Now prisoners, the boys were taken down to the stream from which the camp drew its water. Untying their hands, the guards instructed them to bathe, watching them with javelins in hand. When they emerged, Arden was given new clothes, pants, hide moccasins and an oversized shirt of rough cloth. Then they were led across the camp to where the column of war prisoners waited.

  The camp itself was a hub of activity. Labourers scrambled around packing up the tents and pulling down the defenses. All around them energetic youths and experienced older men completed their assigned tasks, pausing but for a moment to glance at the two strangers who passed with hands bound. Arden could not help but feel their judging eyes boring into him. He wished he could stop and explain himself. Tell them of the long string of misfortune that had brought him here. Accuse them of the roll that their army had played in his downfall, and that of countless others whose lives had been caught in the gears of war.

  Reaching the column of prisoners, Arden lifted his eyes to look on them. There were six of them. These were the men of Quarryhold who had neither died nor been able to escape with the rest. Each was tall and sturdy looking. Dressed in their uniforms, they still held onto some part of the pride they had possessed as warriors the day before. Each had his hands tied before him, connected by a short leash to a long rope that ran down the center of the group. Two of them were clearly injured. Blood stained their clothes and they were supported by their comrades. All watched in silence as the two boys were led towards them, one guard taking rope and lashing them to the group.

  Nearby stood four legionaries, fully armed and carrying packs. One of them held a birchbark tablet and addressed the lead guard as they approached.

  “Honour on to you, Brother,” said the legionary. “Who are these you bring to me? Quarryhold Spies?”

  “No,” said the guard. “Not spies. One is Arden of the village Soullen, south of Warstraw country. He is sentenced to six months penal servitude at a collective farm for common theft, followed by lifetime membership in the collective.”

  “Excellent,” said the Legionary. “There are several farms not far from here that were devastated by Quarryhold incursion. There is much work to be done rebuilding and repopulating. We won’t have to take him far.”

  The guard continued. “The other is a local, Peter of the borderlands. He was the one we caught stealing from the funeral fires.”

  “Scum,” spat the legionary.

  “Yes,” said the guard. “The General, in his infinite mercy, has given him six years hard labour, followed by exile beyond the River of the First men. See that he finds himself far from here and does not get off easy. Drop him at a mine or at Abaddon Pit itself. Timber felling is too good for this grave-robbing swine.”

  The legionary nodded, marking down the names and sentences on his tablet. Saluting the guard, he turned to his companions. “Alright Brothers, I think that’s all of them. Let’s get underway. With luck we can make the way-station before nightfall.”

  The procession was a grim one. Two of the healthy prisoners were assigned to help the injured ones. The rest, Arden and Peter included, were given sacks tied together by short ropes which were slung over their shoulders. The prisoners were to carry their own food and supplies, as well as those of the injured men. The going was slow. The pace was set by the slowest and most injured man and made slower still by the confusion and difficulty added by the ropes and binds. From behind them the prisoners were urged on by the Legionaries, who walked at the rear of the column. “Faster!” they yelled if they perceived the pace to be slowing. “Silence!” if they heard so much as a whisper.

  Arden strained under his pack. He still had not eaten, nor had his nausea passed. He felt faint and dizzy, and kept bumping into Peter who was tied beside him. After only a few minutes the ruff cord draped over his neck from which the packs hung had begun to chafe him painfully. Within an hour he was in agony. And yet still the column pressed on. When they finally stopped for mid-day meal, Arden more collapsed than sat down. Trembling, he allowed the pack to be lifted from him by a guard, and accepted the meager ration of hard tack and salt-fish.

  His stomach had been pulled tight. But the second that the food touched his lips his hunter returned to him in full. Hardly taking the time to chew, Arden devoured all he was given. Around him the war prisoners sat in forlorn silence. Opening a water skin, one of the guards came around and gave them all a sip in turn. Arden was incredibly thirsty. He was certain that he was badly dehydrated and the slated fish had only made things worse. He wished that he could take the water-skin from the guard’s hand and drain its entire contents, or that he had drank from the river when he had been bathing. But the nausea had still gripped him then, and there was nothing for it now. He took his sip, savouring it, and soon the column was back underway.

  The road they followed was the same one along which the army under General Naberius had marched little more than a day ago. Like many modern highways, it sat atop the overgrown ruins of an ancient road established in the Age of Giants. For decades if not centuries, gravel from the original roadway had been salvaged and used to maintain the new road. They headed south, passing through ancient farmland, some of it painstakingly maintained and the rest now turned to pines. All around were the signs of conflict. Ashes and stone graves. Fields picked clean by passing armies and again by starving locals. Peasant’s huts and burrows left abandoned; their inhabitants turned into refugees. Arden felt for these people. Seeing their empty dwellings reminded him of his home – as it is and as it was. The same tragedy had befallen his own village not long ago. It was that which had left him an orphan on this earth. That which had set him on his present course. He walked in silence, lost in anger and regret.

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  Before dark they reached a transit hub. All day they had passed small groups of laborers, pulling carts and accompanied by Legionaries. This was the supply train of the Naberius army, stretching all the way back, perhaps as far as the River of the First Men and the heart of the Abaddon empire. Now they stood before a hastily constructed fortress. Made of walls of sharpened timber, it was here that those involved in the supply effort could rest for the night, safe from bandits, owls and other birds and beasts of prey.

