Journey to the Institute

The children of Kasai rode in Sami’s caravan through the other neighboring villages, and it was the first time that Eil had a good look at what became of the villages they’d attacked and robbed. For everything Kasai did not have, he realized that the other villages had less. These people were scarred and mutilated. The worst horror was when they got to Andora. The entire village was somber and dark, and their arrival sent most of the villagers scurrying inside till they remembered that it was the day of the exam not the arrival of the Kasaians or the prefect's punishers, whichever they feared most. The scars of the slaughters days past still remained; blood stained both dirt and wall, Andorans were covered in makeshift bandages, and most looked sickly.

Eil did not have to be very empathetic to see the hate and the fear in the villagers. Hatred was something he had grown very accustomed to in his life. In this cage, the other Kasaians joined him in receiving the combined bitterness and anger of the children of the other villages. They’d all suffered atrocities at the hands of and because of Kasai. He realized that all of it ultimately came down to Kilo and to their family. However, in this cage Eil was the only man there to take responsibility for the suffering his family put on all of theirs. Eil’s sole fortune was that only his fellow Kasaians knew this, and if the cage stayed as quiet as it had been thus far, he might reach the institute without any of them mentioning it. Sami had suggested they all come up with easily memorizable names for each other. Eil landed on Magic Boy thanks to Akilo’s suggestion that he had once seen him do a magic trick in the village.

The cage itself grew increasingly uncomfortable with every village they visited. By the time they had completed their tour of the prefecture, there wasn’t any room to do anything but turn one’s head, fortunately that also meant there was less reason to worry about the other villagers staring them down.

There were approximately fifty students inside of the caravan when they began journeying for the institute, and half of them died when a boulder came hurtling through the forest, crushing trees like twigs, and crashing directly into them, sending the caravan, every child inside, the leading horses, and Sami into the river on the other side of the road.

Even as capable as Eil believed himself to be, there wasn’t anything to be seen in the chaos of flying bodies, and wood debris. Almost as soon as he landed in the water, he hurried to resurface. He spotted the first person to make it to shore. It was Akilo, the boy who’d fluked his way through the exam. Emerging from the forest, strangely clothed people held spears in hand. Eil had distinct memories of their own ambushes from forest edges.

“Akilo!” he yelled.

As soon as Akilo turned around, Eil pointed towards the trees. A spear perforated his skull before he could turn back around. Eil’s mouth hung open in uncertainty. He wasn’t sad, and a part of him knew he should be ashamed of it. Only Eil and the bandits were privy to Akilo’s final moments. The boy would die, and the world would forget.

The other recruits began resurfacing shortly after Eil. Those who fell farther into the stream had a chance to see Akilo’s lifeless body on the shore and held back against heading for dryland. Some did not have the benefit of learning from Akilo, they made straight for the shore without any regard for what awaited them. Eight more died that way. Two were fortunate that the more cautious among them advised against such rash actions.

The bandits stood on the shore, bloodied spears in-hand, patient. They had no interest in joining the kids in the water, or of risking their weapons. They would wait them out.

“Where’s the animist?” Halia asked. At least one other Kasaian survived.

“Over here,” Tall Boy said. He’d been bluntly called that because he easily towered over every other recruit. He held the unconscious animist Sami on his back.

“Where’s the owl?” Eil asked. He liked to ask the important questions.

“Up there,” someone else pointed, notable both for the colorful bandana around his head and for being part of triplet qualifiers, his name was Upper Band. As you might expect, his brothers names came easy: Middle Band and Lower Band. They had each worn their bandanas on their necks but popular opinion had forced them to rethink their attire.

Eil looked up and saw the owl flying in circles overhead. If it had any intent to help its master, it made no such indication.

Among the bandits was the only man he had ever seen who might tower over even their prefect. The bandit was built like a boulder, and it wasn’t merely for show. While the rest of the bandits stood around the shore, the larger man moved to grab the caravan carrying their supplies – largely food and drink for the journey – and single handedly pulled it into the forest. He’d assumed the boulder had been sent avalanching down through the forest but the forest was flat. Somehow, that bandit had thrown the boulder himself. Eil couldn’t rationalize it any other way.

“What are we supposed to do?” Upper Band asked.

“We wait,” Eil said. “Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but they aren’t interested in us so much as what we had along. They’ll leave once they’re satisfied that big guy is far enough.”

