It had been quiet for a long time now.

                The war cries, as jagged and harsh as the weapons the owners wielded, had long since died out, silenced by the snow.

                Yet still the boy waited, huddled in the darkness…

                …alone.

                His fear was still great but his legs ached from being hunched into a ball. Yet try as he might, he could not lift the trapdoor. Something heavy had fallen across it as the assailants had stormed his home and the place his parents had stashed him to keep him safe was now his prison.

                He wriggled uncomfortably.

                His bladder was screaming for release.

                If he couldn’t free himself soon, his tiny prison would also become his latrine.

                He put his hands against the wood and pushed again. His six year old shoulders and muscles could not shift what was on top. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was probably the body of one of his parents that pinned the trapdoor shut, killed by a member of a squad of a rival clan.

His parents had chosen not to live in a larger settlement, preferring to build their own home in the alcove against the back of a valley. Machines rarely prowled there. There was little to attract them to the land and the other clans would not have known about their home until a random scout spied it, searching for vulnerable targets.

Knowing that they were taking a risk with their lifestyle, his parents had built their home over two outcrops of rock, the cleft between them just large enough for a young boy to fit into…the perfect hiding place.

As he sat in the darkness, his mind starting to tremble with the knowledge that he was alone, he heard a noise beyond his prison. He stiffened, sure the rival clan had come back to finish the job. He heard words spoken, muffled and gruff.

“Dead…what a mess.”

“Bloody fools for living away from the Bulwark…what were they trying to prove?”

“Enough words. Can you not muster a drop of respect for fallen clan members?”

“They didn’t act like it, refusing to join a squad as they preached their lofty ideals of peace…” The speaker spat to the side. “Desert and Lowland clans…peace…”

“What support they had in their cause is well and truly diminished. They are dead and despite differences of opinion, they were of the Sky Clan…but did they not have a child?”

“A boy I think. Probably ran off or killed elsewhere…or dragged to Scalding Spear to become one of theirs.”

“Wherever he is, he isn’t here. Come on. Asatto and Gilke, build a pyre for the bodies. We don’t want to be carrying them back to the Bulwark. Kensin, help me move this one…”

 The boy cowered as the weight that held the trapdoor was moved, dragged away, taking the woven mat with it that concealed its presence.

He heard someone exclaim softly. “Perhaps the boy isn’t lost after all…”

He pressed himself into the cold rock, willing his body to disappear, not entirely convinced that those who were in the house were allies. The trapdoor lifted with ease and he flinched at the light, the face that looked down at him a blank silhouette.

“By the Wings of the Ten…”

He knew he should speak, to say something…to throw himself upon them with all the rage of a Tenakth warrior but he had no training…no experience and no spine. He didn’t even have a weapon.

“I’m not going to hurt you boy,” the featureless face remarked, “we are of the Sky Clan, your kin. You are safe now.”

He held out his hand. The boy knew he had little other choice. If the man had wanted to, he could have impaled him in the hole and shut the trapdoor, making it his grave. He grasped his hand and was lifted out of the hole like he weighed nothing more than a snowflake.

“I’ll be…”

“He survived!”

“Weedy boy…no muscle.”

“Silence.” His rescuer barked then turned to him. “I am Tekotteh, leader of the Bitter Breath squad. What is your name?”

He swallowed. “Kotallo…” He said softly.

“Good name.” Tekotteh nodded. “Kotallo…your parents…”

“I know.”

“Yes,” Tekotteh sighed, his face marked with white, blue and fuchsia ink in jagged patterns, “Kotallo, you cannot stay here. We will stand watch over the funeral pyre and then return to the Bulwark.”

Kotallo didn’t understand but he nodded. “I…I need…”

Tekotteh chuckled, understanding his pained wriggle. “Go and relieve yourself.”

