Duril had known them both. I noted down their names and set them each in a grave. Then we covered them, with me doing the lion’s share of the work, and Duril manning a shovel more for the sake of his self-respect than for any real help he could give me. The long summer day had found dusk before we were through. We stood by the six mounds of pale soil, and Duril, who had buried many a comrade, offered a simple soldier’s prayer to the good god. When we were finished, he looked askance at me.

“Tomorrow is soon enough,” I said quietly. “They’ve lain in their rooms this long. One more day will not hurt. And perhaps by tomorrow my father will be recovered enough to help me give them a more formal burial.” I sighed. “I’m going down to the river to wash.”

He nodded, and I left him there.

But the next morning, my father was little better than he had been. He made no response when I tried to speak to him. Unshaven, his hair wild, dressed in his nightshirt, he would not even sit up in his bed. Several times I told him that I had to bury Mother, Rosse, and Elisi, that it was not fitting to leave them dead in their beds. He did not even turn his eyes to look at me, and at last I despaired of his help, and took on the mournful task myself. Duril helped me, but still it was a sad and messy duty. I found rope in the stable, and at least we were able to lower them into their graves with a bit more dignity. I wished for fine caskets or even simple boxes, but the stench and the rot persuaded me that it was best to act quickly instead. The trees surrounding our little graveyard were full of hopeful croaker birds before I was through. They sat watching me, jaunty in their black-and-white feathers, the wattles around their greedy beaks red as blood. I knew that the smell of carrion had attracted them. They were only animals, and they did not care whether it was beast flesh or human that they scented. Even so, I could not look at them without recalling the Porontes’ wedding sacrifice to Orandula, the old god of balances. I wondered grimly what all these deaths balanced, and if it pleased him. I put my family in the earth, and covered them, and said the prayers that I could summon to my mind. They were the childish prayers of comfort that my mother had taught me when I was just a boy. Sergeant Duril came out to stand beside me and witness that feeble ceremony.

Afterward, I took my shovel and pickax back to the toolshed and hung them on the wall before I went to wash the grave dirt from my hands.

And that was how my old life ended forever.

CHAPTER TEN

FLIGHT

My father’s recovery was agonizingly slow. In the first week that followed the burials, he was almost completely unresponsive to me. I went daily to his bedside, to speak to him and report what was going on, but he looked away from me. After several experiences of moving to try to meet his gaze and having him simply turn his head away, I gave up. I stood at the foot of his bed each morning and each evening and gave him a report of all I’d done, as well as presenting the problems that awaited me on the morrow.