by J. Thorn
And there he was, the subject of her fear—Gaston. Standing across the way from the ceremony, also partially hidden in the darkness of the building opposite. At least he hadn’t been rude enough to insult the ceremony with his preaching.
It had crossed her mind in the last hour, as she waited, that one arrow would do the trick. Just one. She was good shot, and if it was unexpected, she was sure of a kill. But this was a man, not a beast. There was something more profound about the idea of killing him, and it frightened her more than anything ever had. Would it come to that? Could she trust in Jonah’s ability to keep them all safe?
* * *
Gaston wanted to step forward and speak some words from his own book after listening to Jonah. The new chief’s voice wavered with words that he wasn’t used to speaking. But Gaston knew that some among the gathered crowd would probably be more likely to throw him on the fire than let him speak for long. Those people would be left to follow The Walk, he thought. But not all of them.
You must bide your time, he thought. Bide your time and wait for the right moment to speak, to tell them more.
He knew he could entice some, if not all of the clan, if he was careful. He had already sensed Jonah’s unwillingness to silence him, but that was now. Soon the man would have to become a stronger, more dominant leader if he was to continue being so, and if Gaston left it too long he would be too late. But also, if he pushed too hard too quickly, he could ignite something nasty, and he didn’t come all this way, a second time, to fail in his goal. He needed at least a quarter of this clan, he estimated, to have the numbers strong enough to follow the southern road without being harassed. Large groups deterred aggression from bandits.
But what was the best approach? he wondered. You must get permission to travel with them, maybe seem less pushy. Once you are travelling, then you can start to persuade them.
There were a good many miles before the road took them to Wytheville, to where the paths would separate; one to Eliz, and the other to White Citadel. He had time.
Gaston watched the ceremony quietly, but he felt eyes on him, and several times he glanced across the large clearing and thought he saw the girl, Seren, watching him.
* * *
“What are you doing?”
Jonah looked up at his father, smiling as fistfuls of dirt ran through his fingers. He stopped throwing it into the air and waited for the dust to float back to the ground.
“We’re playing,” he said.
“Playing what?” Judas asked.
The other kids felt the tone in the leader’s voice and scampered away, leaving Jonah standing before his father, his smile fading quickly.
“Dustfall.”
Judas grabbed Jonah by the shoulder and pushed him down into a sitting position on the ground.
“What is it, Father?” Jonah asked. “What did I do wrong?”
“Do you know what Dustfall is?” Judas asked, ignoring Jonah’s questions.
Judas shook his head. He felt the burning fever of shame creeping up from his stomach and setting his face on fire.
“No, sir.”
“How old are you now, Jonah?”
“Ten.”
“It is time you know of the world you live in. It is time for you to stop acting like a child and begin to accept the responsibility of being a man.”
Jonah stood and his father backhanded him across the face. The sting on his cheek made Jonah forget about his shame.
“Sit back down. Now.”
Jonah obeyed.
Judas looked around the woods, his eyes darting from one tree carving to another. He pointed at the trail back to the village. “Your friends. They’ve all left you to me. They took their scared asses home.”
Jonah nodded, unsure as to whether or not he should agree with his father.
“They are cowards. You will not be. You are my son. You cannot not be.”
Jonah waited. His father’s reprimands often ended in a slap across the face or a switch to his backside. But this felt different and he had already suffered a blow.
“I am sorry, sir.”
“We don’t know much, and we remember even less.”
Jonah looked up into his father’s eyes as the man spoke. They looked over him. Through him.
“About what?” Jonah asked.
“The end.”
Jonah waited, biting down hard on his bottom lip.
“The story has been passed down, and nobody alive then is still around today. So…”
Jonah waited. Judas shuffled his feet and his shoulders fell. He looked down and spotted a stone the size of boar. He sat on it, across from Jonah.
“War. Not like what we have. War beyond what you can imagine. Hundreds of thousands dead. Millions, even. More people in a day than are alive in the world now.”
He heard his father’s voice crack, and Jonah looked into his eyes. This would not be a casual reprimand. This would be something more. Jonah felt it.
“The clans of that time had weapons that could destroy vast areas of land and everything on it. These weapons could be aimed at cities; the things we now call ruins. During this war, chiefs of certain clans used those weapons. They exploded with fire so hot it would melt the skin from your face. The blast blackened walls, the silhouettes of people vaporized on to them for all eternity. And the carnage left behind was not only on the ground.”
Jonah felt a cramp in his stomach. He winced and shook his head, but his father ignored him. No amount of feigned discomfort would release him from this conversation. Jonah braced himself for what he knew was coming.
“The ashes of the cities and the people living in them were swept up by the wind and carried into the clouds. For years, that dust filled the sky and covered the sun like a dirty blanket. It choked the warming rays and when it rained, the water fell and ate away at whatever was left behind. The storms that followed raged for years and buried some places with feet of ash and dust. It covered everything like our northern snows, but unlike them, it never melted. Never faded away. To this day, those places sleep beneath a cover of eternal ash.”
