u/Ok_Satisfaction9221

I’m writing literary fiction with a light speculative element, set in an invented kingdom that has broken apart into six starving factions. The world is really the collapse of Yugoslavia, displaced far enough that I can write about it without names or dates. I’m not interested in a magic system or a quest; I’m interested in character and theme.

It follows three people: a boy taken away to war, a girl taught by a monk while she talks with the natural world, and a man in the capital who believes the world is fixed through compromise and politics. . Through that I’m working with hunger and scarcity, freedom, friendship, political populism, a society in crisis, and the absurdity of war.

I have around ten thousand words and I’m looking for someone for a regular exchange of excerpts, above all conversation about characters, their voices, and theme, not line edits. Happy to read and return the same.

In a room of high ceilings, floored with fine marble in yellow and black patterning, a long and lavish table of solid wood adorned the center. In the left corner, on the wall, in a gilded frame, hung a painting, oil on canvas.
Josif crossed his legs, settled back into his chair, and fixed his gaze on it.
In the painting, a farmyard, and a dog cowering on the muddy ground. A tormented gray-black creature with faintly curled fur, its fringe covering its eyes, large grayish eyes full of sorrow and bewilderment. A bewildered dog with its tail tucked under, waiting readily for the blows that hung over it.
Three angry men surrounded it, ready to punish it for all their misfortunes, their faces seething with rage. Two of them held cudgels of some kind in their hands, and the third clenched his fist in torment, as though cursing the dog. It looked as if the first were swinging deliberately at the muzzle, while the second took aim at the ribs, barely visible beneath the thick shaggy coat. From the noise and their commotion the hens had scattered across the yard, throwing up feathers and raising dust.
“Professor, forgive me for interrupting you,” a thin, balding man addressed Josif as he entered the room. “A new batch of reports has come in,” he went on reluctantly, aware that he was probably interrupting something and that he was unwelcome.
“Come in, Đi-đi, come in, don’t hesitate,” Josif answered, hoping to ease his discomfort. “Reports, you say? About what?”
“Well, Professor, there are several. I don’t know whether you want me to go through them now or whether we should wait for the others. Mira has called an emergency meeting.”
Josif raised his head and looked him over, watching the way his scalp shone in the light.
“Do you know, Đi, why I love this painting?” Josif turned his head back toward it, studying the dog almost scholarly.
“I wouldn’t know what to say, Professor. Perhaps because in it you see ordinary people and their lives, a reminder of the work you do?”
“No, no, Đi. Do I really need a reminder of such a thing? Is everything I do each day not enough, a reminder all day long,” Josif smiled, seated comfortably in the velvet armchair. “Look closely at the painting. Come here.” He waved his hand, calling him nearer. “Look.” He laid a hand on his shoulder and with the other pointed a finger at the dog.
Around the dog, on the left side, tiny gray specks had been painted, and on the right, tiny black ones.
“Do you know why they’re beating it?”
“The one on the left beats it because it has fleas, and the one on the right because it has lice.”
Đi-đi let out a long breath. “Professor…”
“Just so, my good man. But the tragedy of it is that the one on the right gave it the fleas, and the one on the left gave it the lice,” Josif smiled, well pleased.
“And the third one?” Đi-đi was curious now.
“A good question. I’m not certain. But you see he has nothing in his hands. I think he is simply angry about the unrest in the village.”
“How soon must I be in the cabinet room?” Josif went on.
“They want you as soon as possible.”
Đi-đi drew out a number of documents and handed them to Josif. He opened them, reading through one by one.
“How much time do we have left?”
“They’ve given us a deadline of forty-five days. After that they’ll cut off all our food supply.”
“And the reserves?”
Đi-đi lowered his head. “We have none, Professor.”
“Forty-five days it is, then.” Josif rose from his chair and again laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Shall we?”
Đi nodded.
They walked slowly down the corridor, calm and quiet. The pace did not suit Đi-đi, for they had every reason to hurry. The corridor was empty and long, with large wooden cabinet doors on both sides, all of them identical; their footsteps echoed slowly, and after each step a new silence settled. At the end of the corridor, on the left side, where the cabinet doors came to an end, there was a window through which no sunlight came.
Josif thought of how many times he had walked these corridors, and how not once had the walk through them been pleasant. There was nothing cheerful about them, and the reasons that drove him through them were always troubles; even when they were alike, there was always something new in them.
When they finally reached the end of the corridor, they found themselves before great double doors, through which they passed

