I can already feel a blister festering on the back of my neck. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to prevent myself from touching it because I know it will only make the pain worse.
As they force me from the branding room to another chamber filled with newly initiated conscripts getting dressed in conscript livery, my skin starts to itch.
“Put it on,” a fellow conscript orders, tossing livery to me.
I join the procession of a dozen branded men stumbling and fumbling about as they attempt to get dressed in a timely manner. It becomes apparent that the pants I’ve been given have a broken string meant to serve as a belt. I look around to see if the other conscripts getting dressed are having a similar problem with their pants, but none seem to be.
I move backward to see about trading in my pants with the broken belt string, but I’m pushed by a Kalykan soldier.
“Out the door and into the pen,” he says. When I don’t immediately comply, he screams, “Now, scum!”
The building’s exit reveals a bustling war camp on the edge of the broken city. I recognize it now. It’s Candelaria, not more than a week’s ride from Mustang Prairie, right on the border recently smashed through by Kalyko. So, they brought us back to Ceneca. Why?
Arrayed around the crumpled walls are hundreds of white tents in perfect rows lining a lush green countryside. The disparity between the two worlds is arresting.
It feels as if we’ve slithered through a wrinkled, pitch-black hallway of pain only to be birthed into a mathematical, structured world of order. Yet there are cracks in the foundation as soldiers and conscripts move about in a stream of organized chaos amid the perfectly formed alleys between tents.
Our group of conscripts is not allowed to experience the war camp yet; the Kalykans usher us toward a circular fence meant to hold horses.
Mud cakes between my toes, and I remember the thief. He’s still around somewhere. I scan the faces of the poor souls trapped here and recognize that all have received the brand in the same place I did.
It is not enough that they steal our families and lands, but the Kalykans insist on stripping from us our most fundamental elements: our dignity, our freedom. And in exchange, they brand us as a permanent reminder of our woe, as if bearing this ache for Emily and Sarah were not enough grief to suffer.
Some men wear their gammadons on the backs of their necks like me. Others, on the backs of their hands. I wonder idly if there is a distinction before I go back to scanning the crowd for the boot thief.
As I search among the pathetic faces, more conscripts pour into the yard. Each addition pushes me toward the fence. Approximately a dozen conscripts stand outside the pen, eyeing us impatiently. These men are different. They wear the same garb we do but have been given a vest to wear over it. One of them, a rangy fellow wearing a beastly beard and a face full of scars, stares at me from behind an angry, festering gammadon on his right cheek. My gaze withers after only a moment. When a group of Kalykan soldiers with whips lying casually over their shoulders appears, I realize that my missing boots are the least of my problems.
I hear a shrill whistle, followed by the reign of silence.
The most rigid Kalykan soldier I’ve ever seen steps forward and begins to speak.
“There are two hundred eight of you sorry bastards joining this conscript battalion. You will be selected by a capa and drafted into their groups. From there, you will be assigned duties. Failure to complete these duties will result in your execution. Failure to abide by your capa’s commands will result in your execution. If you follow—”
“What kind of commands will these capas ask of us?” One of the conscripts on the outer edge of our crowded pen voices his query and instantly feels the lash of one of the Kalykan soldiers. He goes down, but the lashing soldier gives him an extra few strikes. Whether five or ten, I couldn’t say, but once the troublemaker curls into a ball and falls into silent sobs, the soldier pulls his last strike before returning to attention.
The recoil throughout the sea of conscripts is felt like a wave, and by the time the collective reaction reaches me, the Kalykan commander continues.
“As I was saying, if you hope to leave this camp and this war, you will have to prove your worth. First, to your capa,” he says, and waves his hand toward the conscripts outside of the pen, the ones with the vests. Sweeping his other hand toward the Kalykan soldiery, he continues, “Then to the guard lieutenant, then to myself, the guard captain. Prove you deserve to join our great nation, that you deserve to stand in the light of Atlee’s grace, and you may afford yourself the chance. Death or service to the republic: you decide. They’re all yours, Guard Lieutenant.”
