Pemulabee flipped through the papers on the table in front of him. “What else is there?” he muttered to himself. He squinted as he rifled through the pages and pages of notes and documents these Council sessions always generated. Kylara wasn’t even sure who wrote all the papers. It was like they just appeared.

Everyone waited patiently for Pemulabee to get organised. His eyesight had been going for years. After a few tedious minutes, he turned to Malyun for help, who was sitting on his immediate left. Malyun also didn’t have great eyesight, but Pemulabee always turned to her. Kylara, who sat on his right, had offered to help once. It hadn’t been good. She could see just fine, but her reading wasn’t good. The both of them ended up rifling through papers before eventually giving up. Kylara had not offered to help again.

“The Festival of Pana’murrai’yuong is in three weeks,” Roy suggested gently as Pemulabee continued shifting through his papers. “We could discuss that.”

“Also, the Bridgegate washed out last night,” Joe said. “We need to repair that. It’s not on the main route, but its the only access to the south part of the valley.”

“We have more important matters to discuss,” Malyun said, handing Pemulabee a sheet of paper. He gave it a glance, then put it back down.

“Like what?”

“Like her,” Malyun said, gesturing at Kylara across the table.

“She does not need discussing,” Roy said. His voice was grated.

Pemulabee cleared his throat. “Ah, here it is,” he said. “There’s been another robbery in Saltsbury.”

“Another one?” Leger asked.

That got everyone's attention, and Kylara sat up straight.

“Last night,” he said. “The report is here.”

“We need to send a complaint to Warrung,” Malyun muttered, “this is getting ridiculous. People in this part of the world are already mistrustful of the warblers as it is, but no one is going to trust them if this continues.”

“Warrung will already know,” Roy said.

“They know,” Wawiriya said. “I’m almost certain of it.”

“Then why haven’t they done anything?” Leger asked.

“Maybe they have,” Wawiriya mused mused.

“And what, it hasn’t worked?” Bevan said. “C’mon. This is Warrung against a bunch of petty gully-rakers.”

“They’re calling them the Highwaymen now.”

“They’re not gully-rakers,” Roy corrected. “They are not stealing sheep or livestock. They are stealing exports.”

“Still,” Bevan said. “It’s a bunch of escaped convicts versus the most powerful city in the world. How long can they let this go on for?”

“Unless they aren’t bolters,” Wawiriya said. “Maybe they didn’t escape from Saltsbury’s mines at all. Maybe they are from somewhere else entirely.”

Kylara could seen Bevan visibly flinch at the words. “What do you mean?” he said.

“The simplest explanation usually makes the most sense,” Joe said after a moment. “All the signs point to them being just typical bushrangers.”

No they don’t, Kylara thought.

“Since when can bushrangers get to the warrens?” Kylara asked. “I’ve been up there. They are not somewhere you can just live in. You wouldn’t risk it just to steal what, salt?” Probably salt. What else did Saltsbury export?

She looked at her grandad for affirmation. He was the only other person on the Council with some understanding of just how dangerous the up over was they were.

“I spent years on the songlines,” Roy said. “Kylara is right. Nothing we know points to them being ordinary thieves.”

“Reassuring,” Leger said. “Just what we want–warbler thieves.”

“That’s not what we said,” Roy stated. “Just that they have some sort of assistance.”

“Yes,” Leger said, “assistance from a warbler.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Leger rolled his eyes. “Who else would be useful up there?” The two had a long standing, but still mostly friendly, feud. Leger was the least serious man on the Council, and Kylara’s grandfather was the most serious. They often clashed and made up a few hours later.

“It could be a failed warbler,” Kylara said. “Someone who didn’t complete their studies. Or someone who just knows their way around.” Kylara immediately scolded herself after saying it. Someone who just casually happened to know their way around in the upper worlds? The idea was technically possible, but still laughable.

Malyun let out a snicker. “What a ridiculous notion,” she said.

“It’s true,” Roy said. “I spent enough time as a porter in my youth that I started to see my way around. Your memory gets trained after a while. I could probably navigate some of the more common routes by myself. This could easily be someone who worked on the expeditions for years, learnt how to do it, and held a grudge.”

“Okay,” Taligree said. “Even if that is true, that only answers the question of how these thieves are surviving up there in the first place. Not the question of how they are stealing. Being in a warren is one thing. Stealing from a warbler is another.”

“Guns?” Bevan suggested. “They could use guns.”

“The warblers would have protection against that,” Joe said.

“Not necessarily,” Roy said. “They can be caught off guard as much as anyone.”

“Entads?” Kylara asked.

“Also possible.”

“I think we’ll find out soon how they’re doing it,” Pemulabee said. He held out a sheet of paper. “This time, the robbery didn’t go as plan.”

“What’s that?” Kylara asked.

“A police report from yesterday.”

“What happened?” Kylara just managed to stop herself from grabbing at it because that would be rude.

