“Course you are.” He grabs my hair, forcing me to my knees, and I gasp, scrabbling for my knife.
There’s a shriek from the meadow. “Man down!” a male voice screams.
The lieutenant’s grip on my hair tightens momentarily and I whimper.
“He’s killed him!” the voice cries again. “The bastard’s killed him!”
“Stay there,” the lieutenant barks at me, forcing me down so my face is inches from the mud. “Stay,” he says again, and then my scalp tingles as he lets go, cold air rushing over it.
I don’t even pretend to obey. I’m back in the saddle in seconds, right foot not fully in the stirrup when the horse begins to run. Once I have my seat I look back over my shoulder to see no one is even looking at me; instead they’re crowding around something in the grass, something unmoving. Soldiers from all around run towards them, some dragging captives with them, terror on the faces of the refugees and, to my horror, something like elation on the soldiers’, their eyes wild, their lips pulled back in rictus grins. I look ahead to make sure the road is clear, then back again. In time to see the lieutenant drag his sword across the throat of one of the refugees.
I whip back around, my mouth open in a silent scream. We keep running.
It’s many miles before the horse and I begin to slow. My head is throbbing with pain and my neck aches from turning back and forth to make sure we’re not being followed. Every time I look back I see again the refugee murdered, the wildness in the soldiers’ faces. They were Tregellian soldiers. My people. People of logic and reason and decency. Not like Lormerians.
They treated the Lormerians as though they were animals. They’re here because they’re running for their lives. They’re people.
Pictures of the camp, the mercenaries, the roads empty of traders, the soldiers, flash through my mind… I didn’t expect this. Kirin didn’t say it was like this. Kirin is a lieutenant too.
Maybe he wasn’t really a refugee; maybe they were criminals, dangerous criminals, and the soldiers had no choice.
On your knees, Lormerian scum.
I remember the lost doll, the abandoned shoe. I remember the soldier’s wild eyes when he reached for my hair and forced me down. It’s not right.
I see no one else until we come up behind a small cart laden with sacks and children, and the little ones gaze solemnly at me as I approach. To my surprise, and if I’m truthful, relief, the two mules leading the cart are headed by a woman.
Before I can stop myself, I call out. “Do you have any water, good woman?”
She looks at me suspiciously. The children are wide-eyed, their tiny fat fingers gripping the side of the cart. Then she rummages beside her and pulls a skin out, shaking it before throwing it to me.
I forget to thank her, too intent on ripping the cork out and drinking. I drink until it’s empty, and it’s still not enough. I realize too late it may have been all she had.
I look over at her and she’s watching me, her expression guarded. “Thank you,” I say sheepishly, tossing it back to her, noting the way she holds it delicately between her thumb and forefinger before she drops it to the floor of the cart. “Where do you go?”
“Tressalyn.”
I’m disappointed, had half-hoped she was travelling to Tremayne so I might ride with her for a while.
“You?” she asks.
“Tremayne.”
“There’s a checkpoint, you know,” she says.
“Where?”
“At the end of the King’s Road, before the city gates. A checkpoint to be allowed admittance to Tremayne. Same at Tressalyn. Same at all the towns. Otherwise the refugees would overrun them.”
Overrun them? How many refugees are there? “Since when?” I ask.
“Since the Sleeping Prince stopped sleeping and started setting things on fire in Lormere, making them all want to come here. You’ll need papers to get past it. No refugees allowed. Without, you’ll have to go on to one of the camps, back east.”
“I was born in Tremayne,” I say. “I’m Tregellian.”
She looks me up and down, her eyes resting first on my loose trousers, then my shorn hair. “As long as you can prove it, you’ll be fine.”
There is a heavy moment where we both regard each other. Then she clicks the reins and the mules turn left for Tressalyn, as I steer my horse right towards Tremayne, and the checkpoint.