“Did your mother never bring you up here?” Jacob asked. It was a silly question. It might have looked pretty, even tranquil, but these lands were dangerous. Even he knew that. They were equally dangerous to humans and demons, which did not help Whistler's chances at all.
“No,” Whistler said, pouting. “She came here a few times, I think. I never really knew what she did. I asked once.” He paused and looked outside again.
“And you didn't like the answer?”
“She told me not to ask again.”
“So, who looked after you all these years?” Jacob questioned.
Whistler shrugged. “I spent a lot of time when I was younger with Uncle Alex, but he'd often go off on digs. He's an archaeologist. Well, was. Maybe he still is. I don't know if that's a real job any more.”
“Yeah, I think the Regime outlawed it,” Jacob mused. “Considered artefacts of anyone or anything but the Iron Emperor sacrilegious.”
Whistler placed his chin on his hands, and furrowed his brow as he thought intently. “He was pretty cool. Alex, I mean.”
Jacob smiled. “Yeah, didn't think you meant the Iron Emperor.”
“He took me on some of his digs,” the boy continued. “I really enjoyed it.” He paused, and let out a tiny sigh. “I enjoyed the company.” He took off his cap, letting the tangle of his auburn hair run rampant, and tapped the hat against the patches on his knees.
“Was there no one else?” Jacob asked him.
Whistler looked inside his empty hat. “Sometimes Rommond was there, but usually not. Brooklyn used to play with me when he could, when I was younger, but he was always getting called away to mend something, or the machine spirits would give him a new idea. I guess everyone was always busy.”
“Well, you've got me now,” Jacob said, grabbing the hat and placing it on his head. It was a tight fight, and probably made him look quite comical. He was counting on it.
Whistler giggled as he tried to take it back, which Jacob did not make easy. Though the boy was still very thin and slight of frame, there was a little bit more strength in him now, and Jacob was glad to see this.
When Whistler finally recovered the crumpled cap, half-panting and half-laughing, he looked at Jacob and said, “I just hope you don't get too busy too.”
Rommond and Brooklyn sat in one of the cabins near the front, while Taberah retired to bed. The general stared outside, watching the sand turn to grass.
“Let's stop here a moment,” Rommond ordered, though his tone was much softer than usual, so it sounded more like a plea.
He took the vehicle off auto-pilot, and knocked on Taberah's door.
“We're just popping out for a bit of air,” he said.
There was no response, but he heard her turning in her sleep.
Jacob sauntered up. “What's up? Why are we stopping?”
“Just a personal matter,” the general replied. “Do you mind giving us a moment and staying inside?”
“Sure,” Jacob said. “Last time I went outside I almost got killed. You can consider me an agoraphobe now.”
The general tipped his hat slightly, before leading Brooklyn outside, where the land seemed a lot more welcoming than it did before.
“Where are we going?” Brooklyn asked him.
“Just a little stroll.”
It was a short walk, arm in arm, before they came across a wooden post in the ground, where the grass seemed to grow thicker than anywhere else, as if trying to hide that marker. Rommond crouched down and parted the blades of grass.
“This is where I thought I buried you,” he said. “Well, part of you.”
Brooklyn gathered his blanket around him tighter, yet it was not cold. “Why show me this?”
Rommond stood up and placed his hands on Brooklyn's shoulders. “Because I got you back, but I didn't get all of you. Somewhere deep inside you, you buried something else. You buried a part of yourself, and I can't dig that up.”
Inside the Silver Ghost, as Taberah dozed, Jacob found one of the many munitions supplies, where he reloaded his two pistols, and took a few spare boxes of bullets just in case. Whistler stood nearby, just like he did when Jacob was rooting through his chest of coils, but now the currency was a lot more dangerous.
“What does it feel like?” the boy asked.
“What does what feel like? Holding a gun? Here, you try.” Jacob held up one of the spare revolvers from the supply.
Whistler backed away, holding his hands up, palms out. “No, no. I don't want to try. I mean … what does it feel like … to … to kill someone?”
“Well, it doesn't feel good.”
“For them or for you?”
“Both.”
“So why do you do it?”
“Necessity.”
Whistler frowned. “The world kind of sucks, doesn't it?”
