Page 12 of The Last War We Ever Fought

Three men had surrounded a girl, laughing and picking at her clothes, hooting and cackling the more the girl cried. She was Gobresh. Rowan could tell that language apart from the rest spoken in Tisiania, it was the hardest one she’d learnt. When she realised the soldiers had gone into a nearby town without permission and very much so against her orders, not only putting them at risk of being captured and tortured for information but had stolen what she’d explicitly demanded they stay away from, Rowan felt a desire that had long slept in her. She felt rage.

“What do you think you are doing?” she asked, surprisingly calm despite the simmer in her blood. She knew the men had recognised her voice without even turning because their bodies turned rigid.

All three turned all at once, directing a drunken look down at her, one full of disregard.

The war was ending. Soon, they’d be rid of the general who allowed no such thing as what they were about to do. It was the condition Rowan had demanded when the two older generals had asked her to join their ranks. Women were not touched. Children were not touched.

“She came willingly,” one soldier foolishly said.

Rowan’s gaze slid to the girl, and she asked in her tongue, “Did you join them willingly?”

“No, no, I didn’t, they came inside my home, hurt my father and mother, and stole me away,” the girl hurriedly said, and the men all let out a sound of annoyance, surely realising they’d made a mistake.

Rowan didn’t like mistakes. She was one of a meticulous kind.

Again, foolishly, one of them approached her—approached her too closely, more closely than they normally had the courage to. “Walk away.”

Rowan tilted her head back and stared down his soulful eyes. The blue was dirtied, just like his soul. “I’ve not had entertainment for myself in a long while.” She turned a look at the Gobresh girl. “Hand this one to me. Play with her after I am done.”

The soldier looked taken aback. Then he barked an uncomfortable laugh which his two friends followed. “You want her?” he asked, surprise colouring his tone.

“I want her.”

He let out a rumbling laughter and patted her shoulder, hard enough to make the still open wound from the last battle scream. “Then have her tonight. Tomorrow she shall be ours.”

“Tomorrow,” Rowan said, extending a hand to the girl which she took almost immediately, flying into her arms like she was a shelter of sorts.

The soldiers left, howling and laughing through their drunkenness, and Rowan dragged the girl to a storage tent, handing her a shovel.

“Dig,” Rowan told her, pointing to the free patch of land by the tents.

Eyes wide and confused, the girl took a few steps away and began digging through the muddy ground without asking a single question.

Her fingers and arms felt like they were going to fall off any minute, but she kept going until there were three deep holes dug. Humans underestimated the sheer force of spite.

There was a sudden pause in Rowan’s digging, and she looked up, searching the surrounding forest as if a beast was about to prowl in her direction. Her senses were honed, sharpened by experience, she knew there was something hiding behind the darkness of the trees—something malicious.

There was no beast, however.

There was a God who prowled in her direction. All entertained and amused, Elijah sat at the edge of one of the holes she’d dug. “Looks cosy.”

“How about you give it a try?”

He leaned back on his elbows as if he was sunbathing, and grinned up at the dark, starless skies that desperately held onto a pale crescent moon. “My last wish is to be burned.”

“That would be a waste of a fire,” Rowan said, still not realising where her courage to talk to a God as such came from. Despite what she was, she wasn’t entirely fearless. On the contrary, Rowan was more of a coward than one would realise.

War threw his head back and laughed. “You should’ve just gutted them.”

“I don’t gut.”

He stretched wide, letting out a small groan. “What plan do we have for them?”

She paused, rolling her tired eyes up at him. “We?”

He pointed between the girl, himself and then at Rowan. “I like group activities.”

“Get in,” Rowan said, dropping her shovel. “You might like this group activity.”