In a room of high ceilings, floored with fine marble in yellow and black patterning, a long and lavish table of solid wood adorned the center. In the left corner, on the wall, in a gilded frame, hung a painting, oil on canvas.
Josif crossed his legs, settled back into his chair, and fixed his gaze on it.
In the painting, a farmyard, and a dog cowering on the muddy ground. A tormented gray-black creature with faintly curled fur, its fringe covering its eyes, large grayish eyes full of sorrow and bewilderment. A bewildered dog with its tail tucked under, waiting readily for the blows that hung over it.
Three angry men surrounded it, ready to punish it for all their misfortunes, their faces seething with rage. Two of them held cudgels of some kind in their hands, and the third clenched his fist in torment, as though cursing the dog. It looked as if the first were swinging deliberately at the muzzle, while the second took aim at the ribs, barely visible beneath the thick shaggy coat. From the noise and their commotion the hens had scattered across the yard, throwing up feathers and raising dust.
“Professor, forgive me for interrupting you,” a thin, balding man addressed Josif as he entered the room. “A new batch of reports has come in,” he went on reluctantly, aware that he was probably interrupting something and that he was unwelcome.
“Come in, Đi-đi, come in, don’t hesitate,” Josif answered, hoping to ease his discomfort. “Reports, you say? About what?”
“Well, Professor, there are several. I don’t know whether you want me to go through them now or whether we should wait for the others. Mira has called an emergency meeting.”
Josif raised his head and looked him over, watching the way his scalp shone in the light.
“Do you know, Đi, why I love this painting?” Josif turned his head back toward it, studying the dog almost scholarly.
“I wouldn’t know what to say, Professor. Perhaps because in it you see ordinary people and their lives, a reminder of the work you do?”
“No, no, Đi. Do I really need a reminder of such a thing? Is everything I do each day not enough, a reminder all day long,” Josif smiled, seated comfortably in the velvet armchair. “Look closely at the painting. Come here.” He waved his hand, calling him nearer. “Look.” He laid a hand on his shoulder and with the other pointed a finger at the dog.
Around the dog, on the left side, tiny gray specks had been painted, and on the right, tiny black ones.
“Do you know why they’re beating it?”
“The one on the left beats it because it has fleas, and the one on the right because it has lice.”
Đi-đi let out a long breath. “Professor…”
“Just so, my good man. But the tragedy of it is that the one on the right gave it the fleas, and the one on the left gave it the lice,” Josif smiled, well pleased.
“And the third one?” Đi-đi was curious now.
“A good question. I’m not certain. But you see he has nothing in his hands. I think he is simply angry about the unrest in the village.”
“How soon must I be in the cabinet room?” Josif went on.
“They want you as soon as possible.”
Đi-đi drew out a number of documents and handed them to Josif. He opened them, reading through one by one.
“How much time do we have left?”
“They’ve given us a deadline of forty-five days. After that they’ll cut off all our food supply.”
“And the reserves?”
Đi-đi lowered his head. “We have none, Professor.”
“Forty-five days it is, then.” Josif rose from his chair and again laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Shall we?”
Đi nodded.
They walked slowly down the corridor, calm and quiet. The pace did not suit Đi-đi, for they had every reason to hurry. The corridor was empty and long, with large wooden cabinet doors on both sides, all of them identical; their footsteps echoed slowly, and after each step a new silence settled. At the end of the corridor, on the left side, where the cabinet doors came to an end, there was a window through which no sunlight came.
Josif thought of how many times he had walked these corridors, and how not once had the walk through them been pleasant. There was nothing cheerful about them, and the reasons that drove him through them were always troubles; even when they were alike, there was always something new in them.
When they finally reached the end of the corridor, they found themselves before great double doors, through which they passed

CHAPTER ONE

In the months when the walnut comes to resemble an apple, Arne knew that life turned somewhat healthier and somewhat merrier: zucchini, young potatoes, and all manner of berries on the kitchen table. In recent years the house had far more often eaten nettle and chard, with only a little vegetable if anything grew at all. The sun over Ramonda had grown stingy and selfish, as Milutin, Arne’s father, would grumble in his despair every afternoon when the hour for supper came and there was none, or very little.

Holy Week was drawing to a close. Good Friday brought that morning the particular, unspoken sorrow that comes only once a year.

The earth had just dried after the rain. He meant to mow the grass in the yard, and then he had promised Natalia he would visit at the hermitage. He knew that Sava would not hold the liturgy, but that he would bring out the shroud and tell the story of Golgotha, Jerusalem, and Pontius Pilate. If they listened faithfully and remembered something of it, perhaps he would let them go off to the forest afterward.

