Chapter 4: A Songbird among Scavengers
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Blind them to their history, erase the path that brought them here, and they will follow wherever you lead.
-Attributed to the Sovereign, circa 19 Before the Fall.
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“How about we sell you first, boy? As bones for the dogs?”
But the clear, powerful voice doesn’t come from me. Instead, I turn with the others to see a woman striding fearlessly up to our group. She’s tall and slender, wearing a deep scarlet dress, a crimson storm in a painted sea of tents. Her hair spills down her back in inky waves, her chin held high. Everything about her radiates pride and self-assurance. Her gaze, molten earth, hotter than the sun, pins me to the spot.
Shame claws at my throat, but I don’t know why. I don’t owe these people anything.
Pinched-face blinks in surprise at being confronted, then resorts to his usual scorn. “Oh, and what do we have here? Are you the queen of thieves, sweetheart? What’s wrong? Did we disturb your nest of vipers?”
A few of the others chuckle again, but it’s weaker this time. The woman’s glare could burn down the damned wall.
“We’re no thieves or beggars, or whatever other lies you scum peddle in your city.”
Silence suffocates the camp, pressing down like the weight of the sky. Pinched-face sputters, but his venom falls flat against her storm. And me? I’m not sure what I should do, who’s side I should take. Pinched-face deserves to rot on the ground, but I need these people.
Pinched-face rallies. “Is that so? Then why do you camp outside the city walls like vermin? If you’re so innocent, why not come inside with everyone else?”
The woman tilts her head at him like a bird of prey. “We’re the vermin? When you scurry and burrow in your little nests, in your filthy, rotting streets, always searching for the cheese?” Her voice drops, quieter and quieter, and none of us make a sound, too aware of how close to home she’s hitting. “And you scurry and you scurry and then you see it… That great enormous chunk of cheese that will change your life…”
She’s whispering now, so quiet I have to lean forward to hear, and I’m not the only one.
“And you reach for it, with your grabby little claws…” Snap!
She claps her hands together in front of our noses, and we all jerk back, eyes wide. She laughs then, and it’s a genuine laugh that has her doubled over, clutching her side, gasping for breath. Her hair falls across her face, strands sticking to the shimmer of sweat on her cheeks.
Pinched-face is red, absolutely shaking with embarrassment and anger, and he draws a short sword from the sheath at his belt. It gleams, the sun and the firelight tinging it red. There’s silence.
The Vardos woman stares him down, face imperious, and a dagger is flashing in her hands as she spins it over her knuckles. Her gaze sweeps over us, judging us, finding us wanting. But her confident stare hitches when she sees me. When she sees my Vardos features, but sees I’m with Pinched-face, and I’ve been silent the whole time. A frown knits her eyebrows together, and I turn away. My fingers trail along the hilt of my chipped dagger, cold metal against trembling skin. Am I Vardos? Am I Amenion? Am I some twisted mix, a scavenger of identity pieced together from the scraps? Every answer feels like a lie, a desperate attempt to fill the empty shell of myself.
“Get the hell out of my camp before I gut you, Amenions.” Her voice is calm. Dangerous. She looks at me. “That means you too, Gadje.”
From behind her the robed figures of other Vardos arrive, weapons drawn.
After a strained silence, Balen grunts and gestures for us to get moving again. We continue deeper into the camp. The rest of our ragged crew are subdued now as we reach the far end of the sprawling camp. Behind us, coloured wagons remain tethered in crooked rows, children darting through legs or peering out at us shyly. The moment we step beyond those patchwork tents, we will be in the open desert.
I take a deep breath, rib cage twinging from one of Balen’s blows, and I force myself to move. One foot ahead of the other, past the painted tents and laughing voices, towards the desert's harsh embrace.
We leave the shelter of the city walls and the bright wagons, and strike out across the open desert. Endless sand rolls towards a horizon blurred from the heat of a never-changing sun. Out here, beneath the stark blue sky, with no buildings crowding around me, it’s freeing. The desert wind whips around me, carrying the promise of peril and adventure. And for the first time, I don't shrink back. I raise my chin, letting the wind dance through my hair. The harsh beauty is honest, stripped bare, not pretending to be something it isn’t.
