not be possible for anyone else? You might be safe enough in Ku Kuei, but what makes you sure any of the rest of us will live?"
"Anything I learned, I learned in Schwartz. I was an ordinary boy when I went into Ku Kuei, and I came out weary but unchanged."
He sighed. "What are we going to do in Ku Kuei?"
"Survive." What other plans did he expect me to have?
The road veered north, and in the distance to the east we could see the trees of Ku Ruei begin. There was not so much as a path leading toward the forest-- it wasn't the usual direction for travelers to go. So I picked out what looked like a reasonably good route, and started overland.
The troops didn't follow.
Not that they said anything, or rebelled. The front ranks just sat there on their horses, watching me, not speaking, not moving.
Then Father left the road and came after me, his horse at a slow walk, and one or two others started, too. But while Father came on until he joined me, the others reined in and stopped a few meters from the road.
Father turned to face them. "I won't command any man to come," he said. "But that's where the Mueller's going, and all the Mueller's true men will come with him. Stay with me and you will live as long as I do."
I don't know whether Father's little speech would have been enough to persuade them by itself. Much more convincing was the flight of arrows that sailed toward our column. The aim was not good-- the distance was too great for accuracy. But the message was clear: the Nkumai had flanked us, and the entire length of our column would soon be exposed to enemy arrows.
Father cried out, "To me, Mueller!" and then whispered loudly to me, "Lead, dammit!" I took off at a totally unwise canter over broken ground; my horse and I were lucky, but others were not, and many horses spilled their riders before they reached the shelter of the woods.
The trees were tall, but the branches were often low, and it was hard to pick a clear path. I had to dismount, and that meant that our forces would also have to pause at the forest edge, exposing themselves to Nkumai archers as they waited for those ahead of them to move under the trees. We lost more than two hundred men there; but when I had led us two hours into the forest, the rearmost men called ahead that the Nkumai pursuit had withdrawn.
The urgency of flight was over, but we couldn't stop there. The trees were so dense that no decent forage for the horses could grow. I decided to lead the men on to the shores of the narrow lake where I had first stopped. There the trees broke into enough meadow to keep the horses for a few days, at least.
Our passage through the forest was silent. I didn't look behind me at the men-- it would have made them even more nervous to know how nervous I was about them. I kept waiting for our strength to fade while time seemed not to pass, as had happened to me before. This time, however, nothing was happening to our endurance, but the very silence of the forest despite the steady tramping of the horses' hooves and the soldiers' boots was unnerving. It was as if the sounds were swallowed up in the silence, a bit of ourselves stolen away by the trees and not reflected back to us.
We spent a hard night in the forest. The ground was soft enough, and there was plenty of food in the saddlepacks, but by morning hundreds of men had disappeared. Gone off into the night or turned away first thing in the morning, but gone. We knew they had merely deserted (and more than a few who had stayed were no doubt wishing they had gone, too), but the feeling that men could simply vanish in the night did little to promote calm.
We lived out of our saddlebags, and it took us more days than I thought possible until at last we found the lake. Hadn't I reached this place-- exhausted, yes-- but after only a single day of running? Sunlight poured down and birds skirted the edge of the water and the horses grazed openly on the meadow and I thought we had made it to safety. I counted the men. Fewer than a thousand.