“Saltsbury mounted a resistance.”

“With Warrung’s help or…?” Taligree asked.

“Without.”

“Ah.”

“But it seems like it went somewhat successfully. They captured one of the Highwaymen. He is in custody now.”

“So how are they doing it?” Kylara asked eagerly. “Has he talked?”

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“It doesn’t seem so,” Pemulabee said. “They have his name and a few of the names of his comrades, but that’s about it.”

Roy took the report from Pemulabee and took a few seconds to skim over it. “It says he was someone that they recognised, a man named Remacle Cliff. He was originally from Warrung and sent to work in the Saltsbury mines after he was convicted of stealing ten pairs of shoes from a nobleman. Hard labour on the flats for five years but his sentence was commuted to one, with a fine of two hundred australs.”

“And what, he got impatient?” Leger asked. “Why didn’t just wait it out?”

“He stole a necklace about three months into his sentence and was caught. It says here that he was about to be transferred to the Borderlands, but he escaped to the bush before they made any arrangements to move him.”

“Well he certainly sounds like one of our thieves,” Taligree said.

“That seems like a harsh punishment,” Kylara said. “All he stole was a necklace and a few shoes and he gets sent to the Borderlands?” She had never heard of a thief who went straight to exile after his first crime. Maybe it had been a mistake, exiling someone for stealing just a few shoes. Warrung was a big city after all. Or maybe he had hurt someone while stealing them? It felt like there had to be more to the story.

“So?” Leger asked. “I want to know how they are doing it. Has he told us anything? How does someone even go about robbing warblers on the songlines?”

“You can look at the report, but its fairly sparse,” Pemulabee said. “It gives a lot of details about Remacle–apparently the person who wrote this had a bit of a history with him. He calls him a brute that doesn’t follow orders very well.”

“So it doesn’t say how they are doing it?” Kylara asked.

Her grandfather shook his head. “It seems like either the station doesn’t want to say much or he isn’t talking.”

“Tell us about it,” Leger said. “Dhaligir and now this Remacle bloke. At least Dhaligir has an excuse for not talking.” Leger looked around the room for an audience that he did not find. “Because he’s an idiot,” he finished. No one laughed. “No?” he said, “well, whatever.”

Joe sighed. “Do we at least know how many thieves there were?” he asked.

“At least six,” Pemulabee said.

“It says they took a hostage,” Wawiriya said. Roy had handed her the report. It had taken her less than a second to read before passing it on to the next person, Taligree.

“They did,” Pemulabee said. “It doesn't say who, but I assume it was someone from the ambush.”

“That’s probably why he isn’t talking,” Kylara pointed out. “He knows there can be a trade.”

“Perhaps,” Malyun said.

Taligree put down the report he was reading. “So the songlines aren’t safe anymore,” he said.

“They never were,” Kylara said.

“They were safe enough,” Malyun said.

“They never were,” Roy replied. “I would know, I was a porter on them for over a decade. It takes an incredible about of skill to not just navigate them, but to navigate them safely. I know most people don’t like the warblers down here, but we don’t give them enough credit for what they do.”

“But these are people,” Joe said, “it’s a different kind of safety. Everyone knows the warrens are dangerous–that’s why there are the songlines. There’s every danger imaginable up there. But people? I don’t think anyone has been taken by people before. At least, not to my memory.”

He looked to Wawiriya. “Not to mine, either,” she said.

“Most of the time,” Joe said, “you hear about a group that was eaten by a three headed giant salt rat or a teleporting avalanche–” Roy raised his eyebrow at Joe. “–I’m just giving random examples here,” Joe clarified. “My point is that the danger of the up over has never been because of humans. It’s always been something else. Monsters, or anomalies, or whatever other weird horrors are up there.”

“That doesn’t make it more dangerous,” Roy countered.

“No, he’s right,” Pemulabee said. “People are different. It’s a different kind of fear.”

“We should have discussed this before deciding on Dhaligir’s fate,” Bevan said. “With this going on, who knows what his parents will decide. They might not want to risk the songlines to get to Bormbora. Not with this going on. You certainly can’t get there without going though the same area these thieves are in.”

“Well we can’t exactly change our mind now.”

“Why not?” Bevan said.

“I already signed the paper,” Kylara said. “To keep my word, if you invite him back and I’ll be forced to treat him as though he should be in exile.” They could’ve put a retract cause in the document, but they had not. Or at least, she didn’t think they had. She had not bothered to read the whole thing.

“We will stand by our decision on Dhaligir,” Pemulabee said. “Right now, we need to discuss what to do about these Highwaymen.”

“Ugh, are we actually calling them that?” Leger said. “Just because they are in the up over and that’s technically high up and on they’re on songlines and those are technically ways and they are probably men. Still. Highwaymen doesn’t really fit.”

