9
Early the next morning, Megs hiked alone to the barrow north of her former campsite. The stench of death radiated from the tunnel entrance. It made her eyes water. She tied a rag over her nose and mouth, steeled herself, and entered.
The passage of time made her task easier. Her people’s bodies were so damaged by scavengers and decay that it was hard to distinguish between one corpse and another. She dragged them out one by one – or what was left of them. Here she could pick out Grent’s boot, because she recognized the gash he’d ripped in the leather during a hunting expedition, and there she could pick out Edwin, a boy of thirteen who’d arrived in her camp without his left hand. But most of the bodies were unrecognizable.
Which was a mercy.
She told herself they were just carcasses now, almost no different from the tree martens and rabbits Linna brought back to camp each day to feed them.
The creatures of the forest had long nourished Megs’s people; now her people’s bodies nourished the forest in turn. It seemed only fair. And it was a better fate than slavery in a mountain man encampment.
These were the thoughts that anesthetized Megs to the agony of her task.
It took Megs past midday to dig a pit wide enough and deep enough for what remained of her fallen compatriots. She’d found a shovel in the rubble of her former camp, which made things easier, but her still-healing injury ached as she worked. She ignored the pain.
For hours, she ignored everything except the relentless rhythm of digging.
By the time she piled a layer of rocks on top of the mass grave, the forest had taken on the golden glow of late afternoon. Numb, Megs stared at the rocks, placed so ironically close to the ancient burial site of the tribesmen. She leaned against the shovel, trying to think of a prayer that would be appropriate, or some traditional words of comfort. But there was no one here to comfort except herself, and she did not have time for comfort; there were more bodies in the camp still left to bury. Perhaps if she hurried, she could bury the last of the dead before full nightfall.
Somewhere beneath that pile of stones was what remained of Azza. Megs hadn’t been able to identify Azza’s body with perfect certainty. She’d found a few female corpses that were about the right size and shape, so she assumed one of them had been Azza, but she couldn’t say for sure.
I have a sick feeling about this, Megs. A sick, sick feeling.
“I should have listened to you, my love. I wish I had,” Megs told the rocks. She thought the tears would come then, breaking through her numb exhaustion at last, but they didn’t. So she turned away, hoping she would never see this place again.
The job at the campsite was indeed far smaller. She knew Rom by the place where he had fallen and the hunting knife she’d used to give him a quick death, and she knew Aldusa by the eye patch that lay nearby, uneaten by the scavengers, but none of the two dozen or so other bodies were recognizable in the least. At points, she wasn’t even certain if she was burying her own people or the mountain men who had perished alongside them.
What if it never ends? What if we fight them and they fight us until we’reall dead and there’s no one left to fight? The only ones left in our fields will be the crows.
Megs didn’t want to hear Azza’s words echoing inside her chest. She tried to push them away as she dug, but they kept coming anyway.
You claim you fight for our protection. But are you sure? Are you sure you don’t just fight for vengeance like the rest of them?
“It wasn’t about vengeance, Azza,” Megs muttered as she dug. “It wasn’t.”
Are you sure?
“It was about giving people a refuge. About giving them hope.”
Yet perhaps all she had done in saving others and building a home for them was to delay the inevitable death they would face at the hands of the mountain men.
Perhaps the Emperor had been right to give up most of the East to the tribesmen. Perhaps fighting them had been futile all along.
#
Megs didn’t make it back to the makeshift camp she shared with Linna before the sun went down. She navigated the last half-mile almost completely in the dark, only spotting the light of the campfire when she was nearly upon it.
The moment Megs stepped into the light, Linna drew her dagger and cocked her arm to throw.
Megs threw up her hands in defense. “It’s me, it’s only me!”
Linna let out a breath and re-sheathed her dagger, muttering something in Terintan that Megs could only assume was a curse. “Gods, Megs. I thought you were a mountain man. You should announce yourself before sneaking up like that.”
“I would’ve. But you hid the camp too well.”
Linna grinned. “I suppose that’s a good problem to have.” Her smile fell away. “Did you finish?”
Megs nodded and dropped onto one of the rocks they used as seats, lifting her hands to warm them before the fire. Her whole body ached from the day of exertion, the injury in her side most of all.
