March sighed. “Look, there are rabbit holes all round here. How about . . . I show you what to do, and you do it? I won’t touch your knife.”
Sam nodded. “Sixes.”
“Sixes? What’s that mean?”
Sam looked confused. “Sixes! Agreed. Deal. Six of one. Sixes.”
“Oh, right.”
March showed Sam how to get a length of a branch, cut it, and strip it down to make a flexible piece that could be fashioned into a loop to catch a rabbit. Sam was a quick learner and worked well with his hands, but he never let March close to the knife, always tucking it back in his trou-sers when he wasn’t using it.
After they’d set the traps, Sam asked, “You’re not Brig-antine, are you? Where you from?”
“I’m Abask by birth. Traveled quite a bit, trying my luck here now.” March quickly changed the subject from himself, asking, “And you, where are you from?”
“Blackton. Tiny village in the north by the sea.”
“So how come you’re here?”
“My master couldn’t pay me, couldn’t even feed me. I ran away.”
“Did you steal his clothes?” March smiled, looking at the oversized trousers and boots.
Sam’s face went stiff. “I’m no thief. They’re mine.”
March nodded. “Did your master give you the black eye then?”
“Do you ever stop asking questions?”
It was clear that Sam had been in a fight of some sort and those were not his normal clothes. But March didn’t press further. They both had stories they didn’t want to share. “So you’ve run away from the north all this way. Where are you headed? Calidor?”
“Calidor! They’re our enemy. Why would I go there?”
“Work. Money. Food. It’s the land of milk and honey, after all.”
Sam shook his head. “Not for much longer, they say. Anyway, I’m joining the army. That’s the place to be.” He smiled. “Work, money, food to be had there.”
“And war and fighting.” March thought back to Rossarb. “And death and destruction.”
“Not for the winners. The winners aren’t destroyed.”
March looked Sam up and down. He was a child. He shouldn’t be in the army. “You’re a winner, are you?”
Sam shrugged. “I can hold my own.”
March didn’t mention the black eye. “How can you join the army? Don’t you have to be an apprentice to a lord or something first?”
“Not for the boys’ brigades. You just have to be loyal to the king, and young enough.”
“Really?” March’s interest piqued. Was this the boy army Edyon had to warn his father about?
“They’re the best. They say that they’ve got special powers, special strength. They live forever.”
It had to be the boy army, fueled by demon smoke. “Hmm. I’m not so sure about the living-forever bit, but I do believe they have special strength.”
Sam’s face lit up. “You heard that too? Some say it’s the work of demons, but I don’t care how it works as long as I get strong enough to fight anyone I like.”
“It’s true. If you inhale the purple demon smoke, you get strong for a short while. It heals wounds quickly too.”
Sam laughed and slapped his thigh. “Yes! It’s true. It’s true. We’ll be indestructible.”
“You’ll still have to destroy other people,” March re-minded him.
Sam pulled his shoulders back. “People get what they de-serve. The enemies of Brigant need to be shown who’s boss.”
“Women and children too? Babies? Old people?”
“I’m not going to fight them! They’re not in the army. But”—Sam shrugged—“if you’re on the wrong side, you suffer.”
March nodded as he thought of his family and all the Abask people. “That’s certainly true.”
They sat quietly for a while and then Sam said, “I’ve seen eyes like yours before. In the north. The Abask slaves working in the mines have silver eyes too.”
“Uh-huh.”
“My master dealt with the mine owners, buying and selling tin.” Sam poked at the ground with his finger. “Is that where you’re from? When you said you traveled around a bit, do you mean you escaped?”
March shook his head. “No. I wasn’t a slave of the Brig-antines. I was a servant in Calidor. But a servant is pretty much a slave.”
“You don’t need to tell me. So how come you left Calidor if it’s the land of milk and honey?”
March shrugged. “Like you, Sam, I’d had enough of be-ing a servant.”
“So you’re going to join the boy army too?”
March had no plans for what he’d do next, but it seemed that whatever he