Shaman's Crossing

I woke myself tossing restlessly in my bed, and then lay there with that question wedged in my mind. It made no sense to me, but some part of me urgently desired an answer. Why was the city better than the forest that had once stood there? That was what I wanted to know, and yet the question itself made no sense to me.

I sank back into sleep as if I were sinking into a tar hole. I dreamed I walked on the logged-off hill above the river, and that a presence walked at my side. Every time I tried to turn and look at him, he was always just a few steps behind me, always at the corner of my vision. I glimpsed his shadow on the ground. His shoulders were wide, and above his head I saw the shadows of antlers. We walked up the burned and scarred hillside. Everywhere men in rough work clothes plied their axes and saws, oblivious of our passing. They shouted genially to one another, and sweated as they hacked and chopped all through the chill day. When a horn sounded, they all hiked down the hill to a noon meal of soup and bread. Finally I turned to my companion and answered his unspoken question.

“You will find no answer here. They don’t know why they do it. They are told to do this by others who give them money for their work. They have never lived here or hunted here. They only came here to do this task. And when it is done, they will leave and not look back. It never belonged to them, and so what they destroy is no loss to them.”

I saw the shadow of the antlered head nod slowly. He did not speak, but I heard a woman’s voice say heavily, “As they do here, so will they do in every place that they go. It is worse than I feared. You see that I am right. We must turn them back.”

And again I woke, sweating as if I had just broken a fever. Bleakness settled over me as I recalled the pale stumps like broken teeth, and the old scar on the top of my head pounded. I felt sick with someone else’s sorrow. It was a moment before I could find my own foreboding over the melee on the parade ground. My own concerns seemed foreign and petty. When I tried to refocus my mind on them, I drifted into a restless sleep.

I stood before a tribunal, at attention, in my uniform. I was not allowed to speak. Light from a high window fell on me, right into my eyes, dazzling me. The rest of the room was in shadow. I felt cold stone under my feet. I could do nothing save stand in cold dread while voices from above discussed my fate. The voices echoed so much that I could not distinguish the words, but I knew they judged me. A cold fear filled me.

Suddenly a voice came clear. “Soldier’s boy.”

The voice had sounded feminine. I was confused. “Yes, ma’am.”

The voice was gravid with solemnity. “Soldier’s boy. It was given to you to turn them back. Did you?”

I lifted my eyes to my judges and tried to pierce the dimness. I could see nothing of them. “I got caught up in the moment, sir. When they called us, I ran out with the others and joined in the fight. I am sorry, sir. I failed to think for myself. I showed no leadership.” A deep shame flooded me.

As I stood there, desperately trying to defend my actions, I heard a drum beating in the distance. I turned my head to see where it was coming from and fell, to awaken on the cold floorboards of my room. The morning assembly drum was sounding. I got up off the floor, feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all. Every bruise on my body ached, a grim reminder of my foolishness the day before.

My head was still filled with foreboding from my dream. The others were rising from their beds as slowly as I was. Uncertainty filled me. Were we still confined to barracks? My stomach betrayed me with a loud rumble. Disgraced or not, I was hungry. I dressed and shaved despite the swollen places on my face. Spink finally voiced our question aloud. “Do you think we just go down to breakfast like nothing happened, or wait up here until we’re called?”

We had not long to wait for an answer. A rumpled-looking Corporal Dent came pounding up the stairs to demand that we immediately assemble in the square. It was earlier than usual, but we managed to be mostly presentable, even Jared and Trent. Trent had to button his coat around his splint, and Jared still seemed half dazed, but we worked together to get our entire patrol out onto the parade ground.

It was a chill dark morning. We stood in the predawn blackness and waited. We heard the horn sound and still we stood in our ranks. I was cold, hungry, and, above all else, frightened. When Colonel Stiet finally appeared, I did not know whether to be relieved or even more frightened. For an hour or more, he lashed us with a lecture on the traditions of the cavalla, the honor of the Academy, and the responsibility of each soldier to uphold the honor of his regiment and how badly all of us had failed. He promised again that there would be serious repercussions for our riot yesterday, and that the ringleaders responsible for it would be leaving the Academy forever in shame. When he finally dismissed us, all hope and appetite were dead in me.