Insomnia

21: Oscar

South Kivu, April 2125

Human flesh was softer than trees.

Before, the soldiers killed to steal, or for sport. Now, every death came in self-defence. As we had travelled south, we had been charged by a desperate group of scavengers. Our ranks cut them down with ease, but even in death the men managed to hurt us. They were all afflicted with some form of skin disease, with boils up their arms and thighs, which made Paulo uncomfortable. With reference to a previous outbreak of a deadly plague, he ordered the bodies burnt.

Days later, one of our own men broke out in the welts, having come into contact with the carrier's blood. He had been tied to a tree and burnt. Since then, no soldier had any tolerance for strangers. Even I had been required to kill a few, to protect myself and others. It is a mercy, I told myself. I am ending their pain. Better meet death at my axe, taken from the General's store, than die slowly from this disease. We cut them down so quickly, though, that we couldn't afford to check for boils. Sooner or later, I knew I'd be pulling my blade from a healthy body, and then the justifications would end. I am a killer now, either way. I might as well accept it.

It wasn't like I had a choice; Mariana had made me her personal guard, but I knew she wouldn't tolerate my failure. Not Mariana; Ulises. The girl I'd known was gone in more than name. Our reinvented leader seemed to grow less human by the day, our days of honest laughter long gone. She had burnt the fallen man without remorse. I understood the need for hygiene, and that a slow death in exile might be crueller, but I would still have killed him first.

She hadn't lost her flair for the poetic though, as I observed whilst guarding her tent. She was beginning to trust the General's men more now, and sometimes stationed me next door whilst one of them sat with her, but I still heard plenty of her conversations with Paulo.

"This is becoming a war," her translator said one day, as storms rumbled overhead. I was grateful to be inside their tent, which was the largest. Many men had to sleep outside. "We must have killed hundreds of these putrid creatures. That's an army to match our own."

"Fitting. War, pestilence, and famine, riding together. Death's scythe has lost its traditional edge, so her companions pick up the slack."

"I just wonder how there are so many," he continued. "I've seen disease before, but not on this scale. The sooner we move on, the happier I will be. We can't fight a plague."

"It doesn't surprise me. Read Malthus, or Machiavelli: when every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove elsewhere, it must needs come about that the world will purge herself in one of three ways."

"Three ways?"

"Floods, famine, and plague." Thunder rolled above our canopy, which drooped under pouring rain. "With the weather as it is, it wouldn't surprise me if we got all three. We're heading south as fast as we can, though, so this doesn't change our plans. I wouldn't linger regardless."

"As you say. We are running low on supplies, though. The raids are what kept us alive."

"Not my predecessor." That might have been a joke, albeit a morbid one.I found her hard to read. "You said that some cities are still open to trade?"

He nodded. "One, Kolwezi, is a month or two south of here. Take caution, though: these can be dangerous places. What do we have to trade?"

"Slaves."

"Are you sure? We need them for protection."

"Not all of them, and our new plans don't require such a grand army. We need food more. I'd rather lose half our ranks through trade than all of them to famine."

"If you think it best. The traders certainly need security, and I can't see the slaves protesting at a nice stable post. Some of them have been on the road for most of their lives."

"Precisely. Not everyone shares our ambition. You will handle the trade, of course."

"You don't want to take care of it yourself? I can translate either way."

"I trust you on this." She turned to me. "I want you in there too, Oscar. I won't sell you, but I need security of my own. You'll lead a team to protect Paulo and ensure the other slaves go quietly."

The other slaves. For all her professed trust, she still considered me property.

"Of course," I said.

"Will you be safe?" The translator was always concerned for Mariana's safety, as if she was some fragile innocent. Would he have asked the General? I doubted it.

"We will set up camp far enough from the city, and I can't see any of the merchants attacking a barracks." She addressed me, perhaps also annoyed by his incessant concern. "I'll take one of the Cyclops's guards for the day, and on your return you can take a tent nearby. It's the trade that will guarantee our safety. If we don't get the materials we need, let alone the food to survive, this whole journey will have been for nothing. Disappoint me, and both of you will need protecting. Do not let me down."