Marching into a bad town was the only time the Emperor wanted Feru to rampage like a giant, but he was thirsty and didn’t feel like breaking trees or throwing any cows. Rum-Tom and Kulp, strutting by Feru’s waist in front of the other soldiers, tapped batons against their pikes and talked about the mean things they wanted do. Eelip, the tax man, riding in the saddle between Feru’s shoulder blades, didn’t say anything at all, and that made Feru nervous for the quiet little town. The tax book, hanging in its metal case from chains below Eelip’s saddle, banged on Feru’s greave buckles like it was supposed to, each bang calling attention to the Emperor’s soldiers.
Ahead of them, in fields that would have been green had the rains come, workers stopped to stare at the column, then ran for the town’s gate. A figure in a dress tripped, fell hard, and lay on the ground so long that dust settled around her. Kulp laughed, but Feru stepped forward even though she was too far away to help. She rose, looked back, and limped for the walls like a mouse dragging itself away from a cat.
Feru let go of the saddle’s shoulder straps to wipe road dust from the tattoo on his forehead. He always scared the townsmen at first, but sometimes they stopped worrying when they saw the tattoo that said he was a smart giant. He smoothed his beard and checked that his loincloth covered his tender. The sweat-cut channels in his dirt-filled chest hair probably looked like lion scratches, but it was too late to clean them.
Eelip smacked him on the ear with the driving rod. “That tree by the boulder at the crossroads. Knock it down. Break its trunk or something and toss it at the wall.”
Feru dragged his feet through the white dust, causing the tax book to bounce beneath the saddle.
“Stop it, idiot,” said Eelip. “You’re jostling me. Get over to that tree and knock it down.”
“It’s pretty,” Feru said, kicking the dirt. “I don’t want to break it.” He looked at the cute little tree and smiled. “It’s like the town is saying hello to people on the road.”
The weight in the saddle leaned away from Feru’s lower back as Eelip stood up. It hurt when Eelip did that and the tax man knew it.
“I told you to get over there and break that tree. Now do it, or I’ll have Kulp break something of yours. Understand?”
Feru stuck out his lip and kicked up more dust, hoping the column of soldiers would choke on it. He looked down at mean old Kulp and Rum-Tom. The two men chatted like they weren’t paying attention, but their eyes were turned to Feru and they had stopped clacking their batons. They didn’t fool Feru. He knew they watched for his misbehavior, and that neither one of them could wait for Eelip’s signal to strike. Feru guessed that whacking giants was what the Emperor wanted them to do, but it didn’t seem fair that they liked it so much.
Feru shuffled as slowly as he could get away with. The tree was beautiful. Each limb seemed to have a partner on the other side of the trunk. The golden bark of its crinkly branches reminded him of Cuag’s hair, and the bent way it stood made him think of her when she doubled over to laugh. Cuag was the prettiest giant Feru had ever seen, and he blushed when he thought of her. The Emperor wanted Feru to obey Eelip, but what good would breaking a pretty tree do?
Kulp rapped his pike on the ground, stepped in front of Feru, and swung his baton hard enough to make the air whiz. “Get on with it, moron. Do your job.”
Feru stepped up to the tree, reached for the highest branch, snapped off a twig, and dropped it.
Kulp’s baton broke the stick in midair and kept twirling. Splayed yellow teeth showed in his grin, and he ambled in a circle around Feru, the baton a whirring disc. “You do what the man says, dummy, or I’ll make you.” Kulp’s leer didn’t change, but the spinning baton flashed out and nicked the tip of Feru’s loincloth, flicking it up to momentarily expose his tender. “I can hit it anytime I want,” Kulp said. “You going to make me?”
Rum-Tom stepped to the giant’s other side and aimed his pike at Feru’s face.
“You’re boring me,” Eelip said. “I’ll count to ten, and if Feru won’t follow orders, Kulp will. Kulp, if you have to strike, don’t incapacitate. We’re going to need him to intimidate this town. There’s an ex-soldier here who isn’t going to like this levy.”
Feru didn’t know what Eelip meant, but Kulp’s weapon was a humming blur, and Rum-Tom’s a promise of death. Eelip’s driving rod bonked out the countdown on Feru’s head.
