Page 8 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

“Why did the sabbers want us?” She aimed her question in the soldiers’ direction.

“Why do the dog-men want anything?” Jons’s voice came out of the night. “We’re driving them back. That’s what matters.”

Malar snorted.

“That’s what the criers say.” Jons sounded defensive.

“The criers didn’t even report it when sabbers got over the walls last month. We both know it happened. We saw the bodies,” Malar said. “Anyone with half a brain who’s ridden out knows they’re massing. And if we’re not losing now, we’re going to be in ten years. They breed faster than we do and there were more of them to start with. Plus, they keep coming from the east. It’s more of a tide than a migration.”

“They’re animals,” Jons snarled.

“Aren’t we all?” Malar sounded sleepy, and silence followed.

Livira lay down between Neera and Katrin, both of them too exhausted for questions. Tired as she was, she thought that she would fall asleep in moments, but thirst tortured her for an age and when dawn rolled over her she was sure she had only just begun to dream.

—

In the daylight, Livira could see the mountain clearly, the first and seemingly the largest in a series of peaks that burst from the plain without the preamble of foothills. The city scaled the lower slopes like a wave washing up as far as its momentum would carry it. A great curtain wall sealed the city into its valley, bordered by two of the mountain’s vast roots.

There was no breakfast or even breakthirst: the water had gone. Malar had spent much of the night muttering and shivering beneath his blanket, but his fever seemed to have broken and the black crusts over his wounds looked healthy if ugly. He got the children up, urging the weakest to their feet with curses and threats, then led off.

Three roads cut across the scrub, all aimed at the city gates, one from the north, one from the south, and the smallest trailing east. Malar led them to join this trail. Livira saw her first cart, creaking up behind them to overtake the shambling children. She’d heard of carts, of course, but the settlers carried their beans and their corn to the trade meet in sacks hefted onto sweating backs. Seeing so many fat sacks heaped on the cart and pulled so easily by one small horse amazed her.

“How many people have you killed?” Livira hadn’t known she was going to ask the question until it popped out of her mouth. She flinched, expecting to be slapped, as Malar’s head snapped round to fix her with a dark glare. But instead, he returned his gaze to the way ahead, answering only after a pause long enough to make her think she would be ignored again.

“Lots.”

“You must be very brave.” Neera spoke timidly from his other side. “Fighting a sabber like that.”

Malar answered but it seemed to Livira that he wasn’t really talking to either of them. “There’s nothing brave in committing to a fight—you just need to understand that there’s a scarier outcome waiting for you if you don’t. Hesitation’s the killer. They try to train hesitation out of you, but most people have it in their bones. Only thing that makes me different is: I see—I do. It’s not a matter of heart and soul.”

“Why aren’t you in charge?” Livira asked. “If you’re so good at killing people? Why aren’t you the captain?”

Jons snorted from behind them. “Captain Malar!”

“Leading’s a different game,” Malar growled to himself. “A good leader’s worth ten good killers. Not that our captain’s good at either. Got the job on his father’s coin. But killing’s cheap, girl. Today’s bows make it a game of chance. And they say they’re working on new stuff in the city. Fiery death you can hold in your hand and throw leaving a dozen dead. Bows without strings—just point at someone and... zip... they’re dead. Times are changing and I’m getting old.”

“Something new every time we come back,” Jons said. “My father says he hardly recognises the place from when he was a child.”

The way thickened as it went. As if carts and wagons joined it from all angles until, together, they made such a flow as to clear the stones and carve a single great rut. Livira saw wagons ahead, and more traffic in the distance on the north and south roads, heading in both directions. No homes though, no settler shacks, nothing but the vast stone wall and the distant rooftops clothing the slopes.

With several miles left to reach the gates, Acmar, carrying Gevin again, collapsed under the boy’s weight. With a curse Malar strode over and yanked the small child from the dust, setting him beside Henton’s body on the soldier’s horse.

“Fucked if I’m leaving the sabbers anything to eat. Don’t fall off!”

Half a mile later Benth sank to his knees, dropping little Breta to the ground before him. Malar offered the same excuse as before, only with even less grace, and set the girl on his horse. With a mile to go there were two more of the little ones behind her.

The traffic was building now, the rumble of wheels both before and behind them.

“What’s going to happen to us here?” Livira’s tongue was so dry it felt stiff.

“You’ll be allocated.”

“Wh—”

But Malar saved her the struggle of asking what that meant. “You’ll be allocated tasks within the city and in return you’ll be fed, watered, housed, and protected.” He glanced back at her, frowning. “Don’t get too excited though—dust-rats get the shit jobs.”

Livira trudged on for a while, mulling over what might constitute a shit job. A new thought occurred to her.

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