The autumnal equinox was nearing, and when the recruits had finished eating, it was nearly night. Stars had washed up the sky from the east, and some of the brighter spilled down the west into the final gray of sunset.
In the barracks, the young would-be warriors were getting to know one another, clustering, choosing buddies. Would-be leaders were making themselves known. Esenrok was one of them, trying to establish himself by his husky aggressiveness.
The recruits had been told to stay in barracks till otherwise ordered. Esenrok, with three others, huddled briefly in a corner, talking in undertones. When they'd finished, he walked to the middle of the floor. Most eyes moved to him, as if their owners knew that something was about to happen.
"Guys," Esenrok said quietly, "listen up. I've got an idea. We'll go raid the next barracks and start a fight." He turned and looked at Carrmak. "Anyone doesn't go is yellow."
Carrmak grinned at him. "Just call me butterflower," he said.
Esenrok didn't know how to reply to that, so he ignored it. "Who's game?" he asked.
About a dozen were on their feet instantly, eager. Others began to get up one by one, not willing to stay out of it, but not enthused. They were worried about what the T'swa might do.
"Come on, Alsnor," Esenrok said to Jerym, and Jerym got reluctantly to his feet. He'd sworn off fighting. He was very quick, and by Iryalan standards very good. He'd been in juvenile court twice for damaging guys; once more, in the civilian world, and he'd go to reformatory. He wasn't entirely sure that didn't apply here.
Within half a minute, everyone was standing except Carrmak and Thelldon; then Esenrok gave instructions. He and five others would run in the door, start dumping over bunks, and run out when the guys they were raiding started for them. The others would be waiting outside, ready.
When the last of Esenrok's raiders was out, headed for the neighboring barracks, Carrmak and Thelldon stood in the door watching. Carrmak leaned against a door post with his hands in his pockets and chuckled. "That Esenrok's a crazy little turd."
Thelldon shook his head, watching the platoon begin to bunch up by the corner of the next barracks in the row. He was bothered by his failure to go with them. "I'm already in trouble," he explained to Carrmak. "And Sergeant Dao told me to stay here till someone came for me. I'm not going to get in any more trouble till I find out what they do to you. I don't know what to expect from these T'swa; they're not like anybody else I ever knew."
He turned to Carrmak. "How come you didn't go?"
Carrmak laughed. "I'm the strategic reserve."
Thelldon looked at him, at his grin, not sure what he meant. Carrmak's hands were out of his pockets now, opening and closing. Yelling snatched their attention. Then fighting erupted at the other side of the massed platoon.
The first few of the other platoon galloped around the corner of the barracks after the raiders, and ran into the waiting enemy before they knew they were there. Jerym grabbed one of them by the shirt, punched him between the eyes and decked him. Someone else hit Jerym in the mouth with a long left, and he slugged the guy hard in the gut, then twice in the face. Someone barrelled into both of them, and Jerym lost contact. More guys were pouring, yelling, from the raided barracks, and briefly, with the advantage of momentum, they drove the raiders back.
For a minute the fighters were almost too packed to swing or fall down. Then the mass of brawlers began to open up a bit, and Jerym, engaged with a heavier, stronger youth, was thrown to the ground. The guy was on top of him, trying to punch him, but Jerym had hold of his sleeve, pushing on the guy's chin with his other hand while thrashing wildly, trying to buck him off. He lost his grip on the sleeve, and a fist slammed hard above his left eye. Then someone lifted the guy off and threw him aside. It was Carrmak, whooping, louder than any of the others. Jerym got to his knees, squinting one eye against a trickle of blood, transfixed by what he saw. Carrmak seemed incredibly strong, irresistible, throwing guys aside as if they were empty uniforms, and suddenly the opposition began to back away, those who weren't too tightly engaged. A boot struck Jerym's head a grazing blow.
Shrill T'swa whistling cut through the yelling, and disengagement became general, both platoons hurrying back to their barracks, some youths pausing to help the fallen. It was Thelldon who grabbed Jerym and jerked him to his feet. They ran.
Inside was an exited babble. Noses bled, and mouths; eyes had begun to swell. But most had no visible wounds, or at worst scuffs or scrapes. Almost all of them were exhilarated, flushed, bright-eyed. In a minute or so, Sergeant Dao came in alone, and the babble stilled. Esenrok made no move; the T'swa were legendary, and suddenly each recruit remembered what he'd heard or read of them.
Also Dao had presence, a kind of warrior presence that few men could match. Even, it seemed to the recruits just then, even more presence than most T'swa. If they'd never heard of the T'swa, they'd still have backed off from this man.
Dao said nothing for several long seconds, just smiled, a smile not unfriendly, even slightly amused. There was something unnerving about it. Then, mildly but loudly, he said, "Attention!"
