Page 27 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)
Time was strange while I was in that placenta underground.
Slower in a way so what Amada had to tell me took far longer than a human conversation.
Instead of a few hours, I spent a week in that placenta, as Amada informed me.
I can’t waste more time. I need to save Daton before they kill him.
He is crucial to the path Amada has spun.
I will fight for him despite his betrayal.
I will not fight for him because of how I feel for him.
No, it is only Amada’s instruction that set me in motion.
I will act to save Amadans. And he has a part to play, a distance to walk on the path Amada had spun.
At least, that’s what I prefer to think.
I don’t ponder the apprehension the mere thought that any harm will happen to him awakes in me. He made his choice. He left.
It will take me too long to reach the swamps. I groan in frustration. His trial will be in the evening. I’ll never be able to get there in time.
The direwolf suddenly squats to allow me to climb her.
I don’t know how she knows where I need to go.
I’m not sure even if she does. She is not a horse or a dog.
She will never be housebroken. And yet her faith in Amada is so great she is willing to let me ride her.
Words of thanks—of awe, even—die in my throat.
I grab the loose skin behind her neck and straddle her, my fingers buried in her gray fur.
She starts to run. My weight barely slows her massive body.
I feel her strong muscles beneath my thighs.
The wind whips my hair back, whooshing in my ears.
She runs at the same pace for hours and only stops at the sight of hanging bodies. The entrance to the Mongan territory.
Even with my heart bleeding from Daton’s abandonment, I know he will never intentionally harm me.
But he is the only Mongan I can say that of, and I am to enter their territory.
The dangling corpses at the entrance of the camps are a blunt reminder of that.
There is no power or weapon in my hands except my knowledge of their language, as he taught me, and a small knife he gave me.
Daton is charged with treason, and the penalty is death.
That they would go to that extent with him says a lot about their cruelty.
They have been tormented and abused in ways beyond forgiveness.
Maybe it changed them all, as it changed Daton.
Or perhaps they were like this all along.
They have chosen retribution and revenge as their path.
It is a dead end. One doesn’t need Amada’s wisdom to see it.
Killing Ashar and his men gave me that lesson firsthand.
I get off the direwolf, and she runs into the darkness without even a glance. I know I will never see her again. I didn’t thank her. I didn’t even ask if she had a name while I still could. But then, those are my needs, not hers.
I face the hanging corpses. Their stench is revolting.
There are five of them. I think they are two females and three males, but it is hard to tell in this light and with their state: rotting and half-eaten.
They are naked, and in a way that, of all, makes it the hardest. They were stripped of their dignity, of their humanity.
Is Daton the one responsible for this? If not for them, he is responsible for others.
Witnessing the brutality he had told me about in his own words struck me hard.
Some of them have blue hair, some red. Renyans and Aldonians.
I want to take them down and bury them. Whatever crime they committed—and from what I’ve learned, their crime may be unforgivable—leaving them like this is not right.
I look at the camp before me. Daton won’t be able to save me tonight.
And I might end up right here, hanged naked for the vultures to eat me.
Amada will not protect me any longer. She was brutally clear about it.
She didn’t appreciate me using her to kill Ashar.
She didn’t choose me to honor and protect me.
She chose me to serve her. And she will kill for me no more.
I enter the camp at dusk, but the air of the swamp is still warm and thick.
The smell is as bad as I remembered. The camp looks abandoned, except for the behemas and some goats I spot.
There are no Mongans to be seen. This is the first I get to observe the camp.
The last time I was here, I remained in the tent the whole time and then followed Daton quickly out in the middle of the night.
It is violently bare. No flowers, no decor.
Small tents, like the one I slept in, are laid out in circles.
In some circles, there are five tents, while in others, there are ten.
In the center of each circle, there is a firepit and some cookware.
There is no fire in the fire pits. But I hear speech and some shouts in the distance, so I know there are Mongans here.
I follow the chatter until I reach a large circle with a big tent at its center.
Children of all ages run and play outside the tent. They look so out of place in this camp, where corpses dangle at its entrance. The children shout and jump and run with pure mirth. Their clothes are raggedy, and their feet are bare. Some are no more than toddlers. There is not one adult in sight.
Soon enough, some of them notice me, and they gather around.
They talk excitedly about me and my appearance, not knowing I understand them or just not concerned with it.
One of the girls twirls my shirt. I’m still dressed in the Aldonian uniform Daton gave me.
However, you can hardly identify it as such in its current dirty state.
I look as undone as I feel. My hair is a mess, and my face is smudged with grime.
An older boy comes and gently pulls the girl away from me, and shushes the other kids. Unlike them, he seems old enough to be wary of me, even though he can’t be more than ten. His obsidian-black eyes are focused on the ground as he waits for me to follow him without a word.
He leads me to the entrance of the largest tent in the camp. Even with the heavy fabric of the tent that muffles the voices from inside, I can hear rowdy shouts. I glance at the boy. He looks at me gingerly, but when I fail to move, he nods in encouragement toward the tent entrance.
I gnaw on my lower lip as I try to work up my courage to walk inside. I hope this isn’t the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.