Vincent was busy in his camp writing letters to the king as to why there ought to be no talk of concern over what was happening to Duvall, and where the capture was heading. That they’d been trapped for weeks now and now members were coming out. Which seemed to satisfy him some, though he sent soldiers anyway until the valleys were filled with men. What an intrusion they were, these newcomers in their shiny armor. The decorated frills on their steel blinding us each time they walked past the camp. It must have been a good two hundred soldiers and they set up somewhere further along the valley. We passed them dirty looks when they arrived and they did the same to us. Those spearmen of Xanthus, sandals and leather robbed and vascular and well-fed. Bronze almost in the sun. And here we were, sunburnt or pale. Dirty and smelly.

At least we ate well. And in that respect we won one of the comparisons. We had a Chet, they didn’t.

But the coming of the army and the arguments by pigeon weren’t the end all of it. Though Vincent had promised the King the city and Duvall within the week, he had given the king one. And arguably, had given him the most important one. The city was his and we had won it hard and fast. All that remained was the neck of a madman keeping guard in a little cave in the desert. At the very least, the guard shifts were easier now with more men. And I no longer had to keep watch. My attentions were to Edwin who came in and out of sleep at random. He spent most of his days on an elevated bed sleeping, often waking up to a sudden jolt of pain. I saw him once, try to walk as if he wasn’t missing his limb. He jumped straight out of the bedding and onto the floor, extending his arms to yawn like he was ready for breakfast. Right before he lost his balance and fell, peeling the skin off his arm as he hit the floor and skidded. His brother lifted him up and put him back in.

The first week of Lowell’s return was the roughest. He didn’t speak or look at me at all, always covering his eyes or face against me whenever I passed by. He only accepted gifts from Kal and Obrick and Sylas. Vincent spoke to him once, though it didn’t change much. You don’t change how you feel about the man you blame for your brother’s crippling over pretty words. Only time has that effect.

Things were better the second week. He accepted a cup of Millow. The coffee-like drink. Bitter, roasted nuts ground up and flavored with various sugars (depended on where you drank it, here in the east they had it with vanilla and cow milk and cinnamon). He gulped it. Thanked me. I didn’t press my luck.

Now in the third week it seemed like he wanted a conversation. Both of us, afraid to talk to one another and afraid not to talk to one another. But it wasn’t time, not yet at least.

Now was the time to feed these stragglers of Duvall’s army. The few we captured along the road, the ones I wanted so desperately to put the dagger into. I held a bowl of soup and went over to them. Chained up men by posts we’d created for them. Some of them wet with spit the Crows had showered with them. Some smelling of urine. Vincent’s words seemed hollow now, that freedom and peace he offered them given way to shame. But there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. We’d told them not to harass the prisoners, but you can only say so much. When the guards keeping watch are those doing it, when there are no suspects to which to blame, then how can you reprimand anyone? And it’s not like any of us cared enough for their being to show them respect.

I came to the last boy down the line. He had gotten it the worst of them all. Bruised in one eye, old cuts healing along his neck and face. I held out a spoon of soup to him. Day old, and cold and he ate it. Chewing on the good side of his face.

I knelt and fed him. His arms were tied behind his back, locked by chains. His feet were bound and he no longer struggled, it cut into his skin if he did. He just ate and stared and kept quiet. None of them spoke to each other anymore. They just waited.

I fed him.

“Your friends took my friends leg.” I said.

He looked up to me with sunken eyes. Stains on his shirt from the piss or the sweat. The smells didn’t bother me. Nothing like that could anymore. He stared and chewed.

“I’ve killed plenty of your friends too.” I said.

“Yes. You have.” He said.

“Those other ones, the old fucks down the line.” I pointed to the other prisoner posts. “They don’t have the anger you and I do. They’re already used to it, they’ve got a tired look about them. They have seen so many of their allies killed that it no longer presses their emotions like it should. It’s empty in their hearts. A heart like an empty, drained gold vein. Nothing left to give. The water just runs over them now. But-

“You and I are different, aren’t we? We feel things raw still. I know I do. It’s dying a little but I still feel it. Anger like a blade being sharpened, waiting for its use. Truth is I want to kill you right now. I would love nothing more. And I hate that you’ve been given pardon. Tell me, do you want to kill me too?”

His eyes looked up and narrowed. He said nothing. This boy with the cuts and bruises, brown hair and hawk eyes. A cut along his forehead, a scar that will never heal like many others on him.

“You don’t need to say anything. I already know it and I think it’s good. If you were a gentile it would be much harder for me to hate you.” I said. “I’m glad you’ve made it easy.”

The truth is, this is the fifth type of conversation I’ve had with the prisoners. With the others too, throughout the weeks I often give them variations of this talk during feeding. I can’t even say why I do it anymore. Every time during dinner as I feed them (and I always offer to feed them) I never truly kill them. I just swing the weight of my words and flash my little dagger and call it justice, and every time I have this talk I always do so with the expectation that it will fix something in me. It never does. It’s easier to talk to men than monsters. I wonder, if we captured a nightstalker, would I be wasting my time talking to it?

