The Desert (Song of Dawn Trilogy Book 1)

by Liv Daniels

  “Come on, it’s this way,” Leina said.

  As they went, the trees grew thicker and larger. They huddled together in little copses. The hills, too, became larger and more rugged. What began at the pace of a leisurely stroll soon became an arduous trek, as the girls struggled to make their way up steep slopes, over cracked boulders, and through narrow valleys. In this kind of terrain, it was difficult to keep going in a straight line, and Leina was afraid that they had gradually been changing their direction. But before long they came to another pillar, and it guided them on.

  A sheer cliff face loomed into view, and the girls found a path that led up it by way of a narrow ridge. It was when they turned a corner, high above the tops of the hills, that they got their first glimpse of Estlebey.

  Leina cried out, not for what it was, but for what it must have once been: a city on a hill, surrounded by the shimmering sea, a beacon of hope and glory. But now only a shadow of that glory remained. The city was grey and worn down, and seemed only an extension of the weathered stones that made up its foundation. From the turret that rose from the hill’s summit came the dull and brassy bray of a bell. Another day in Estlebey had begun.

  “I’ve never been to a city before,” Leina said. “I don’t think I’ll know how to act.”

  “That makes two of us,” said Ruby. “But we’re supposed to be from a farm in the middle of nowhere anyways, aren’t we? It won’t matter.”

  “Of course, you’re right. I suppose I’m just nervous.” They continued on the worn, mossy path, and the city was lost from their sight behind a stone cliff-face. “Nervous because my aunt has smallpox,” Leina added quietly, as an afterthought, trying to get in character. She thought of Sam, who could play the part of Dangerman’s officer even more effectively than the ones who weren’t pretending. Leina hoped that she could be that convincing. But then, for her it would be much easier. Who would suspect a young girl like herself of having any connection to an agency that wasn’t even supposed to exist?

  The other side of the cliff sloped downward more gently, and the two girls made their way down easily enough, with nothing in their way but scraggly brush. At the bottom, a muddy plain lay between them and Estlebey.

  “I don’t know about you,” Leina said as she and Ruby trekked across the plane, “but I didn’t sign up for all of this mud!” They had already sunk down to their ankles in the gooey earth.

  Ruby laughed. “Me neither.”

  “Oh, there’s the road!”

  The two girls ran for the road, laughing, not caring about the mud that splattered all over the clean farm dresses that Sasha had found for them. It felt good to laugh. Laughter seemed to make the World’s troubles grow smaller. Leina wished that the whole World could laugh with them. If it could, would that be enough to change it?

  They came to the road, which was built out of solid stone and was slightly raised above the ground, and followed it the rest of the way across the plain. Leina remembered what Max had told her about Estlebey. Now, when the tide was low, Estlebey appeared to be just a seaside hill-town. But at high tide, the rocky hump-like hill on which the city was built became an island. That was part of the reason why Estlebey had never been conquered. At least not by any armed force.

  The road ended at a great gate in the city’s towering wall. Two guards stood at the gate, both with identical hard expressions.

  “What is your business here?” one asked the two guards in a clipped voice.

  Time to start acting. “Our aunt is sick. We are here to buy medicine.” Leina hoped that her voice sounded desperate and not just terribly fake.

  At her side, Ruby kicked at the ground and bit her lip. “Please let us in. If you don’t, she might not live.”

  With a grunt, the guard pulled a lever and the massive gate ground its way open. The girls hurried through, and shared an amused glance once the guards were out of sight.

  Then, as the gate slammed closed behind them, Leina turned to see what was before her. The sight of so many people in one place took her breath away. Throngs of them swept through the narrow street. Ruby and Leina inadvertently found themselves being pulled with the flow of the mass. Simultaneously, they reached for each other’s hands to avoid being separated.

  The side of the street opposite the fortified stone wall was crowded with antiquated buildings. Above these, the city climbed up the slope of the hill until it finally reached a point at the top, where the great spire stood atop the Appeaser’s castle-like palace. Clearly, though this city was packed onto a single hill, it held more people and places and happenings that Leina had seen in her entire life. Now that she was here, she was at a loss. What should she do, where should she go, in a place like this? The voices of multitudes throbbed in her ears, making it difficult to hear even her own thoughts.

  They passed what appeared to be a garbage chute set into the wall. It was huge, easily large enough for a person to fall into. Leina peered down it as they passed. It extended down to some dark unseen depth.

  “Am I wrong or is that a huge safety issue?” she murmured. “This place really must be in a dark age.”

  “Where are we going?” Ruby yelled over the din.

  Leina looked around her frantically. She spotted an alcove in the city wall with an empty stone bench inside, and eagerly pulled Ruby in that direction. Every time she bumped into someone, she offered a hasty apology, but her words were lost in the throng. Finally, she and Ruby reached the shelter of the alcove, and they dropped down heavily on the bench, already exhausted by this strange place.

  “I don’t see any monsters,” Ruby said.