“Yeah,” Jacob replied. “But not all of it. That's why we fight. That's why we resist.”
“I guess.”
“Here. You may not like it, kid, but I think you should take one of these.” He held up the revolver again, even as Whistler shook his head. “I hope you never need it, but if you do, I'd feel a lot better knowing you had something you could defend yourself with.”
“But I don't want to fight.”
“Neither do I, Whistler, but sometimes it isn't up to us.”
Whistler looked at the gun with disapproval, his brow furrowed. Jacob shook it gently, trying to make him take it, and eventually the boy complied.
“It's heavy,” he said.
“Did Rommond not let you hold a gun before?”
“He did, when I was younger,” Whistler said, “but I kind of … dropped it.”
“Right,” Jacob said, regretting this a little already. “Well, just don't drop this one.”
He showed Whistler how to use it, and use it safely, and store it even safer. It reminded him of his own father teaching him that same lesson when he was much younger than Whistler was, before he was hauled off to the workhouse. His father was a harsh teacher, and he could still feel the rapping of his knuckles when he missed a shot. Jacob knew there was no time for target practice with Whistler. Instead, he might have to practice on the real thing.
12 – THE COUNCIL OF THE LAND
The Silver Ghost arrived at its destination, deep in the heart of Ootana land, where a council had been called. The Ootana leader had received the message from the mechanical bird that Brooklyn sent, and all tribal leaders were summoned to the meeting, which was to take place in a large, dome-shaped, multi-coloured tent that had long been used for the Councils of the Land.
The Resistance team departed the Silver Ghost and were led up to the pavilion, where several large tribesmen stood guard.
“Your weapons,” the main guard said.
“What about them?” Rommond barked.
“Leave them outside.”
“You've got plenty of your own,” Jacob said, eyeing up the swords and spears. From what he could see of the congregations entering the tent through its three other entrances, they were well-armed too. It seemed that the Ootana were the only tribe that brought ambassadors instead of swords.
“Our land,” the guard said, “our rules.”
The general grumbled. “Whatever happened to The Land is for all?”
Jacob had never heard that phrase before. Any glance at the coloured territory claims on a map made it clear that neither the Regime nor the Resistance abided by it.
The guard peered inside the tent and shouted something in his native tongue. He did not sound pleased. Rommond kept his steely gaze until another guard, taller and broader, stepped out to greet him. Jacob found it amusing that they thought a bigger guard would make a difference.
“Rommond,” the guard said. “So now we know why Council was called.”
“Yes,” th
e general replied. “Now, will you let us attend on time or make us late?”
“No weapons inside.”
Taberah scoffed and shook her head.
The guard shoved his spear in Taberah's face. “You mock us?”
Rommond pushed the spear aside, and glared at the man. “Do you mock me?”
The guard thumped his chest, and the others followed suit. “We are Nusodee. Every Council called, we protect. That you attend, it shall not differ.”
Rommond held up his revolver before the guards even had time to see. They readied their spears as he spoke. “This,” he said, shaking the gun, “is like a hand to me. You're asking me to sever my own hand and leave it outside.”
“You come with weapons, you come for war.”
“Ah,” the general said, “but I did come for war—but not with you.”
The guards spoke to each other in their language, to which the general rolled his eyes. Then they turned to Brooklyn.
“You,” the larger guard said, before speaking something in the Ootana dialect.
Brooklyn whispered to Rommond. “This is custom. We must follow. We want them to give in to us, so we must given in to them. Diplomacy.”
Rommond's moustache twitched, and he let out an audible, angry sigh. “Fair enough,” he said, before taking several guns from their holsters and piling them up in a box beside the guards. He unstrapped his sword sheath from his thigh, making sure to wave the sword by the tribesmen's faces, before placing it gently in the growing pile of weapons. “As the saying goes,” he told the guards as he passed inside, “you may disarm the man, but you still leave the greatest weapon behind—the man himself.”
Brooklyn followed him in, and the guards did not even bother to search him. He was clearly an Ootan, and the Ootana never carried weapons. Jacob cast his two guns into the supply, but the guards stopped and searched him. He was not entirely surprised. I would have searched me too.