Linna seemed to know this intuitively. She set down the small cook pot she’d been using and dropped to a knee before Megs, looking not at her face, but at the place where the bandages wound beneath Megs’s tunic.
“How is it? Please tell me you didn’t split your side open.” Linna tugged the bottom of Megs’s tunic out from beneath the belt, then lifted it gingerly.
Under normal circumstances, Megs would have resisted Linna fussing over her like this, like she was still an invalid on death’s door and not most-of-the-way healed. But she was too tired to push Linna’s hands away. Too tired even to open her mouth to protest.
Linna sucked in a breath between clenched teeth, probing the tender pink scar with cool fingertips.
“You’re all inflamed, Megs,” Linna said. “And I ran out of salve a few days ago. I would’ve made more, but I didn’t expect you to go pushing yourself so hard.”
“I’m fine.”
“But it has to be hurting you.”
“I said I’m fine.”
The words came out sharper than Megs intended. She shouldn’t speak like that to Linna. After all, Linna had done far more than make a salve for Megs; she’d saved her life, tending to Megs for weeks after initially saying she wouldn’t stay in the area longer than a single night.
“I’m sorry,” Megs said. She sighed. “I’m just tired.”
“I know. It’s alright. I can only imagine how hard …” Linna trailed off, a troubled expression crossing her face. She stepped around the fire and sat back down on the log she’d been perched on when Megs arrived. “At least we know you’ve gained your strength back.”
Megs nodded and attempted a smile. “Which means you can finally move on in your journey, now that you don’t have to take care of me anymore.”
“Yes. I suppose I can.” But her face was still troubled. “Megs?”
“Yes?”
“What are you going to do now?”
Megs shrugged. “Find another gang, I suppose. Kill more mountain men.”
She said it even knowing how futile it sounded. Emptying the sea with a thimble, as her mother used to say.
“Come with me,” Linna said suddenly. “I could use someone I trust at my side.”
“You haven’t even told me where you’re going.”
Linna hesitated. “I’m looking for the Kingdom of Persopos.”
“What’s that? Where is that?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Linna admitted. Megs wasn’t sure if she was answering the first question or the second. “I saw it on a map in the palace, so I know roughly where it is. But I don’t care how long I have to look for it. Not if it takes me years. It’s where the Commander and the Empress are being held.”
“And you know this because…?”
“Because that’s what the Commander told your brother – well, and me, eventually – in his dreams.”
Wordlessly, Megs took off her sword belt and laid it beside her bedroll. She could feel Linna’s eyes on her, waiting for an answer, or another question, maybe, but Megs didn’t have anything to say. The truth was she didn’t know what she wanted to do next. She didn’t know if she even wanted to be anymore. With all her people gone, with Azza gone – with it all being her fault – maybe it was time to end her personal War in the East. Permanently. Maybe it was time to welcome the sweet sleep of oblivion, to find out if Mother Moon really did stand guard over a land of unending peace and harmony. If she did, maybe she would find her people already there, waiting for her, ready to forgive her. Maybe Milton would be there, or Rom, or Zandra. Or any one of the dozens of other loved ones she’d lost over the past eight years.
Megs stretched on on the bedroll next to her weapons, pointing her back to the fire – and therefore to Linna, who sat on its other side. “I’m tired, Linna. It’s been a long day, and I’m not capable of making any decisions right now.”
“Of course.” There was a pause, and though Linna’s face was only a shadowy silhouette from this angle, Megs had come to know the girl well enough to guess that she wanted to say something more. “Now that you’re better, though, I want to move on within a day or two. I didn’t expect to be in the Sunrise Mountains this long, and I worry that the longer I wait, the less likely it will be that I find the Commander and the Empress still whole.”
“I understand,” Megs said instead. She felt a pang of sorrow to know that she would probably never see Linna again. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for what you did for me.”
“Repay me by coming with me.”
The statement hung in the air between them, floating like an ember above the campfire.
“Or perhaps this is simply where our road forks,” Linna said when Megs did not reply.
“Perhaps,” Megs agreed. “Goodnight, Linna.”
“Sleep well, my friend. May Mother Eirenna greet you in the morning.”
“Yeah … may she … you, too,” Megs answered awkwardly, and closed her eyes.