“Where we be with no Boss?” said Oulch. “No eats, no nothing, then! All bad.”

Thrakk snorted. “With no Boss? We’d be home in the wallows. No marching all day. No arrows shooting at us. No heads chopped. You see Norb today? You remember Norb?”

We all’d seen Norb. Norb ran at the flashy men. One flashy man had a pike. The pike went into Norb’s eye, and out the other side.

“We need Boss. He’s helping us,” I said. Then I thought more. What did Boss help with? Something, something much good. Long time ago, he came for it. But what?

“He helps us get our guts on the ground,” Thrakk said. “When he go near pikes or swords?”

I thought lots, but I could not think what Boss’s good was. The good was all at home, in the sucking muck and the leany trees, were all was brown and gray and black. No good was here, in dust and crackly dirt and bright sun, bright grass.

There was a grumbling in the horde. All was saying, “Who carries the big shields and heavy smashers? Who fights the flashy men? Who dies? Is us. For what?”

“Always hurting,” Blarg globbered. “Always tired. I hear Thrakk.”

He stood up. Thrakk thumped him on shoulder, where bowl had hit him. Thrakk, he with the biggest, greenest shoulders, he always at the front of the charge, was good with Blarg.

I hefted up. “Me, I hear Thrakk, too,” I said, pounding my chest plate with my fist, so much I meant it! “Always bad, we is, with Boss. Is . . . is wrong! I help Thrakk now, not Boss.”

The grumble in the horde turned to roaring. So many was getting up, it felt like the earth quaking.