The Claim

1-5-2015

PROLOGUE: BLOOD ON A LINED PALM

There was, on paper, a passenger car on the train from Heru City to the village of Metu at the end of the line; but the bean-counters at the Ministry of Rail had calculated the cost in black silver of carrying an empty passenger car and, knowing it, had discreetly invested in a small yard at [[minor stop]], the last place most passengers who could afford the fare would care to go. Wherefore, at [[minor stop]], the lost boys moved without complaint to the same cargo cars in which they had ridden out on their deployment, six years prior, and passed their final miles back to civilian life in amongst the sacks of flour and screws and Tanta lemons that the [[rail-hands]] would disgorge in exchange for Metu’s good black silver.

The lost boys were three—a giant, a beanpole, and a bearded Chanter built like a stone hut. They sat in a triangle that looked like half a square, the shape you get when one point is missing. They did not speak except to say good-bye to the fellow soldiers who left the train at the other boondock stops out on the alkali flats. Their tongues were heavy with the news of their new loss, their guts queasy with the thought of how it would be taken, and in the dark it was easy not to speak. 

There were no windows in the cargo cars, no conductors to call out the stops, and the lost boys did not know the Heru City Line well enough to count down to Metu—the ride out had been their first and only. The train would stop, the doors would let the blinding sun burst in, the [[rail-hands]] would come in and move some goods, the door would close; or the train would stop and the lost boys would sit in unbroken darkness until it jerked into motion again. 

And then the train stopped, the sun sprang into the lost boys’ eyes and rattled there like fresh-cracked gravel, and the voice of the sergeant-major called out like a cock-crow: “Now disembark our honored fighting men!” And, as they had been taught to do, the lost boys picked up their weapons, stumbled carefully toward the light, and prepared to pick their way down the battered, red-upholstered wooden stair that the [[rail-hands]] had dragged beneath the doors.

“Ozier Amen-Enkh, rank of first lieutenant, approach!”

Ozier, the giant, ducked to clear the doorframe and vanished into the sunlight. 

Esker, the beanpole, peered out into the bright day, forcing his eyes to accommodate the light. The Metu depot was much as he remembered it—the great bins of black silver with the Amen-Enkh sigil scorched into the wood, Reshef the grocer and a pack of youths standing ready to receive goods in their empty carts, the little children staring at the train with not-yet-tarnished awe, the older ones grudgingly giving it the attention due a rare visit of high civilization to this tiny town. He scanned the crowd for the faces he knew. Inber’s light-skinned mother, standing apart from the crowd, leapt out before his own family; Ozier’s father stood out as well, his mass finely caparisoned in a bespoke three-piece suit. Esker’s heart leapt to find his own father and mother, Qeb and Iseret, who met his eyes and waved, the years melting not quite completely from their faces. Next to them was Kem Menkara, leaning on a cane; he raised his free hand in mock salute.

Ras’ mother was there as well, at the front of the crowd, her face full of hope. Esker saw Inber’s eyes go to her, saw him cover his mouth in his palm and sink his thick fingers into his thicket of beard. “Shit, Esker,” he said, “look at Ma Sennu.”

“I see her.”

“They haven’t told her. How could they not tell her?”

“How could they tell her?” said Esker. “How could anything from the front get here faster than us?”

“The major could have told her,” said Inber. “Before the ceremonies. Give her a chance to leave and grieve in private. Instead he leaves the job to us?”