Page 28 of The Merciless Ones
“What if it were your friends who were up there on that platform?” I say. “What if it were your family?”
“That’s not fair,” Keita replies. “You can’t make this a game of suppositions and what-ifs.”
“Can’t I?” I stare mutinously up at him until finally he sighs, glances at Belcalis for help. When it comes to matters such as this, the two are always firm allies.
Silent messages pass between their eyes until finally, she nods and Keita turns back to me. “I do not agree with you, Deka, but there’s no point arguing at this moment.”
“Why, because Belcalis will do it for you?” I return spitefully. I know how they work, Belcalis addressing me when Keita can’t and vice versa.
Keita doesn’t take the bait. “I’ll go scout,” he says evenly, “but make no mistake: this is not the end of our conversation. We will speak of this further.”
He turns to the other boys. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll join you,” Melanis announces, following behind him. When he stares at her, shocked, she adds, “I want to take a closer look at our sisters.”
“Guess that leaves me to play guardian,” Acalan says, watching her pretend to hobble after the other uruni. “Come on, then.”
He gestures and we follow him to the back of my wagon, where he opens the door for us. I swiftly take my seat at the furthest end of one of the two embroidered seats that line the chests on either side, my body shaking with fury. I thought I’d gotten used to seeing the dead bodies, but this – the sheer depravity of what’s happening on the platform – strikes at the core of me, resurfacing a memory of my time in Irfut’s temple cellar.
Elder Durkas looks down at me, disgust in his eyes, a sword in his hand. “Why don’t you just die?” he snarls as he lifts it. And then I feel the iron sting of the blade at my neck. And everything fades to darkness.
“Least they’re still alive.” Britta’s voice pierces through my memory, and when I glance up, she’s staring at us from her perch on the bed that occupies the furthest end of the wagon, a hopeful expression in her eyes. “Those girls, they’ll wake from the gilded sleep, but we’ll have rescued them by then – right, Deka?”
I nod, grateful at least one person agrees with me, but as I do so, Belcalis shakes her head. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” she says quietly.
And here it is, the argument I was expecting.
“Neither was seeing them displaying us like that,” I retort, that memory still coiling in the back of my mind, a snake waiting to strike.
Belcalis doesn’t even blink. “We can’t allow our emotions to blind us. You of all people should know that.” She calmly reaches into her pack and pulls out a small container filled with a viscous green fluid that looks like one of those slimy moulds that creeps along forest floors, and smells even worse, then starts mixing it.
The sight infuriates me. “What if it were you displayed like that?” I rage, fury spilling over. “What if it were you being killed like that over and over. Wouldn’t you want us to come for you?”
“But it was me,” Belcalis says quietly. Confused silence falls across the wagon as she continues. “For years, it was me.” She continues mixing, her eyes pointedly focused on the motion of her hands, which are now trembling slightly.
Just like that, a small portion of my rage dissipates.
Belcalis once trained under an apothecary, and part of her work was to mix creams and chemicals. Every time she feels tense, like now, she mixes something until she regains control of her emotions. It’s the same thing I do, except I hold on to the ansetha necklace or mentally count to three over and over.
After some moments, she finally looks up. “The proprietress of the pleasure house, she displayed my corpse in the common room, an advertisement for her more…discerning customers. Every time I died, she did it, so her customers could see what they were buying: the chance to kill me, to watch as the light dimmed from my eyes and the gold stole over my body.”
Her eyes bore into mine. “So, yes, Deka, I do in fact know what it feels like. I knew what it felt like for years, which is why I’m telling you, if I were in those circumstances – I would prefer justice to a hasty rescue. I would prefer cold revenge to momentary relief. You are, of course, our leader – you decide a plan of action, and we follow, but I’ll tell you this: if you go forward with the attack, you become like all those men who saw my body – my death, as a source of entertainment. Because you’ll be prioritizing your rage, your momentary emotions, over the well-being of thousands.”
By now, my fury has completely disappeared, replaced by another emotion: shame. Belcalis is right. I am prioritizing my feelings over the lives of others. If I do as I intend, I’m putting at risk not only my friends’ lives, but the lives of countless people. My desire to attack Elder Kadiri tonight comes not from a place of reason but of emotion. One that is entirely selfish, in the larger context of things.
Belcalis seems to notice my introspection, so she nods at the window behind me, where a group of men are visible as they drink just across the hill. “Look there. Notice anything?”
I follow her gaze, then stiffen when I immediately discern what she’s pointing out.
The men have all put down their tankards and are tidying up after themselves – except regular soldiers would never do that. The Oteran infantry, unlike the rigid and exacting jatu, are used to a laxer system of upkeep. In fact, the few soldiers who defect to our side have to go through a rigorous system of retraining by our captains. And yet all the men surrounding our wagons are neat to a fault. Precise, even. They’re clearly not ordinary soldiers. And there are more of them scattered among the crowds. Lots more. The softest prickle of warning crawls down my spine.
“Those are all jatu, every last one – not a single regular soldier among them,” Belcalis says. “Was that in the reports the scouts sent us? No – which means Elder Kadiri has been rotating them all around the field so as not to attract attention.”
A low whistle sounds and Adwapa leans back against the wagon’s wall. “Well, damn,” she says, stunned. “I did not notice that.”
“Neither did I,” I admit, chastened.
“Which is precisely why we always do another scout on our own,” Belcalis says. “To account for unforeseen complications such as this.”