The Wild Dead (The Bannerless Saga 2)

Dusk fell. Fires were banked, until just one was left burning, and much of the camp gathered around it. Enid held back, nibbled on some of the beef jerky she’d brought in her pack. And yes, El Juez still watched her from across the way. She gave him a friendly smile.

She spent the night wrapped in a blanket, shored up against a tree trunk. Chilled, uncomfortable. Uncertain this was doing much good. She supposed she could have asked for shelter, for food. But if they gave her that much, would they feel the need to give her answers as well?

She could wait.

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Her second day at the camp was a lot like the first. Folk didn’t go out of their way to be friendly, but they didn’t turn her away. She was like a dog who’d wandered in and didn’t make trouble, and might get a couple of scraps if she behaved herself.

She acquired a flock of children, following her at what they probably thought was a safe distance. Giggling, they’d whisper and dare one another to approach, then run away if Enid looked at them. Eventually, she settled on a slab of concrete, tore a page out of her notebook, and started drawing. She wasn’t very good at it, but the couple of round shapes for body and head and the long slender ears she made were plainly a rabbit. The kids were intrigued. They came closer, to see better.

“What should I try next?”

“Make one of Bill,” a small girl said. Bill was the not-feral dog that had kept an eye on Enid but stuck close to the people it knew. Enid did her best, and the kids oohed and aahed Enid gave the picture to the girl, and the children ran off.

The pattern of the day was similar enough everywhere to be familiar. This place might even seem pleasant, if it was what you were used to. But Enid couldn’t help but sense a faint background tension of desperation. So many kids, and so little food. Every inch of work mattered here. They didn’t have quotas because there was simply never enough to go around. The quotas were “as much as we can.”

In the old world, that attitude had remained in place even in times of plenty. “As much as we can” meant everything, until it was all gone.

For a second night, Enid watched the campfire, put up with surreptitious stares—not as many as during the night before—they were getting used to her, if not comfortable with her. She slept tucked up by a tree.

She decided she’d learned all she could here and would go back down to the Estuary tomorrow. Leave these people alone. She needed her own family.

The next morning, Enid was wakened by a hand touching her shoulder. El Juez knelt beside her and offered a clay bowl filled with something pudding-like and steaming hot, and a flat wooden spoon. Her stomach growled for it.

“Thanks,” she said. Tried to eat slowly and politely rather than shovel it in. It tasted nutty and smelled a bit like the pine forest around them.

“So,” El Juez said, settling in to sit cross-legged beside her. “What have you learned?”

“Folk miss her. But no one’s surprised she left.”

“No. Did they tell you she was mine? My girl.”

Enid paused, spoon half-raised, and looked at him. She saw it then, in the slope of his jaw, the brown of his skin. The rangy frame. But their faces were different. “Your daughter?” He nodded slowly. Sadly.

No one had said a word about either of Ella’s parents, but people’s reticence fit the general mood. They were letting Ella go, putting her in the past. Pushing all thought and knowledge of her away.

“I’m sorry. It’s a hard loss. I really am trying to find out what happened.”

“She wasn’t killed here,” El Juez said. “She left camp ten days ago. Next we hear of her, Hawk comes back saying she’s dead and that you burned her.”

“We held a pyre for her. It’s what we do.”

He nodded. “It’s what we do too. But she shouldn’t have died at all, not like that.”

“I agree.”

“Isn’t that a wonder, us agreeing?”

Her smile only flickered. This was hard. “Folk down in the Estuary think one of you did it. Maybe Hawk, in a fit of rage. Folk do crazy things when they’re angry.” The young man was up and poking at the fire near the main shelter, bringing it back to life. Pointedly not looking over at them.

“He says he didn’t. He says a guy from down your way did. Kellan?”

“Maybe he’s accusing someone else to turn attention from himself?”

El Juez grinned. “You think that one’s got the brains for that?”

Yes, he knew his people. Enid chuckled.