Feru looked again at the tree. It wasn’t Cuag just because it reminded him of her. And it wasn’t the only way the town had to say hello, either. It was just something pretty to see on the way in. Feru rubbed the sides of his head. The Emperor wanted him to be a good soldier. Soldiers protected people, and they followed orders.
He broke off a lonely looking branch with a crack that made even Kulp flinch, and tossed it over his shoulder. Indignant shouts went up and weapons clanked as soldiers dodged it. Feru tucked his thumbs under the saddle’s shoulder straps and moved away while the tree was still whole.
“Kulp,” Eelip said.
Feru tried to turn his butt so the blow would land on the tax book’s metal case, or, even better, on Eelip’s legs, but Kulp knew that trick and turned the blow at the last instant. Pain from Feru’s tender coursed up his stomach, and he stooped with hands on knees until it passed.
“Did you hit the book?” Eelip said.
“Not a scratch,” Kulp said. “He tried to move you into it, but I know that one pretty well. The moron does it every time.”
Eelip yanked a fistful of hair from Feru’s nape. The tax man stretched toward Feru’s ear and whispered, his sour breath coiling its way to the giant’s nose. “Well,” he said, “the tax book is okay. Are you? Are you ready to do the job the Emperor gave you?”
Tears flowing and nausea from the blow filling his throat, Feru stomped around the tree, breaking off limbs and their partners until a sad pile lay by the boulder.
“Good boy,” Eelip said, plucking another fistful of hair. “Now turn around so I can see the gate.”
Feru’s nape stung like somebody had whipped it with a cord of nettles. He ground his teeth and turned toward the town wall. Eelip gave commands to the soldiers, and Feru told himself to act like one, because that’s what the Emperor wanted. Collecting taxes helped the Emperor help the people, and Feru’s job was to protect people, not trees.
The drawbridge rasped and creaked beneath the soldiers’ feet. Feru thought it sounded thirsty. Pot shards, eel skeletons, and broken fish traps littered the bottom of the dry moat. Withered saw grass drooped away from the crumbling bank, powdered soil sifting through the exposed roots. Slabs of dead moss sagged off black stains beneath the wall’s scuppers. Eelip, his breath like rotten apples, scratched out notes on a portable desk snapped to the saddle’s shoulder strap.
As the file of soldiers marched past, Feru dug his foot into the powder at the bottom of the moat. He wished it was full of water. “I’m thirsty,” he said.
Eelip scribbled on.
Feru tried again. “I bet I could skip rocks in this moat. I wish the rain would fill it up so I could try.”
Eelip stopped writing long enough to rap Feru’s ear with the driving rod. “Shut up. There’s a well in the square.” The pen resumed scratching.
Feru released the drawbridge chain to rub the sting from his ear and repositioned the tax book on his calf. He pried chunks of dried wood from the bridge with his fingernail and worried about the streaks of dried sweat on the soldiers’ armor. “The soldiers are going to drink it all,” he said.
“Damn it! Will you shut up? It’s the deepest well in the province. And I told them to keep out of the square until I got there.”
Feru’s ear stung and keeping the iron case of the tax book balanced on his greave strap tired his ankle. He hooked his thumb under the shoulder strap and bounced Eelip’s desk. “I’m thirsty,” he said.
Eelip cursed, but the pen scratching stopped. His ankles bounced off Feru’s waist in the “go” signal. Two ranks of soldiers clattered into each other as Feru clambered out of the moat onto the bridge, and four more had to dodge as he ducked through the gate to hustle into town.
The town’s buildings crowded together with no alleys, and the street felt like a one-way canyon of stacked brick. Doors on rooftop exits were nailed shut, and upper story windows were shuttered. Feru saw empty dove cotes on the roofs and abandoned dog chains on the ground.
The soldiers had lined up down the street against storefronts. They rubbed forearms across their mouths, pulled out waterskins, and stared at Eelip.
Eelip leaned over Feru’s shoulder and pointed to a burned-out tower at the end of the street. All Feru saw was the promised wellhead beyond it in the center of a deserted market square. He licked his lips and headed for it, but Eelip pulled “halt” on the throat bar.