The smell of linden was strong that morning. A grim silence ruled around the house and the yard.

Rosa and Milutin had risen somewhat earlier than usual. They washed with ice-cold water and, without breakfast, went to the church to light candles and pray.

Arne, though he was no believer, did not like to contradict his parents or to trouble them with his own, as they would have called them, heresies.

Arne stayed behind alone, drifting reluctantly about the house. He rummaged through old folk herbals and maps, then the next hour took up his knife, trying to carve what he had begun the previous evenings, so he might bring it to Natalia when they met.

On the table he had already finished two small figures, a deer and a raven. He wanted to finish the wolf as well before he set off toward her that afternoon.

He held the pocketknife in his hands, drawing it slowly across the surface of what was meant to be a wolf, but the sudden whinnying of horses clouded his mind. The knife slipped from the wood and cut deep into the place meant for the wolf’s head.

Arne flinched and set the figures down on the table. He slid the pocketknife into the back pocket of his trousers and went out toward the yard.

The armor of the tin soldiers burned in the sun as they approached. They dismounted, and while they tied the horses to the rusted gate, Arne noticed that the shorter one was grumbling and that his every movement was sullen.

“Look at what we’re doing. Look at what we’re doing on Good Friday,” the shorter one said to his companion.

They came through the gate, walking toward him. This shorter one, a soldier of middle years, with an unremarkable face and a sly smile, kept tossing remarks at the soldier beside him, an enormous man, tall as a poplar, with an equally enormous head and the dull, empty gaze of a killer.

“What are you staring at?” boomed the Big One at Arne.

His knees buckled, and the ground beneath him turned soft again.

In the blink of an eye they were already a single pace before him, blocking his sun, throwing him entirely into shadow.

“You’re coming with us,” said the Shorter one. His voice rang out like a blow against a tin drum. “Don’t make me chase you in this heat. Gather what you’ve got, say your goodbyes, and come along.”

He opened his mouth. Natalia was waiting for him in front of the hermitage. He had promised her they would go looking for bears that afternoon. His jaw locked.

“And where to?” Arne asked.

“Don’t play the fool, as if you don’t know where.” The Shorter one snorted. He cackled through yellow, rotten teeth.

He felt the unease more from their presence than from their words. Arne knew very well where they were going, or rather why. The location depended only on which division he would be assigned to.

His thoughts fled to more familiar things, and so he remembered he had forgotten to feed the dogs. They’ll whine all afternoon, he thought, and mother will be terribly upset if she sees them like that.

He stared at the dark-brown horses, which, tied unwillingly to the gate, were swishing their tails, visibly thirsty and worn from the road.

“You’ve only got two horses,” Arne countered.

The Shorter one smiled. “Keep being clever and you’ll ride with him.” He gestured with his head toward his companion.

The Big One looked at him with beastly eyes.

Arne’s heart leapt.

“All right,” said Arne. “Give me a few minutes to pack and lock the house. I wouldn’t want to be robbed while I’m gone.”

“You’re not coming back, little one.”

Arne swallowed a lump the size of an apple. He breathed in deeply. “All right,” he said.

He went into the house. Inside it smelled of salt and of the smoke from the prosciutto his mother had brought in the night before. He glanced at the wooden benches in the corner and the hearth in the middle.

Rosa and Milutin’s bed was neatly made and drawn tight, covered with a thick decorative kilim of red and black. Arne paused a moment, looking at the bed, then began to think of his mother and father, whether it would hurt them more to think he had run off into the world on a whim, or to know that his turn had come to go to war. He grieved over his mother’s sorrow more than over his own fate.

He wished Milutin were there, so they might drink a toast with his famous rakija. He would agree this was the right moment.

He clenched his fists, drew a deep breath, and threw out the chest of a soldier-to-be. He went to the little beechwood table he had built with his father a few years before. He took up a piece of yellowed paper and the pen that lay beside it, and then in a clumsy hand he wrote: For mother and father.

Father, look after mother. They have come for me and I will not be returning. I am sorry we did not get the chance to say goodbye, but it is easier this way. I do not yet know where they will send me, but if I get the chance, I will send word by someone that I am alive.

I am taking with me the maps, the herbal, the pocketknife, and your ring, so that I may remember you. I hope you are not angry.

Your loving Arne.

While he held the paper in his hands, he read it once more to be sure he had written everything legibly, then set it down on the bed.

“Listen, boy, do you think we’ve got all day?” The Shorter soldier’s already familiar, hateful voice rang out from outside.