Kotallo fled out of the cabin he’d lived in his whole life and released his bladder onto a tree. The relief was profound and he was amazed at how much of his mind had been taken up with concentrating on not relieving himself in his hiding space. He heard the sound of wood being moved and the smell of smoke. He turned and saw Sky Clan squad members lighting a fire…that would serve as his parent’s funeral pyre. The wood he had helped his father cut that morning would be used to burn their corpses. Suddenly, the direness of his situation…the grief of losing his parents…it overwhelmed him.

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He bolted from the cabin, running through the long grass, over the rocks, knocking light snow fall from the tops of bushes and the branches of trees when he slammed into them. He didn’t cry. He just ran. He couldn’t watch his beloved parents burn. He just couldn’t.

When Tekotteh found him, he was sitting at the edge of a stream, watching the water flow as if it was weeping for him.

He didn’t say anything. He just sat next to him on the rock.

“What will happen to me now?” He heard his voice speak. Some part of him realised that he could not live in his grief. A part of him, dedicated to his survival, had asked the question.

“You will return with me and my squad to the Bulwark. There you will live in the lodge dedicated to orphans under the instruction of Maina, the chaplain. You will have food and shelter.”

Kotallo stared at the water.

But not a family.

The chill set into Kotallo’s bones. He welcomed it. It was easier not to feel.

“Come. It’s not safe away from the squad.”

Tekotteh led him back to the cabin but took him around the rear, keeping his eyes away from the flames.

“We must wait to see that no one desecrates the funeral pyre but the moment it is done, we will march to the Bulwark.” Tekotteh handed Kotallo some dried meat. “Feed your belly. Have you any belongings?”

“Just my clothes…”

“It’s just as well. In the orphan lodge you won’t have space for belongings. What is that?”

Kotallo looked where Tekotteh pointed. It was a plot of land he and his mother had tilled. They’d learned the art from a tribe over the spine that split the western lands. They grew a small amount of vegetables in it.

“Our garden.”

Tekotteh nodded. “Gather your clothes. We leave within the hour.”

With a small bundle on his back, Kotallo joined the squad in their march to the Bulwark. They kept to the beaten trail, a scout running ahead, looking for signs of trouble. Kotallo spared a glance back at his home as they left the small valley.

“You keep looking backwards, you’ll trip over your own feet.”

Kotallo nodded and turned to face forwards. The march was long and the pace was gruelling. The squad was eager to get back to the Bulwark before nightfall but even the hardened youths of the Bitter Breath could not march indefinitely. When they stopped to break, he gnawed at some more dried meat.

“Kotallo, come here.” He leapt up despite the ache in his legs and hurried to his rescuer. Tekotteh was squatting in the long grass off the side of the trail. He gestured to the marks in the snow. “Machine tracks. We’re fortunate we missed them.”

Kotallo studied the marks in the snow. “Grazers,” he said lightly, “papa said they run when you spook them.”

“How’d you know they’re Grazer tracks and not Longhorns?”

Kotallo pointed to the marks. “Longhorns have an oval shaped hoof. Grazers are round.”

He could feel Tekotteh’s eyes on him. “Could have been a Lancehorn or a Fanghorn for that matter.”

“They have the same shaped hoof as all the other ‘horn’ machines.” Kotallo explained.

“Who taught you to read machine tracks?”

“My father.”

Tekotteh huffed. “While not as practical as teaching you skill with a blade, it’s something at least.” He stood up. “Bitter Breath, prepare to move out!”

The sun’s presence had all but disappeared behind the mountains and Kotallo’s breath was like ice when he beheld the Bulwark. It was a giant wall of boulders filling a crevice in the slope, some as large as his former home and nearly as high as the mountain it was embedded in.

“Behold, the Sky Clan capital.” Tekotteh said proudly. “The greatest of all the three clans reside in this fortress between mountain and sky.” He took a thick cylindrical object out of his pack and put it to his lips. A long bellow, like the call of a Longleg, poured out of it and echoed off the walls of rock around them.

“Make yourself known!” A sentry called from high above.

“Tekotteh of the Bitter Breath squad.”

Kotallo watched in awe as a contraption was lowered from the Bulwark’s lip to the ground.