  “Shh,” Leina warned. “We aren’t supposed to know about that.” Glancing warily at the passers-by outside the alcove, she added in a voice just loud enough for Ruby to hear, “The festival doesn’t start until noon. That’s probably when they’ll show up.” Today, Max had said, there would be a great celebration in Estlebey to honor the anniversary of the Appeaser’s coronation. As all of the other recent raids had taken place during festivals, it seemed like a logical time for the attack to occur. But what should they do until then?

  An idea came to Leina’s mind, unbidden.

  “Come on,” she said. “I know what we’re going to do.”

  With an effort, Leina forced herself to plunge back into the mass of people, and Ruby followed. Leina scanned the crowd for someone who looked helpful. She spotted a nice-looking woman and struggled to swim through the crowd to catch up with her.

  “Excuse me—I’m trying to find—“ Leina began, but either the woman hadn’t heard her, or didn’t pay her any heed. She disappeared like a pebble in a river.

  Suddenly, Leina felt a yanking at her shoulder.

  “That boy!” Ruby yelled. “He took your bag!”

  Leina whirled around to where Ruby was pointing, and, sure enough, a midget-sized figure was speeding away, and her bag was flailing behind him. Leina grabbed hold of Ruby’s arm and dragged her along in pursuit of the thief.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” Leina yelled, but she had a quiet voice and the call probably didn’t reach the ears of the people rushing past her, let alone the boy far in advance. As she and Ruby crashed through throngs of people, they incited angry yells and protests, but Leina knew that if she stopped to apologize then the little thief would slip out of her reach. And she would never be able to find him again in a place like this.

  The boy turned a sharp corner and disappeared from Leina’s sight. She pushed past a burly man and turned the same corner, into a covered stairway, but the boy was nowhere in the sight, and the narrow passage was so packed that it took the two girls a full five minutes to reach the top.

  When they finally emerged, however, Leina spotted the boy leaning leisurely against a stone wall, counting stolen coins out of her bag. Evidently he had been unaware of the girls’ pursuit; even now he didn’t seem to notice Leina.

  Leina stormed over to the boy and looked him straight in the eye. “That’s my bag,” she s
aid.

  The boy looked up in a totally unconcerned manner, dropping a coin back into the bag with a clink. “So? It’s mine now.”

  Leina felt her jaw drop. The boy couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old, but the indifferent way that he was staring at her told her that he had no qualms about what he had done.

  “I could turn you in to the police, you know. For stealing.”

  The boy laughed with the air of one far superior to whom he was talking to. “They wouldn’t arrest me, silly. Are you one of those old-fashioned people or something? Rulers used to use silly rules to repress people, but we know better than that now. King Drakus says that stealing isn’t always wrong—only if it hurts somebody important. And I didn’t hurt you, did I? Did I?”

  It took Leina a moment to remember who King Drakus was—the Appeaser. But that thought only faintly registered in her mind. Mostly she was thinking about how innocent the little boy sounded, like he was reciting the alphabet or multiplication tables.

  Leina risked looking away from the boy at the people around them. For the first time, she looked at their faces. They were as worn-down as the city’s ancient stony foundation. There was no vivacity, no joy, to be found among them. But why should there be? They had been lied to. So this was where The Appeaser’s promises had brought them.

  Leina returned her gaze to the little boy. She snatched the bag out of his hands, which wasn’t hard because he was so young. Then she grabbed a few coins and tossed them back at him. “There. That’s so you don’t have to go stealing someone else’s money.” The boy took the money greedily, without seeming at all touched. Leina shrugged. Why should she have expected him to? “Now,” she said, “in return, can you just tell me one thing? Do you know where Katherine Holpe lives?”

  The boy laughed again. “Oh, everyone knows where she lives. In jail.”

  Chapter 28

  “Okay, so what’s the big deal with Katherine Holpe? Who is she?” Ruby demanded.

  They were sitting on a low wall that looked out over the sea and the plain and the hill-country beyond. It must have been a beautiful sight, but Leina couldn’t make herself pay attention.

  “I don’t know, really. She was a friend of my grandmother’s.” Leina didn’t mention that Katherine Holpe was the person that Grandmother had told her about before she died. The person that Leina would have gone to if she hadn’t been waylaid in the Desert. The fact that Mrs. Holpe was in jail probably wasn’t a good sign. If Leina had made it here, would she be in jail, too? That thought made Leina wish that she was back at the Agency, and that she had never thought of coming here. You’ve heard so many terrible stories about this place, and this is what it took to make you afraid of it? Leina chided herself. “I just wanted to talk to her,” she continued. “I thought she might be able to answer some questions that I’ve had for a long time.”

  “But it turns out that she’s a criminal. I don’t think we want to talk to her after all.”

  Leina shook her head, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Didn’t you hear what the boy said? I don’t think being a criminal here is the same as it is elsewhere.”

  “Well, anyways, I don’t think we’re going to be able to see her now.”

  “You’re right, of course. I just wish I could help her somehow.”

  Leina was aware of a splash of bright colors further down the hill. Looking closer, she saw that the colors were a group of flags and banners.

  Ruby saw it, too. “There’s our festival.”

  Leina jumped down from her seat on the wall, and she realized that the street around them had become silent and empty. Everyone was taking part in the festival.