Jonah couldn’t remember the last time his father had a conversation with him that lasted this long. He also couldn’t ever remember seeing the man cry.
“Wherever the ash fell, death followed. As the years went on, people died, and those who lived buried the memory of that war. They wanted to forget that it was the remains of their brothers that continued to float down from the sky and cover the land. They started calling it ‘dust,’ as if it was part of the natural world. The times when it came down hard, those became known as ‘Dustfall.’”
Jonah looked down at the dirt in his hands and at the piles of it covering the rocks the boys had laid out earlier. He thought about the game they had always played, how they laughed during Dustfall, and how they had never thought about where the word itself came from or what it signified.
“I didn’t know—”
“Shut up, Jonah.”
Jonah closed his mouth.
“Over the years we’ve avoided regions of Dustfall, although the skywatchers can no longer predict it. We used to be able to watch the clouds, see the patterns and know when the dust would fall. We stopped caring, and as more of us died off, we had less competition for lands free of the ash of our brothers. Memory wears thin and we began to generalize the word, use it in ways many of us couldn’t understand or remember. When our loved ones passed on, we put them on the funeral pyre and celebrated their ‘Dustfall’ as if it were some sacred rite.”
Jonah shook, feeling the pain and frustration in a single word he rarely heard his father speak.
“It is the end. The sad, inevitable end. They say this is the last generation who will live in a Dustfall. That it will eventually bury us all. I think that it will be forgotten and no one will care what it is that clouds the sky when the storms come.”
Judas scooped a handful of dirt and shoved it into Jonah’s face. The boy could taste the grit on his teeth, and
he spat.
“You still wanna play your game, Jonah? You still want to throw the ashes of your dead ancestors into the air?”
Jonah shivered and shook his head back and forth.
“Don’t ever let me catch you playing this again. Ever.”
Judas stood and walked the trail back to the village. Jonah began to cry. He watched as his tears fell and the drops sat upon the dust. He could have sworn he saw faces staring back at him, and he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and banish their empty glares from his head.
Jonah took a step back, moving away from the now roaring flames of the funeral pyre, and took a deep breath, shaking the memory away on the wind.
It was done. The words spoken and not a line forgotten, even though he had felt his heart thudding in his chest the whole time and thought a few times that he was stumbling with the words.
But he had managed it.
Now the clan stood in silent respect as the flames licked higher, consuming the two wrapped bodies.
Tomorrow we leave, he thought, glancing around at the gathered clansfolk. I should say something more. He took another deep breath.
“All of you,” he said. “Tonight we rest, and rest well, for tomorrow, when we rise, we pack the carts and leave. When the sun is at its highest we will take to the road, as is traditional. Ten miles to the first waystation, the shortest stretch before the longest one. Go and rest now. And be ready with the rising sun.”
He watched the villagers leave in twos and threes, all heading to their homes for one last night, until all that was left was him and the stranger, Gaston. The man approached.
“May we speak then?” Gaston asked. “You said such, that you would listen to what I have to say.”
Jonah thought for a moment. “I will listen, but not for long,” he said. “You have already been outspoken in a way that many in the clan will not be pleased about. If my father had been here, you would be dead, I have no doubt. Come. Sit. Speak.”
Chapter 22
Logan stood in the single room of his hut, staring out of the window. It was late in the evening, and the sun was setting over the hills, casting a reddish sheen across the treetops. He always loved this time of year, just before the winter chill set in and the lands became quiet and barren. The winter weather had never agreed with him.
Above him, in the skies, birds were taking flight. He could see them in their groups, drifting across the sky, barely visible, but he knew how many were really up there. Thousands of them, heading away from the freeze of winter and into the warmer climate where he and the clan—and many other clans—would soon head toward on foot. The birds would be there much quicker than he would, but he would see them all again.
He’d lived in the village, and with the clan, for many years, and he was the oldest living member still walking. Some, even many, he thought, expected him to die each year as they travelled the long walk to Eliz, but he was stubborn and had others that he could lean on for support, now that he no longer had the strength to stand alone.
Hadn’t always been so, he thought. Once you were among the strongest. Now you may be all that is left of the old warrior caste. Most of them were gone now, all, at least from this clan, were.
He glanced away from the setting sun and to the rafters in the roof of his small abode. The shack was barely standing after hundreds of winters, and every time he made the journey back he expected to have to find a new home. And maybe this would be the last time. He was old now, and starting to feel the age setting into his bones. Now that Nera and Judas were gone, the last of his brothers from the old days, he wondered what there was to continue on for.
That must have been what drove Nera to end it, Logan thought. There was no other reason that he could think of. With Judas gone, and his son now the chief, it wouldn’t be long before Jonah wanted a younger right hand. Nera’s days were over.
But what of you? Logan wondered. Do you follow the same path? No. You cannot do it. You’re too stubborn.
Seren, he thought. The young one. She needs me. But maybe not. She was strong. The strongest of her age and far beyond her years. She would have taken pride place in the old days. Someone such as her would have led others. She would have become a warrior queen among the tribes. Now? Maybe not so. She would live her life in the background, a hunter, maybe. But she needed him all the same.