Arne went to the front door of the house, cracked it open, and looked at the soldiers. “Give me a few more minutes.”

“You said yourself I’m not coming back, don’t deny me a farewell,” he answered angrily. “I’ve got one last goodbye left,” Arne finished, and then he went back to the table, taking up another piece of paper.

On the second piece of paper he wrote for Natalia. He sealed the letter and set the finished figure of the deer upon it. He placed it on the little table and headed for the way out.

“I’m ready,” Arne said.

“You’re not ready, little one,” the Shorter soldier burst out laughing. “You’ve only been forced. My name is Koja, and my friend here you can call Džin.” Džin nodded in agreement. “Come now, let’s not waste any more time, we’ve a good deal of riding ahead. I don’t want the dark to catch us out on the road,” said Koja.

They mounted up. Quickly they left the village behind and set off toward their destination. The hours passed in silence, broken now and then by Džin’s spitting.

“Come now, boy, why have you gone quiet? This isn’t the end of the world. Not yet, anyway.” Koja said it with a chuckle, slapping the reins. From the gallop of the horse Arne could not think.

Arne gripped the saddle with all his strength, hoping he might not fall from the horse and make this situation worse still. Who needs a crippled soldier, he thought.

“Explain to me more about where we’re going and what’s happening.”

“What do you mean, where are we going? We haven’t been together two hours and already you’re playing dumb for who knows what time,” said Koja.

“We’re going to cut down and slaughter the cursed enemy,” Džin chimed in eagerly.

“To the border, then,” said Arne. “I’ve heard the situation there is bad. They say in the village they’ve nearly broken through to us.”

“It isn’t good, not good at all,” said Koja with contempt. “That’s why my dear friend Džin and I are here, they sent us from the capital to fix what can be fixed.”

“And how do I fit into that? Why me?”

“Because you’re the last piece that fits into my vision,”

“You don’t have a vision,” Džin cut in.

Koja looked at Džin, then cleared his throat. “If we mean to survive this. Welcome to the 59th Division, little one,” Koja finished.

Koja went on. “I asked around well among the locals, who knows this terrain and these cursed mountains best. Congratulations, your title will be guide of the famed 59th Division.”

“We’ve got none better,” Džin put in.

“This is the first I’ve heard of the 59th Division,” Arne answered, puzzled.

“Of course it’s the first you’ve heard. Who celebrates soldiers while they’re still alive?”

“We’ll be lucky to get a burial,” said Džin.

“The fame comes later,” said Koja, and nudged him with his elbow.

“If it ever comes,” Džin finished, looking up at the sky.

They rode several more hours through shifting landscapes, until they had gone deep into the beech forests. The sun was on the verge of setting, and the Ural owls announced the night more and more loudly. Weariness had overtaken the horses after the long journey.

“I think that’s enough for tonight. This would be a good place to make camp until morning,” Koja observed.

“I’m hungry,” Džin said sullenly.

“You’re always hungry,” Koja shot back.

“I am, because I do everything.”

“Because I have to think.”

All three dismounted and tied the horses to a tree. The duties fell to each of them naturally, and so Džin went for wood, and Arne into the forest for supper. Koja, as was his habit, lay back in the grass and watched the sky.

Arne came back with two scrawny hares and some wild garlic, nettle, and a handful of wild pears he had gathered at the forest’s edge. He arrived just as the fire was already crackling.

“It isn’t much,” said Arne, “but it’ll be enough to get us through the night and the morning.”

“It’ll be enough for me if the two of you don’t eat,” Džin muttered, poking the fire.

“Don’t be greedy,” said Koja, and set about cleaning the hares. “And you, little one, sit.” He looked at Arne. “Now let’s get acquainted properly.”

They gathered around the crackling fire, lit to drive the insects and creeping things away from them. The clear evening had drawn every star upon the sky, sharp and unmistakable.

The walls of fear within Arne rose higher as they sank deep into the night. With his head bowed, he took the pocketknife from his bag and began to whittle the first branch that came to hand.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Džin, with his mouth full.

“I’m not afraid,” said Arne, “but it isn’t all the same to me. I’ve heard terrible stories about the border.”

“Some true, some not,” Koja added. “Things on the battlefield are different from the stories. But one thing you surely haven’t heard is that this time you’ve got me.” He laughed uproariously, then sprang to his feet like a mountain goat and drew his sword. He swung it left and right. “Did you know, little one, that I once cut down dozens on my own, and to this day, when my name is spoken, they tremble?”

