grounders had come for her in the night. He had a vague memory of a disturbance, a rustling of leaves, a scream muffled by a hand over a mouth. He had just lain still, thankful that it was not him.
Another grounder came over with a hide sack and dumped out a pile of offal, twisting grey guts. Before the grounder had turned his back the Leafies fell on it. The offal was tough and tasteless and the stomach contents were acrid, but the Leafies fought and snarled over it like pigs, their small backsides in the air, their faces red with blood. Me used his weight and strength to shove little ones aside. He was not shy; if you didn’t fight you went hungry. Sometimes the grounders let their dogs go for the food, so you had to fight them off as well.
Me saw one small boy pushed out of the feeding group. This hungry little boy had been losing the fight for food for days, and was starting to look pale, scrawny. He pawed at his tether. The grounders wet the knot by pissing on it before tightening it, and when it dried out the rope contracted, making it impossible to pick apart even with a Leafy’s small clever fingers. If they saw the boy trying the grounders would knock out his teeth; he would live, but he’d starve.
When the food was gone, the Leafies got as far from each other as they could, and began to perform their pisses and shits. Me, squatting, was ferociously thirsty, but the grounders never brought water. The Leafies would have to find what they could for themselves in the course of the day. Some days, in fact, they were left tethered where they had been during the night and not moved at all, and Me would finish the day enraged by thirst.
But today, it seemed, was not going to be one of those days.
The grounders were already moving. One of them kicked dirt over the fire. The others lifted their hide cloaks over their shoulders, and picked up their spears, and tucked knives into their skins. They started shouting, laughing, throwing punches at each other. Me, with a shudder of dread, recognised their mood. It was going to be another day of running and fighting and killing, and the grounders were getting themselves ready.
One of the grounders came over to the Leafies. He slashed through their tethers, wrapped the ropes around his wrist, and snarled at the children until they moved.
The grounders formed up and set off across the clearing at a heavy jog. The Leafies, driven ahead, ran in the horror of the open air. If one of them stumbled the reward was a kick or a prod with a stabbing spear.
But as Me ran, as always, the cold of the night worked out of his bones and muscles, his legs pumping, the breath sliding into his lungs. Me was young and healthy. He would have enjoyed the run, if not for the sheer terror of the openness, and the uncertainty of what was to come.
Before the sun was much higher in the sky they came to a landscape that was even stranger to the Leafy Boys, a place where water glimmered everywhere, in streams and ponds choked with reeds, and shallow islands rose up, and there was scarcely a scrap of forest.
The grounders charged on, making for the bits of high ground, driving the Leafies on through mud and marsh and shallow open water. Soon Me’s bare legs were soaked, and clinging mud dragged at his feet. Huge flocks of birds rose up and flapped away, cawing their disapproval, and the air was full of noise and sprayed water. All the Leafies were terrified. But when he got the chance Me scooped up water, shook out the living things that swam in it, and sucked it down his dry throat.
One boy went down in a flooded gully, gurgling in terror. Me saw it was the little boy who hadn’t been able to fight for the food. The grounder holding the tethers had to stop and drag the boy’s scrawny body out of the murk, yelling with anger and impatience. But after a few paces the boy fell again. The handler hauled him up once more and shook him.
The boy spewed water from his mouth. He reached out to the grounder, like a baby reaching for its mother.
The handler thrust the boy into the water, driving down his neck with his