Oh, there’s plenty of food, more of it and better than anyone conscripted to the Savages has seen in weeks. The buttery scent of fresh rice is steaming into the canvas walls of the tent from giant bamboo bowls. Bitter melon and winegrass are both in season, and have been prepared in everything from luscious soups to cabbage cups, and mixed with cooked meat and roots. Spits with three hearty pigs skewered abreast are roasting over open flames in the kitchen. A new one makes its way to the feasting tables every few minutes, garnished with slices of fried taro.

It’s the best meal most of them will ever eat, because it’s the last meal most of them will ever eat.

That’s why this is no feast. To feast is to celebrate, and the Savages have nothing to celebrate. They have only a moment, one in which to revel in the comforts of the flesh and the illusory freedom those comforts deliver unto the mind. As far as any of them can know, this is the only moment they’ll ever have, and given a trough by the keepers of their pen they’ll choose to wallow until they wear themselves into oblivion.

Evie enters the makeshift tent hall on Spud-Bar’s flank. Their caravan arrived in camp only a few hours before, at which point Laython relayed the bad news: The Sicclunan army was massing less than three miles away, and in the morning when the Skrain arrived they’d all meet in battle.

Three seconds after walking in Evie ducks to avoid the arc of a knife spinning through the air. She hears the dull protest of wood stuck by steel and looks to see the blade of the knife buried in a crudely fashioned target nailed to an equally crude stake. There’s half a piece of taro clinging to the exposed edge of the blade, and Evie realizes she isn’t the only one who was forced to dodge the knife; an emaciated young man with a stringy beard stands up in front of the target, wiping remnants of taro from his forehead where the intact root was perched before the knife struck it.

The scraggly kid laughs, as does the woman who threw the knife. Evie looks over to see her standing with a group of blade-wielding Savages waiting their turn to throw.

Evie scowls, but before she can say anything Spud-Bar grips her lightly by the forearm and drags her along, leading her toward the center of the tent where rows of feasting tables have been arranged.

“Point your toes down,” Spud-Bar advises her. “The Revel don’t kill near as many as the battle, but it takes its share.”

Evie nods, though in truth she’s barely listening. Her senses are overwhelmed in that moment.