Rum-Tom and Kulp, balancing pikes on shoulders with the crooks of their elbows, loosened the stoppers on their empty waterskins. Eelip ignored them and gestured to the tower’s fire-blackened doorway. “That’s the granary. You two see if anything’s left, then meet us in the plaza. Feru, move on.”
Feru caught a strong smell of cow manure as he trotted from the street canyon into the market square. Huddled buildings arced away on either side, their first floors hidden behind derelict market stalls. Scattered barrel staves, overturned carts, broken chairs, and ripped, empty sacks littered the ground. Dried cow flops plastered the cobbles behind the first broken market table Feru looked at, and flies buzzed over a fresh green one by a wooden bench. None of the buildings looked like their ground floor opened into a cowshed.
Feru stood on his tiptoes in a vain attempt to see behind the farthest stalls. “I smell cows,” he said.
Eelip drummed Feru’s ear with the driving rod. “So what? All I smell is you. Get on to the well.”
Feru wanted a drink too, but the sight and smell of squishy green after so much dust made him nervous. And he didn’t like so much hidden shop space on the ground level. Anything could be lurking behind the broken stalls and ripped awnings. Everybody said this was a bad town. The Emperor sure thought so or he wouldn’t have sent Eelip to bother them. Maybe everybody thought the town was bad for more reasons than not paying taxes. There were pillories near the wellhead. Maybe the town was as mean as Eelip.
“Where did all the people go?” Feru said. “They ran in here fast enough. Maybe we should march in together so the soldiers can protect my legs.”
Eelip struck him on the crown and Feru yelped. “I said get going.”
Feru looked left and right as he walked across the desolate space to the pillories near the wellhead. The punishment stands were mounted on a platform that rose to above his waist. The tax book’s case scraped against rusted iron hooks jutting from the platform’s wall. Feru leaned out so the case wouldn’t catch, and a hook screeched against its iron cover. He whispered over his shoulder to Eelip. “Do they hang people on those?”
Eelip snorted. “Just keep them away from the book, idiot. And no. They hang people from racks about as tall as you. The hooks are for manacles so prisoners can’t go anywhere. It’s what you get if you haven’t been bad enough to put in the stock. I wish we had one big enough for you. Now get to the well. I’m thirsty.”
A path, clear except for cow manure, ran through the debris past the pillories to a wooden trough that stood before the wellhead. Green moss grew between the cobblestones around the trough, and from his height, Feru saw cloudless sky reflected at its bottom. Eelip saw the water too and kicked the “go” signal, but Feru leaned against the pillory for another look at the market square and another sniff for danger.
The pillory’s hinge squealed as Feru squeezed his fist through a head hole, and he heard a clattering of hooves on cobblestones rushing up from behind. Feru yanked so hard the pillory’s crossbeam tore off as his hand came free. He snapped his head around toward the clattering and saw a four-legged heap of muscle and horn hurtling across the cobblestones toward his legs.
The bull hit hard enough to knock him and the tax book back against the pillory. For an instant, Feru imagined the book being knocked clear across the square into the well, but it rebounded off the platform, cracked against his leg, swung back on the saddle chain, and caught on the platform’s hooks. The bull shoved its head and twisted its horns against Feru’s shins. Feru scrambled for balance but couldn’t free the book. Eelip groaned and the bull stomped backward to gain room for another charge.
Feru risked taking his eyes off the bull and saw two links of the tax book’s chain had caught on a manacle-hook. He couldn’t dodge until he got it free.
“Run run run,” Eelip screamed.
A beard of white foam flung off the bull’s nose as it tossed its head and bellowed a throat-ripping roar. Cables of muscle running from its neck to its chest snapped tight as it charged. Feru reached behind his back to grab the book and squatted to make a smaller target. The impact of the bull against his thighs sounded like boulders smashing together, and Feru’s head reeled as his hips crashed into the platform. His hands slipped off the drool-slicked muscle of the bull’s neck, and it hooked upward under his knees as if it knew exactly how to throw a giant. Without his hands to keep the horns away, it worked, and Feru crashed to the ground.
He lashed out a foot and landed a heavy smack to the bull’s face, driving it away. Feru scrambled to his knees. Eelip thrashed like he had been doused with boiling water.
