The homestead was destroyed beyond recognition.
The barrier fence was in ruins. Most of the shack was burned. The bax had penned Abi in the shack and used fire as a weapon against her. She had been forced to put the fire out, which distracted her and gave the bax a chance to lay planks over the ditch and storm the gate.
Such a large war party must have been heading somewhere. They had clearly been following the firewall’s edge, and would have needed food and water. The homestead was too tempting to resist. The attack had come with a cost, but they had succeeded in the end.
Taimin dismounted to stand at the edge of the ditch and stare at what was left of the homestead. Abi’s body was just outside the door, in the place Griff liked to sleep. Her gray hair fluttered in the slight breeze. She was utterly still, eyes open wide, with a broken spear embedded in her chest. Her sword had taken two more bax before their numbers overwhelmed her.
The smoke was dissipating, leaving behind the sour stench of char. The bax had ransacked the homestead, taking the water sacks from under the collector, before they passed Taimin on the plain as they continued their journey.
Griff whimpered and sank to his haunches, staying where he was. Taimin walked alone across the makeshift bridge that the bax had used to span the ditch.
Taimin reached Abi’s body. The smoke in the air stung his eyes and he wiped them with the heels of his hands. He crouched down beside his aunt.
His guilt and grief mingled as he bowed his head. While he had been resting in the shade, Abi had been fighting for her life. He wasn’t sure if he could have made a difference, but he would never know.
With a start, he lifted his head once more. Time had passed; he had no idea how much, but the suns had shifted position. His aunt was dead, but her voice still spoke inside his mind, telling him he should be thinking about survival. He brushed some gray locks aside to kiss Abi’s forehead. His instincts took hold as he straightened. It was unlikely, but he needed to see if the bax had left behind any water.
He ignored the heat as he kicked aside timbers where once he and his aunt had prepared meals. The nursery where Abi had tended her plants was completely destroyed. All the food was gone. The bax had even taken the skins they were preparing to make leather. There was no water at all.
Still Taimin searched, knowing that the things he found could aid his survival. He discovered a dirty blanket and a sturdy pot. He collected splintered wood and bundled it together; it would be useful as kindling.
Last of all, he came to the chest at the foot of his aunt’s bed.
The chest was on its side. It had been emptied out, of course, but the fire hadn’t spread to the area. His aunt’s clothing had been discarded and tossed aside to form a pile on the floor. Anything of value was gone. He glanced inside the chest anyway.
Taimin frowned as he leaned forward. There was something inside, at the very bottom. He bent down and his fingers closed over a folded sheet of fibrous paper.
He unfolded the piece of paper and held it up, to find himself looking at a picture. The image was initially confusing. He had never seen anything like it.
The picture was well drawn, and depicted a high wall that surrounded a collection of buildings. Not just a dozen buildings, or a hundred, but more than could be real. It was a city, with a tall, graceful tower in the very center.
Taimin again heard the voice of the pale-haired rover who had questioned his father. We’re looking for the white city.
It was just a drawing, Taimin told himself. Abi had said the white city was a myth.
A nagging doubt remained. But what if it was real?
He shook his head and quashed the doubt. If the white city was real, and his aunt knew about it, there was no way she would live in a remote homestead near the firewall. If a walled city full of people actually existed, Taimin might have grown up there, and his aunt and his parents would be alive today.
He folded the piece of paper and put it in his pack along with everything else. He realized that it was all he had of his aunt, and his parents too, for that matter. In fact, he had lived with Abi his entire life, but knew little of hers.
His search complete, he left the clothing chest behind. Clambering over the charred remains of the homestead, he returned to his aunt’s body. With a catch in his throat and feeling numb all over, he looked down at her and cast his mind back. He remembered when he had watched his parents’ bodies smolder beyond the firewall. His aunt had taught him that the dead always deserved some kind of farewell.
Taimin gathered the last of the shack’s timbers and stoked up the fire once more, so that the flames could send her spirit into the sky.
When he was done, he stood with Griff and watched his aunt’s funeral pyre. His grief shifted to anger as he thought about the bax who had destroyed his home. They had taken his water and food, enough to survive for a long time. They had been traveling quickly, but they were on foot, and hadn’t bothered to conceal their tracks.
Abi had cared for him, trained him, and taught him about the world. She was gone. He was all alone.
Yet he already knew what Abi would tell him to do. He had his weapons, and he had his training. If he was going to survive, his first objective was clear. He would pursue the group of bax and get his supplies back.
Taimin realized he was about to go out into the wider world. And whether or not the white city was real, if he searched for it, he might find the two pale-haired brothers who had killed his parents.
He wasn’t sure, but perhaps Abi had reacted strangely when he had asked her about it. He didn’t know about his aunt’s past, but the drawing had meant something to her. It was a start.
But first, he had to survive.
4
“Is she faking?”
“Looks pretty real to me.”
“Jab her in the ribs. If she’s faking, she won’t grab her head like that; she’ll protect her body.”
“Vic, Sully, stop it! She’s in pain.”
“C’mon, Lars. You know we can’t trust her.”
“Vic, I said let her be.”
Selena heard the voices as muted, muffled, as if she were standing at the mouth of a cave, listening to people talking deep within. Vic’s jab in her side was nothing compared to the pain in her head. She felt each beat of her heart as a single, isolated event, sending blood from her veins up into her skull, where the throb of its pulse detonated with a furious blast before the next beat repeated the agony.
She rolled on the ground, her hands at her temples as she tried to let the pain drive her into unconsciousness. It never did. It always kept her sharp, aware of her surroundings and what was happening to her while able to do nothing about any of it. She knew the gravel under her back was hard and piercing. Three men stood over her. Her eyes wildly flashed from one face to the other, seeing no pity in any of them, only fear and distrust, the same emotions she had seen on people’s faces her entire life.
“We should leave her,” said Sully, a wiry man, perhaps forty years old, with black hair and a talent for complaint. “Look at her. She’s useless to us.”
“Sully’s right. Who’s to say she’s not leading us round in circles?” Vic scowled. He was a stronger and tougher man than Sully but with half the cunning.
“You two can go if you want. She stays with me. I haven’t come this far for nothing. It’s out there, and she’s going to take me to it.”