“And what do I get from that? I don’t even know how to hold a sword,” Arne answered him.

“And you don’t need to. I don’t need you to hold a sword, I need you to see to it that their sword doesn’t end up in us.”

Arne studied the unremarkable man before him, trying without success to separate truth from bluster.

“You certainly won’t be the one to save me if they catch me,” Arne answered him.

“Remember what you said. Maybe I will.” Koja answered him with a smile.

“Listen, let me tell you something. War is simple. There’s no tragedy and no philosophy in it, the way the ones in the songs like to write. They’re angry at us, we’re angry at them, and someone’s going to kill someone. Our job is to kill more of them than they kill of us. When there are more of us, we’ll be able to relax and eat something better than hare.”

“How can you talk that way, when so many people have died already?” Arne asked him bitterly.

“I can because I haven’t.” Koja paused. “So you ask yourself who’s in the right.”

“Of course you haven’t, when they cut and burned me for your sake, to keep your head on your shoulders,” Džin put in, having moved on now to the pears.

They’re not right in the head, thought Arne. “Can one of you two explain to me more about what we’re doing here?”

“All right, enough joking.” Koja cleared his throat and simply turned serious.

“Our border is breaking. The enemy have started getting help. They’re coming onto our territory on three fronts, and there are fewer and fewer of us. The people are hungry and worn out. We’ve been trying for months to drive them off and we can’t.” He paused. “And those idiots in the capital do nothing. They only promise help. You know what they came up with in the end? I’ll tell you, nothing.” He went on bitterly. “They came up with the idea of sending me to clean up their filth. They say we should hold out until winter, and then winter will drive them off. Mind you, it hasn’t driven them off in centuries, but now it surely will.”

“Do you even have a plan?” Arne looked at him hopelessly.

“Of course I have a plan.” Koja took up a branch for kindling that lay beside the fire and clubbed Arne over the head with it.

Arne hunched and grabbed his head, rubbing what would by morning be a lump.

Džin smiled. “Hold on, soldier. Your first wound of war.”

“There’s your answer,” said Koja, with a smile.

They had already gone deep into the night. Džin and Koja were asleep. If there had been any doubt as to whether they were sleeping, Džin’s snoring put it to rest.

Arne, still awake, watched these men who from today were the closest to him in all the world.

He wondered what Milutin and Rosa were doing now. Whether they grieved. They’ll probably light me a candle for health, thought Arne, and better that than a candle for the soul.

His thoughts went to the terrain. Tomorrow we’ll already be out of the beech forest; once we enter the couloirs and the scree, everything will be different. He wondered whether these two had any idea at all where they were headed.

He took the map from his bag and began to study it, as though he were seeing it for the first time. He looked a long while still, until weariness overcame him.