We walk, till our throats are dry and raw from the sand and still Balen leads us onward through the desert until our legs ache. Eventually we reach the abandoned remains of an old sand-skimmer, its hull scarred and sails bleached ragged by untold journeys, lying prone in a dip between the dunes.
He sweeps his hand toward the decrepit craft. “This beauty will take us to the ruins in style.”
Olly and I share a glance full of doubt, and we aren’t the only ones.
The aged sand skimmer creaks as we drag it upright, its wooden hull streaked with grit and showing the cracks and gouges of a thousand journeys across the desert. A mast juts up from the deck, tattered sail furled across the boom.
Whoever built it had bolted three curved metal blades under the hull, and I can guess they’re designed to glide across the dunes once the craft builds up speed. I run my hand along a blade, wiping away the dust to reveal the pitted but still keen edge beneath. In its day, this vessel must have been a sight, skimming its way from oasis to distant oasis. But that day was long ago.
Balen eyes the nervous expression reflected across the whole group. “You cowards. Theseus here soars the desert dunes like a hawk.”
I shrug at Olly. We don’t have much left to lose. We haul ourselves aboard, the sand skimmer dipping and tilting under our weight, weathered boards groaning. The other scavengers climb up after us, the small deck now crowded with bodies.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Olly and I exchange another grim glance. Can we trust this decrepit hulk of rotting wood and rust to not break apart in the middle of the desert?
Our captain is unbothered as he checks the skimmer’s rigging with practised tugs. Either his confidence is an act to pacify us, or he knows what he’s doing. The wind whips at the tatters of his shirt as he turns to us.
“No turning back once we shove off. If you’re having second thoughts, now’s your last chance to sulk back to the slums.” His eyes sweep over us, gleaming with challenge, but no one stirs. Wherever lies ahead, it’s better than the streets we’re leaving behind. “Well, better polish your steel then, because if the Sovereign’s Shadows catch us there, it’ll be a slow death in the dungeons.”
I hold back a shiver. General Lorentine’s brutal forces are the bane of scavenging crews like ours. We’ll be deep in their jurisdiction out here.
“And worse than the soldiers, some say void creatures haunt the islands.” Balen’s eyes gleam. “So keep sharp if you want to live long enough to spend your profit.”
One of the twins scoffs. “Void creatures? Those are just stories to scare kids.”
Balen shrugs. “Believe what you want. But don’t die before you repay any debts to me, or I’ll be having an interesting chat with your family.” He gives the man a cold smile.
His words spark furious muttering and widened eyes among the scavengers. The void is just tales by the fire, bogeymen to frighten children into listening to their parents. Right?
Olly leans close. “He’s exaggerating.” Though his bravado seems forced, and he stuffs his hands into his pockets.
With a grunt, Balen takes his place at the steering platform, bracing his bulk against the tiller. "Right then, let's see if any of you scum know how to work a line. Loose the mainsail, and keep those blades clear as we get moving."
The skimmer shudders as the wind catches the unfurling mainsail, the deck creaking beneath our feet. Olly and I share a resolute nod, then get to work alongside the others. The vessel slides slowly over the first rolling dune, the cracked hull groaning with effort, and I trim the sail with the line Balen tells me to pull. It galls me to listen to Balen’s commands, but he knows far more about how to sail this thing than I do.
We pick up a steady pace before long, gliding across the desert. Olly hunches over the side of the boat. Groaning. Face pale.
“This beats walking, but I can’t say it’s more comfortable,” he says, half-joking, half-serious.
The boat sways under our feet. “To you, nothing’s more comfortable than your bed,” I say with a grin that hides my nervousness, and queasy stomach. “Remember when we dreamed of escapes like this?”
Olly dredges up a faint smile. “But when we do leave, let's steal an airship instead of a boat, alright?”
Endless desert stretches around us, shifting gold and burnt umber. Shimmers of heat blur the horizon, hints of dark shapes that might only be mirages. Somewhere out in there lies our destination - a flying island. The last remains of an ancient civilization.
There’s no landmark in the desert to steer by, no spires or rocky outcroppings. How does Balen plan to navigate us to it?
I’m tempted to ask the others, but they’re avoiding me. The tension between us is worse now than before my fight with Balen. The events at the Vardos camp probably didn’t help. Can’t forget that. Balen had taken us through their camp on purpose. Why? What does he gain from that? It might be just to throw me off guard. From the back of the skimmer, tiller firm in his grasp, he throws a glance at me. Cold, assessing.