The bull, shaking its head, bellowed again and scraped a hoof on the cobblestones. Eelip pounded Feru’s head with the driving rod. Eyes on the bull, Feru groped behind him, stood, and inched forward until the snagged chain pulled tight. He thrust forward and yanked at the same time, splintering the platform and canting the broken pillory forward. The book smacked against his calves as it came free.
Eelip hit harder, signaling wildly for Feru to get away.
The bull screamed and its eyes shone as it shook its head to demonstrate the menace of its horns. Loops of froth from its mouth flung through the air and splattered on the ground.
Feru stepped away from the jagged pillory to make sure nothing else was caught. He wanted to obey Eelip, but the bull was fast, its horns sharp, and the tax book would be the first thing hit if he turned to run.
Eelip would go crazy if the book got damaged. With it, he was the Emperor’s soldier collecting taxes. Without it, he was just another marauder stealing food.
The thought infuriated Feru. Eelip wouldn’t care if Feru got gored, but he’d squawk like a pricked rooster if the book got so much as a scratch. Feru poured his anger out by screaming back at the bull.
Eelip screamed too, because Feru’s challenge made the bull crazy. It swung its head in big arcs and gave them an angry, cock-eyed stare. Eelip thwacked out more commands, and the bull lowered its head to charge.
Time seemed to slow for Feru.
He remembered his soldier’s training and the Emperor’s little sergeants showing the giants how to disarm horseback men charging with lances. Turn your stomach away from the horse, your body side-on to the charge. Watch the point of the lance. Leave some slack in your arm to surprise the knight with, and grab the lance point before he realized you could. Hold on to it. Push the point down as the horse came forward. Pivot around the point toward the horse. Sweep up under the far end of the lance with the other hand. Push the haft into the rider’s armpit and use it to fling him across the battlefield.
Some giants couldn’t do it. Cuag couldn’t remember to pivot and got knocked down so many times she cried. Poor thing. The Emperor sent her to saw stones in a quarry and him to carry Eelip and the stupid book.
Feru crouched side-on to the bull and leaned to receive its charge. Eelip yodeled in terror. Feru wished Eelip wouldn’t do that. He needed to think about the bull, because it was running weird. It lowered its head but jigged its horns as if it knew better than to let Feru grab them. That didn’t seem right. Didn’t bulls run with their horns steady?
Feru missed the grab, and the horn hit his palm. Even though time still felt drawn out, he couldn’t keep it from piercing. Agony sluiced up his arm, but the poke was good because it gave his body something to pivot around. Just like the training ground, he drove the point down with one hand, turned into the charge as it passed, and swept up with his other fist. He caught the bull’s gut between its ribs and hind legs and punched up with everything he had. The bull’s hind end rose over Feru’s head, and the momentum twisted everyone—Feru, Eelip and the bull—completely around.
A horse rider stopped weighing anything to Feru when he popped off the lance at the top of the swing, and it was easy to stay balanced in that attack’s follow-through. But this time, the impetus of the bull’s continued fall dragged Feru around toward the broken end of the pillory and drove the splintered post through the animal’s body.
Gore splashed Feru’s face as the bull screamed, and hot pee sprayed down his back as Eelip panicked. Both tax man and the bull thrashed, but Feru only worried about the bull. He grabbed its horns and forced its muzzle around until its chin pointed at its back. Rage extinguished, the bull’s rolling eyes now burned with terror. Feru waited until the bull jerked its chin to get loose, then twisted as hard as he could. The bull’s frightened eyes turned on Feru, something snapped behind its skull, and the animal sagged like a dropped rope.
Eelip wailed like a little girl, but it was Feru who felt sad. The bull had just been defending its home. Feru was a soldier and understood. A soldier’s job was to defend people and their homes. He wasn’t sure it was fair to kill the bull. And he didn’t think the Emperor would have wanted it.
A horn had come off. Feru laid it by the bull’s head so neither would look lonely.
Feru leaned against the wellhead and tried to lick away the ache in his palm. The horn had gone almost all the way through, and nothing he did soothed it. Sleep might help, but he couldn’t lie down wearing the saddle, and Eelip was too busy yelling at the townsmen to notice.
