Sorry about the typo in the title.
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Three hundred and seventy-three. I grab the corpse’s hand, Shae grabs the feet. The young woman is gaunt, ribs sunken in from starvation. We toss her into the pit; we wait a breath before we hear her crash against the others.
Three hundred and seventy-three. Fewer die now than in the last few weeks, for there are fewer to take from.
My older sister takes my hand in hers; they're stained the burnt red of dried blood. “Don't die, Nalia,” Shae softly whispers in my ear. My head in the crook of her neck. She knows that she will pass tomorrow. We separate and return to work.
—
A hollow wind carries the scream of a dying man. It does not bother us, children in the trench, for it is but one of many. I focus my drifting mind away from the rhythmic rising of the soldier in front of me. My lungs burn; not even the damp air is enough to ease the sting of panting for hours. I stumble on slick, rain-soaked earth. Vesh grabs my arm, and I fall back into step with the others. I feel a tinge of embarrassment, then quickly purge it from my mind, for I am not one of the weak who will die with the rest.
The sound of marching children fills my ears as we wind through layers of trench and bunkers.
Another scream finds its way over the ridge. Probably a runaway who’d rather die to the reaping than in war. What foolish men there are.
Wooden beams and rows of cavernous pits surround us. Puddles of mud where bodies lie half-submerged, like men crawling back from the dead, though now there is only stillness. I step over a boy, his hands a mix of red and mud, frozen, clutching some locket or chain. He’s barely twenty by the look of him, just too old to be saved in the last battalion like us. My shadow passes over him.
We come to an abrupt stop as the squad leader makes a fist in the air. The ranks snap silent as the orders ripple to the back. The squad leader, Jasen, turns to the crowd, his long, curly hair weighed down by the water. He smiles; he sees himself as a relic. Not simply because he’s one of the oldest here, but because he thinks of himself like the Branded from stories and myths.
“Takvi,” Jasen roars. His hand beats on his scarred chest as droplets of rain leap from him with every thump. “Today we become branded.”
“Takvi,” my friend chants in rhythm with the rest. There is softness to Vesh’s features, as if the gods were delicate with his creation; molded for the gentler life he’s lived, yet he storms with an eagerness to fight. I feel a warm familiarity as he places his mud-soaked hand on my shoulder. “For brand and blood,” he says. Only fifteen, but a year older than me. We are but two of the seven hundred in the last battalion. Our parents passed away in that field in front of us. All of ours. We do not mourn, though, for the only solace we’ve been given is that gift of a long goodbye and a burning anger that warms.
“For brand and blood,” I say to him.
An unfurling smile inches across his face, for today is the first time we will kill.
Splotches of grey illuminate the night sky where the stars and moon fight against the clouds above. My gaze stays locked above as I reach for rough dirt: to try and feel its rugged comfort between my fingers, one last time, but mud does not flake with that same familiar grit of home. I shake the muck from my palms.
Betwixt the rain, a single brilliant blue flame streaks across the sky. The arrow arches towards the wall, the battlefield. It signals us to fight.
There is a stillness, a waiting.