Abandoned

The small hill stood in a clearing where lightning felled several trees years and years ago. Back then, soft bark from the snow-birch would have burnt away to reveal the dark base of each trunk.

Lily sat beside Gabriel on one of those trunks now, swatting at gnats and watching Amir pack up the crystal radio. “I’ll take it back to the outpost,” he said.

As expected, the radio had offered nothing.

Its range was the abandoned village. Had anyone taken shelter there to look for others via their own devices, and they were lucky with timing, a signal or broadcast might have been picked up.

In a way, Lily had already dismissed their chances. Far better to focus on the honey-fields Amir had mentioned back in the outpost.

Had any survived? Either to the north-east or elsewhere?

I’ll sniff them out, don’t worry about that. Blue’s voice in her mind was bright with excitement.

Amir joined them. “Ready, then?”

[Ready]. Gabriel clapped his hands together.

Lily stood with her brother, and Amir hugged them both before they could take another step. Part of the radio in his grip dug into her back a little, but it didn’t matter. His hug was more important. Just like Father, she thought. For a moment, she held a little longer, and then it really was time to set out again.

“We’ll bring back good news for everyone,” she said.

Doubt flashed in his eyes, but it didn’t last, because a smile followed right on its heels. “If anyone can, it’s you and your brother – the Pride of Haven.”

[Fancy title. I like it.] Gabriel released Amir with a grin but his own eyes seemed misty as he started back down the hill.

Time to change our fates, she thought. Lily followed with a firm step, glancing over her shoulder just before the trees swallowed them up. Amir stood watching.

He raised a hand to wave.

As he did, his tunic rose enough to reveal a glass jar at his belt. A kami? Had he tamed one? A red kami… she’d have to ask him some other time… when they returned.

In triumph, somehow…

She waved back with a nod before turning to catch up to Gabriel.

***

They spoke little as they travelled the Eastwood, stopping only once in the late afternoon for a snack. The hard biscuits were not very tasty but they staved off hunger. More importantly, the rest of the biscuits would last for weeks.

Unlike some of their other supplies. Some needed to be eaten sooner rather than later – the meat for their evening meal and then within a few days, the fruit.

[I don’t remember all that much about the village,] Gabriel said once he’d finished the final bite of his biscuit. [It wasn’t a large place.]

[Maybe seven or eight buildings.] Lily was already putting the rest away, continuing to sign once she’d finished. [They never had much there. It’s still the best place to rest overnight. Especially if the church is still in one piece.]

[Unless someone else is already there.]

[Blue or Emerald would sense them before we do, at least.]

[True.]

Lily gestured to the path with a raised eyebrow.

He nodded, and she led him deeper into the forest, on and on until the sun began to dip and shadows lengthened, becoming tangled in the trees. They’d still reach the village before dark. That wasn’t a problem. Stumbling across someone unfriendly was what weighed upon her mind now.

No-one travelled for pleasure anymore, of course, but people occasionally left their settlements.

Occasionally tried to find something better.

She’d met a few such people over the years. Usually when scouting far from Haven, seeking out seeds, animals or other items of value to the settlement.

But there were other reasons people left.

Or found themselves driven out.

She’d met one of them – a thief, exiled from a distant settlement. The woman had been little more than a bundle of spikes in human form, someone who’d made no excuse for her actions.

Do you really think you can survive this land by always doing what’s right?

The thief’s question was not something Lily thought about often… but when visiting abandoned places, you never knew who could be hiding.

The sun had barely set when they reached the village, a small circle of steel buildings clear in the light that lingered. A familiar sight. Mostly because, like Haven, the walls here were mismatched, repurposed from ships that would never fly.

But the church was a little different.

Almost a whole piece of… whatever it had been, the church waited in a trio of slanted rectangles. At some point in the past, it had been covered in creeping vines. They probably had lovely flowers once, but the plants were mere skeletons now.

The building bore two windows only, also thin and rectangular.

No light shone from within.

Lily signalled to Gabriel and they spread out, approaching the church’s rear slowly.

She scanned the village as they crept forward but found no hints of movement or light. No creak of doors closing, no boots crunching across gravel. No wind, even.

But something was waiting in the doorway.

A kami jar.

It sat covered in thin black lines… she peered closer. Ants. Ants were swarming across a glob of honey that rested inside the jar.