Instantly backs straightened, arms dropped to sides, feet came together. "Outside for roll call!" They shuffled out the door and formed ragged rows. Their squad leaders were waiting, looking hard and untouchable. Dao took his place in front of the platoon, and in the darkness, without a light, called roll himself from his clipboard. Thelldon wasn't the only absentee who'd returned. Klefma and Warden were back too.
"Has anyone here seen Mellis?" Dao asked.
No one answered.
"I presume some of you would like to eat tomorrow," Dao said calmly. "Or if not tomorrow, hopefully the day after. I will ask again: Has anyone here seen Mellis?"
"Sir," said someone, "he said he was going to find a road and leave."
"Thank you."
A corporal trotted off in the darkness.
"Now. It is not acceptable that you fight among yourselves. Platoon, attention! Riiight face! Forwaaard march!" Again feet stepped on heels; youths muttered curses. The platoon moved. "Column left!" They turned onto a drill field.
Dao walked backward now, watching them. "When I say 'double time,' " he instructed, "you will begin to jog, following me and keeping up with me at all times. Now!" He turned, calling over his shoulder: "Double tiiime, march!"
They began to jog, crossed the drill field, turned onto a grassy road, passed the motor pool with its parked hover vehicles, came to a gate in the mesh fence that surrounded the camp, and continued down the road into the woods. Jerym became aware that his eyebrow wasn't bleeding anymore.
It was much darker on the forest road, and easy to stumble. A hover truck came up behind them on its silent AG drive, and a lamp on its cab shone a broad beam above them, reflecting off the tree crowns ahead, helping them see the road. Dao turned, running backward, facing them. "You are the Second Platoon, Company A, First Battalion," he called. "I am your platoon sergeant; I give orders and you obey them. I now order you to keep up with me. Any who do not will be dealt with appropriately."
He turned his back on them and speeded up, trotting briskly. After a few minutes, Jerym's legs were tiring badly. He wasn't used to running any distance. His lungs labored to get enough oxygen; his breath rasped in his throat. A few guys had slowed to a walk, falling back or peeling off to the sides. Dao did not ease up. The column, strung out a bit now, turned off on a lesser road, and it seemed to Jerym that they may have slowed, just a little.
But not enough. Soon his legs seemed too heavy to run farther. His strides slowed. He turned aside, one of the outer ranks breaking to let him through, and he stopped beside the road, bent forward, hands on thighs, mouth gaping as he gasped for breath. The truck pulled past, paused, and a T'swi reached out to him. Jerym reached back. The T'swi clamped onto his wrist and hoisted him onto the truck. The man's hand startled Jerym: The palm felt tough as a boot sole.
There were a dozen or so other recruits on board ahead of him; in the darkness Jerym couldn't make out who. He remembered Dao saying that those who didn't keep up would be dealt with, but just now he didn't care. He was sure he couldn't have run another step.
A minute later he decided he'd quit too early: Dao had slowed the platoon to a walk. Jerym moved to climb down, but the T'swi gripped his arm. "Stay," the T'swi said, and Jerym stayed. They followed the platoon, and three or four minutes later it began to jog again, but more slowly now, without any more dropouts. Twelve minutes more of jogging brought it back into the compound, headed toward the messhall, but the truck swung away with its cargo of stragglers and went to a shed.
"Everyone off," said the T'swi, and Jerym climbed down with the others, sure that he wasn't going to like what happened next, wishing fervently he'd hung on for another minute, out there in the woods. He could have, he thought, for one more minute or maybe even two.
The truck drove away.
A light came on in the shed, and two T'swa herded him and the others inside. Jerym saw that Esenrok was there. Stacked on the floor were crude packs, bulky and shapeless, simple sacks sewn shut at the top and strapped to a pack frame. "Each of you put one on," a T'swi ordered. "Help each other if you need to."
Jerym grabbed one and lifted. Heavy! As he struggled into the straps, he decided the bag was full of sand. "All right, outside!" the T'swi ordered, and fifteen recruits left the shed. The two T'swa had them form ranks and checked their packs, adjusting straps as needed. Then they began marching. They passed the messhall, lit up now; Jerym wanted to go over and see what was happening inside. Then they were through the gate again. It's better than running, he told himself, but it didn't reassure him.
His mouth had swollen where he'd gotten hit in the brawl, and he was pretty sure his split lip was going to canker if he didn't get some powder for it.
Pitter Mellis was tired and hungry, and worse than either, he had to admit he was lost.
He'd hung around another barracks, another platoon, talking with the guys there, until a bell rang, brief but loud, shocking in its unexpectedness. Then a T'swi had called in that it was time to eat. Mellis had thought about going to the messhall with those guys, but was afraid that if he did, he'd be caught. So he'd hung out in the latrine. It had seemed a safe place. If anyone looked in on him, he'd say he had diarrhea.
But if he was still there when the guys who lived there came back from supper, it would look peculiar. So he'd watched out the window till he saw guys start to come out of the messhall. Then he'd left the barracks; it was getting somewhat dark.
