Page 61 of The Gilded Ones

She shrugs. “They’re takin’ trophies. Acalan says he wants the quills. To give as gifts.”

The thought fills me with such disgust, I retch against the pallet Britta’s made for me. I’m suddenly forcibly reminded of the elders, buckets in hand as they bled me.

Britta crouches above me, feeling my forehead. “Ye all right?” she asks. “Ye don’t feel warm…”

I wipe my mouth, nodding. “I’m fine,” I croak. “Just a little bit tired still.”

As she nods suspiciously, I suddenly remember something.

“The girl,” I gasp. “Did anybody find her? The little girl in the forest.”

Britta frowns. “Wha are ye goin’ on about? Wha little girl?”

“The one running away after we killed the deathshrieks.”

Britta feels my forehead. “Sure yer all right, Deka? There weren’t any humans in the forest but us.”

“But—”

“We would’ve seen a little girl.”

I nod. “Perhaps I was hallucinating,” I say, uncertain now. “I was very tired last night. Perhaps it was the exhaustion.”

Britta shoots me another suspicious look.

I’m almost relieved when Keita walks over. Then I see he’s carrying what looks like a bloodied deathshriek pelt. I studiously avoid the sight of it as he smiles down at me. He seems at ease now, horribly so. He must be used to this, killing deathshrieks, taking trophies like the other recruits. Is this what he’s done since he was a child? The thought sends my stomach turning on itself.

“You’re awake,” he says, smiling. “Good to see you’re recovering.” He notices me watching the pelt. “The first one I killed last night,” he explains, his expression almost shy now. “I was going to go bury it. It’s a strange habit, I know, but it feels right, so—”

“Deka! We slaughtered them all, thanks to you.” Acalan walks up, a cheerful expression on his face. It takes me some moments before I realize what it is: bloodlust. “You’re truly the commander of deathshrieks,” he says with that awful look in his eyes.

“And we’re the Death Strikers,” Adwapa adds cheerfully, walking over. “Deka sends them like lambs to the slaughter—”

“And then we annihilate them!” Li finishes, grinning as he walks over, Kweku beside him. They’re all smiling down at me. It almost frightens me how happy they are. How at ease they seem.

And I made all this possible…

What have I done?

I bolt up, unable to bear any more of this conversation. “What’s happening now?” I say, nodding towards the cave.

“There are zerizards in there,” Adwapa answers. “They’re all corralled and everything.”

I frown. “Why would deathshrieks want zerizards?”

“They wouldn’t. Deathshrieks don’t corral animals.” This firm reply comes from Keita. He puts the deathshriek pelt down, turns towards the cave, then looks back down at me, a strange, hesitant look in his eye.

“What is it?” I ask, moving closer.

He clears his throat. “There are…people in there,” he finally says. As my heart clenches with thoughts of that little girl, he adds, “Their corpses, I mean. They’re only at the entrance, though.”

I nod, nausea rising as I understand what he’s trying to say. The deathshrieks had to find a place to put all those people they killed, after all. “I’ll be fine,” I rasp, striding ahead. “I’ve seen worse.” My own body parts, strewn across the floor…

Keita nods, following behind me.

It’s at least twenty degrees colder in the cave than it is outside, and a horrifyingly familiar smell muddles the air, metallic and raw. It comes from the corner of the entrance, where dark red splashes the ground and odd brown shapes are scattered haphazardly in the dirt.

Human body parts, just as Keita said.

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