children are left alone as the warriors huddle and whisper to each other, the first real verbal communication any of them have witnessed among the strange clan. Several of them splinter off with knives and begin butchering the animal, and others walk off into the darkening forest for tinder. Most remain to watch the cages.
“What are they going to do to us?” Haylen whispers.
“I…” Jack’s throat catches—the thought of her question sends a new ripple of shivers down his spine. “I don’t know,” he finishes weakly.
From the vantage of this new arrangement, Jack can see more around him. He realizes for the first time that there are women along on the caravan, probably kept back at the tail end of the procession. They pick up the babies from their tiny baskets and begin nursing the ones that will feed, then bouncing and cooing the others to quiet their mewling. The women are pretty, not altogether dissimilar from the women he knew in his own small village.
He again courses his eye across the circular row of cages. There is a shrouded form bundled on the ground just outside the ring, containing the clan’s only casualty. Behind him is Lathan, a boy of five. His face is drawn back in a stellar rictus of shock. Jack tries to get his attention but the boy stares off in a daze. The children are all mangy and reeking of their own filth. They haven’t been let out of the cages once all day. They are starving. He can see the hunger in them and feel it in his own belly.
Five cages behind him he sees Lia. She is already looking straight at him, her big brown eyes still glossy and moist.
Are you hurt? she mouths, pointing to her temple on the identical spot where he feels a bruise throbbing on his own forehead.
He shakes his head. Are you?
No.
What she does next breaks Jack’s heart. She moves to the front of her cage, gripping the bars tightly, and just looks at him. Tears well up as he scoots forward and does the same. They stare at each other, simply and intensely, while the nightcalls of nocturnal creatures echo through the thick primeval woods, the last frail glimmers of sunset fading fast.
Several Nezra warriors materialize from the shadows carrying sticks and branches in their arms. In the center of the ring of cages they construct a smaller ring of stones and stack their kindling and branches there. One of them strikes a flint across a flat rod and in several moments the tinder catches a spark.
Jack holds Lia’s stare as the warm firelight oozes across their faces.
The campfire grows and the men come back with hunks of flesh skewered on sharp sticks and begin holding them over the flames. The smell is overpowering. The bucket is brought around again and they are allowed another drink.
The warriors and the several women they have brought along eat and drink in silence around the fire, while a halo of petrified faces look on with hungerlust. When they have eaten their fill they pass scraps and half-eaten bones through the slats of the cages. The children gnaw on them like wild animals, cleaning every last bit of meat and scraping at the marrow.
Settling in right next to the cages, the warriors lie down to sleep. The man carrying the back end of Jack’s cage throughout the day lies down facing him, letting his dreadful stare linger before his eyelids finally close and he falls asleep.
The next five days pass much the same as the first.
On the seventh morning, overwhelmed by fatigue and hunger, Jack is only remotely aware of the sensation of being lifted up and carried off. Sleep has been scant and tortured. He lies curled in a fetal position, the wooden bars digging into his sides, a prickly numbness spreading through his worn body. He stares in hopeless resignation as the beautiful panoramic vistas glaze by.
The terrain here is steep and the caravan cuts switchbacks through the scraggy brush as they climb the foothill. Their progress is slower today and the tired crew takes frequent breaks to unload their burdens and rest, panting and letting the slight breeze cool the sweat from their drenched bodies.
One of the men carrying Haylen’s pen loses his footing. There is a small cascade of dirt and rubble, followed by a dull thud as the cage hits the rocky upslope. Haylen lets out a startled screech, the first noise any of them have