“Who is this?” the man asked without looking up.

The sergeant said, “We found him on the battlefield you sent us to search, lord. We killed an ordinand. There were others that eluded us. You know how spies plague us.”

The girl did not look up. The man did.

His was an unremarkable face, middle-aged and stout, not a man you would look at twice. He wore a cloak whose color Shai could not distinguish against the leaves. His hair was bound into a single long braid that fell almost to his waist, tied off around what Shai was sure was a finger bone.

Shai repressed a shudder as he regarded the cloaked man, awaiting the ugly verdict on his fate. He was afraid to die, but after all, what could he do about it now? Maybe he would use a few of the tricks Tohon had taught him, and at least take a few down before they slit his throat and punctured his belly.

Looking startled, the man dropped the girl’s unfinished braid. “You’re veiled to my sight. Yet you wear no cloak.”

“Eh?” Shai took a step back, into the prodding point of a spear. He eased forward off the pain.

The man cocked his head, as dogs did sometimes, trying to figure out a thing they could not comprehend. “He must be simpleminded, Sergeant. He’s got nothing in his head.”

“He’s an outlander.”

“That shouldn’t matter.” The clipped arrogance of the cloaked man’s tone made you want to answer. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Eh, eh,” said Shai, grunting to give himself time to think, cutting up his timing to make each word awkward. If they throw you rope, you’re damned if you don’t grab it. “Eh, ver. The master calls me Shai. I can chop wood.”

The men behind him chortled.

The cloaked man grasped the fraying end of the girl’s braid, although he seemed not to notice that she flinched. His attention shifted to her hair as suddenly as it had fixed on Shai before. “Best we take him to the lord commander, to explain this mystery. He should be easy to keep in line. We’ll move at dawn.”

They walked him back to camp, shoved him to the darkest corner of the encampment where other soldiers stood guard over many captives.

“Try to escape, and we kill you,” said Twist congenially as Shai maneuvered among bodies huddled on the ground, not wanting to trip. There were at least thirty, and they were small.

They were children.

Most curled around others, sleeping or pretending to sleep. One boy watched as Shai found a patch of ground and sank down. He wrapped his arms around bent knees and laid his head against his legs, hoping he could doze, but sleep did not come. For a while it drizzled, and even though it was a warm rain, he shuddered. The mewling nagged on and on until, at length, a soldier kicked through.

“Shut up! Shut up! Who’s making that cursed sound?”