The auna had already found out somehow, before Dally even arrived back at the column. When she saw the two of them she made a switching motion with her hand, like brushing something off her coat. Her narrowed eyes almost disappeared between folds of skin.

"It's you." She said, in thickly accented Savic. Then she scanned Ozana's face, quickly, maybe checking to see if she understood.

"She only speaks Briari," Dally said.

When Ozana didn't react, Auna finally went on. "So. You can leave her still, at her home. It's better." Her voice rasped, quiet and matter of fact; someone who was used to being listened to.

Around them the Front thralls were sneaking glances up from cleaning weapons, fixing tents, and tending to their own children. Sweat crawled slow down Dally's back, between the spines. This was the Front, not a thrall house. Would these people turn her away? Would they hurt her?

His hand closed tighter on Ozana's shoulder, until she squirmed, annoyed.

"We can't leave her here. But I'll look after her," he said. "I -- I'll hunt and cook for her-"

Auna let out a sharp laugh, insulted. "I'm not care for food. I care for, is this good. Right."

"Right?" Dally swayed uneasily in place. By now none of the other thralls were pretending to work, and their stares bored into him.

"Yes." It sounded at least a little true. "Yes, it's the right thing to do."

"Even if maybe one day she will hate us?"

Dally blinked, slowly understanding. As much as he didn't know about the Front, these people didn't know anything about him, or where he'd came from. "I -- I know she might hate us," he said, struggling for words. He'd never had to explain any of this out loud to anyone before - everyone just knew. "In a thrall house you can't hide your kid and have humans forget about it. I understand what I'm doing to her." His mouth twitched in a weak attempt at a smile. "At least she'll be alive to hate me."

Ozana mumbled something to him in Brairi, tugging on his coat hem. Auna's stare had unnerved her, and it was only getting more intense. Dally struggled not to lean away from her.

Finally the old female clasped her hands together, bending to look the girl in the eyes. "Beya."

Ozana perked up at the Corps word; 'baby'. Before she could shrink away the Auna bent and planted a kiss on the top of her head, and held her cheek with one gnarled palm. The other hand fumbled something pale tied at her hip. Auna made the girl stand still, while she dropped a loop of cord around her neck.

When she was done the little human was standing frozen with huge eyes, her small hand clenched around a necklace of snake-bone beads.

"She is bad luck", Auna said, peaceful. "She needs this." She shooed them away with a jerk of her chin, already turning back to her methodical packing.

Just like that, Ozana was a field baby. An under-supplied field baby. The others saw that instantly, and for the next hour or so people kept coming up to place new things on her - a leather hat for the sun, a bindle, chunks of crystallized sugar-sap, a stick of dried mushroom. Dally sniffed that last one suspiciously before he let her take it; humans couldn't eat half of what thralls did. Actually, it was going to be a problem. Maybe she couldn't even eat the bricks of dry feed they got off the supply trains.

Whether it was good for her or not, she crammed the sugar-sap in her mouth faster than they could hand it to her. Then she politely gnawed at the mushrooms, screwing up her small face. When they marched again she took turns either half-running to keep up or sitting on Dally's shoulder's, then Red's shoulders, then Ansel's.

Through all of it the girl didn't cry, not even one tear. Maybe she didn't understand she was being taken away, or why, or how far they were going. Maybe it was all an adventure for her. Or maybe, Dally thought with a wild stab of hope, she didn't like her parents, and this was her running away from home.

He was just hoping that again, as a red summer dusk fell over the forest. Dally was crouched over a pile of kindling, blowing on a spark. Next to him the human girl watched, serious and attentive. Then she reached out a small hand to tug on one of the spines on his elbow.

"Dally," she whispered, then mumbled a long sentence in Brairi.

It was still a strange language to listen to - sometimes it felt almost like she was speaking Corps, and if he just listened harder he'd start to understand. A couple of words did jump out though, because they were the same in Corps: mlenke; home-unit and ama: mother.

Dally went stiff, his camp fire slowly dying, forgotten. "Aja," he said, and hesitated. She tugged on him again.

"I- You can't go home," Dally said, then forced a breath. He said it again, slower. "You can't go back home. I'm sorry."

At first she looked confused, but slowly it sank in, and her mouth twisted. A thin, high wail eked between her teeth. Then she stood up, suddenly, looking past him at the unfamiliar forest. Before Dally could grab her she lurched away, and ran in a small circle as tears streamed down her face. At each little gap in the trees she slowed down, like she was lost and looking for a path. When she didn't find one she wandered into the woods at random, clambering over tangled roots and trunks.

Dally should have stopped her, but when he tried to make himself move he just swayed in place, nauseous. Something was holding him down, like a cold fist closing around his whole body. Slowly he folded in on himself, crouching on his haunches with his face in his hands.

The paralysis only lasted a second, but when he looked up again she was gone. "Ozana!"

Silence, except for the buzz of summer cicadas. Dally lurched after her, crashing into the bushes where she'd disappeared. The mutant forest snagged at him, tripped his feet with arching roots, the snaking trunk of a creeper tree. How far could she have gone in this?

"Ozana!"

He turned, slowly, finding nothing but dew-slick walls of leaves. Almost random he chose a direction, started to force his way through the scrub.

Before long the blue dusk turned black, and the canopy was dotted with the shine of mirrored eyes in the dark. Dally dropped to a crouch between trunks, staring hopelessly at the mat of moss and leaves under his feet. It didn’t look like a small girl’s trail. Nothing looked like a trail. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyelids, sucked in a deep breath.

