I dismounted and ran down through the fields. The fire seemed enormous. Close at hand, I could only see outlines and shadows, but on the far side, the hot light painted their faces and their clothes. They were barbarians, small hairy men in black uniforms, squatting near the fire. They had heated up some orange mash of vegetables in a metal pot and were eating out of metal cups. I was happy not to smell it close. But I could hear them talking, and I was amazed to realize I could understand what they were saying, though the accents were harsh and ugly, the verbs unfamiliar. There was no music in it, yet even so there was something more than words, for they shouted and laughed and seemed content. I saw that they were drinking. They were drunk. I crept closer. One said, “Even so, you shouldn’t have shot the bitch.”

“It tried to bite me.”

They were talking about the dogs, I thought, though it was hard to tell. I felt a strange thrill listening to their voices, watching their clumsy movements. They were so small, so ugly, with flat, hairy, intelligent faces, full of thoughts and knowledge. Dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair hanging down their backs, gathered at their necks in metal rings.

They finished their food, and they sat drinking, smoking cigarettes, talking about places I had never heard of, things I didn’t know. It made a kind of sense. One played the guitar in a way I had no words for. He said, “Let’s see if she will dance for us. I’d like to see her dance.”

“You let her be. You know what our orders are.”

“Our orders are to kill them as we find them. I could report you both for keeping her alive.”

One laughed: “That’s all right. She’s just a girl.”

“Yes, that’s right. She’s a meat-eating bitch. And an atheist. You leave her be.”

One laughed: “Admit it, you like her.”

I found it hard to understand who was talking. Yet even so it made a kind of sense. There was a fat, older man. He said: “Well maybe she does look more like a woman than some others. I don’t care.

She’s still built like a bear. She still stinks like dead bodies. She stinks like the bodies she eats.”

“I hear they are beautiful dancers,” said the one playing the guitar. He plucked out a series of low, peculiar notes. “I find her attractive,” he said.

There was much I didn’t understand. But I was fascinated. The older man rose to urinate outside the circle of light. He was a leader, perhaps. He stood facing me, his legs apart, staring outward blindly, and I thought I could puncture his fat stomach like a bag. The other man put down his guitar and got to his feet. Not far away, on the other side of the fire, they had tied their horses in a group. And they had a girl there, my sister, a prisoner. They had tied her hands in front of her, and the guitar man went and got her.