Kulp and Rum-Tom’s real sport had begun. They paced behind Eelip, rapping their pike butts against the ground to emphasize the tax man’s harangue. As far as Feru knew, all they cared about was bullying townsmen. After the fight with the bull, they had unchained the book from the saddle without warning, let it bang against his heels, and had abandoned him in harness. Now they glared at the crowd, held their pikes high, and waited to beat somebody up. Feru had seen his keepers like this before. They weren’t going to pay attention to him anytime soon. The rest of the soldiers roamed amongst the dusty townsmen, pushing people to their knees or slapping heads that weren’t properly bowed, and didn’t think about Feru either.
His hand hurt, he was tired of wearing the saddle, and the Emperor would want him to rest. Feru moaned to let everyone else know.
Eelip whirled and sneered. His braids had come loose and hair stuck to his sweaty bald spot. His pants were wet from hip to knee. “Shut up! You’re a soldier, not a baby!”
Eelip turned back to threaten the crowd. “The Emperor’s tax men have seen this before,” he yelled. “That bull lived in your plaza, and you left it there to attack us. You saw what my giant did to it. I’m going to do the same thing to this town. I might have been lenient before, but now I’m going to take every seed, chicken, and sack the book says you owe, whether it starves you or not, starting with that animal. The bull is confiscated for my soldiers’ table, and tomorrow we’ll see what else the book says I can take.”
Eelip turned a blotched face to Feru like he expected something, but it was Feru’s turn not to care. This was the part where he was supposed to act mean, but his wound thudded, and he didn’t feel like obeying Eelip, especially if it meant scaring townsmen.
Eelip yelled at Feru. “I said the book!”
Kulp stepped forward and chopped up with his baton to show Feru what was about to happen. Feru understood all too well. He snarled, grabbed the book in its iron case, hefted it above his head, and roared as he brandished it at the people. Postures in the crowd wilted, and Kulp smirked, not realizing or caring that Feru’s anger was for him.
The case’s rusty corner gouged into Feru’s wound, and a rivulet of blood snaked down his arm. Feru shifted his grip, but Eelip’s face grew wild, and Rum-Tom motioned for Feru to hold it steady. Feru knew they didn’t want him looking weak in front of townsmen, but his hand hurt and he wanted to put the book down.
Eelip’s stare fixed on the ribbons of blood trickling over the muscles of Feru’s arm.
Kulp smiled and spun his baton.
Feru clenched his jaw. He was a soldier. Blood or not, heavy or not, showing the book was what the Emperor wanted.
Eelip shrieked at the crowd. “Tomorrow by the well you face my giant. And the book!”
The townsmen, muttering to each other, drifted out of the square.
Kulp and Rum-Tom finally removed the saddle. Feru lay down to lick his hand and watch the sky. The moon reminded him of Cuag’s round face. He hoped she could see it from her quarry.
Feru woke to water dashing against his face and pain thumping from inside his hand. Eelip dropped a bucket by Feru’s head and kicked his shoulder.
“Get the book ready.”
Pale morning had begun to rise above the town, and the watch let fires die. Feru nudged Cook’s donkey away from a pile of withered turnip tops and ate them for his breakfast.
Red streaks radiated from the gouge in his palm. His fingers wouldn’t close right, and dragging the book with his other hand made its case screech on the cobbles. Eelip shot him a disgusted look.
“Don’t you know how bad this town is?” Eelip said. “You better be stronger than that. And today I want you grim faced and ready to bite. They put that bull against you, and if that doesn’t make you want to scare them, then Kulp’ll give you something that will.”
Feru nodded, aching too bad to argue. The Emperor wanted him to sit still with the tax book in his lap and do whatever Eelip said when they were settling accounts with towns. His obedience to the tax man was the most important part of the show, because if the townsmen saw him do it, they would too.
Feru understood that, but Eelip always wanted it to go further. He wanted Feru to scowl at the people no matter how tame they were, and to bare his teeth if they argued. Eelip said the ferocious act was the best way to keep the townsmen feeling small.
Feru couldn’t understand that, and before he had known to keep quiet around Eelip, had once said so.