“Get in.”

He did so and was alarmed when it rose into the air. He nearly cried out in fear but Tekotteh’s hand clamped on his shoulder.

“Behave befitting the clan you are a part of.” He ordered. “Look…see the breadth of the Sky Clan’s domain.”

Kotallo’s terror was lost as his view grew even more extraordinary the higher the contraption, called a lift, rose. His eyes were round and wide as he caught the last dregs of sunlight that had been hidden from view only moments before on the valley floor.

When the lift halted, they walked onto the platform that led into the Bulwark’s main thoroughfare. Tekotteh turned to his squad.

“Report to Lankatta and explain that I am charged with this boy’s safety. I will come immediately after.”

Tekotteh gripped Kotallo’s shoulder and moved him deeper into the Bulwark, around a pit where young men and women fought each other. Kotallo tugged on Tekotteh’s arm.

“What is that?” He asked.

“The training pit, a place to hone your blade against more skilled opponents, sharpening your experience.” Kotallo shivered as one youth went down, clutching at their side. Tekotteh snorted. “When you begin your training, I hope you do better than that. They are padded blades.”

“I’m going to learn to fight?”

“It is the responsibility of every Sky Clan member to do so. Then you join a squad or, if you are skilled enough, others join yours and you defend our home from the cowardice of the other two clans.”

Kotallo was quiet for a long time. “Father said that killing begets killing.”

Tekotteh paused and turned to him. “Your father’s philosophy didn’t do him much good when the Desert Clan killed both him and your mother, did it? They had done no wrong to them yet they were targeted anyway.” Kotallo swallowed and Tekotteh softened his tone. “In our wild world, you are either a hunter or you are prey.”

Kotallo nodded, still not entirely sure about everything. He followed his rescuer to a covered building crammed with beds. A woman watched them approach with a sharp look in her eyes.

“Tell me you have not brought another orphan for my keeping?” She said darkly.

“Maina, this is Kotallo…the only survivor of the Desert Clan’s attack.”

She looked at him with a slightly softer expression. “You are Emanno and Filippa’s son?” Kotallo nodded though he wasn’t sure. His parents had so rarely had visitors that he’d never heard their names spoken. “I knew your parents…your father was in my squad once…” Maina swallowed. “Come. You are now in my care.”

Kotallo stepped towards her then turned back to Tekotteh. He wanted to cling onto his arm but suspected that such sentimentality would not be encouraged.

Tekotteh sensed his reluctance. “I will see you around, Kotallo, that I promise. By the Wings of the Ten, I will be here for you.”

Kotallo was reassured and joined Maina’s side. “Come child. You need to eat and I must find a bed for you.”

Maina showed him to a large table where a cook served a bowl of stew which lacked his mother’s addition of vegetables or any flavours other than meat. But he was starving and slurped it down gratefully, after which he was shown to a bed at the far end of the lodge, against the stone wall. Most of the beds were already filled and the torches were dim.

“In the morning I’ll introduce you to the other orphans. Sleep now, Kotallo.”

He climbed into the bed that smelled unfamiliar and listened to the howl of the wind. Being so high in the mountains, it was angrier than it had been in the valley. He shivered and curled into a ball, colder from the sorrow inside of him than the weather outside although it was almost evenly matched.

“Hey,” a soft voice called to him and he peeked out from behind his hands, “here…take this.”

A boy from the bunk next to him held out a blanket. He had olive skin where not painted with white and a sharp blue mark above one eye. His hair was a dark brown and unbelievably curly.

“You’ve got the cold bunk. Stone isn’t warm. Take this.”

Kotallo’s fingers grasped the blanket and he drew it over himself.

“I’m Jayko.” The boy whispered.

“Kotallo.”

“We’ll talk more tomorrow…don’t want Maina telling you off on your first night though.” He winked and Kotallo was struck by the irrepressible joy the boy seemed to possess. “Goodnight.”

Kotallo murmured it in return and curled up beneath the blanket.

Suddenly he was warm, inside and out.