The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,161

the water she poured into two tin cups, adding mint leaves to make a tea. She had got some dried meat too that we dipped into the tea to soften it before we et it. I felt a lot better after that.

“Where did all this stuff come from?” I asked her. For it seemed like it had got to be magic.

From the packs on the drudge’s back, Ursala said, and also from inside the store spaces in the drudge itself. “The first drudges were made for soldiers to use when they were in battle. They could carry a lot of the soldiers’ kit for them, and also act as mobile barricades if the soldiers got into a fight.”

I never heard the word ‘soldier’ before, but I guessed from what Ursala said that they was people like the ones in our red tallies, that was raised up in past times to defend the village when reavers come against it. Even without the gun, a drudge would of been a marvellous thing for them to have.

It was a boon to us one other way right then, for Ursala told it to keep watch while we slept. Anyone who come by that way and looked like they might be of bad intent would wish they had gone another road. She said nobody could get into the tent anyway when the field was up, but this way they couldn’t mount an ambush neither. The drudge would see them from a great way off.

The thing that was like a blanket was also somewhat like a sack. We crawled inside it and slept holding tight onto each other for the warmth. I didn’t sleep deep though, and I waked a number of times – I can’t say how many – thinking I was back in the cave, behind the grating or struggling against the hand people as they grabbed hold of me to take me out and put me on the fire.

“Koli,” Ursala mumbled after one of these times, “if you can’t keep still I’m going to kick you out of the sleeping bag.”

I said I was sorry, then dozed off and done the same thing again. After that, I slept outside the blanket sack, but the fire-box had made the inside of the tent so warm I was not much less comfortable. It was only the nightmares that kept on breaking into my sleep, waking me ever and again with fresh starts and alarms.

There was one dream that was not about Senlas – or not altogether. I imagined I was in a dark, narrow place with no doors nor windows to it. I was not alone there, for there was children with me. I knowed without counting that there was six of them. They was crying and complaining there was no air for them to breathe.

Well, this is where you belong, isn’t it? I asked them. Who said you need to breathe?

That just made the children cry the harder, and some of them was clutching at me like they was suffocating. I come awake again with the feel of their small hands on my face and their sobs and struggling breath stuck in my ears. I was almost crying my own self from how the dream made me feel.

If the DreamSleeve had got itself charged up again, I would of asked Monono if I could have some music, that might have give my dreams a different colour. But the window stayed dark when I pushed the switch across, so I guess she was sleeping sounder than I was. And nobody could say she had not earned it.

53

The next morning, we drunk some more tea and et some oat porridge that was thickened with honey. Journeying with Ursala was like carrying your whole kitchen with you on the road as well as your bedroom and your lookout.

Ursala touched the tent walls and the door fell open of itself. We went outside into a day with a good, solid overcast that lifted up my spirits. I was still wearing the DreamSleeve’s sling on the outside of my shirt so it would get all the light that was going. I was impatient to talk with Monono again, and have her be with me.

I thought Ursala would fold up her tent and pack all her things back inside the drudge come morning, but she didn’t seem to be in no hurry to do it. First of all, she set herself to find out where we was. How she done