No. She will still lead one day, he thought. She will. If she can survive the years that will turn her into an adult. It wouldn’t be long, now, before men were vying for her, and she could make them grovel for her favor. Such as it always was. If she was a clever one, she would choose someone strong and obedient.
Yet, she is still a child.
He reached up into the rafters and took down Eekan, the pigeon, and carried her out onto the porch. There, he sat down and reached over to the tiny parcel, lying on the arm of his chair.
“Easy girl,” he said, as he tied the parcel to the pigeon’s leg. The bird fluttered its wings, protesting at being harassed in such a way.
Once he’d tied the tiny wrapped up piece of paper to the bird’s foot, he stood and walked to edge of the platform and looked out at the setting sun as it began to dip down behind the horizon.
“Perfect time for you to start your own journey,” he said, holding the bird close. “Fly well and true.”
With that he released the pigeon he had kept all summer and watched as she took flight, rushing up into the sky before reaching an impressive height. Logan held his breath as he watched. In a moment he would know if she would fly her true path or instead join her brothers and sisters. Then she banked left, turning away from the sun and away from the route that millions of her kin would fly, and she headed off south.
Logan grinned, “Good girl,” he muttered to himself. “Good girl. Fly true, and I’ll see you again.”
Chapter 23
Jonah stood on the path above the village. He closed his eyes and let the midday sun warm his face as it took a lower path in the sky with autumn’s approach. He loved the crisp air and the golden warmth of these days, and selfishly, he thought that maybe they shouldn’t leave early after all.
Why should I deprive myself of this? I am chief now. I answer to no one.
But he knew that wasn’t entirely true. His father always had answers. They may not have been the ones the clansfolk wanted, but they were answers nonetheless. Jonah believed good leaders followed their instinct and his gut told him it was time to leave, time to follow the birds on the journey south and east to Eliz.
He had humored Gaston, given him an opportunity to preach from a different book. Jonah listened and nodded, knowing full well he would not even consider going to White Citadel.
Although he would never mention it to Sasha or his children, Jonah never felt a strong connection to their clan’s own book and The Walk. It was what was always done and so therefore he would do it. However, Jonah knew that anything after The Event would be an alternate faith, a blind belief in a new story. Gaston’s story might be as worthy as their own. The clan had to believe in something. Their own faith had grown over generations and that would have to be what held them together; otherwise, they would be susceptible to the manipulations of every stranger who appeared from the wastelands. And that would leave them weak and vulnerable.
He opened his eyes and turned to see the rest of the clan, waiting on the path behind him, poised to embark on the first leg of The Walk. Most families owned a cart and had strapped it down, covering the contents with sheets of linen or woven hemp, but many also held bundles in their arms with rucksacks on their backs. Jonah turned to Sasha. She stood behind their cart with the kids on each side of her. Although he hadn’t had much time with the man, Jonah felt Nera’s absence. That thought reignited a flame of grief in his heart. Jonah saw his father’s face in his mind, the man smiling on his son.
Even though he is gone, I need to live up to him, he thought. I must.
“The last of the carts are loaded and secure.”
Jonah turned to see Halston, one of the older warriors, standing nearby, a poleaxe in his hand and a rucksack on his back. Next to him was Seren, and to no surprise, he saw her bow in her hand.
“Where is Gaston?” he asked.
“Toward the middle of the pack,” Halston said.
“Rear guard. Make sure some of the men with knives hang back as well. Seren, watch him, if you will.”
Halston nodded and turned to Seren, giving her a nod. Seren jogged away, heading down the path toward the rear of the caravan. Sasha walked around the cart and stood next to Jonah. She lowered her voice to keep the wind from grabbing their conversation. “She is a young girl. And not one of your warriors. Be wary of what tasks you give to her.”
“I know what she is,” Jonah said, smiling at his wife. “But she sees more than most. I’d not ask to face the man, and I hold no hostility to him. Better Seren than being watched by warriors.”
Sasha smiled and nodded. “Yes, understood. You know, you have yet to appoint a right hand.”
Jonah smiled back. She was correct. With the deaths of his father and Nera, along with their early departure, Jonah had not yet chosen his closest advisor. Tradition dictated that be done within one moon of the chief’s passing, but Jonah felt no reason to rush the decision. He had not expected to become clan leader so soon, and therefore none of the other men in the village had been lobbying for his attention. Halston was maybe an obvious choice, but Jonah knew his choice was permanent, and Halston could easily be a thug but was not the fastest of thinkers.
“That will happen on the road, Sasha. I will probably need reminding.”
Jonah’s wife smiled and walked back to the rear of the cart. He looked down the line again, seeing Seren arriving at the middle of the caravan. Jonah scanned the line of carts, his eyes stopping on the tall man with the long leather coat. Although Gaston stood at a distance of a hundred and fifty yards, Jonah felt the man’s eyes on him.
“It is time,” Jonah said, cupping his hands and shouting at the clansfolk, eager to get on the road. “Eliz awaits.”