No, he’s playing a bigger game than just the shock factor. But he seemed as surprised by the woman confronting us as I did. I shy away from any more thoughts of her. Nothing good will come out of getting obsessed with someone like that.
Olly’s head tilts back, and I follow his eyes to the island suspended high above us. A dark smudge against the vivid sky. Imagining life aloft amidst those silent ruins stirs an old longing inside memories of childhood fantasies.
Our destination. Where Balen is taking us to scavenge for artefacts.
“They say even the mysteries the Immortals left behind don’t last forever.” Olly’s voice holds a note of wonder and unease. “The magic binding the thing together will give out. And then the island falls...”
I frown, casting a wary eye at the island above us. “Are you saying it’s going to come crashing down?”
Olly shrugs, his eyes never leaving the floating mass. “Like everything, eventually.”
His words stir something in me. The thought of that impossible floating city plunging to earth haunts my thoughts. What was the civilization like that built it? And what happened to them? Most people call them the Immortals, which is strange, considering they’re dead. Still, no-one has ever found one of their tombs, let alone a body. Only the bits of their ancient magic, imbued into strange devices.
“Olly, why do we call them the Immortals?”
He tilts his head, hand rubbing his chin. “Hmmm. I think it’s from that old religion. I forget its name. The Zonia? Zofia? Something like that. They believed time is a loop, a circle, and that the Immortals are us… but in the future? Or the past? And we’re destined to become the Immortals again even though we’re already them now…” Olly shakes his head ruefully. “Sorry, I’m not explaining it very well. I don’t understand it myself and there’s precious few people to ask.”
I grin at him. “Is that why the Sovereign and the nobles chase immortality? Because they’re all cultists?”
Olly gives me a look that says: shut up before we get reported, but he’s trying to hold back a laugh and it doesn’t quite work. He puts on that studiously dry voice that always does me in. “No. No, Kormen, I don’t think that’s quite accurate. Perhaps if you turn to page 483 in your book ‘All the reasons why the sovereign is just brilliant, really great’, and read the chapter…”
I burst out laughing, a bone-deep, belly shaking laugh, and Olly joins in as we glide across the sand towards a flying island.
We’ve only just caught our breath when a thought strikes me. “About these Zofia. I’ve never heard of them. Are they from one of the other nations? Past the Storm?”
Olly shakes his head. “No. They started here. You can still see their churches around, used for other things now. They’re kind of... spherical. I’ve seen one that’s a barracks and another that’s an essence bank.”
I give him a nod to show I know the buildings he’s talking about. “So, where are they now? Gone like the Immortals?”
Olly casts a look around before edging closer to me and dropping his voice to a whisper. “This is speculation, but the thinking is the Sovereign had them wiped out. We’re talking a long time ago, though. Long before our time, or even our parents-” his voice hitches and he pauses. Collects himself. “Before even our parents or their parents. And he replaced them with the religion of the Six.”
I frown. Maybe remembering his parents had made him misspeak. “But the Six isn’t a religion, though. It’s just… It’s just what is. The six are real, people say they’ve seen them all the time.”
Olly shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.”
But I know him, and his eyes say he doesn’t agree.
We sail for leagues across the desert, so far that the walls of Amenion drop below the horizon behind us. Then the spires. We sail onward until even the Sovereign’s tower of light, that’s loomed over me as far as my memories go back, is too far away to make out. Out here, it’s like I’m exposed to attacks from all directions.
Olly slumps against me on the chipped wooden bench, eyes closed, chest rising and falling. My heart swells at the trust he places in me, to watch out for him while he sleeps, but I’m not sure I’ve done anything to deserve it. The rest of the scavengers snore, and it’s only Balen and me awake. My eyelids are heavy, and I fight against their ever-increasing weight. I have to stay alert around him.
The skimmer bucks and shudders beneath us, its wind-whipped sails threatening to tear free with each gust. We crest dunes of sand that crash over the prow, cascading down the decking in golden sheets. All around us the desert rolls on, eternal, beautiful and remorseless as time itself.
Then a skimmer appears on the horizon, heading directly for us. The sovereign’s symbol, the crowned eagle, is emblazoned across its sail.