  As the girls dashed along sloping cobbled roads and down stairways, Leina said between heavy breaths, “Stay with me, whatever you do. And watch out for trouble.”

  Soon they found the crowd. It was following four men that carried a giant gilded statue of a king (the Appeaser, no doubt) on their shoulders, gradually winding its way toward the top of the hill. Amidst all of the cheering and laughing, Leina and Ruby worked their way to the back of the procession. Somewhere along the way, someone thrust colorful flags and little wooden whistles into their hands.

  Leina didn’t want to appear too conspicuous, but nonetheless she kept her eyes moving. She hoped that she would be among the first to notice any signs of an attack. Would the monsters start their raid at the front of the parade, or the back, or both? Leina had no way of knowing. She especially watched the battlements and ledges above the crowd. The streets above had been unnervingly quiet. They would be the perfect place for monsters to lurk unnoticed. But how could the monsters have gotten there in the first place? Leina didn’t think there were any entrances to the city besides the main gate. Maybe they would come from below after all.

  Next to her, Leina saw that Ruby was waving her flag along with everyone else. Leina brought the whistle to her lips and blew, but she only managed a half-hearted trill. The faces of the people around her were filled with hope now, as if they thought the source of all their problems could still be their salvation. Leina wished that she could see the Appeaser herself. What did these people see in him that made them wave their flags with such vehemence?

  The procession wound on up the hill, but for a long time there was no sign of anything unusual. Leina had almost resigned herself that the prediction had been wrong. Then she heard the screaming up ahead.

  Ruby’s flag dropped to her side and she looked at Leina, silently asking what to do. People were starting to run back the way that had come, rushing past the two girls like an angry torrent. Soon, no doubt, the monsters would be upon them.

  Leina remembered passing a staircase not too long ago. She wanted to find a vantage point higher up so she could see what was going on. She hoped that wasn’t a mistake.

  “Come on!” Leina said, beckoning for Ruby to run with the crowd.

  The two girls struggled to stay together and avoid being trampled. In the panic, no one was thinking about anyone but themselves. People frantically pushed each other over, leaped over crying children, anything that they could do to get ahead of the crowd.

  From somewhere behind there came a flurry of terrible beast-like roars. Though Leina would have thought it impossible a moment before, the frenzy increased tenfold. Someone shoved Leina against a wall, hard. She struggled to regain her breath while dodging the countless others who threatened to pummel into her. Then Ruby appeared. She looked frightened, but she had the presence of mind to grab hold of Leina’s arm and pull Leina into the empty shelter of the staircase. Both girls collapsed on the steps, unable to move.

  “Thanks,” Leina said, panting.

  Just then, a massive clawed figure appeared outside the covered stair, tearing its way through the mass of people. With it came a familiar stench. That was enough for Leina. The girls leaped up and tumbled to the top of the stairs.

  The street above was still silent, but that was no longer a relief. Dark clouds had come over the sky, but there was no rain. All was still, waiting. There was no sound except the faint snarling and screaming from below, muffled by the thick stone wall that separated the two levels of the city. Leina wished that this street, too, was in an uproar. It would have been easier to bear than this terrible uncertainty.

  While Leina cautiously studied her surroundings, Ruby sunk to the ground, leaning against the stone wall at the edge of the street. Her face was white.

  “Was that—a monster?” she said weakly.

  After another wary glance down the street, Leina knelt down by her. “Yes.” She struggled to think of something to say that would help. “But they aren’t as scary as they look, really. The officers“—despite the risk, Leina could help but let out a laugh—“Sam scared me more than the monsters.”

  Ruby smiled, and muffled a giggle. “But Sam is so nice.”

  “Someday I’ll tell you the story,” Leina said, then she lowered her voice and became serious again. “You’re okay, right? You�
��re an agent now, remember.”

  Ruby nodded vigorously and jumped up. “What are we going to do now?”

  “I want to get higher up, so we can see what’s happening. Come on!”

  The two girls proceeded cautiously along the quiet street as it wound upward. Always the wall was too high to see past. Leina braced herself at every dark alley and shadowy alcove that they passed, but nothing moved. Then, ahead, the street narrowed and plunged into a long arcade. Both Leina and Ruby instinctively stopped at the entrance.

  “Is it safe?” Ruby asked.

  As if on cue, the dark clouds in the sky finally let loose. Amidst the rain, Leina looked around desperately, as if an alternative path would materialize out of thin air. It didn’t, so she strode determinedly into the arcade. “If we don’t find a place to watch from soon, the raid’s going to be over,” she said to Ruby, who hurried along beside her. After all of this, Leina couldn’t go back to the Agency with nothing.

  The rain pounded on the roof of the arcade like the panicked footprints of a retreating army. The arcade was lined with empty booths and tables. Too many places to hide. Leina and Ruby started running, eager to get out in the open again.

  But they stopped short again at the sound of a mournful wail.

  “Is that a monster?” Ruby said, too frightened to keep her voice down. It rang out alarmingly.

  “Shhh,” Leina began, but she stopped when she became aware of a long, sorrowful “Nooooooo,” echoing eerily in the bare tunnel-like space ahead. Was it an answer to Ruby’s question?