The rigid Kalykan officer walks away just as another steps forward and clears his throat before addressing the assemblage.
“All right, you know the deal, Group One?”
A capa speaks up. “Twelve losses.”
The guard lieutenant notes it in his journal.
“Group Two?”
Another of the capas steps forward.
“Seventeen losses, sir.”
This practice goes on as about half a dozen gray-vested capas step up one by one to report casualties from some presumed prior conflict, with the lieutenant noting each in his ledger. His level of approval can be gleaned by the sound he makes: a grunt indicates that he’s satisfied, whereas an audible growl means he’s displeased.
“Group Eleven?”
A shrew-faced capa with pinched eyebrows and no chin hesitates before answering, “Twenty-six losses.”
For the first time since starting his count, the man with the journal looks up and scowls.
“It’s always you, Peter, you disgusting sack of shit. Next engagement, I’m putting you and yours in the worst position on the front line. Group Twelve?”
“Fourteen losses.”
“And Group Thirteen?”
“One loss.”
I can’t see the speaker from where I stand, but a murmur goes through the assembled Kalykans.
The lieutenant smiles and shakes his head in disbelief as he puts the last notation in his journal down. “Good work, Levi. A new best for your group. By my count …” he starts adding up the figures. “We’ve sustained two hundred sixteen losses in the last action. So we’re going to have a shortage. As always, Capas, your selection order will be based on merit. That means that Group Thirteen has first pick. Again. Levi?”
A handsome capa steps forward. His aquiline features and clear, pale skin are out of place among the sunken, dirty visages of the other men. He has the kind of face women fancy, with high cheekbones and a proud chin. But his eyes frighten me. There is something unnaturally cold about them. He seems to look at the men assembled in front of him and see straight through to their very souls. He sweeps past me and out of view, and after a few moments, I hear him say, “This one.”
The lieutenant nods and instructs the lead capa to take his next pick. Before he does, I see the boot thief leave the enclosure and join the handsome capa’s side.
He’s not at all what I expected, the thief. His lengthy black hair slants sideways over his face, and he has an expression that suggests a smile is always around the corner. He must have seen some hardship in his life as two very large, crooked scars create unnatural canyons between his eyebrow and his cheekbone. My Swanson’s still dangle from their laces on his shoulder.
A primal part of me wants to tackle the man and demand my boots back, but my sanity hasn’t left me yet. Sarah always says I have trouble letting go, but I’m not ready to court death over a pair of boots, even if I crafted them myself.
Instead, the drafting continues, and I do my best to put the stolen footwear out of my mind. I expected the process to take hours, but after a few minutes, while the capa of Group Four was dawdling, the lieutenant grew impatient and assigned the rest of the conscripts to their groups. Things moved at a quick pace after that, until only eighteen men remained. Taking stock of my peers, I realized that the lieutenant very deliberately chose the conscripts he placed in other groups.
All that remains for the capa of Group Eleven are the elderly, the beaten, and the incredibly pathetic, such as me. I know I should take it as an insult, but I can’t blame them. I can still feel the dried, crusted blood in my hair from the beating I received during my separation from my family. I don’t even have any boots. I must seem like the worst choice. Yet I find hope in the form of Caleb, who stands at my side, unchosen because of his age.
The capa of Group Eleven introduces himself as Peter and leads us toward the massive war camp. The moment I take a step to follow, my pants begin to fall, and I adopt a waddle where I grab at my broken belt with one hand and widen my stance to keep the trousers from falling.
We pass soldiers placing clothes on clotheslines and ringing out wet shirts into a small metal tub.
“Most of the jobs they have us do around camp are the ones the Kalykans don’t want to do themselves,” says Peter.
We walk through the alleys between the tents and see a group of soldiers huddled around a fire. One pokes it with a stick, keeping it going. A pair of them have a kess board splayed out in the mud as they arrange the pieces to start a new game.
“Since I’ve been here, they’ve had Group Eleven dig graves, shovel shit, carry weapons, dig trenches, and march. They always fucking make us march.”
