Standing on the corpse beneath his feet and looking at that familiar face, Wild Horse felt as if he had returned to six years ago. Back then, he still had both arms and half his tongue, but he hadn't cared in the slightest. When everything could be expressed with blades, language was purely superfluous.
He believed he had been born to be a killer. Unlike many of the children who had been kidnapped, he remembered some things from his past: the boundless expanse of white snow, his stern-faced parents and laughing playmates, and, most of all, the scene when they were killed.
He had been only five or six, yet felt nothing at the death of his family. One thing alone had surprised him: killing people was so easy. Those men in black had cut them down one by one, their movements orderly and composed, more effortless than villagers gathering spring herbs.
A killer walked up to him. Two vacant eyes looked down at him. "Are you an idiot?"
Because of his wide-set eyes, Wild Horse had been asked similar questions since childhood. He immediately shook his head, though he couldn't remember whether he had ever spoken. Language had long since vanished entirely from his memory.
He never found out who the killer staring at him had been, nor had he ever made an effort to find out.
He was sent beyond the mountains and housed with three children his age. Their lodgings were crude, but they had far more food than he had had at home.
One day, the adults who brought their food arrived. Besides the meal, they brought four oddly shaped knives and said, "I've brought only one meal. You decide among yourselves who gets it."
The other three children were still looking at one another in