In the months when the walnut comes to resemble an apple, Arne knew that life turned somewhat healthier and somewhat merrier: zucchini, young potatoes, and all manner of berries on the kitchen table. In recent years the house had more often eaten nettle and chard, with only a little vegetable if anything grew at all. The sun over Ramonda had grown stingy and selfish, as Milutin, Arne’s father, would grumble in his despair every afternoon when the hour for supper came and there was none, or very little.
Holy Week was drawing to a close. Good Friday brought that morning the particular, unspoken sorrow that comes only once a year.
The earth had just dried after the rain. He was meant to mow the grass in the yard, and then he had promised Natalia he would visit her at the hermitage. He knew that Sava would not hold the liturgy, but that he would bring out the shroud and tell the story of Golgotha, Jerusalem, and Pontius Pilate. If they listened faithfully and remembered something of it, perhaps he would let them go off to the forest afterward.
The smell of linden was strong that morning. A grim silence ruled around the house and the yard.
Rosa and Milutin had risen somewhat earlier than usual. They washed with ice-cold water and, without breakfast, went to the church to light candles and pray.
Arne, though he was no believer, did not like to contradict his parents or trouble them with his own, as they would have called them, heresies.
Arne stayed behind alone, drifting reluctantly about the house. He rummaged through old folk herbals and maps, then the next hour took up his knife, trying to carve what he had begun the previous evenings, so he might bring it to Natalia when they met.
On the table he had already finished two small figures, a deer and a raven. He wanted to finish the wolf as well before he set off toward her that afternoon.
He held the pocketknife in his hands, drawing it slowly across the surface of what was meant to be a wolf, but the sudden whinnying of horses clouded his mind. The knife slipped from the wood and cut deep into the place meant for the wolf’s head.
Arne flinched again and set the figures down on the table, reluctantly. He slid the pocketknife into the back pocket of his trousers and went out toward the yard.
The armor of the tin soldiers burned in the sun as they approached. They dismounted, and while they tied the horses to the rusted gate, Arne noticed that the shorter one was grumbling and that his every movement was sullen.
“Look at what we’re doing. Look at what we’re doing on Good Friday,” the shorter one said to his companion.
They came through the gate, walking toward him. This shorter one, a soldier of middle years, with an unremarkable face and a sly smile, kept tossing remarks at the soldier beside him, an enormous man, tall as a poplar, with an equally enormous head and the dull, empty gaze of a killer.
“What are you staring at?” boomed the Big One at Arne.
His knees buckled, and the ground beneath him turned soft again.
In the blink of an eye they were already a single pace before him, blocking his sun, throwing him entirely into shadow.
“You’re coming with us,” said the Shorter one. His voice rang out like a blow against a tin drum. “Don’t make me chase you in this heat. Gather what you’ve got, say your goodbyes, and come along.”
He opened his mouth. Natalia was waiting for him in front of the hermitage. He had promised her they would go looking for bears that afternoon. His jaw locked.
“And where to?” Arne asked.
“Don’t play the fool, as if you don’t know where.” The Shorter one snorted. He cackled through yellow, rotten teeth.
The unease he felt in that moment came far more from their presence than from their words. Arne knew very well where they were going, or rather why. The location depended only on which division he would be assigned to.
His thoughts fled with lightning speed to closer, more familiar things, and so he remembered he had forgotten to feed the dogs. They’ll whine all afternoon, he thought, and mother will be terribly upset if she sees them like that.
He stared at the dark-brown horses, which, tied unwillingly to the gate, were swishing their tails, visibly thirsty and worn from the road.
“You’ve only got two horses,” Arne countered.
The Shorter one smiled. “Keep being clever and you’ll ride with him.” He gestured with his head toward his companion.
The Big One looked at him with beastly eyes.
Arne’s heart leapt.
“All right,” said Arne. “Give me a few minutes to pack and lock the house. I wouldn’t want to be robbed while I’m gone.”
“You’re not coming back, little one.”
Arne swallowed a lump the size of an apple. He breathed in deeply. “All right,” he said.
He went into the house. Inside it smelled of salt and of the smoke from the prosciutto his mother had brought in the night before. He glanced at the wooden benches in the corner and the hearth in the middle.
Rosa and Milutin’s bed was neatly made and drawn tight, covered with a thick decorative kilim of red and black. Arne paused a moment, looking at the bed, then began to think of his mother and father, whether it would hurt them more to think he had run off into the world on a whim, or to know that his turn had come to go to war. His eyes welled more over his mother’s grief than over his own fate.
For a moment he wished his father were there. He would have liked to drink a toast with him and taste for the first time the famous rakija that Milutin faithfully kept for special occasions. He would agree this was the right moment to try it, Arne thought.
He clenched his fists, drew a deep breath, and threw out the chest of a soldier-to-be. He went to the little beechwood table he had built with his father a few years before. He took up a piece of yellowed paper and the pen that lay beside it, and then in a clumsy hand he wrote: For mother and father.
Father, look after mother. They have come for me and I will not be returning. I am sorry we did not get the chance to say goodbye, but it is easier this way. I do not yet know where they will send me, but if I get the chance, I will send word by someone that I am alive.
I am taking with me the maps, the herbal, the pocketknife, and your ring, so that I may remember you. I hope you are not angry.
Your loving Arne.
While he held the paper in his hands, he read it once more to be sure he had written everything legibly, then set it down on the bed.
“Listen, boy, do you think we’ve got all day?” The Shorter soldier’s already familiar, hateful voice rang out from outside.
Arne went to the front door of the house, cracked it open, and looked at the soldiers. “Give me a few more minutes.”
“You said yourself I’m not coming back. Don’t deny me a farewell. I’ve got one last goodbye left,” Arne answered, and then he went back to the table, taking up another piece of paper.
On the second piece of paper he wrote for Natalia. He sealed the letter and set the finished figure of the deer upon it. He placed it on the little table and headed for the way out.
“I’m ready,” Arne said.
“You’re not ready, little one,” the Shorter soldier burst out laughing. “You’ve only been forced. My name is Koja, and my friend here you can call Džin.” Džin nodded in agreement. “Come now, let’s not waste any more time. We’ve a good deal of riding ahead. I don’t want the dark to catch us out on the road,” said Koja.