of straw that looked as if it had been much played with. The people who lived here not been long gone, but were never coming back.
He went to the fire, picked out an ember glowing red hot, cupped it in a bit of hide and brought it to a wall. He knelt down and teased out dry straw from the wall, set the ember down, and began to breathe on it delicately.
‘Generations old,’ he whispered to the house. ‘Parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. This very morning a family woke here, thinking it was just another day.’ The straw had caught; flames licked, and he stepped back. ‘And now it’s over.’
‘And that pleases you.’
He turned.
Zesi stood by the door flap, silhouetted against the daylight. ‘The ability to destroy, on a whim. To kill, or not to kill. The most fundamental power of all. And you don’t even have to lift a finger to wield it. Feels good, doesn’t it?’
And it did, though Shade sometimes felt uneasy to admit it. What did that say about him, about the state of his own spirit? Not for the first time he wished he had a decent priest to talk this over with. Maybe he ought to do something about getting Resin off the poppy.
Smoke was already gathering in the house, so Shade followed Zesi outside, where Bark waited. Then he watched with thoughtful interest as the fire ate up the reed cover of the house, leaving only a skeleton of posts, lit up by the flames. Then the oak, too, began to burn.
He was aware of the captive islanders sitting in their loops of rope, watching apathetically.
He turned, looking around at the island, the shining water that spread around this place, the drifting boats, the banks of gravel and mud. This soggy place, in the north of Albia, was rich and populous, comparatively, and peaceful. Now its human story was over. But some of the birds were coming back, to swim on the water and to plunge for food. The birds always came back, he had observed, as soon as the human fuss was over - and the other birds, the buzzards that enjoyed human flesh, and had, he suspected, learned to follow the Pretani around.
‘What a disgusting place,’ Bark said, wrinkling his fleshy nose. ‘Water. Mud. Watery mud and muddy water. Fish and eels, and not a dry scrap of land or a decent tree anywhere.’
‘Much of Northland is like this,’ Zesi murmured.
‘Well, there you are. The fight went well.’
‘I could see that,’ Shade said.
‘The Leafy Boys did their job. I sometimes wonder if they’re worth all the trouble. But they cost nothing to feed and they deliver a mighty shock, especially in those first few moments of the attack.’
Shade eyed the captives. Healthy adults and older children were the prize, the point of these raids. Workers and hunters. There seemed pathetically few of them as a reward for all the destruction and lost life. ‘Let’s get on with the breaking. Pick out the biggest man. You know the routine.’
Bark grumbled as he went over to the captives, ‘Since I worked it out, yes, I know the routine. You.’ He made the chosen man stand, bound his hands tighter, and brought him before Shade.
The man was tall, strong-looking, maybe twenty, twenty-one. He was bare to the waist, and had a tattoo of the kind these people seemed to favour, an eel wrapped around his thigh. He looked at Zesi and Shade with a spark of defiance.
Zesi brought over heaps of purloined hide. She set these on the ground, and she and Shade sat, sharing a water skin.
‘Kneel.’ Bark repeated the word in the traders’ tongue. When the man did not comply Bark slammed his spear shaft into the back of the man’s knees, forcing him into a kneel, grunting with pain.
The islander lifted his head, and said something in his own tongue.