The meeting was going too long, Kylara thought. There were no clocks in the room but you could usually tell how many minutes had passed based on Leger’s flippantness.

“They haven’t attacked a transport with people on it yet,” Joe said, “only exports.”

“It’s because the passenger traffic is more regulated,” Roy added. “I only worked with goods when I was a porter, but Warrung requires there to be at least two warblers present if there are anyone except experienced crew there. Two warblers are harder to attack than one.”

Kylara turned to her grandad. Like she had wished many times before, she wished they sat next to each other so she could whisper. But the rule was that the warder was on the head council member’s right. Her grandad was halfway down the table, almost next to Wawiriya, who sat at the other head of the table. That meant talking so the whole council could hear. “Have you talked to Uncle Don about this?” she asked. “Because I was talking to Yalmay, and it sounded like he bribed his way on to one of the cargo trips to Aeyiya. It didn’t sound like he had tickets. An unofficial trip like that might have only one warbler.”

Her grandad frowned. “I’ll talk to him about it,” he said.

“Going back to before, I think Roy is right,” Taligree said. “The songlines were never safe, so what’s changed? Why care? Nothing’s changed. We should let Saltsbury handle their own problems.”

“They are stealing too much,” Malyun said. “Everything we transport is at risk. May I remind everyone that most of our food is imported?”

“Yes but what can we do?” Bevan asked. “We can’t get up into the warrens. We don’t have any warblers here and even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. It isn’t our place. It’s Saltsbury’s. We are not even under the same warren.”

“I’m not suggesting we do anything about it,” Joe said, “Not yet anyway. But if they keep going at this rate, our road will no longer be safe for trade. Our economy will collapse.”

“We won’t lose nearly as much money as what she’s costing us already,” Malyun said, pointing to Kylara, who sat directly across from her. “Our finances have collapsed ever since Kylara decided to loose her warding. Until we have a warder who can go on trips again–and get paid to go on the trips more importably, we’re never going to recover.”

Kylara did her best to stare straight ahead and met Malyun’s face impassively when she said it. Malyun’s face was ugly enough it caught her eye easily anyway.

“Even if we did have a warder, the trips require going on the songlines,” Roy said. “We would be in the same position. I will not risk my eldest granddaughter to go on a trip where she might be kidnapped by a bunch of rogues.”

“We wouldn’t ask you to,” Malyun said. “It wouldn’t be her.”

“Malyun–” Pemulabee said.

“The next warder is going to be younger than fifteen and have no experience on the songlines,” Wawiriya said. Her voice had a note of finality to it. “Asking them to do it is worse than asking Kylara. I agree with Councilmember Roy. No warder–Kylara or otherwise–will go on trips until this is resolved.”

“She is delaying too long,” Malyun said.

“This is not the time,” Pemulabee said. “We can discuss warding on another day, but right now we are still talking about the Highwaymen problem.”

“Much as I hate to say it, I agree with Bevan,” Leger said. “We don’t have any options expect to sit and wait. If these attacks continue, perhaps we can send volunteers to the police force. Or ask another country to open up one of the more dangerous songlines. But until then, we have to continue trade as normal. Stock up on food if necessary. We don’t have any other choice.”

“Has the magsman said anything?” Kylara asked. “He’s a warbler.”

“He is?” Pemulabee asked.

“I–” Had he not said? Several thoughts raced through Kylara’s head. Why had he been in here then? What had they been talking about before? “He said he was,” she said. She turned to Pemulabee. “You told us, at Wrestday, that the magsman had come to Kookaburra Creek with specific business in mind and not to ask about it because it was sensitive. What was it? Does it have anything to do with Saltsbury?”

“I said that?” Pemulabee asked. He looked at Wawiriya.

“You said that,” she said. “Almost those exact words, too.”

“Yes, what did you mean by that?” Taligree asked.

“I just wanted to give him some privacy, I suppose. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Odd. Pemulabee seemed almost annoyed, and Kylara made a rare moment of meaningful eye contact with Malyun. It seemed like she shared the opinion.

“If he’s a warbler,” Bevan asked, “why isn’t he in Saltsbury? Why would Warrung send him here?”

“Because he’s not working for them,” Kylara said. “He’s retired. From everything he told me, he seems like his job is to be a magsman. Not a warbler.”

“And he was open about this with you?” Wawiriya asked.

Kylara eyed her. She knew the two of them had a history. “He was open about it,” she said. “I think if we asked him to help if he could.”

“We should include him on the next Council meeting then,” Wawiriya said. She looked at Pemulabee with the conviction she sometimes had that she making a decision that she truly felt strongly about. It was rare that those moments happened, but when they did, her words had weight. At more than five hundred, Wawiriya was older than the rest of the Council combined.

“Agreed,” Pemulabee said. “Multhamurra will sit on council at our next meeting. I’m sure he will be better equipped for dealing with these Highwaymen than we are. Until then, we are dismissed.”n