  Passing through the gate, the prisoners were led to a cage made of twigs and tree fibers. They were unbound, and each rubbed his aching wrists as they were pushed unceremoniously inside. Once all the prisoner were in the cage, they were handed their rations and a water-skin in common and were left to divide it amongst themselves. This they did as the sun began to set and the camp barred the gate and began to settle in for the night.

  From what he could see, Arden counted perhaps as many as fifty persons, labourers and Legionaries crowded inside the small fort. He sat and watched them as the war-prisoners divided up the food, imagining how many camps like this there must be, and how many people it must take to supply the Generals army so far from their home. Such a tremendous effort on the part of so many, all to bring ruin and misery to the people of some far away place.

  “Here you are, my friend.”

  Arden looked up to find Peter standing over him holding two pieces of hard-tac and another scrap of salt-fish. Breaking the fish in half, Peter handed it to him. Across the cell, the Quarry holders were huddled in a group whispering amongst themselves.

  “The bastards,” said Peter, sitting down in the dirt beside Arden. “I’ll be damned if they ain’t gave us the smallest crackers. And look, only one piece of fish ta split. Not to mention they’re keepin’ the water-skin over there with them. Honestly, my friend, captivity is too good for them. They should be hung. The lot of em.”

  Arden blinked, looking from Peter to the Quarryholders and starting hungrily on his food. He chewed the bread with a dry mouth, struggling to swallow.

  Seeing this, Peter hopped to his feet. Crossing the cell, he made an elaborate bowing motion and gestured to the water skin. Glancing at him conspiratorially, one of the war-prisoners nodded and Peter took the skin in hand and made his way back to Arden.

  “Savages,” he muttered.

  The bag was almost empty and Arden drank greedily, carful not to spill a drop. He looked over at Peter again, conflicted as to whether he should curse him for getting them caught or thank him for the subsequent fraternity.

  “Ah, don’t look so glum, brother,” said Peter, leaning in close and speaking quietly. “Between you and me, your trek is prolly almost over. There’re lots of collective farms around here. That’s what the whole tiff was over. The Abaddon boys tried to collectivize the area and the Quarryholders used it as an excuse to try and take the place back. Little good it did em, too. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll pawn you off on some locals tomorrow, before we carry on their merry way. Won’t want to feed you for a minute longer than they have to. I’m sure they’ll come calling ‘Arden of…” He paused. “Where’d you say you were from again?”

  “Soullen.”

  “Oh, ya. And where is that? Somewhere around Warstraw?”

  “Yeah, south of Warstraw country. Right on the banks of Siltwater Creek. It was-”

  “Yeah, anyway I’m sure they’ll come saying Arden, Soullen, Warstraw or whatever, come with us. And they’ll lead you off to live happily ever after. Just make my words for it.”

  Arden frowned. “And what about you? Six years is a long time. But you don’t seem very bothered by it.”

  “Who me?” Peter grinned mischievously. “Don’t worry about your old buddy Sly Peter. I always get away.”

  That night, with some food in his stomach, totally overcome by the exertion and trials of the proceeding days, Arden fell into one of the deepest sleeps of his life. Right there on the dirt floor, curled up in his new clothes, he dreamed of nothing. Oblivion took him. So fully was he asleep that he awoke not with the light of day nor with the sound of voices. It was only with a gentle kick that he sprung awake, the recollection of his situation crashing upon him as he looked around at the faces of the war prisoners all tuned coolly toward him. Their hands were all bound and they appeared to be waiting for him.

  From outside the cell a voice was calling. “You, hands through the bars, come on I’ve not got all day.”

Arden stood as quickly as he could. He was unbearably stiff and his neck and shoulders felt almost completely seized up. Passing to the edge of the cell, he held his hands through one of the gaps and allowed them to be tied. That done, he followed the others to the gate and waited for his turn to be tied to the lead-rope, and for his packs to be slung painfully over his neck.

  It was only now, as his wits began to return to him that he noticed something was different. The guards were different. Those who had brought them to the transit point were gone and now he was confronted by new, equally harsh-looking faces. There was something else, too. Where was Peter? Arden could not see him. Had he been taken out in the night? He could not remember anything.

  Working up his courage, Arden leaned in close to the prisoner in front of him, whispering as they were led from the fort and back out onto the road.

  “Sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but where is the other boy? The one who was brought on with me, what happened to him?” he asked.

  Behind them the guards were caught in their own conversation. More slacked than the ones of the day before, they took little notice of Arden’s whispers.

  “They came for your friend this morning,” said the man. “In the early hours they came and called his name, took him to join a nearby collective farm, as was his sentence.”

  “W-what do you mean?” said Arden, his heart suddenly dropping to the pit of his stomach. “By what name did they call him.”

  “They asked for Arden,” said the man. “Your friend confirmed his place of birth and his sentence and they took him from the cell. But worry not for him. Think first of yourself. His fate is not nearly so dire as our own. It is we who are on this march of the damned.”

  From the back of the column, a guard called out. “Hey, silence up there! The next man who speaks will serve as an example to the rest!”

  But Arden did not so much as hear the threat, so lost was he in the bitterness of this betrayal. A lost boy, alone in the world, tricked and tied to this column of doomed men.