The Cold Commands

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When they got down into the fringes of the forest beyond Hinerion, Gerin saw the heat shimmering off the scrublands ahead of them, and knew the crunch had come.

Live or die, this was the shape of their last chance.

“We’re going to broil out there,” he told the others that evening as they sat in their chains and waited to be fed. “You hear the march-masters talking? It’s another six weeks to Yhelteth at least, all southward, hotter every step of the way. You think these motherfuckers are going to give us any more water or food than we’re getting already?”

“Of course they will, idiot.” Tigeth, city-pallid and ponderous, and apparently too bone-fucking idle to want his freedom at any real cost, snorted, sniffed, and blew his nose on his fingers. Like half the men on the coffle, he was coming down with a cold. He wiped the snot away on the ground and glowered at Gerin. “Don’t you get it? They have to sell us when we get to Yhelteth. How they going to do that if we don’t make it, or if we’re starved to the sinew by the time we arrive? Maybe you’re too young or stupid to grasp the fact, marsh-foot, but this is commerce. We’re worth nothing to them dead.”

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