Shai was still dizzy from the blow to the head, and he was beginning to get truly hungry. Soldiers walked in groups of four, several always in view. Hard to sneak off into the forest cover with them so watchful. Anyway, if he let the girl go in order to save himself, she’d be killed.

“What’s your name?” he whispered.

After a long time, she said, “Yudit.” Nothing more.

They walked.

Rain washed through. Yudit stumbled more frequently. The path crossed a stream at a ford. The captives fell to their knees to scoop water in cupped palms. The soldiers led the horses upstream, muddying the water where the captives drank. Was it thoughtlessness, or cruelty?

He helped the girl kneel. She leaned on one arm, spilling more than got down.

“Slow down.” Shai sucked water, savoring its cold bite. Then he cupped his hands so she could lie down and drink what he tipped into her mouth.

Vali knelt beside them, gaze darting along the bank, up into the trees, always seeking, never still. The ghost fluttered her hands helplessly as the boy she followed splashed into the water and flung himself into the current.

Roaring with anger, guards waded after him. They paddled; he dropped beneath the surface where the current streamed close against a high bank on the opposite shore. His hair floated atop the water, marking his position, and then he and his pursuers vanished around a bend. The ghost chased along the bank in their wake. Shai kept drinking, not sure when they’d be allowed to drink again.

“Drink more,” he said to the girl.

“I can’t walk.” She rubbed at her grimy thighs. A runnel of blood had dried at one knee.

The soldiers came splashing back through the shallows, dragging the boy, who sobbed and struggled. They threw him on the stones and began beating him methodically with the hafts of spears as he tried to protect his head with upraised arms.

“Leave off!” The sergeant sauntered forward. “Find me stout sticks and big rocks.” He surveyed the huddled mass of captives, with their knees dripping and their chins damp. “You want to join us, be a soldier, you learn how to kill.” As soldiers brought him sticks he thrust them into the hands of the reluctant captives. “Just like the lords command us to do. Go on, then. Hit him as hard as you can. Aui! Don’t make me mad at you.”

He grabbed a boy and shoved him up to the prone youth, who was trying to crawl away, his face bloody and his look dazed. In Shai’s eyes, all movement slowed.

The lad holding the stick tapped the lad’s leg. The sergeant cuffed him so hard he reeled. “Hit. Or I’ll kill you for disobedience.”

Down the sticks came, one by one, some breaking over the body and others holding firm. The captives looked as dazed as if they were the ones being beaten, but they kept hitting and hitting and those who hesitated were struck until they, too, took a turn. Until the lad’s face was crushed in.