warriors slip the metal rods through the crack between door and jamb and pop the wooden crosspieces up and out of the bar holders and burst through the doors.
Mayhem erupts. They kill first the men, then the women, and finally bind the children with rough, fibrous ropes and cast them out onto the dirt-packed ground. Most are murdered before they even wake up. The few that struggle are rheumy from sleep and alcohol and are subdued with little effort. The first slew of cabins is sacked in a matter of moments, screams piercing the night, terrified children wailing and struggling against their bindings. When the cabins are cleared, the scouts take torches and set the thatched roofs ablaze.
A few old men and women step outside, hearing the commotion, and look on dumbstruck at the carnage. The Nezra leap on them like panthers, cutting open their throats and dumping them on the ground, while others move to the cabins that are still closed and dark.
Jack stirs in his sleep, hearing his name, and thinks he is still dreaming. He rubs his eyes and sits up. Lia is calling his name. She is screaming.
He rolls off his thin mattress and moves to the front of his cabin, sliding the wooden bar up and cracking the door ajar. The village is on fire. There are his friends, wriggling on the ground, their wrists and ankles tied behind their backs. He starts to run out but stops—he sees the warriors and the violence they are performing, and his bladder lets go and his legs buckle and shudder uncontrollably. Olen hobbles out of his cabin, cursing and swinging a long heavy stick at one of the dark assailants. Two more come up from behind and unmercifully cut him down.
Jack slides the door shut, panicking at the realization that he is charged alone with defending his home. He leans down and grabs his bow, then reaches a trembling hand and pulls one long arrow from its satchel. Forcing himself to breath deeply, he calms his hand enough to pull the door back open and slide the arrow against the bow and draw the string back taut. He sees one of the warriors outside, walking toward him, face steady and full of wrath.
“Jack?” His mother is rousing herself from sleep.
His fear turns to unspecified redness and a bizarre calm overtakes him. He lets the arrow fly. It is a dead shot. His first kill.
The arrow pierces the warrior midchest, missing his ribs and striking directly into the meat of his heart. He falls to his knees, never breaking his gaze. Jack is momentarily hypnotized by the desperation in the dying man’s eyes, and he doesn’t hear the two warriors scaling along the outer wall of the cabin.
“Jack! Get in here!” Elora is screaming, moving around the partition.
A soot-blackened arm grabs Jack and wrenches him from the doorway and throws him down. Another warrior jabs his knee into his back, colliding his head with the hard dirt ground.
“Jack! Oh no no no, Jack!”
He sees the dark foot step over him and make for his cabin’s entrance. Motes of light swirl like pixie dust, his vision fades to black, and Jack’s fragile mind will record no more events from this night.
Chapter Two
Jack awakens in a cage. Thick, straight branches lashed together with ropes, two long poles extending from the top, which the warriors use to carry them, like demented pallbearers. His head is throbbing as he opens his eyes to slits and looks around, searching for his mother, for Lia. There are only children in the cages, at least from what he can see. He is situated near the middle of this morbid caravan, cages stretching out in a line to his front and rear, sounds of crying and screaming all around.
He peers through the wooden slats—off to the east the sun is rising, brilliant pink gossamer clouds spreading out in a herringbone across the azure sky. Billows of smoke from his still-burning village creep over the canopy of trees.
The soot that camouflaged these warriors in the nighttime makes them look strange and unearthly in the daylight, like demonic wraiths marching lockstep through some enchanted forest. When he turns to look at the man holding up the back of his cage, Jack finds him already staring through the rough wooden bars, his gaze cold and accusatory.
He trembles to hold back tears, but cannot—his cries join in with the rest of the chorus as they bounce along in their little