Chapter 3

The two big men threw us out the back of the cart and onto the muddy road. My head snapped back, and I felt a wetness soak through my hair as the top half of me landed in a deep puddle. Luckily for us, the rain had softened the mud. Unluckily for me, the water was freezing.

"And now we know where you live," the bone-thin rider said with a wide smile. He slapped his mare and the cart set off down the road.

I lay there for a moment, the muddy water rising to my ears and blocking out the sounds of the street. I was wondering what had happened to us. How have we ended up like this? Poor and half-starved in this strange land of wet and cold. I let out a large, latent breath, and then slowly made it to my feet. The water from the puddle dripped underneath my tunic and down my back sending a shiver up my spine. I tried to shake it, but it did no good. Caine had already risen. A sour, pitiful look was on him like he had just lost something extremely valuable. I suppose in some ways he had.

“That could have gone better,” he sulked to himself.

“Yes, it could have,” I gave him a glowering stare and then pushed past him, making sure I barged my shoulder into his with all my weight. He staggered some which satisfied me more than I would like to admit. I turned towards our home. A huge, abandoned, monstrosity of brick and mortar. There was no front door to it, instead, just a square arch where a door used to be. There were countless gaps in its walls where ancient brick had decayed and crumbled. It led to a cold interior with more wide holes in its ceiling that gave a clear view of the night sky. Thu Inglard the locals called it. Which in our tongue meant, Giants’ House, as best I could make out. It deserved the name. It was a ruin of a massive proportion, the fact that we were able to move into it was a surprise when we first came to the city. But we soon realised why. Rats were everywhere. At night, if you were not careful, they would chew on your toes, ears, and anywhere else they could get. Luckily for us, we were Bervians, and so we had methods of keeping them away.

Towards the back, was a room with its ceiling mostly intact and that’s where we slept. If you lit a fire just outside the room, the heat from the flames would draft through, leaving it warm enough to sleep in. We stayed there most of the time and dared not venture out because we weren’t the only ones to call this place home. The ruin had many spots like ours and others filled them. People who could keep the rats away. We rarely saw them, but we heard them during the night, whispering in whatever language they spoke. For the most part, they kept to themselves. No one seemed to want trouble. Like us, they just wanted to be left alone.

When we first found the place, we pinned our Kwawan papers to the wall to keep them dry as water had a way of seeping through our room when it rained heavily. After a few weeks, Caine was able to build a rough chest to store what little valuables we had. Our Kwawans had sat inside the chest ever since. Unused. Until now. I didn’t bother to light a fire before entering the room. It felt wrong somehow. I felt as if I should be punished for not seeing the signs earlier. As if it was my fault that we had found ourselves with the problem we have, and therefore I should remain soaked and shivering. I pulled the Kwawans out of the chest and unrolled them on the floor. I knelt in front of them, placed my hands on my thighs, and closed my eyes.

Telafa, you of the sun, may your light always shine brightly on us. Fanarah, you of the Moon, may you rise every evening to show that you are protecting us from the dark. Henarlta, Great ancestor of the Hunt. May you guide us to the food we need. May you keep our eyes fine, our noses keen, and our ears sharp as always. I put two fingers on my forehead and brushed them down to my chin. We are in new lands, distant lands, where things are strange, and no one has heard of your great being. The people here do not like us, they do not trust us and think us cursed people set to leech off everything they have. It couldn’t be further from the truth. We just want enough to feed our bellies. We would leave this place but that would see us enslaved. I ask you now, is enslavement worse than death? Would it be wrong for us to take a life knowing it would save our own? Are the lives here equal to ours?

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As I asked the questions, I heard Caines’s footsteps slap off the stone flooring, and come to a quick halt.

“You are praying?”

I opened one eye and turned to him, he had knelt by the kindling on the firepit and began striking two bits of flint together.

“I was trying to,” I said bluntly and then turned back to my papers.

“They never answer,” he said. “Nor do they listen. They abandoned us long ago.”

I shook my head and ignored him.

The people of the city have set us a task. One that would surely go against the law of the Kwawan. If we fail this task, we will be killed. If we complete it. Then someone else’s life would be forfeit. What are we to do? Why would you set such a challenge before us?

“You are wasting your time praying to gods that have no power in these lands brother. I have half a mind to pray to the local god. The drunk god they call him. lord of wine and mead. Perhaps he would be better fitted to help us steel our hearts.”

Caine managed to get the fire going. A whooshing sound started it off as the sparks from the flint struck the dried hay and kindling coated in oils. I felt the warmth fill the room almost instantly. I opened my eyes and turned to him. Ready to reprimand him on the rudeness of speaking to a man whilst he was talking to his gods when something he said occurred to me.

“Steel our hearts? So, you intend to go through with it then? You intend to do the city folk’s bidding and kill for them?”

My brother shrugged, “Of course. What choice do we have?”

I said nothing.

Caine shook his head in annoyance, “Do you want an apology? Is that it? will that make things better? Well, I am sorry brother, there I said it. I am sorry that I tried my best to get us fed. I am sorry that I was able to keep us alive from the Bervian hills through the entirety of the Namin to this land of Wannihiem. I am sorry that it is you, who has been kept alive with me rather than Uncle Gen or Uncle Reb or Mepa even. You, who does nothing but complain and criticize my every move, rather than thinking of his own solutions. I’m sorry that Father isn’t here to protect and shelter you from the world like he always did,” He scoffed. “Look at me, a head chief of the deer tribe, and my only flock is an ungrateful little brother whose usefulness consists of carless whittles.”

I felt heat flush my cheeks, “You nearly got us killed. You still may have. I said that this was a bad idea, I told you more than once that the people here are not as we are. That they are animals in human clothes. You only have to look along the street to see it. But you did not listen, you never listen. Instead, you did what you always do, which is to go in bull-headed and without caution. We could have survived here. We could have stayed in the shadow and been left alone.”

“For what?” Caine spat, “To eat rat every night, to sleep next to a rusted blade in fear that someone might enter and kill us, whilst the critters try chew at our every limb. To hide from the guards constantly in fear that they might capture and send us to be slaves. We may as well be dead brother, I’d rather have taken my chances with the Locals, even now. You are right in saying that they are animals, but right now we have to be animals too. I will kill whom they have asked to. And you are going to help.”

“And what do you think happens to us after we kill this man? Do you seriously trust them to keep their word?”

Caine made no reply, instead, he shook his head, laid on his makeshift bed of hay, and faced the wall. “What choice do we have.” He said softly after a while.

I sighed a deep sigh and slowly took off my wet tunic. I put the Kwawans back in the chest and then placed my tunic close to the fire. I then buried myself in my own hay bed and did my best to keep myself warm. “This will lead to worse trouble brother; I can feel it.”

He didn’t say anything, but I knew he heard it. A moment later, he started to snore.

*

I was sat at the base of the hill. The burning sun of Telafa beamed brightly in a cloudless sky. The heat irradiated off my skin. The akerin were grazing the landscape. As was the season. They were Unaware, Unafraid. I had a strange admiration for them. Sometimes it seemed better to be a beast.

“You look worried,” she said.

“I am,” I replied. “I feel as if we have left it too late; we should have fled with the rest.”

“Your father had his reasons for staying. Even your Uncle Gen didn’t protest it too much, that alone should tell you something.”

My mother’s voice was as reassuring as it always was. A wave of relief washed over me. Only mothers could do that, make everything feel calm when it's far from it.