I don’t even know why that memory has presented itself to me anymore. That little cart. My dagger to his heart. It’s been a couple years, you’d think it would have been drowned out by the other deaths and other tragedies and other pains.

Gods, I was hungry during that feeding. Unusually.

After I was done with my little monologue I went for food myself, whatever was left. Hunger had finally reared itself to me after so long. And that afternoon I no longer craved the small bird-feed that I kept to for months. Little satchels of pocketed breads and nuts. I wanted the full dinner. I went to th kitchen, Chet smiled to me. I smiled back, taking a big bowl and grabbing some still steaming bread. Topping the half-chicken in my bowl with pickled vegetables. Spooning rice until I couldn’t see the bottom of my dish. I walked and ate.

“Big appetite?” Chet asked.

I chewed and nodded.

“That’s good. You’re getting bigger, you’ll need to eat more.” He said. “Been a while since I’ve seen you eat.”

“Been a while since I’ve had a chance to eat.” I scarfed it down, something about the light crust of the bread causing my mouth to salivate. The faint hint of beef from tallow spread on the porous surface of the bread. It’d been a while since I’ve had good food in general. And there was always something familiar about Old Chet’s cooking. The way he (and it always felt like he was the only one) who used salt and pepper, the vague sense that all his food had been simmered and cooked all day. The tenderness of his meats. I chewed and spooned through gelatinous meat inside the soup and ate it. The steam rose up to my cheeks and gave my eyes a glossy look.

“This is your problem kiddo.” He said. “You always wait for the last minute and then it comes crashing down on you. Fatigue and hunger.”

“I don’t have much of a choice.” I said. “Just the way the war is. Soon we’ll be back at the Capitol and I’ll have a room and enough days to sleep.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

I smiled and ate. Men slipped around me, towards the entrance of the cave. I finished the bread with one dip into the soup, softening it before I gulped it. Next was the rice and then…

The crowd raised their hands. They cheered, they boo’d. They yelled at the hole.

“What’s this now?” I asked.

Old Chet wheeled next to me, he stood himself with shaky arms against the hand bars of his wheelchair.

“I don’t know.”

I passed him the bowl and licked my fingers and snaked through the crowd, feeling the musk of workers and soldiers all about me. A dry scent, not so much a bog as it was a dried corpse. Sweat dried and clung and forming salt bays across their foreheads or the creases of their forearms. Men spotted with white, like snow, against their bicep and chest and on the edges of the wrinkles. It smelled like a rotting corpse. It smelled like beef left out, dried to jerky, and still left out.

And they all cheered and screamed with their crooked, yellowed teeth.

A little black hole was there at the bottom of the wreckage. A small head came out of the opening like a child out the womb, long striations of chainlink and steel sparsed throughout. Veins of the womb that jingled and scratched against the wood as the little head gave way to a large man through the blackness of the wrecked cart.

“They’re escaping.” Someone said.

“No. They’re surrendering.” I walked up, past other soldiers and past guards keeping the mob at bay. They let me through and towards the inner circle where the Captains and where Vincent was, watching the men come out the circles. Soldiers would come out and grab the surrendering men by the arms, they’d push their heads down and walk them through the mob. A mob still bitter, still screeching and scratching and throwing mad swings at those leaving the cave. Soot covered and dried enemies, craggly and cracked flesh coming off their lips.

“It’s over?” I walked up to Vincent.

“Over?” He looked down at a man crawling underneath a wheel. “I wish. Only six have come out.”

“Is that right?” I looked at the fellow who looked up. A guard lifted him up but his eyes could not match mine. This enemy without armor, with his shirt clinging to the outline of his thin skeleton. Wrists that could barely hold onto the tight fist they made as they shelled and curved their back like armadillos. They went through the crowd, bracing at each swing that came their way.

“Let them pass or I’ll send you all to Shrieker’s Veil.” Vincent screamed.

It stopped them. For a moment. But Xanthus’ men did not listen. They kept at it, pushing and prodding them and knocking them to the floor. Where they spat and kicked dust in their directions. Defeated men gaunt, hollow cheeked and bony about their foreheads. Watching skulls mounted on top of a stick figure. Like a wooden effigy, simply drained and without life.

To be honest I felt no need to help either. It was a strange in between feeling, one of a pity for these men. And one in which the anger of their memory pulled me to stand myself at the rim of the crowd. These were the men that killed my own. The blood of my friends on their hands. What kinship could I have with them?

Vincent watched. His eyes unblinking and growing wider. He walked down the boulders, myself and the other vice captains scrambled and started pulling out more of the men.

Vincent walked over to the crowd. It hushed as he approached. He grabbed the first man he could spot by the hair.

“I told you not to touch them. Didn’t I?” Vincent smiled.

He pulled his hair and dragged his head, dragged it straight into the a knee. The man went cross legged, his body turned and spun in circles. He collapsed onto the floor, the crowd watching.

“You do not touch a single one unless I say so, do you understand?” Vincent asked. “Xanthus’ men or not. I will cut you down.”

We all straightened out after that. All of us.