“Why do I have to go?” Rohan gripes, his young voice breaking. “I’m starved!”
He has not complained once during our trek. I hesitate to push him further, but we are here to find Opal and Brac. And I need Rohan to do so. I grasp the back of his shirt and lift him. Fortunately, he is not fully grown or I would not have the strength. “I need your sharp hearing. Are any scouts nearby?”
Rohan listens to the breeze stirring the branches above. “No, but the soldiers setting up camp are loud, so I could be missing them over the ruckus.”
Scouring the army’s camp could take us all night. Rohan’s exceptional hearing is the only chance we have of succeeding. “Expect our return by dawn,” I tell Yatin. “Be on watch.”
“Eat before you go,” says Natesa, passing out rations.
I force down several bites of dried fish. The briny taste clings to my tongue like barnacles. I drain my water flask and give Rohan the rest of my fish. He shoves the chunk into his mouth, his cheeks bulging, and we set out.
The nearer we creep to the army, the wider the hole in my stomach expands. Torches extend so far into the distance I cannot make out the other end of camp.
Rohan and I carefully navigate the leaf-strewn forest, sneaking closer to the men, horses, and tents. We stop in the shadows and duck low in the brush. Torchlights illuminate the peaks of several buildings—barracks.
This is not just a camp. The army has stopped at a military outpost.
My mind spins to figure out which one. Yatin is the more proficient navigator, but if I remember right, the closest outpost to the location where Brac and Opal crashed was well within the Tarachand border. The army has traveled farther than I presumed. Should they continue their grueling pace, they will reach Vanhi a day ahead of schedule, and do so with swelling ranks. This outpost houses five hundred men, all of whom will be eager to join the imperial army under the direction of their returned rajah.
Their numbers are already large. They must have recruited while marching. When the army left Iresh, they could not have had more than two thousand men, both sworn-in soldiers and volunteer citizens. Now their ranks are vast. I estimate the army is composed of several infantry units, a light cavalry, and archers. But I am unable to accurately tally the army’s head count in the dark. Perhaps it is better that I cannot discern how big their camp is, or else I might turn away.
Unbending from my crouch, I signal for Rohan to lead on. The trees shield us as we dart across an opening to the back side of a barrack. He listens for stray guards, then shakes his head. We have not been discovered. I peer around the corner.
Soldiers mill about between the pitched tents, cleaning their jackets and brushing off their boots. Many wear no military garb, but they fly the Tarachand colors, a black scorpion on a red backdrop. Though they are short on uniforms, they have plenty of weapons. Khandas, haladies, and machetes are propped against every tent. Wagons full of food and water are parked intermittently across camp. A massive wooden catapult rests off to the side. Wagons brimming with ammunition, bolts, and boulders outnumber those hauling food supplies.
I rejoin Rohan and whisper, “Any trace of Brac or your sister?”
“Nothing.” Rohan’s huge eyes are even wider than normal. He looks so young. “We should turn back. Something isn’t right. When I reach for the wind, it doesn’t come.”
A breeze flows over us. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Something is stopping the wind’s whisperings.”
A gong rings far off. I draw farther into the shadows. Rohan fits his thin back tighter against the wall, his chin lifted. The lump of his voice box protrudes from his elongated throat.
The barrack door slams, rattling the wall. I look around the corner again. The men inside the building have left. All the soldiers are moving to the center of camp.
“Let’s go.” I tug on Rohan’s sleeve. “Stay close.”
We slip into the empty tents. Rohan does as I ask, sticking to my side. I toss him a soldier’s jacket that was left behind. I am still wearing mine. He slips it on, and the too-long sleeves hang past his knuckles. I hand him a machete and select a khanda for myself. The familiar military-grade sword feels right in my hand, but the wrongness of standing in the imperial army’s camp as a traitor makes me restless.
If I do not belong here, where do I belong?
Gripping our blades, we tiptoe to the nearest barrack, and I open the heavy door. Bunks and cots and personal bags fill the one-room building. I back out, and we go to the next barrack, and then the next. I assumed the demon rajah would hold captives in a more secure shelter than a tent, but none of the barracks we investigate house prisoners.
At my questioning glance, Rohan shakes his head. He has not heard our siblings. I consider returning to Yatin and Natesa, but our search has led us deep into the campsite. The soldiers congregate ahead. We work our way through them in search of another barrack, skimming the perimeter as much as possible. When we have no choice but to move within the throng, a voice cuts through the night.
“Welcome, troops!”
Rajah Tarek stands above the crowd on a platform that rings the outpost’s water tower. His dark hair is trimmed short, like his tidy beard. His rather average physique is made regal by the finery of his tunic and trousers. His puffed-out chest and calculating gaze exude an inherent arrogance that demands esteem. Even when he stands on equal ground with others, he has a habit of looking down his nose at people. His charismatic, boyish smile and smooth voice counterbalance his majestic poise, trickeries that convince his subjects they can trust him. A deception I once fell for.
He’s not Tarek, I remind myself. Or his son. Rohan tugs on my jacket, warning me to stay back, but I slip farther into the audience, so we’d better blend in.
“You are a marvelous sight!”
Criers repeat the demon rajah’s pronouncement to the outer reaches of the audience. The soldiers cheer for their leader. But this counterfeit version of Tarek possesses a malevolence to his voice that the tyrant rajah was careful not to exhibit in public.
The demon rajah—Udug—lifts his arms. “Today, we welcomed five hundred men into our ranks! Many of them were run out of Vanhi and their comrades were beheaded by bhutas.” Udug sneers on the word. “They tell me the bhutas’ corrupt leader, the traitorous warlord, sits on my throne. But his rebellion will not prevail! With the gods behind us, we will unseat these vermin from our imperial city and send every last soulless demon back to the Void!”
The men applaud a liar. He is the vermin they need to eradicate.