Page 133 of Earthbound

Ajax snorted as the obeah advanced towards him.

‘It’s all right, Ajax, stay calm. Don’t fight them,’ Lettle was saying in a soothing voice.

The soulless obeah locked horns then pointed them downwards.

Ajax whimpered and pawed at the ground.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lettle said. ‘But I need to keep you safe. Alder will release you once we’re inside Mosima.’

Lettle set her shoulders and turned away from the obeah. Alder thought it took considerable strength.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

They began to move through the edges of the camp. Morning dew had made the marshland even more boggy, and their boots squelched as they walked. It was early and many of the soldiers were still in their tents.

Alder had never been in a settlement like it. The first thing he noticed was the smell. They had dug latrines too close to their sprawling encampment, so those housed in the tents by the border were subjected to the stench of thousands of soldiers’ waste. Alder had never seen more than the Nomads’ modest population of under five hundred in a room before. And even then, that was only in Caperly. The travelling group were less than two hundred oftentimes.

The tents themselves were once white but now grimy with mud. The months out in the Wasted Marshes had taken their toll, and Alder spotted more than one bit of patchwork.

Small fires smouldered in pockets around the camp, left over from the night watch. They walked past one with a soldier asleep next to it, close enough to singe his eyebrows.

Mortah shook her head. ‘Terrible discipline.’

Alder found Mortah to be an enigma. Though she’d rarely strung more than five words together throughout their journey, she seemed to enjoy teaching him all about the army. When she spoke of her time there, her eyes lit up with an intensity she hadn’t shown for anything before.

‘I was a captain,’ she had said when he’d asked. He didn’t understand the ranking system, but from the gravity with which she’d said it, he assumed it was high. So he had nodded and looked appropriately impressed.

‘He would be dismissed the second he woke up if he’d been in my regiment,’ she remarked about the sleeping soldier.

They continued on. Alder began to relax a little as the entrance to Mosima came into sight. This was easier than he expected.

‘Soldiers,’ the call came from behind them and Alder froze. All of his brief training completely left him.

Mortah thankfully turned quickly on her heel and saluted. ‘Colonel.’

Alder cursed inwardly, as he couldn’t remember if a colonel was high ranking or low.

‘Where are you going?’ The woman was no older than forty, with white hair that was braided by her waist. Alder noticed she wore a Waning symbol on her lapel.

‘We’ve been sent to relieve the soldiers at the entrance to Mosima,’ Mortah said.

Lettle was giving Alder an urgent stare and he realised he hadn’t saluted. His stomach dropped and he snapped out of his paralysis, following Lettle’s lead by bringing his fist to his chest.

The colonel’s brow knotted together. ‘Who sent you?’

‘We are part of Rohan’s regiment, Colonel. In Waxing,’ Mortah answered quickly.

She was good at lying.

‘All regiments know that the entrance to Mosima is Colonel Reena’s jurisdiction, that is to say my jurisdiction,’ Reena said.

‘Apologies, we’ll be sure to inform Captain Rohan on our return.’

‘Yes, do that,’ Reena said. Just when Alder was sure she was about to ask another leading question which would give them away, a soldier ran up to her.

‘Colonel Reena, there’s trouble in Crescent. Three captains are refusing their orders until they see Chieftain Waksa.’

Reena made a frustrated sound. ‘I’ll deal with it,’ she said to the soldier, then she turned back to them. ‘Go back to Waxing, tell Rohan I want to see them.’