"Come ON, Thomas!" Abigail laughed and ran, the wind blowing the grain around her. "Slow poke! I'll race you to the hay stacks!"

He laughed and ran, legs stretching as he sprinted through the wheat fields, warm wind in his hair, the sound of his little sister's laughter ringing in his ears. He was a good runner, a fast one. He'd catch up soon, but let her win at the last second. Then he'd push her into the hay stack, and they'd laugh and throw handfuls of straw at one another.

"I'm going to beat you!" She giggled, then ran faster. Thomas ran too, but for some reason, he couldn't catch up. It was as if he were running through water instead of grain...

"Hurry up, Tommy!"

"I'm trying..." Abby was standing still now, and yet still falling further and further from him. Then he was alone in the field with the wind and the grain. And when he looked down, there were bodies in the wheat. Corpses and blood and flies, left to bloat and rot in the warm summer sun.

"Abby!" he cried, then again:

"Abby!"

He sat bolt upright, covered in a patina of sweat. It had only been a dream, but he was still gasping as if he'd run for miles...

There was no warm summer breeze, no smell of hay and freshly harvested wheat. Instead the acrid smell of smoke and the musky odor of hides met his nostrils, reminding him where he was: the enemy camp. The rigidity left his posture, and Thomas found himself slumping back down in despair. It had been a dream, but not all of it. The bodies had been real. He'd stood in that field of fallen comrades and fetid corpses. It had been the last thing he'd witnessed as a free man. Now all he ever saw was the inside of this longhouse.

The flap of the door pulled aside, forcing Thomas to squint against the sudden assault of sunlight that penetrated the gloom...

Zeru had left while his prisoner slept, slipped out among his people to ease his mind for a while. It was hard for him to be around the man -- Thomas Avonlea, even his name was hard! -- knowing that in a few days time, he would be dead. A piece of Zeru felt pain at this knowledge, the piece of his soul that would die with Thomas Avonlea, and escort him to the Spirit World to serve the Sun God, just as Zeru was sure the man felt pain at facing his own death.

He recalled the sacrifices; how many had there been? One each summer, since his 18th year... and he was now nearing 40. They had all been Ekaini, their customs as foreign as the interloper that awaited death, none of them comprehending the ritual, not understanding that it was for the benefit of them all. How many of them had pleaded for life, had begged -- had spoken to him in his own language, told him of their children, their wives, their families. How many of those families would he see in the Spirit World, how many of those men? Zeru was not sure he would be able to face them.

"Jaunko."

He turned to see one of his warriors, one of the men who had been hovering around the prisoner's longhouse while he refreshed himself. "He is awake now."

Zeru nodded and pulled himself up from his seat on the ground, walking slowly toward the longhouse. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take, and as it had happened every year, he looked forward to the sacrifice, because it would take away the pain. For the both of them.

He pushed aside the flap of the longhouse and went in, awaiting the accusing look from the bright blue eyes of the prisoner. "Hello," he said, in heavily accented Scalian, as if it would make all the difference to speak the captive's native language. Thomas' black pupils bounced in his eyes, adjusting to the light, and Zeru watched curiously before closing the flap, throwing them both back into the blackness once again.

Thomas squinted against the light, momentarily blinded, then plunged back into darkness, his pupils shrinking and dilating rapidly in an effort to keep up with the changing illumination. Spots swam in his vision and he felt oddly disoriented, though in the past few days he'd barely moved the length of the cabin.

He heard the warlord's voice, the Scalian words so thickly accented Thomas often took a moment to realize it was his own language he was hearing. He nodded wordlessly to Zeru, not looking up. There'd have been a time he'd have snapped to respectful attention, even in the presence of an enemy commander. But what was the point? His fate had been laid out for him clearly. He would die. Nothing would change that. Nothing he did or said, or didn't say or do would have any effect on his inevitable future. He'd joined the army for glory and honor, and the chance to die valiantly in battle.

Not this.