“Because scaring them protects them,” Eelip had said. “If they feel small, they won’t fight. And if they don’t fight, they don’t die. And that is how we make the Emperor happy: by keeping his people alive so they can work.” Eelip had grimaced up at him. “How did you get the smart tattoo asking stupid questions like that? Didn’t the sergeants teach you anything?”
Feru looked past Eelip at the bloodstained pillory, wondering how scaring people would keep them alive. The idea still didn’t make sense. Wouldn’t scaring people eventually make them want to fight? Feru was scared of the pikes Rum-Tom and Kulp carried—the first part of his soldier training had showed what two skilled men with pikes could do to a giant—but that didn’t keep him from imagining what it would feel like to take Eelip’s driving rod the next time he whacked his head with it, or what Kulp would say if Feru snapped his pike in half. Feru didn’t obey Eelip out of fear. He obeyed because the Emperor wanted him to.
Wouldn’t it be better if the towns wanted to obey, rather than scaring them so they had to? Everybody knew what happened to defiant towns: their ashes had warmed Feru’s feet many times. But the ferocious act Eelip wanted wouldn’t make the towns want to obey. It would just scare them. Feru knew what it was like to be angry even though he was scared, and he thought the townsmen did too. Especially the one who had put the bull in the market square.
Feru brushed flaked blood off his palm.
Eelip had to be wrong.
Acting ferocious would only make things worse. Eventually the towns would become as mean as the soldiers. Soon enough, every town would put a bull in their square to keep them away. The townsmen would stand together and fight, and when that happened, a lot of them would die. The Emperor couldn’t want that.
As the sun rose and dusty townsmen lined up to face Eelip and his book, Feru sat still as he could against the wellhead’s knobby stone. The book’s heavy case pressed blood and sensation from his palms. Eelip chided him for fidgeting, stood on Feru’s ankle, and leaned into his lap to scratch notes in the book. Townsmen pled their cases and left looking as if Eelip had sucked the hope from their hearts. All morning, skinny people with ragged kids cried and got down on their knees, but Eelip went right on marking red in the book. They were hungry, the people said, and the taxes left them nothing to eat. They were choking, they said, and taxes were the boot on their throat. They were desperate, they said, and the Emperor wasn’t leaving them any choice.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eelip said, digging in his ear with the quill tip. He yawned, dipped the pen, and scratched red marks beneath almost every name in the book.
As morning ground into afternoon, the pain in Feru’s hand crept into his neck, sweat ran down his face, and he moaned every time Eelip stepped onto his leg to turn a page in the book.
“I think your giant is sick,” said a townsman when it was his turn to face Eelip.
Eelip, standing on Feru’s ankle in order to see the top of the book, ignored the comment, but Feru looked down at the townsman. The man had a red, squashed looking face with pinched eyes. Stringy yellow hair stuck out beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Hands on his hips, he stood close to Feru like he wasn’t afraid.
Eelip snatched the man’s papers without looking at Feru.
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” said Eelip, reading.
Eelip stepped back onto Feru’s ankle, flipped to a page in the book marked by a red ribbon, and compared it to the man’s papers. “Ah, yes. The ex-soldier,” he said, smiling grimly and wiping his hand on an epaulet.
Feru hated the epaulet gesture. It meant Eelip would throw angry words at the townsman, and that Feru would have to grimace and growl and try to scare everybody in sight. He didn’t think his mean act would work on the squish-faced townsman, though. Everybody else had been afraid, but this one stood right next to Feru, and seemed more worried about the giant’s keepers than the giant himself.
Eelip set his pen in the inkpot and crossed his arms. “The bull had your brand, and my drover says it had been trained to fight giants. Do you deny it?”
Squish-face held up a hand.
“I don’t,” he said. “It was mine, and I did train it. It kept feral giants out of our square. They’re after our water, and that bull kept them out. And before you arrest me, I want to say I didn’t know you were coming, or I would have corralled it. I didn’t especially like that bull, and I’m not sorry he’s gone, but I would have spared your giant the grief.”
He looked up at Feru and winked. “You big fellows don’t like bulls, but you didn’t have any trouble with mine, did you?”
Feru liked the wink. “Just trouble in my hand,” he said. “It’s pounding all the way to my head.”
