Justin Allen

Ripples on the sur­face of the Tiger River shone like golden hair as the morn­ing sun rose over the desert. A muskrat floated through a gen­tly swirling eddy, nib­bling what remained of a ground worm. Egrets waded through the shal­lows, study­ing the newly hatched fry, cling­ing to the under­sides of small rocks and dash­ing here and there among the weeds. All along the river, ani­mals were work­ing hard to scrape up the day’s proven­der. They didn’t have much time left. By noon it would be too hot to do any­thing but cower in the shade and wait for sundown.

A Niphilim com­pany, bet­ter than a dozen strong, tromped across the muddy west­ern bank to the river’s edge. They had dark cir­cles under their eyes from a vir­tu­ally sleep­less fortnight.

“How far to their pick­ets?” Simha asked. She scooped up some water in the palm of her hand and lifted it to her mouth.

“We’re not sure.” Kishar took a drinking-skin from his pack, filled it and then dumped it over his head. He sput­tered as the water ran down his chest and back. “Far as we can deter­mine, they don’t have pickets.”

Simha yawned. She took a small loaf of bread wrapped in a piece of oil­skin from the top of her pack. Bits of dried leather had col­lected on the loaf, which she hastily brushed off. Not that it helped much. At that moment, it was dif­fi­cult to imag­ine any­thing as dis­gust­ing as that dark bread. They’d sur­vived on such rations for nearly a week. It was nutri­tious, required no cook­ing, and large quan­ti­ties could be car­ried with very lit­tle effort. One or two loaves and a bit of but­ter or grease was enough to feed a full-grown sol­dier for an entire day. But Simha couldn’t help imag­in­ing a nice roast, or a fish, or even a fist­ful of goat cheese — any­thing to break up the monot­ony. She sat down in the mud and watched the sun as it climbed the east­ern sky. “It’ll be a hot day for fight­ing,” she mut­tered. She tore her loaf in two and offered half to Kishar. He slumped down next to her, but waved the bread away.“How long until the rest of the army catches us?”

“We’re at least two hours ahead,” Kishar said. “Maybe three.”

“How many are there, accord­ing to our most recent figures?”

“Black-heads? They out­num­ber us slightly.”

“Includ­ing the savages?”

Kishar nod­ded.

Simha ran her fin­gers through her hair. It had been a long time since she’d washed, and her scalp was crusted with sand and dust. A few tiny blem­ishes were begin­ning to appear along her hair­line. She felt infected. Every­one out there must have. Simha rubbed her eyes and blew her nose, squeez­ing a fist­ful of black grit from her nos­trils before wash­ing her hands in the river. “The march is begin­ning to wear,” she said. “Even on me.”

Kishar’s response was to lay his head on his knees and close his eyes.

On the other side of the river, a fam­ily of crested wood ducks wad­dled across a rot­ten log, search­ing for grubs. So far, they didn’t seem to be hav­ing much luck. Simha con­sid­ered toss­ing them the remains of her bread. But just then, and for no dis­cernible rea­son, the small­est duck­ling — it was lit­tle more than a puff of yel­low fuzz — slipped into the river and was swept away. Its mother never even noticed.

Simha looked at the other sol­diers lined up along the river­bank and saw, as though for the first time, that her tiny band was barely func­tion­ing. They were dirty and half-starved. A hand­ful chat­ted, or ate what was left of their pro­vi­sions, but most just stared at the water, strug­gling to keep their eyes open. A few didn’t even man­age that. Lagas­sar was slumped against an old stump, snor­ing qui­etly. A long string of saliva ran down her chin. Simha won­dered how the main army fared. It might be bet­ter to let them rest before going into bat­tle, she thought. She needed troops who could fight.

After plung­ing her head into the river and tak­ing a long drink, Simha stood up and brushed the mud off her breeches. There’d be no rest for her, not until the war was over. She was a sol­dier. Hers wasn’t a life of beauty or com­fort. There was no plea­sure in sleep­ing on rocks, with only your sword for a pil­low — no hap­pi­ness in see­ing your friends butchered. The dirt and sweat on Simha’s leathers had hard­ened in recent days, chaf­ing her skin and form­ing blis­ters on her inner thighs and under­arms, but she could take it.

“Kishar,” she said.

Reluc­tantly, Kishar opened his eyes. “Captain?”

“Have the army stop here for one hour,” Simha said. “One.” Her brows arched men­ac­ingly. “Make sure every sol­dier drinks their fill, strips off their bat­tle togs and bathes. Every sin­gle one of them. And I want sores and blis­ters attended to.”

Kishar stared. “Rest cap­tain? This close to Kan-Puram?”

“It’s not a reward,” Simha said. She waved at the sol­diers around her. “These are the very best our army has to offer, and most of them are barely able to stand up straight.”

“But Cap­tain, by then it’ll be past -”

Simha cut him off. “Bel, Lagas­sar, come with me.” Both women jumped to their feet. Lagas­sar tight­ened her belt. She’d lost weight dur­ing the march. “We’re going to find their pick­ets.” Simha turned and tromped back through the mud. “The rest of you bathe and sleep. We’ll join you again before the bat­tle. And Kishar, make sure that Kam­ran waters the sav­ages. Tell him the order comes from me. But I don’t want them get­ting any­where near the river. Understand?”

Kishar nod­ded. “We’ll fol­low exactly one hour after the army arrives. Not a moment later.”

“I know you will,” Simha said. “Because if you don’t, I’ll have your head placed on a spear and hauled back to Dagonor by a naked savage.”

Kishar flushed. The cap­tain wasn’t known for idle threats.

From Slaves of the Shinar

The Over­look Press 2007

© Justin Allen