For the first time Johnis considered what growing up Horde might be like: eating wheat cakes instead of sago cakes, drinking strained but still muddy desert water as he saw several youngsters doing from ladles. Did the Horde kiss? Did they laugh? Did they roll on the floor with their children? Did they dance?

The answer to this last question came a moment later as they passed a larger house with its door open. Thumping drums beat out a chaotic rhythm to which a boy was writhing awkwardly. It wasn’t any dance that Johnis would be caught dead trying, but for all he knew he’d just seen someone celebrated for his dancing.

Johnis had been born to a mother who followed the traditions of the forests and worshipped Elyon, whom Teeleh, the god of these people, had sworn to destroy. But what if he’d been born to a Scab? Would he have raced through the huts with Karas, swinging straw swords? It was a deeply mysterious thought that left him confused as he bounced on the back of the cart.

And then the memory of his own descent into the disease flooded his mind, and he found some clarity. Their culture might be different only because of where they lived, but their worship of Teeleh and the terrible disease that gripped mind and body was death. He should know.

They passed a young child who wore no clothing, squatted on the side of the road, scratching his elbows where large sores bled. The boy lifted his eyes as the cart wobbled past, but then returned his attention to his cracking skin. He didn’t cry, perhaps because he was so used to the condition that crying would do nothing for him. But he surely still felt the pain. His whole body was gray and flaking.

A strange thing happened to Johnis then. He began to feel pity for these poor souls trapped in such a pathetic state of disease. They feared water because their minds had been twisted against it. Rather than slaughtering them, the Forest Guard might be more successful if it flooded the desert with lake water, forcing them all to bathe!

Of course, that was impossible. There were only seven lakes, and the Horde despised each one. So much so that they sacrificed thousands of warriors in their attempt to destroy the forests.

But why? Why couldn’t these diseased people leave the forests alone? Live and let live? The Guard never attacked the desert cities, so why should the Horde attack the forests?

“Off,” the driver ordered roughly.

Johnis turned around and saw the towering steeple topped with a winged serpent. Beneath, a large square building made of mud. The Horde temple. The Thrall, some called it.

Whoever designed that serpent has seen Shataiki, Johnis thought. Maybe Teeleh himself.