by Kai Widdeson
A slight coastal wind disturbs the greenery. The soft steady rhythms of the ocean almost block out the liveliness of the forest, a soothing repetition washing over me as I wade back towards the fiery pinpricks in front.
A hearty sight greets me. The entire camp is buzzing with refreshed energy. Some sit on logs but most lounge on the floor or random large rocks that have been scavenged. The children are chasing after each other, their supposed exhaustion after the long day temporarily forgotten, pausing only occasionally at their parent’s words. Every now and then I notice one of them waddling after the others clumsily, realising that my shoes have been passed around for the evening whilst they’re not needed and now flop around comically on tiny feet.
A few of the hunters had managed to cobble together a few shaky looking rafts and had spent their last couple of hours of light spearing what they could. It seems like they managed to come up with an impressive haul, it’s still no feast but as I look around most people have managed to get their hands on at least a little of the meat. I had even noticed them messing around a couple of times, shoving each other into the water when they were unsuspecting. The euphoria is contagious, given our present situation I wonder when it was that these families last managed to laugh as much as they do now.
Orrian tends to the fire closest and beckons me over with the widest grin I have even seen him sporting as I enter the gently wavering light, welcoming me back with an already cooked portion of fish. I perch on the edge of the log beside him, like many of the others I sit bare-chested, allowing the warmth of the fire to flood through me. My hair stiffens and an odd sensation creeps through my skin as the ocean salt slowly dries against it.
For the first time since beginning our journey, Orrian sits this evening free from his advisors. Until now, each day the few hours between setting up camp and sleep had been filled with the king consulting others on the next morning’s plan and the direction in which we would head. However, these usual consultants now relax dispersed over the shore. Closer to the sea line around a smaller fire huddles Faelyn and Sage Malach among some families, they listen to the Sage as he comforts them with prophecies and his wisdom. If I ever get the chance, I would love to introduce him to Ida, maybe before me is the one person who can decipher her encoded ramblings. Meanwhile, Jaq and Ryfon are throwing their heads back in laughter among a small group of guards, easily the loudest group on the beach but nobody is going to complain at such a joyous sight, strengthening the hearty atmosphere.
Mine and Orrian’s fire hosts several familiar faces. Astera, Horas, and Medea all enjoy the warmth at the centre of our group. Also, through the flames I spot Jaq’s younger companion, Tharrin, the one who had acted as my guard before the duel and who had fought Horith valiantly on his king’s behalf.
“Hey!” Tharrin yells as Arys, his younger brother whom had bothered him so many times whilst guarding me in the cavern, skids past the group in pursuit of friends. The boy brandishes an arm length branch in the air, gleefully kicking up sand and finely dusting the remainder of Tharrin’s fish. The older sibling curses under his breath at the loss of such precious food.
Despite this, Orrian volunteers to fetch Tharrin some more fish, chuckling along with the rest of us around the fire. As he rejoins with another couple of portions to satisfy Tharrin’s temper, one is undoubtedly for himself, we all begin to sink into a comfortable silence.
An hour or so later, with the partly obscured moon casting its shimmering reflection onto the rolling waves, Orrian finally calls for sleep and people begin moving towards the hastily constructed sleeping platforms.
I am to rest alongside Orrian and Horas and so it is whilst waiting for the former to round up the last of the protesting children that I find myself next to the twin. No longer wet, I reclaim my dry clothing to protect against the chill of the night now that we’re further away from the fire.
As we perch on the edge of our platform with our legs venturing out into the cooling sand, Horas’ reaching notably further than mine, I turn to the young chef. He looks out into the abyss of the ocean, ignoring the bustle around us as his people ready themselves for slumber, loose strands of sand-ridden hair fall over a gently illuminated face.
“Why haven’t you got any ink?” I ask, having only just realised the difference between Horas and many of the warriors around us.
Horas doesn’t answer for long enough that I’m about to resign to him ignoring the question.
“I never wanted to be the Akanian,” he admits, “I’ve been called a coward a few times, but I’ve always known that it wasn’t meant to be me. You should see my sister and the others, the hunger they have in their eyes that they could be the one. I don’t want that on my shoulders.”
“That doesn’t make you a coward,” I say, trying to comfort him, although he seems at ease admitting this to me.
“Tell that to my father. Don’t get me wrong I’ll fight if I must, and I’ll train, I’ll protect whoever I have to, but I don’t want to be the hero. I guess I’ll leave that up to you,” he says with a humourless laugh and a nudge against my shoulder.
My stomach squirms with guilt at the thought of Horas, like all these people, pinning their hopes on me being some legendary fighter. At this moment I envy the boy beside me, able to break off from the others and happily accept his position among the ranks, comfortable with leaving the tales to be fulfilled by another.
At that moment Orrian makes his way over to us, having finished checking in with the guards chosen to stand watch over us for the night. Spotting the exhaustion in his eyes, myself and Horas wordlessly lay back on the platform, waiting for the slight give as Orrian joins us.
With the two trained and muscular fighters each brushing shoulders with me as we close our eyes, I have never before felt so out of place and undeserving of the Akanian title.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“My king,” a voice penetrates the darkness, banishing my confused dreams from sight.