The sound of Feru’s voice jerked Eelip around like somebody had spit in his eye. Kulp slapped Feru’s head with the flat of his pike blade. Feru winced and tried not to get mad. He knew the Emperor didn’t want him to interrupt Eelip.
Squish-face winked again at Feru. “I’ll just bet your hand is sore. But how do you think my bull feels?”
Feru frowned. What could a dead bull feel? “Are you joking me?”
Squish-face grinned. “I sure am.”
Eelip hammered a fist into his hand and sputtered. “Well, I’m not joking. And you leave my giant alone. Get him worked up and he’s liable to destroy your town. I can’t do anything when he’s like that.” Eelip gave Feru the growl signal, but Feru couldn’t do it.
Squish-face looked at the pikes and turned a skeptical gaze on Eelip. He stepped closer, looked up at Feru, and patted his knee. “He’s not going to hurt anybody. You aren’t going to squish anybody, are you big boy?”
Feru shook his head.
Eelip shoved between them and pushed Squish-face away. Now Feru did feel like growling. He liked Squish-face, and the pat had felt nice.
“What do you know, anyway?” Eelip said, poking Squish-face’s chest and pointing back at Feru. “The Emperor sent that one because he’s a killer. You might be the biggest cattleman in the province, but you’re going to show me some respect, or I am going to let him run loose. You saw what he did to your bull. You want that done to your town?”
Squish-face shook his head. “I saw what he did. And that’s why I know he won’t hurt anybody.” He looked at Feru, and spoke in a way that seemed to make everybody else disappear. “You took that bull away from his pain, didn’t you?” Squish-face said. “A killer wouldn’t do that.”
Despite his thudding palm, Feru felt soft toward Squish-face. The way he talked reminded Feru of happier times. “Are you a sergeant?” he asked.
Squish-face smiled like he’d found a gold coin. “I was, a long time ago. And I turned big fellows just like you into soldiers. I can see why the Emperor wanted you. You’ve got the smart tattoo, don’t you? What’s your name?”
“Feru.” Feru blushed and lowered his head to show off the tattoo the Emperor had said he could wear.
Eelip stood on tiptoe and slapped Feru’s chin. “What the hell are you doing? This isn’t a wedding. Sit back and shut up.” He twirled to Squish-face. “And you! Another word to my giant and I’ll have you flogged for interfering. Understand?”
When Feru raised his head, Squish-face still looked at him and ignored Eelip as if he were just a yapping dog. Feru glanced sideways at his keepers. Kulp had drawn his baton, and Rum-Tom aimed a pike at Feru’s face. Eelip had launched into law words that Feru didn’t understand, but it was clear he was telling Squish-face that he would break this town like Feru had broken the bull.
Squish-face ignored them all. He spoke directly to Feru, and it seemed that his voice came through a tunnel connecting just the two of them. “Don’t let him make you mean,” Squish-face said. “Listen like a good boy, but don’t let him make you mean. They kill the mean ones, Feru. They kill them.”
Squish-face popped open the imaginary tunnel by turning away from Feru to bark right back at Eelip. Squish-face raised his hands and bowed and nodded and kept saying “yes” until the scarlet left Eelip’s face and Feru’s keepers began to relax.
Feru sat back, the thumping in his arm dulled by Squish-face’s words. They kill the mean ones.
Squish-face meant giants, but Feru realized it meant towns, too.
Eelip’s sweaty bald spot was pink, and his yellow eyes bulged like somebody was squeezing his head. His braids flopped around on his ceremonial armor as he paced in front of Squish-face shaking his fist. Feru couldn’t catch all the words, but Eelip’s intent was obvious. The town had pushed too far, and now it was going to pay. Eelip, his giant, and the soldiers were going to seize everything the book said the town owed, even if it starved every townsman to death.
Squish-face turned red and began to argue with his own law words, but Feru could see Eelip wasn’t going to listen. Eelip had already decided. No matter how well Squish-face argued, the soldiers were going to take everything, just like Eelip said, and Squish-face’s people would die of hunger.
The Emperor couldn’t want that.
