natural colors of the forest, were a reminder of how wrong Eloy had been to expect merchants to be the ones bringing the erum.
These people weren’t individuals trained in the ways of making a profit. They were killers. The spears on their backs looked sharpened, and the handles looked worn. They weren’t ornamental.
Moans and hollers ran through the forest in a wave as the deliverers passed and the fighters caught a glimpse of the cargo. The container holding the erum could have been beautiful if its purpose were to transport almost anything else. The reeds wove together meticulously like a cage around a wooden container holding the erum. Braided leather strips wrapped around the deliverers’ shoulders and torsos to keep it in place. Even if someone was brave enough to rush the deliverers for the erum, they wouldn’t be able to get the prize easily. A swatch of fabric flapped with the breeze of their movement. Eloy recognized the mark branded on the cloth—three narrow men inside of a triangle. He had seen it on the sacks of bad grain in Nicanor’s tent.
“What’re we going to do?” Neasa asked, her voice husky and rich, focused and ready.
“We need to get to the other side of the barricade,” Eloy said. “Something is going to happen, and it’s going to happen fast.”
“We can’t let Anso get the fresh erum,” Malatic said.
“I don’t think it’s fresh,” Eloy said. “But if it is, we’ll have to come up with something—fast.”
Goodwin looked pale.
Eloy put a hand on Goodwin’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Goodwin said. “It’s almost over. Right?”
“I hope so,” Eloy said. “We have to remember that we’re supposed to be feeling the effects of not having any erum. Once we get on the other side of the barricade, look for a place for us to hide and watch what happens. Did you see the mark on what they were carrying?”
Eloy let go of Goodwin’s shoulder and looked at Malatic and Neasa to his right. They shook their heads.
“Whoever these people are had something to do with Nicanor’s bad grain. I don’t know what they’re up to, but it’s not good. You ready?”
Goodwin nodded.
Malatic looked at the crowded gate, his face hardening. “Ready.”
Neasa stood next to Eloy and faced the path leading into camp. “Yeah.”
Eloy walked forward, and his knees wobbled. He wasn’t sure if anyone noticed, but he was grateful that pretending to be weak was part of the plan, because walking into this unknown didn’t make him feel strong.
42
Eloy found his composure as he navigated through the chaos. Thinking about fear and moving through it were two different things. Malatic kept close behind him, and Eloy saw him scanning the people and the disheveled lower camp for dangers. Neasa and Goodwin moved side by side at Malatic’s back. They progressed through the main gate of the camp a safe distance and had the added cover of the sick that trailed in the wake of the deliverers. Many fell away from the crowd as they neared the entrance of the barricade, cautious to avoid the wrath of the highers.
Eloy motioned to the other three to close the gap between themselves once the deliverers passed through the barricade. The fighter manning the gap brandished her weapon as the four approached. It was the woman he was used to seeing, only she looked far less lively than she had before. Her chicken-skin yellow complexion and dark-circled eyes reminded Eloy that they were supposed to look just as bad as she did. He hunched his shoulders and blinked slowly as he tried talking her into putting her sword back into her sheath.
“Anso told us to come in with the people bringing the erum in,” Eloy said. “Remember?”
She squinted at their faces as her sword wobbled. “Thought you were dead.” Her rueful smile was weak, and her eyelids drooped over her yellowing eyes. “Go ahead.” She slumped down and leaned against the barricade. “Came just in time, didn’t they? You’ll get your share after the rest of us. Don’t forget that. Just because you’re on this side of the barricade doesn’t mean you get anything extra.”
Her voice faded as they walked away from her.
The energy on Anso’s side of the divide was much higher compared to what they had just walked through. Groups of fighters emerged from their tents. How could Eloy and the others defeat so many of them? He shook his head and pushed the thought away. He couldn’t do anything with the idea that they were already beat. The only thing he had to do was take each moment at a time and make the best decision to keep himself and his three companions alive. He had to find a place to hide and watch. That was the only thing that mattered.
“Where are we going?” Goodwin asked.
They turned right on the main path, and Eloy processed how crowded the path to Anso’s tent had become. They were caught in the flow of frantic people, and by accident, the feeling of desperation blended seamlessly with those Eloy had been trying to mimic for so many days.
He saw many tents around, but none seemed right for what they needed.
“We need a good place to be out of the way,” Eloy said, “but I’m not seeing anything.”
“There should be a storage tent close to Anso’s,” Malatic said. “I didn’t notice one the last time we were here, but he always had supplies close by before.” Malatic looked around to make sure no one had heard him. When he saw that everyone around him had their glazed eyes locked on the erum deliverers, he continued, “That would be a good place.”
“Would you know it if you saw it?” Eloy asked.
“If it�
�s there,” Malatic said, “I’ll know it.”
Eloy, Neasa, and Goodwin all focused on Malatic as they got close to Anso’s tent. Malatic rose up on the balls of his feet and scanned over the heads of the fighters crowding the area.
“It’s there,” Malatic said through a small sigh of relief as he lowered himself down again. “If we walk to the right, we’ll run into it.”
Eloy tried to keep his progress as inconspicuous as he could, but the excitement and relief of finding protective cover made it difficult.
Malatic motioned toward an unassuming tent when it came into view, and they took turns ducking into it when they were sure no one was watching. If Malatic hadn’t pointed it out, Eloy would not have been able to notice its difference from the other tents. It did seem slightly smaller, but the tan fabric was the same. The difference was far more evident once they were inside. Handcrafted crates and bloated sacks of grain littered the floor with no sense of organization.
“I guess the person who used to keep the supply isn’t around anymore,” Malatic said. “In my time, Anso would never have allowed the supplies to be left in this condition.”
“Better for us,” Eloy said. “Less chance someone will come in. Let’s get some of these things stacked up. The higher we can make it, the better we will be able to see over the crowd.”
The structure of containers and sacks was rickety, and the space at the top was only enough room for two people to sit, but the stack was high enough to see the front of Anso’s tent from the small holes they cut in the fabric. Neasa climbed up next to Eloy just in time to see Anso exit the flap of his tent thirty or so strides away. He looked more frazzled than he had when they saw him last, which Eloy didn’t think was possible. Anso’s hair stuck out around his head like a halo of madness. The four deliverers stayed in their square formation as Anso approached them with outstretched arms.
Eloy couldn’t hear what Anso was saying, but his emphatic hand motions conveyed the sentiment of the discussion. The deliverers didn’t move, and Anso’s frustration seemed to mean they weren’t responding to him. Eventually, Anso seemed to give up on his tirade and continued with the transaction. One of the shrouded deliverers at the front held out a hand with his palm up and cupped, ready for Anso to place the bloated coin pouch into it. Once he had the pouch in hand, the deliverers removed the leather straps from their shoulders and lowered the woven reed basket. Anso looked almost giddy as they put the wood container on the ground in front of him.