A scuffle behind me and I raise as the weight next to me lessens.
“Wha-” I croak before a hand clamps shut over my mouth.
Immediately my eyes snap open, only unclenching my fists when I recognise the obscured face of Tharrin above me. Through hazy vision I find Orrian pulling himself up off the edge of the bed, beckoning me to come with him. The rumbling snores on my other side tell me that the disturbance clearly hasn’t been enough to disrupt Horas.
Groggily, I sit up and carefully disembark from the low-rise platform. After gesturing for silence, Orrian turns back to the young guard and we silently follow him as he leads us towards the treeline. The ground foliage rustles underfoot as we swiftly disappear from the safety of the camp’s light.
“We found someone,” Tharrin whispers in explanation once far enough away from the others.
“What do you mean? Who?” asks Orrian.
“I realised that someone had moved the horses and followed the tracks into the forest. By the time I caught up he had already finished with them. Jaq’s with him now,” answers Tharrin.
Damnit. If this man has managed to get to our horses, then travelling from now on is going to be considerably slower. The elderly and the children will have to resume carrying their share and even still we might have to leave some stuff behind. We may have been travelling exhausted these last couple of days but without anything to pull the carts we’ll slow to a crawl.
“Do you know who he is?” Orrian repeats.
“No idea, he hasn’t said a word. He was definitely out there to watch us though. He managed to run a little way before I caught him, but we’re close, he didn’t get far,” says Tharrin, picking up the pace.
As if to verify his tale, Tharrin pauses to steer us around a couple of large maned bodies flattening the bushes. My feet fall on damp soil as I pry myself away from the large glassy eyes beneath us.
Another couple of seconds pass before light begins to radiate from some unseen source and voices can be heard. Finally, a scene materiali
ses before us just as an unmistakable thump shakes the silence.
“I said, who are you!” Jaq hisses at a crumpled figure on the ground.
Before him a hooded man lays with his hands bound behind him and his head perched atop an emerging tree root. Beneath the shadow of his cowl, a crooked nose oozes a long fresh trail of blood over a prominent chin. The man is short, possibly shorter than myself, but despite this and his position he still laughs back in Jaq’s face.
Both heads swivel towards us as Orrian purposefully coughs quietly.
“What do we know?” Orrian asks his trusted advisor.
“Not much. He’s refusing to give anything up,” Jaq replies, massaging his knuckles.
Orrian bends low and hoists the man by the armpits, unceremoniously dumping him so that he sits upright against the base of the tree. He squats low, balancing on the tips of his toes with his elbows on his knees. The two are almost touching yet the injured man still raises his head to look his captor straight in the eyes.
“You have two options,” Orrian begins, his voice low and dangerous, “tell us what we want to know, and we will keep you in our captivity, or don’t, and we’ll decide that you aren’t worth the risk.”
The man’s head stoops, causing more droplets to flow from his chin onto his trousers. Orrian takes this as a sign of submission.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Nobody,” the man answers defiantly.
In the darkness it doesn’t even look like young king moved, the sickening thud and the pained groan that accompanies it suggests otherwise. Overhead branches shake as disturbed wings take flight.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, and I think you should really carefully consider your answer,” says Orrian, “Who are you?” he emphasises every word.
For a fraction of a second the man still does not answer, clearly weighing up his options, and I briefly wonder if he’s going to continue playing this dangerous game.
“Spy,” he rasps.
“For who?” Orrian presses immediately, worry overshadowing the triumph.
“You know who,” the spy spits, confirming our fears.
“They know we’re here?” with only the three of us accompanying him, Orrian no longer tries to keep the panic out of his voice.
The spy nods.
“How far?” asks Orrian, shaking the injured man viciously.
At this the man grins up at the king, blood seeping between the cracks in his teeth.
“We’ve been following you this whole time,” he laughs sadistically, “they’ll be here before the next day’s out.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“We can’t outrun them,” Jaq says, “There’s too many of us and he won’t be the only spy out there.”
“No. We can’t,” Orrian agrees grimly, “Bring him back to camp, and be quick about it.”
Without another word the king takes off running and I hastily begin my pursuit, leaving Jaq and Tharrin to escort our new prisoner. Orrian yells as we break out onto the sand, snapping the remainder of the guards to attention and stirring the sleeping.
“UP, UP, UP!” he repeats, jogging along the rows of beds and forcing his people onto their feet. Groggily they rise in the dim light of dawn.
I head over to our own platform where it was only an hour ago that I was sleeping under the illusion of safety and freedom. I shake Horas roughly by the shoulder and must resort to toppling him over the side before he snaps to attention. I can hardly blame the man, following the previous day’s travelling we’ve all had at most four or five hours of sleep.
Eventually, with the assistance of the guards, everyone has gathered by the gentle smoulders of last night’s fire. The urgency of the rude awakening has roused everyone to their senses and already sleep is a distant memory in all pairs of alert eyes that wait expectantly for Orrian to begin.
“The Halpians are coming,” Orrian reveals, “they’ll be here before the sun sets.”
Some hang their heads in despair, others allow slight gasps to escape their lips, but the majority stand silent, waiting for what’s to come.
