Page 14 of War

I turn my face into my shoulder, breathing against the cloth of my shirt to keep my rising sickness at bay.

Now I understand the screams and the nausea.

The prisoners are being culled.

It takes anagonizing thirty minutes for me to move near the front of the line. In that thirty minutes I’ve seen several more captives die, though many have walked free.

The huge man I saw earlier, the one who trembled uncontrollably, is now at the front of the line.

Someone grabs him roughly, leading him to the center of the clearing before pushing him to his knees. He’s no longer shaking, but you can practically smell his fear tinging the air.

For the first time, I make out the executioner’s words over the noise and distance.

“Death or allegiance?” he asks the kneeling man.

Suddenly I understand. We’re being given the option to join this army … or to die.

My eyes swing over all the people standing around. They must’ve all chosen allegiance. Even though they might’ve watched the horseman kill their loved ones and burn down their towns.

It’s unfathomable.

I won’t become the very thing I fought against today.

In front of me, I don’t hear the kneeling man’s answer, but then the executioner grabs him by the hair.

That’s answer enough.

The captive takes one look at the sword. “No-no-no—”

With the sweep of the blade, the executioner cuts his cries short.

Saliva rushes into my mouth, and I force down my nausea.

That’s what will happen to me if I don’t agree to this camp’s terms. It’s nearly enough to make me change my mind.

I close my eyes.

Be brave. Be brave.I probably shouldn’t be using Rule Five ofMiriam Elmahdy’s Guide to Staying the Fuck Aliveto convince myself that death is the better option. The whole point of my rules was tostay the fuck alive.

The handful of prisoners that follow all choose allegiance. They’re pulled from the arena and swallowed up into the crowd.

Someone pushes me forward, and now it’s my turn to face judgment.

A soldier roughlydrags me to the center of the clearing, where the executioner waits. Puddles of blood soil the area, and the liquid splatters beneath my boots as I walk up to the man with the blade. Here, the air smells like meat and excrement.

Death is messy. You forget that until you cut a man open.

The camp’s eyes are now all on me. They look sickly fascinated by this, like it’s some sort of macabre show.

But all of their faces fade when I gaze up at War.

As soon as the horseman sees me, he sits forward in his seat. His face is placid, but his dark eyes are intense.

All you must do is swear fealty with the others. Then we will speak again, wife.

One of his hands squeezes his armrest; the other rests beneath his chin, those odd glyphs glittering from his knuckles.

Now that he’s not on the battlefield, War’s removed his armor and his shirt, leaving him bare chested. No wounds mar that skin even though I know that at least one of my arrows embedded itself in his shoulder. There are, however, more of those strange glowing glyphs on his chest, the two crimson lines of them arcing from his shoulders to his pecs before curving back towards his ribcage. The markings look just as dangerous as the rest of him.

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