The Other Lands Read Online Free

figures stood atop a raised platform. They did not move and were nothing more than outlines at first, but Ravi felt certain that each stared directly at him.
    The children on the beach stared as if these silent things and those aboard them were more frightening than anything they had yet faced. They began to murmur and whisper. A boy near the twins said, “This is sorcery.” Nobody denied it.
    “Don’t wet your trousers,” one of the soldiers nearby said, guffawing. “Look at the lot of you. Gape mouthed like so many carp!”
    Another added a remark about the smell of soiled undergarments. Still another—a bit farther away and moving forward with his arms outstretched to push the children in—made a joke about the enormous chopping block approaching them.
    “Why are they doing that?” Ravi wondered aloud. “Why frighten us still more?”
    His sister, holding his hand, did not respond.
    The barges came on. The figures standing on the raised platform were more visible now. They were cloaked in hooded garments of the same dead gray as the vessels. The surf struggling beneath the crafts billowed out, grasping at the children’s feet. They began to draw back, felt the pressure of others behind them, and began to panic. It spread as quick as touch. Over the rising confusion, Ravi heard the soldiers increasing their taunts. They
knew
this would happen. They were enjoying it!
    This realization brought a shout to his mouth. “We are not slaves!” Without knowing he was doing so, he yanked his hand free of his sister’s. He spun around, calling out over the heads of the mostly smaller children in all directions. “Do you hear? We are not slaves!”
    His voice must have carried well, for many faces turned and stared at him—round faces, gaunt ones, sunken eyed and grime caked. In their eyes he thought he saw hunger, agreement. He thought he could stir that into certainty. “Just because they say we are doesn’t make it true. We are not slaves just because they say we are!” His voice grew stronger. He asked them to look around. See how many they were. They were hundreds. Down the beach were thousands! The soldiers were few. How could they enslave so many?
    He answered himself: “Because we let them!”
    The soldiers noticed. They shouted to one another, to him. He saw two converging on him from different directions. The nearest was a bull, his shoulders bulbous and enormous, as if all his anger were gathering atop his frame.
    Ravi grabbed Mór and pulled her away, both of them agile as anchovies. He slipped through the crowd, repeating again and again that they were not slaves. He told the others to fight, to run, to do anything but not give in. He couldn’t tell if they were really understanding, or if the chaos had crashed over them, but all around the children jostled and scurried. They punched at the men who grabbed them and wrenched themselves free. A tide of them had pushed over a fallen man, and many small feet were trampling him as they surged down the beach.
    Toward freedom, Ravi thought. He knew that Mór was beseeching him, but it didn’t matter. He had her by the wrist and he was doing what he had to. He was changing everything.
    “They cannot stop us all! Run to your homes!”
    He had just spun around once more, mouth open, ready to flee if the soldier was too near. He was thinking it was time to join the others escaping down the beach. That’s what Mór wanted, he was sure, and they would do it now.
    He turned just in time to receive the full force of a soldier’s tossed baton across his forehead. It had been thrown from a distance with great force and uncanny accuracy. It knocked Ravi’s head back and turned his eyes to the cloud-heavy sky. Suddenly he had no legs. His body fell so that the back of his head was the first part of him to hit the hard sand. It left him stunned, breathless, one arm upstretched, his hand, which had just held Mór’s, empty.
    And then a fist closed over his hand, and