Inka. Inka could track anything. Dally scrambled back to his feet, started to run back the way he came.

/editing stop

He felt the sting of a bite before he heard the hiss, stumbling and kicking reflexively. The four-snake had latched on to his calf with barbed fangs, and kicking only started it coiling around his leg. A cool, slick mass circled his flesh all the way to the hip. Four mirror-backed eyes flashed in the dark. Dally must have stepped on it blundering around, he realised, a now useless fact. It was a weapon, created for war just like him and released to multiply throughout this land. The only snake on the South Front that could kill an adult. It was surprising how much it hurt, more than a scythe claw, almost as bad as a pen.

Without deciding to sit he was suddenly on his ass, propped against a tree. Wobbly and strangely uncaring, he plucked at the scaled head with his nails. When that didn’t work he sat back, trying to think, while fuzzy calm wrapped around him. The snake gnawed its fangs deeper, mindless eyes staring up into the night; four stars in the dark.

Dally took a long look at it, admiring. It was a blessed animal, this snake. Lucky. There were even songs about it, one of which was running through his mind right now; a soft loop in a language he barely spoke. Under his fallen hands the moss was soft and damp, growing up to cover him. He could just stay here, resting. Who would stop him? Why should he have to go back to everything out there?

He still hadn’t found Ozana, though.

Slowly Dally clamped his hand down over the snake’s head, his claws digging at the eyes and nostrils. Something wet spilled over his hand. At first the body squeezed tighter, shuddering. Then the snake whipped free, the wild strength of its body twisting in the air. Dally smashed it against the tree he was sitting on, again and again, until it was limp in his grasp. He almost flung it away into the trees, furious, but at the last second he felt the weight of it and stood, panting. Then he looped the body around the back of his neck, over his shoulders. Food.

He was a lot slower now, which he told himself was because he didn’t want another snake bite. In reality his body seemed to belong to someone else, and he wasn’t totally sure where his feet were on the ground. He tripped and swerved his way along, like a stunned rat nosing blindly through the scrub.

After a while he found himself sitting again, his breath slow and dreamy. Moss curled against his arms and then into his mouth as he sank to lie in it. The dew on it tasted how summer rain smelled. Maybe he could have stayed there, except there was an annoying orange glare ahead of him, flickering. With a protesting groan he hauled himself back to his feet.

“See?” Someone said, as he staggered into the clearing, “There he is. Told you.”

"Dally?"

A huddle of Front thralls looked up at him, their faces lit warm. In the middle of them was Ozana, tiny in the shadow of Ansel's bulk. A lump of campfire bread was squeezed in her hands, and Inka's baby was gnawing on her boot.

Dally made some kind of rasp of surprise in the back of his throat, lifting a hand.

Before he could reach her, Inka stepped in front of him and clamped him by the shoulders. In one glance she took in the snake, his face, the puffy flesh of his leg.

“How long since this bit you?”

She seemed worried, even though everything was basically fine now. The bite didn’t even hurt any more. Dally mumbled something, gesturing down at it.

“Think. Before or after dark?”

“After,” Dally said, slowly, remembering eyes like stars.

Inka sighed, rubbing her temple. "Lucky boy. Probably you keep your leg.” She was already pushing him to sit down, and Dally didn't make it hard for her. He was already sinking into the dirt, staring across the fire.

Ozana was looking seriously back at him. She seemed healthy and whole, and someone had put a babys felt coat on her to keep her warm. Under the hood her small face was round and white. She wasn't crying anymore, but he could tell right away that it was only because she ran out of tears. Her eyes glint like wet stones.

Inka came back with something tar-black and sludgy on her fingertips, which she held up to until he reluctantly opened his mouth. The medicine taste like honey and wild onion and vomit. Dally gagged, trying to spit it out.

In response Inka just clamped both hands on his jaw, forcing his mouth shut. “Ah-ah!” She bat his flailing hands away, tipping the sludge down his throat. ”You will be weak for two days. Maybe we carry you maybe not.”

Dally tried to lick the awful taste from the inside of his mouth as she smeared more medicine into the bite itself. Then she wrapped it around and round with a piece of harness strap.

When his flesh puffed up on either side of the wound Inka seemed satisfied, sitting back on her heels. She stared thoughtfully at her own work. "Today, you were stupid." she said, not unkindly. "Lucky and stupid."

Then she tugged the snake down from his shoulders. Dally actually straightened a little as it came off, so maybe it had been weighing on him more than he realised.

“It's good meat." Inka said. "She can eat this.”

She left him with the snake and a skinning knife, feeling the heat of the fire beating on his face. Then he was finally allowed to settle himself next to Ozana, sandwiching the small figure between himself and Ansel's bulk.

"You okay?" Ansel met his eyes over her head. "She saw the fire and came back. Scared. I guess human kids aren't that different from ours." His smile was crooked with rail-spike teeth. "I don't know what I expected."

"Thank you."

"I didn't do anything."

The fire was extremely warm and seemed to be worming its way into him; a prickle under his skin and behind his eyeballs. Not a bad feeling, he decided. After a while someone gently removed the snake from his hands, which he had been holding quietly for a long time. They replaced it with a bowl of stew, with a layer of fat swimming on the surface. A soft weight against his side made him look down again: Ozana had sagged against him, dead asleep.