He'd already noticed where the gate was, and that a guard was posted there, so he'd gone to the far side of the compound, scaled the eight-foot fence, and jumped off. His ankle turned when he'd landed, and at first it worried him, but it walked off in half a minute and didn't bother him anymore. To avoid getting lost, he'd circled the compound on the outside till he'd come to the side with the gate, then angled to hit the road that came out of it.
He'd begun to feel unsure of himself. Maybe he ought to go back in; it might be a long way to anywhere, and he was getting hungry. On the other hand, it might only be a few miles, and he'd told the guys in his barracks that he was leaving. What would they think of him if he came dragging back in, saying he was hungry?
So he'd started down the road. By then it was crowding full night, and moonless; soon he couldn't see much. Then, after a bit, there'd been light, like a distant floodlight, paling the tree crowns where they overhung the edges of the narrow roadway, and he'd heard a sound behind him like running feet. Startled, puzzled, he'd left the road, scuttling back into the woods where it was really dark. He'd gone sixty or eighty feet, groping in blackness, hands in front of his face to protect his eyes from brush. Once he'd stumbled and fallen. Then he turned and watched, but couldn't see enough to tell him much. Running men passed with a tramping of boots, followed by a floodlight on what seemed to be a truck. When they were past, he groped his way back to the road and went on.
Occasionally it curved. Several times there'd been crossroads, forks, junctions, with signs, but he'd had no way to read them. Finally the road had come to a large meadow and appeared to stop there. It had seemed to him, though, that it must continue on the other side, that it was simply too dark to recognize a grass road on a meadow. So doggedly he'd started across. If he didn't find where the road went into the woods on the other side, he'd told himself, he'd just follow the edge of the meadow back to where he'd entered it.
But it was hilly there, humpy rolling country, and the meadow seemed to go on quite a distance. Seeren, the major moon, had come up more than half full, making it easier not to stumble, but it didn't show him any sign of the road. The meadow had bent right, then pinched out, and when he'd tried to backtrack, it had pinched out that way too, ending at a marsh. Anxiety spasmed. How could that be? he asked himself. He'd backtracked still again, and again it had pinched out, where it had pinched out the first time, he suspected.
He stood confused and defeated, utterly forlorn. Finally he decided to lay down and sleep till daylight. By daylight things would look different, he told himself, and he'd find his way out of there.
He'd never tried to sleep on the ground before. It was lumpy and hard and cold. He wondered if he could sleep. Lying there, he was soon shivering, and after awhile wondered if it would get cold enough to freeze to death.
"S-s-s-st!"
He sat up, staring in the direction of the sound.
"Recruit!"
It was a T'swa voice, deep and furry. Shit! he thought, how could that be?
"It's time to go back. On your feet, recruit!"
Mellis got up. I would have been all right here, he told himself now. And gotten unlost in the morning. But he didn't try to run. He was too tired and too hungry, and mostly he was glad to be found. The T'swi led off as if he knew just where he was going, and it occurred to Mellis that the man must have followed him all the way from the compound, letting him go, letting him get lost.
Jerym didn't know how far they'd hiked. Walked and occasionally jogged with forty pounds of sand on their backs, following close behind a T'swi and followed by two others. He remembered reading that T'swa could see like cats in the dark. Their eyes were big enough, that was certain.
They climbed one long steep hill that he thought must be the highest around there. His legs felt utterly exhausted by the time they reached the top, and he heard someone call out, "I name you Drag-Ass Hill." Somehow Jerym knew they'd climb Drag-Ass Hill many times before they left this place.
It seemed to him they'd been on the road for at least a couple of hours. His shoulders were sore from the packstraps. Seeren had come up, and her light made it easier to see.
"Fuck this shit!" a loud voice said up front, and someone stepped out of ranks onto the roadside. Jerym recognized the voice. It belonged to a guy named Romlar, a big, heavy, round-faced kid.
"Here. Give me the pack." That was a T'swa voice. Then Jerym was past them. A minute later, Romlar caught up, packless. Five minutes later they came into the open, the moonlight unscreened by trees. The gate was just ahead. Somehow they'd circled; there must be a network of roads in the woods, Jerym decided, and the T'swa knew them.
He wondered what would happen to Romlar.
They walked to the shed and got rid of their packs. A T'swi told Romlar to come with him, and the two of them left. One of the other T'swa took the rest of them to the messhall. Inside, a single panel glowed in the ceiling, and there was a big electric urn, its red light bright, with cups stacked by it upside down.
"Hot thocal," said the T'swi. "It will help you sleep."
The only thing I need to sleep is my bunk, Jerym thought. The hot cup hurt his split lip. The thocal tasted good though; good enough that he had a second cup. Unless he lay on his stomach, even his sore mouth wouldn't keep him awake, he was sure of it.
He wondered what was happening to Romlar. It didn't seem like a good idea to quit on something the T'swa gave you to do.