“No,” I said, shaking my head furiously. “I need the Greenshirts.”
I’d spent well over a month with Kossal and Ela since leaving Rassambur. We’d talked about everything from blackberry jam to garrotes, but I had avoided any mention of my plans for Dombang or the Trial. Partly, that was because I was still working through the details. More importantly, though, I was afraid to say the words aloud, afraid that translating thought into speech would destroy it, that my hopes, buoyed up like jellyfish in my mind’s depths, would wither and collapse if I dragged them out into the air. Which meant I’d never mentioned the fact that the Greenshirts were crucial to all my plans.
Kossal raised a questioning eyebrow, but there was no time to explain. Fortunately, Ela came to my rescue.
“No attics,” she said, shaking her head. “I came for the wine and the dancing.”
“You’re welcome to start dancing,” Kossal said, gesturing toward the approaching men.
“Just let me handle it,” I said, shoving more confidence into my voice than I felt.
It was a strange and unsettling feeling, not to be able to rely on my knives. Since leaving Dombang as a child, I had moved through the world comforted by the knowledge that my god was always behind me, silent and invisible, but infinitely patient, always just over my shoulder, waiting to unmake anyone I marked with one of my knives. The day’s slaughter on the causeway provided ample proof that he had not disappeared—he was all around us, going about his inscrutable work—but suddenly, due to the strictures of my Trial, he was utterly beyond my call. Despite the crowd, despite Kossal and Ela at my back, I felt alone.
As I moved down the causeway toward the Greenshirts, I tried to emulate Ela’s nonchalant grace. It didn’t come easily. For as long as I could remember, I’d found a confidence in fighting, in the feel of my knives in my hands, in the knowledge of my own mastery. Denied those knives, I felt lumbering and awkward. It didn’t help that instead of a silk ki-pan, I was wearing a pair of muddy drawers and a torn shirt.
You’re a victim, I told myself, just like everyone else. You’re terrified and confused.
That role, too, was something I thought I’d left behind when I quit Dombang. I did not relish stepping into it once more.
“Stop there,” said the leader of the Greenshirts, leveling his sword at me when I was still two paces away. “No closer.”
I ignored him, turning to my accusers instead, opening my arms as I stepped closer. “You survived!”
The mud-covered man was ready for a fight or a chase; he had no idea what to do with my sudden embrace.
“Thank Intarra!” I exclaimed, burying my face in his shoulder. I could feel his hands on me, trying to push me away as I pulled him closer. “You survived,” I murmured again, surprised to find tears in my eyes.
“Get off of me,” he insisted, finally managing to shove me away.
The Greenshirts stood in a loose cordon around us. They held their swords as though unsure whether to swing or sheathe them.
“What the fuck’s going on?” their leader demanded, stepping forward, lowering his weapon at last.
“It was horrible,” I said, turning to him, trying to pitch my voice somewhere between harried and imploring. “Horrible. We tried to fight, but the crocs, they were too strong.”
“She killed them,” the man said, staring at me.
“I tried,” I moaned, turning back to him. “I had one of those beasts by the jaws. I left two knives in his back, but it didn’t matter.…”
“Not the croc,” he spat. “Bin and Vo! You fucking murdered them.”
I tested out a baffled stare. “What? Why…”
“What’s with the knives?” the Greenshirt demanded, studying the sheaths warily.
“We are traveling performers,” Ela said, stepping brightly into the conversation, laying a placating hand on the Greenshirt’s wrist. She was wearing doeskin gloves, I realized, although in the moment I didn’t understand why.
The soldier yanked away, and Ela let him go, shaking her head sadly, turning to the next man. “We were walking just a few paces behind these two when the causeway collapsed.” She managed a shudder that looked entirely real, began to faint, and crumpled into the arms of one of the other Greenshirts, who caught her awkwardly, dropping his sword in the process. A second soldier came to his aid. I glanced down the causeway to find Kossal sitting on the railing a dozen paces distant, looking half bored, half irritated.
I turned back to the leader of the Greenshirts.
“They saved us,” I said. “The two who died. The woman—I think her name was Bin—she held off the crocs with a stick. They saved us.…”
“Then why did you kill them?” the woman wailed. She looked even worse than I did, her flimsy clothes soaked, shredded. Blood washed half her face, carving runnels through the drying mud.
I shook my head, spread my hands. “I don’t know why you keep saying that.”
Ela draped a comforting arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Sometimes there is no one to blame,” she murmured, stroking her hair. “Sometimes people just die. Sanni,” she said, nodding toward me, “did everything she could. We all did.”
The woman stared, eyes blank as the sky.
The man stepped toward me, lips drawn back in a rictus.
“I know what I saw.”
The Greenshirt looked from the man to me, then back again. “What did you see?”
“She threw her knives! She murdered Bin and Vo.”
I turned to confront the soldier myself. “I did throw the knives, but not at his friends. I was in the mud, fighting for my life. Why would I kill the woman who was helping to hold back the crocs?”
“She threw her knives at the croc,” Ela confirmed.
The Greenshirt grimaced, obviously searching for a way out of the situation. “Maybe you missed? Hit his friends by accident?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been throwing knives since I was five. The croc was the size of a boat and three paces away. I didn’t miss.”
The mud-smeared man leveled a finger at my face. “You’re a murderer.”
He kept saying that, as though all other thoughts had escaped him.
Ela interposed herself, laid a comforting hand on his chest. He knocked it away, but suddenly I understood.
I turned back to the Greenshirt. “Look. It’s madness out here. There are still people stuck in the delta who need help.”
“She’s trying to get away,” the woman insisted.
I shook my head again. “We’ll wait right here. Leave someone to watch us, but for the love of Intarra, send the rest of your men north. This tragedy isn’t finished.”
The soldier studied me for a moment, jaw tight, then nodded abruptly. “Von, Thun, Quon. Keep them here. I don’t want anyone moving until I’m back. If they move, kill them. When I get back, we’ll bring them to the Shipwreck and figure it out there.”