warmth.
They fell into their rhythm of walking and shouting and not being
answered until time lost its meaning. They might have been working for
half a hand, they might have been working for a sunless week, and so the
dawn surprised him.
One of the other searching parties had quit earlier. Someone had found a
firekeeper's kiln and stoked it, and the rich smell of cracked wheat and
flaxseed and fresh honey cut through the smoke and death like a sung
melody above a street fight. Otah sat on an abandoned cart and cradled a
bowl of the sweet gruel in his hands, the heat from the bowl soothing
his palms and fingers. He didn't remember the last time he'd eaten, and
though he was bone-weary, he could not bring himself to think of sleep.
He feared his dreams.
Nayiit walked to him carrying a similar bowl and sat at his side. He
looked older. The horrors of the past days had etched lines at the
corners of his mouth. Exhaustion had blackened his eyes. Exhaustion and
guilt.
"There's no one, is there?" Nayiit said.
"No. They're gone."
Nayiit nodded and looked down to the neat, carefully fitted bricks that
made the road. No blade of grass pressed its way through those stony
joints. It struck Otah as strangely obscene that a place of such carnage
and destruction should have such well-maintained paving stones. It would
be better when tree roots had lifted a few of them. Something so ruined
should be a ruin. A few years, perhaps. A few years, and this would all
be a wild garden dedicated to the dead. The place would be haunted, but
at least it would be green.
"There weren't any children. Or women," Nayiit said. "That's something."
"There were in Yalakeht," Otah said.
"I suppose there were. And Saraykeht too."
It took a moment to realize what Nayiit meant. It was so simple to
forget that the boy had a wife. Had a child. Or once had, depending on
how badly things had gone in the summer cities. Otah felt himself blush.
"I'm sorry. That wasn't ... Forgive my saying that."
"It's true, though. It won't change if we're more polite talking about it."
"No. No, it won't."
They were silent for a long moment. Off to their left, three of the
others were laying out blankets, unwilling, it seemed, to seek shelter
in the halls of the dead. Farther on, Sava the blacksmith was looking
over the Galtic steam wagon with what appeared to be a professional
interest. High in the robin's-egg sky, a double vee of cranes flew
southward, calling to one another in high, nasal voices. Otah took two
cupped fingers and lifted a mouthful of the wheat gruel to his lips. It
tasted wonderful-sweet and rich and warm-and yet he didn't enjoy it so
much as recognize that he should. His limbs felt heavy and awkward as
wood. When Nayiit spoke, his voice was low and shaky.
"I know that I won't ever be able to make good for this. If I hadn't
called the retreat-"
"This isn't your fault," Otah said. "It's the Dai-kvo's."