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SO THE TALK OF RANDOM BRUTALITY wasn’t just talk At noonti woone awry The novice led by their ropes of holy beads, and their faces removed

Her nerve being shaken at last, Oatsie Manglehand now caved in to the de custoh to dig soraves while the horses slaked their thirst Then the caravan would press on across the scrubby flats known, for the failed farmsteads abandoned here and there, as the Disappointments

Moving by night, at least they wouldn’t ht as easily wander into trouble as sidestep it Still, Oatsie’s party was antsy Hunker down all night and wait for horse hoofs, spears? Too hard on everyone Oatsie consoled herself: If the caravan kept , she could sit forith her eyes peeled, out of range of the carping, the second-guessing, the worrying

With the benefit of height, therefore, Oatsie spotted the gully before anyone else did The cloudburst at sunset had fed a small trackside rivulet that flowed around a flank of skin, water-lacquered in the new ht An island, she feared, of human flesh

I ought to turn aside before the others notice, she thought; howI can do for that hu of another trench would require an hour, minimum An additional few itate these clients as they obsess about their own precious mortality

Upon the knee of the horizon balanced the head of a jackal eneration or so, a sed behind the crescent moon of early autumn The impact was creepy, a look of a brow and a snout As thewould turn into a successful hunter, its cheeks bulging

Always a fearsolehand further Don’t stop for this next casualty Get through the Disappointates of the E in to superstition Be scared of the real jackals, she reminded herself, not frets and nocturnal portents

In any case, the light of the constellation alleviated soht The body was pale, alive the corpse a wide berth before anyone else noticed it, but the slope of the person’s shoulders, the unnatural twist of legs—the jackal ure too well, as too clearly human, for her to be able to turn aside

“Nubb,” she barked to her second, “rein in We’ll pull into flank formation up that rise There’s another fatality, there in the runoff”

Cries of alarm as the news passed back, and another mutter of mutiny: Why should they stop?—were they to bear witness to every fresh atrocity? Oatsie didn’t listen She yanked the reins of her teaerly She stumped, her hand on her sore hip, until she stood a few feet over the body

Face down and genitals hidden, he appeared to have been a young man A few scraps of fabric were still knotted about his waist, and a boot son of his clothes

Curious: no evidence of the assassins Neither had there been about the bodies of the round, in a drier hour Oatsie couldn’t see any sign of scuffle here, and in theThe body wasn’t bloody, nor decayed yet; the , perhaps only an hour ago

“Nubb, let’s heave him up and see if they’ve taken his face,” she said

“No blood,” said Nubb

“Blood may have run off in that cloudburst Steel yourself, now”

They got on either side of the body and bit their lips She looked at Nubb,Let’s get through this, fellow

She jerked her head in the direction of the hoist One, two, heave