What good did a dead town do him? The Emperor wanted Feru to obey, but more than that he wanted his soldiers to protect people. Eelip wasn’t protecting anybody. Eelip wanted to kill the townsmen, and he was using the book to do it.
The Emperor couldn’t want that.
Feru roared in anger and stood so quickly that Eelip was tossed past Squish-face onto the ground. Black and red ink streaked down the book’s pages. Feru’s palm hurt so badly he almost dropped it, but hearing Eelip’s shriek of rage filled him with purpose.
Squish-face shouted at Feru, “Don’t!”
Feru snapped the chains connecting the book’s case to Eelip’s saddle, turned to the well and tried to shove the book in. Rocks tumbled down, but the iron case was too big.
Eelip screamed at Kulp and Rum-Tom. “Stop him!”
Time slowed down and Feru saw the point of Rum-Tom’s pike coming toward his face, but he couldn’t dodge it and break the iron case too.
He could save himself or the town.
He tore the book free, sent the case flying, and red lightning exploded in one eye. He struck the pike with his wounded hand and felt Rum-Tom fling off the other end. Fire sliced through his brow as he pulled the blade from his skull. Feru felt somebody beat his hip with a baton. Kulp, trying to find his tender.
Feru couldn’t see, but his hands found the crumbling lip of the well. Kulp kept whacking. Feru jammed the book into the well, bent its edges together, and let it fall.
Eelip ran out of breath to squeal, and Kulp found Feru’s tender by the time a quiet splash rose from below. Eelip let out a strangled moan and cried that they were dead because of what Feru had done, that the Emperor would kill them both.
Blinded, bleeding from where his eye had been, bent double from the agony in his tender, Feru still managed to laugh at how wrong Eelip was. The Emperor wouldn’t kill either of them. Eelip probably wouldn’t be a tax man any more, and Feru wouldn’t be a soldier, but the Emperor wasn’t going to kill them. He wanted them alive, and to keep on working. Everybody working, everybody helping. That’s what the Emperor wanted.
Feru didn’t get to be a smart giant any more, but his new handlers, Bimke and Sour Paul, didn’t care that he had to wear the stupid tattoo. They liked having Feru carry stones for them. Feru didn’t have to be told where to put the stones, they never had to use batons, and after the first year, they even stopped carrying pikes. Sometimes at night, when the quarry bosses had gone, Feru made them laugh by skipping stones as big as their heads across the lake at the bottom of the pit.
“Pick up the pace there, One-Eyed Feru Fart,” Sour Paul said. “You’re moving like a plugged-up grandma. If that woman of yours beats us again, I’ll cram a bushel of prunes down your throat just to speed you up.”
Sour Paul. Always making dung jokes.
Feru crouched and eased the stone from his back onto the ship’s deck. Bimke and Sour Paul relaxed while he slid it to oppose its twin on the other side of the keel. His handlers didn’t tell anybody that Feru knew how to do this part on his own.
“I know your old taxman got the stupid tattoo at the same time you did, but I still don’t know why they gave you one,” Sour Paul said. “I guess because they think you’re worth about as much as a cup of cold piss.” He laughed and clapped Feru’s knee. “Well, it turns out the cup is full of vintage wine instead. Get that rock in place, Feru, and give me another cup of the vintage!”
Feru grinned, and without being told, cinched a securing chain around the stone.
They worked until the ship was loaded, then watched it row into the canal. Bimke said it was okay for Feru to relax on the hilltop until the ship reached the river.
Feru ran up the hill, lay down, and stuffed his tunic with pink flowering vines that grew there. Bimke hadn’t okayed picking flowers, but Feru thought it was like Sour Paul’s joke: keep it quiet, and get cups of vintage when you could.
The fat moon had risen when he parted the curtains in their shelter. Cuag didn’t notice him at first. Bathed in firelight, she sat practicing how to move the stone saw for her work tomorrow. Every day the little one inside her got bigger, and every day she had to adjust the saw stroke to accommodate her growing belly.
Stew bubbled in their cracked whaling kettle. Cuag smiled when she saw him, and clapped at the pink flowers. Feru smelled the food in his house, laughed with his wife, and thought about his job carrying rocks. Maybe he was too stupid to do anything else. But that was fine. It was what the Emperor wanted.