I’m having trouble keeping up, and I try to turn my waddle into a jog. My feet are beginning to ache. We pass a makeshift mess hall where Kalykan soldiers stand crunched together, waiting for food. They eat from little cups, and some barter their food for other condiments.
“They don’t feed us much. So if you don’t do well with an empty stomach, I suggest you just let the reavers take you.”
Reavers? I thought they were all extinct, a myth used to frighten Cenecan children, evil men who could jump through walls and lift a cow overhead with their impossible strength. We were told they would kidnap us if we didn’t behave properly and that they’d take us to the graveyard and eat our eyeballs.
I’m not paying attention and run into the conscript in front of me. I’m expecting to be pushed by the man, but to my surprise, he’s frozen in place. I then realize that this section of the camp has grown quiet.
Clink … Clink … Clink …
The sound of spurs.
A man with a gray trench coat and coal-black gloves carves his way through the crowd. His uniform bears a near-exact resemblance to that of the horsewoman I saw before my family was taken. Conscripts and soldiers alike part at his approach. His left hand clutches a rife, while the right holds the reins of a chestnut mare who follows dutifully behind. His presence sucks the life out of everyone he passes, and only when he is a safe distance away does that life bleed back into the crowd.
Conversations gradually spark back up. A soldier goes back to handing out missives and yelling names. Before Peter starts back up, I ask, “Who was that? A reaver?”
For the first time since I started following the capa, he acknowledges me, but it isn’t with a look of comradeship. It’s a look of disapproval. He doesn’t deign to answer my question.
“What happened to your shoes?”
I look down and see that standing still has caused my feet to sink into the mud. It takes extra effort to pry them from the muck. After I do, the now-wet pants fall even more readily to the ground. I struggle to hold them up.
“A man stole them,” I answer.
Peter shakes his head.
“We might have an extra pair back at the tent.” He starts walking again, and I try to keep up. “But if not, your best bet is to take a pair from the dead.”
“The dead …” I begin, but he doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care.
“Whatever you do, never take from the dead Kalykans. Only take from enemies. Got it?”
He looks back to me to make sure his point was received, and I nod my head. We walk for ten more minutes before we reach the back of the war camp. A foul stench overtakes my senses, digging deep into my sinuses.
“Welcome.” Peter nods ahead to a ragged tent. “To your new home, Group Eleven.”
The large white military tent is triangular, with large wooden poles set vertically at its front, middle, and back, acting as a divider and support for the canvas. A few conscripts stand around two large water barrels placed at the corners of the tent. One of them dunks his head in, and an audible gulp can be heard as he quenches his thirst. I risk a look inside and notice a few men sleeping on mats that may have been made of cloth once.
A Kalykan soldier appears from behind our tent, fumbling with his belt. He calls to Peter, “I left you and yours a nice surprise. Be a dear and clean it up.”
“We’ll get right on that,” Peter calls back with a pleasant tone. Then, when the soldier is out of earshot, he mutters, “Sisterfucker”
One of the conscripts by the water barrel is counting us. When he finishes, he aggressively approaches Peter, saying, “A full group is twenty-five, but we’ve got just eighteen.”
“They had a shortage,” Peter digs in. “Did the best I could, Greg. Besides, Hoods has it in for us.”
The conscript looks us over more intently I notice his gammadon isn’t on his neck, like ours, but on the back of his hand.
“Us? He has it out for us? No, he has it out for you, Peter. He has ever since he caught you sneaking rations.” He emphasizes this by pointing at Peter’s chest before snaping his gaze back to me. “Look at this. This one has no shoes and a messed-up face. And this one …” He points to Caleb. “Well, this poor bastard looks like he’ll keel over and die at any moment. What the hell were you thinking when you chose?”
“What choice do you think I had?” Peter clenches his jaw and takes a step toward the dissenter. “I don’t like your tone, Greg. Lest you forget, I’m the one in charge, and even if Hoods hates me, he’ll let me punish you as I see fit.”
Both men are a finger’s width from each other and are moments away from coming to blows when the loud concussive beat of drums rings the ears. I expect Peter to speak first, but it’s his subordinate that does. “Hear that, Peter? You just got us all killed.”