On top of all this, I have new sounds to cope with: the sounds of war. The soldiers scream harsh battle cries as they descend upon us, the noise ugly and hateful to my ears. Around me, cries and moans from my people also rise, born instinctually from high emotion. They don’t even realize they’re making these eerie sounds, which raise the hair on the back of my neck. For a moment, as those cries fill the air, I have a strange flashback to that first dream when my hearing began. In it, my people all cried out at the same time—almost like this but less chaotic. Still, I feel something tug inside me, that same stirring I’ve felt in other dreams, like I’m being called to. It’s the first time I’ve truly felt it while awake, but I have no time to ponder it, not with what’s happening.
The people around me stampede in different directions, everyone trying to find a way to save themselves and their loved ones. There is no strategy, no unity. I try to see what the soldiers are doing, to get a sense if they’re capturing or killing, but it’s all I can do not to get trampled by my own people.
I manage to climb back up on the stage, giving me a limited view of the scene as well as a brief respite from the stampede. No one wants to be here; everyone is trying to get away. The soldiers are riding around the center, trying to trap my people within it. If some flee, the soldiers herd them back in. One man—the tall, intimidating one I encountered earlier—stands up to a soldier, but his brawn is no match for the sword that runs him through. I’ve never seen anyone killed that way, and the horror of it leaves me frozen for a moment. Another villager doesn’t challenge the army, but he also doesn’t get out of the way when a soldier comes thundering down on him on a large black horse. The man wavers, too petrified to move, and the soldier simply runs him down, trampling the man under those powerful hooves. That thoughtless killing is almost more gruesome than if he’d used his sword. It spurs me back to action.
Even those who are simply captured are subject to brutality, struck and herded with dispassionate force. I don’t know what it all means, but I know I can’t be caught here. I hop down, relying on my smaller size to weave through the panicked crowd. I head in the opposite direction the soldiers have come, hoping I can escape from the village’s heart there. As I glance back, gauging the soldiers’ position, I am shocked to see a group of people entering behind them: a group of thin, ragged people in chains. Even more shocking is when I recognize one of them: Li Wei.
He can’t be here. He can’t. It’s impossible.
We’re pretty good at the impossible.
Incredibly, despite the pandemonium filling the gulf between us, he spots me as well. Our eyes meet, and in a moment I have changed direction and am heading back into the heart of the village. I don’t care that it’s the most dangerous place to be right now, not if Li Wei is there. He’s standing on the fringe of the chained prisoners, where there are fewer guards. There also aren’t many villagers there, as most of them are running in the opposite direction. I have to do a fair amount of dodging as I make my way across the center. A number of times I am shoved and kicked in the frenzy of capture-and-flee going on. A soldier on horseback eyes me as I run past him but then decides a larger, muscled miner is a better prize to go after.