Behind us I notice Jaq and Tharrin shoving the spy before them and lurking at the edge of the group, a few heads turn but most are far too focused on their king to notice the new arrival.
“Faelyn,” Orrian scans the crowd for his former adversary before settling on the head rising above the others. “Get a team together and make a start on a barricade. I want them sharpened and several feet tall, use the materials from the beds, we won’t be needing them anymore.”
Faelyn nods without argument and loyally leaves the group dragging a couple others behind him. Surprisingly, he had not scoffed at the news of the colony’s coming, the conclusion that he had predicted all along that had caused such a disagreement. I marvel at Orrian’s authority, once again it is easy to see the king inside of him.
“Ryfon, Sage Malach, take the children to the water’s edge by the rafts. If they breach the walls you might be able to get out of here,” Orrian says to the medic and elder. Immediately children are ushered towards the pair of them before they are guided away from the group.
“Jaq tie him up, Tharrin can keep watch,” Orrian says, “Everyone, you know what to do. Split up, we need the wall built, a group on weapons, and hunters start setting traps.”
With his orders issued, Orrian pauses, taking a moment to survey the crowd before him before the organised chaos ensues. In his silence he seems to make eye contact with each and every one of us, gifting us with his strength and confidence. There is nothing boy-like about him anymore, he is a king, and it is time to lead his army to battle.
“This is it, this is where we stand. This is the day that the Halpians regret ever challenging our tribe,” he finishes.
By the time dawn reintroduces the gold to the ground beneath our feet we have already been at work for a couple of hours. A large stockpile of viciously sharpened logs has been collected, ready to be angled within frames pointing outwards from the sand. Some hunters have escaped the boundary line, kneeling on the edge of the grass to tend to unseen traps. Even the children have begun to aid with the effort, using vines and leaves to carefully strengthen the rafts under the instruction of Ryfon and Malach.
I accompany Horas and Astera, there are very few proper weapons brought with us and new wooden ones need to be carved and distributed. Thankfully I still have Edwyn’s knife available which I now use to whittle down the points of spears-to-be. With the colony’s steel swords rendering wooden ones useless, spears are the only useful weapon worth our time. Of the weapons brought with us the majority were knives with very few bows, and with a lack of string creating new ones is out of the question. A few can be seen here and there, slung across Orrian’s back for example, but even then, the number of arrows accompanying them is pitiful.
Apart from the swords and the few bows we are essentially unarmed. The knives are useful and certainly better than nothing, but there’s no kidding ourselves that they’ll prevail against armour and swords.
“How many people do we have? How many more spears?” I ask after another few hours, moments after a couple of children had made the rounds delivering our morning portion of fish.
“Not sure, perhaps twenty more? Then we can go help Faelyn,” Astera replies from her sitting position where she intricately etches runes into the shafts. Even under as much pressure as we are, I was incredulous to learn that the markings were still important enough to be worth the time.
“Yeah that should be enough to arm everyone that can fight, no point in making more,” Horas adds, like me, he is in possession of one of the few blades, part of the reason why we were chosen for this task.
“We’re lucky you’re with us,” Astera comments, looking up momentarily to face me, “It’s going to be bloody, we’ll need every fighter we can get. You know we all appreciate what you’re doing for us, right?”
“Well I mean we’re kind of stuck together now,” I laugh humourlessly, trying
to shrug of the undeserved praise, Astera has already returned her attention to the engraving.
Guilt tugs at my heart. When the colony finally get here, and there is now no doubt that they will, these people will be expecting from me. The twins who, in our travels, have come to trust me, will be relying on me to have their back in the heat of battle. An expectation that I have no idea if I will be capable of fulfilling. I am surrounded by a tribe of people who have been training to fill my supposed position for their entire lives right up until this moment. How could I, someone whose mother had forbidden them from fighting, ever be able to meet their expectations?
We spend the rest of the day preparing, always with half an eye on the treeline, or an ear tilted and ready for the cries signalling an arrival, but nothing comes. We finish the spears, leaving them in an orderly pile ready to be collected at a moment’s notice, and spend the rest of the day strengthening the barricade with Faelyn.
I still catch Faelyn keeping an eye on me slightly more than is warranted, but apart from that he seems almost pleasant. It is hard to believe that it was not so long ago that the same man tried to kill Orrian and have me exiled. As Orrian supervises the entire operation, Faelyn makes no objections as he is issued an order or given new tasks to delegate by his king and has thrown himself entirely into the effort. There have been no smug comments, no pitches to reclaim his temporary power, but rather he has thrown himself into his work.
By the time the sun starts to lower, little else can be done but wait and pray that the spy has been lying about the colony’s pursuit. Faelyn has relieved us of our tasks, even commenting on the impressive sturdiness of my final section of wall and told us to take the opportunity to eat and rest whilst we still can.
Still struggling over the shock of Faelyn’s pleasantness, we catch each other’s eye once more before I leave the slender man behind me. His tattooed gaze matching my own for a second too long before he returns his attention back to the barricade. He looks lonelier, not quite right without a certain slightly shorter and more bullish companion by his side.