"I’m not quite so sure, Kasaian,” a boy called Cautious said. He’d had the best success, barring Eil and the antics of Akilo and Zara, in passing the test. Furthermore, Cautious was the only one from Andorra to pass the test. “The safer bet would be to kill us all. If they leave us alive, we’ll be left with two choices: scavenge for food, or take back what they’ve taken from us. It wouldn’t be in their best interest to leave us alive, even if we are children and much fewer in numbers now. Waiting it out and letting us drown, that’s what I would do. They’ve gone this far, why not finish the job?”

“We just wait here to drown, then?” Tall Boy asked.

Cautious looked around, taking stock of how many had surfaced. Eil did the same, he counted twenty-seven. At least twenty hadn’t made it, including – possibly – their only hope at getting to the institute, Sami.

“Waiting here to drown seems to be our best means of remaining alive for as long as possible,” Eil suggested.

“That’s correct. The alternative would be for us all to rush the shore and hope some of us manage to elude their iron,” Cautious said.

“Bad news for you, big guy. They’ll probably have three or four of them specifically waiting on you,” one girl with a shaved head said, patting Tall Boy on the shoulder and nearly causing Sami to fall over. They called her Snark. She earned such a name by wishing she never saw the ugly mugs from her village ever again while making her way to the caravan. She had been the only qualifier within her village. Tall Boy sneered back at her.

“It won’t come to that,” Upper Band said. “Look, they’re leaving.”

“Someone should go first, make sure they’re really gone,” Middle Band suggested. Middle Band was the only one of the triplets who had gotten to keep his bandana around his neck. The third of the triplets had a bandana around his waist, and at quick glance, Eil couldn’t find him. He had to assume he remained alive given his brothers' lack of sorrow.

“And if they aren’t really gone then we’re all dying anyways, so what’s the point of checking?” Snark rebutted.

“I propose one of the Kasaians go,” Tall Boy spoke, and no one objected.

“Well,” Eil started, “Akilo and Zara are dead. At least, on the latter, I can only assume, though she’s always had a knack for disappearing.” He recalled the late nights her father would wander town drunk and yelling her name. Tacus was typically quick to end such disruptions lest someone like Kilo be bothered. “I guess it’s down to you and I, Halia. Stop, you don’t have to worry, I’ll go ahead. Never accuse me of cowardice.”

It helped that he understood he had little choice in the matter. He needed to keep Halia quiet until they got to the institute, otherwise, he suspected he might have more to worry about from the other students than he would the bandits. Eil reluctantly began swimming towards the shore, though he took care to grab a floating plank from the broken caravan on his way there. When he felt sand under feet, he gingerly ascended out of the water. He gazed intently into the forest but could find no one staring back.

"Anyone there?” Halia asked.

“I imagine I’d be dead by now if there were,” Eil yelled back, his eyes never leaving the forest.

“Could be they’re waiting for us to follow you out,” Snark said.

“Yeah. You’re probably right. Why don’t you stay in the water till you feel a bit more comfortable?”

“Good idea!”

He rolled his eyes. “Alright, you guys stay here, and I’ll go get the only thing keeping us alive till we reach the institute, that caravan of food. When I do, I’ll be sure to circle back around here to tell you everything is safe. Just give me a moment, I simply need to find myself a suitable weapon.” He began walking around the river-side road. “A bit too blunt for my liking. Ah, this is on the verge of snapping in half, it would not do. Oh, here we are, perfect.” He admired his newly acquired stake, a remnant of their former wooden mode of transportation “Oh, a change of plans,” he beamed when he saw them all swimming ashore. “Great. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure I could do it on my own.”

A total of twenty-seven people made it onto the shore, including Sami, led by Cautious.

“Is the animist still alive?” Snark asked. “We won’t make it to the institute without her.”

“We could find another prefect,” Lower Band said, confirming Eil’s assumption that the youngest triplet hadn’t succumbed to the bandits’s assault.

“You must not have met our prefect,” Eil said. “I think I’ll take my chances wandering down to that institute on my own.”

“This isn’t a safe space. We’re better off hiding in the forest,” Cautious said.

“Where the bandits are?” Halia questioned.

“We’re easy pickings here.”

“Especially the big guy,” Snark added.

“Fine, forest,” Halia conceded.