“Not sure what you're going to find down there,” he said, as they patted his legs. They were rougher and more rigorous in response. “Didn't see you pat the general down like that. Afraid he might have taken a liking to you?”
The larger guard growled and pushed Jacob inside. It hurt, but not as much as those words clearly did. Jacob was just surprised that he was now not just taking damage for himself—he was taking it for the team.
Whistler came in behind Jacob, sulking.
“What's up?” Jacob asked. “Did they search you too?”
“No,” the boy replied.
“Then what's the problem?”
“They didn't search me,” Whistler said. “I could have had anything.”
Jacob was no bouncer, but it was clear that Whistler was not hiding any weapons, unless he had bullets hiding in the tangle of his hair. But what nursed one person's pride wounded another's.
“You should be proud then,” Jacob said.
“Why?” the boy asked.
“Because that makes you a really good smuggler. You can march right under their nose. I wish I could do that.”
Whistler beamed.
Jacob could hear Taberah arguing with the guards outside. He knew for sure that she was hiding weapons. What he was not sure about was whether or not she would use them before she came inside.
They were led to a short, rotund woman, who sat cross-legged on a small round rug. Her hair was braided, and knotted into a variety of patterns, like a crown that Nature had ordained. She wore earthy brown clothes, with a blanket much like Brooklyn's over it, though it only had coloured buttons, not any of the cogs that covered his.
Brooklyn knelt before her and bowed his head. Rommond followed suit.
“I am Ala-usadi-ridalla,” she said, crossing her arms before taking both of Rommond's hands in hers, and then uncrossing them, so that the general's were now crossed in turn.
“Maybe I'll just call you Ala,” Jacob said.
She seemed offended. “Simple minds need simple names. You can call me Sitting Stone.”
The Council was called quickly, partially due to Rommond urging Brooklyn to tell the tribes of their need of haste. Brooklyn seemed a little troubled, more than usual, and he did not seem at all confident talking to his people. Many of them looked disapprovingly on him, and some whispered about his short hair, while others whispered about the machine spirits.
In time, Rommond was invited to address the tribes.
“For many years, we have been at war,” he told them. “This was not a war of our making. We were forced to fight. We were invaded by an enemy that sought to wipe us out. All of us. All tribes, whether of city or land.”
“They leave us be,” Aola, the leader of the Rasaoua tribe, said. Her people lived in the furthest north, under the shadow of the Gods' Teeth, a massive mountain range that at one time was covered in snow. They still wore their thick, woolly hides, but now it was merely ornamental, and a very uncomfortable tradition.
“For now,” Rommond said.
“Your people brought them here,” Aola said. “That is what Udanudaga say.”
This annoyed many, especially among the Ootana.
“They once had seat at Land Council,” Sitting Stone said. “Now they fight with Anganda at their side. We invited them to end old war and come here to talk. Then we could have heard what Udanudaga say. But they refused. So do not speak for them.”
“I speak also for myself,” Aola replied. “And I say, as we Rasaoua say, that the walled-ones brought the demons here, and that is why they fight them, and not us.”
“Look,” Jacob said. “I'm an outsider to all of this, but even I can see the damage the demons have done here. On the journey up, we saw the grass that you all keep alive. Where else can we see that grass? The Regime leaves you alone for now. They think you're beneath them, a lesser threat. If the Resistance is crushed, they won't ignore you any more.”
Rommond nudged Brooklyn, as if he had prepared a speech, and thought now was the most opportune moment. Jacob was winging it, and it seemed to be working from the reactions on the tribespeople's faces, but the general was not leaving anything to chance. He came with the deck stacked in his favour.
Brooklyn stood up. “There are ten tribes.”
“Eleven,” Aola corrected.
Sitting Stone shook her head violently. “We do not count Anganda.”
Aola smiled. “We do.”
Rommond nudged Brooklyn again. If it had been him, he would have talked over the sparring tribal leaders. The message was not for them. It was for the people, because if they joined the cause, it was the people who would be laying down their lives.
“We speak many dialects,” Brooklyn continued. “And we all have our own traditions, and our own sayings. But there is one saying we all know, one that comes from the Machu Muada: it takes many blades of grass to make a field.”
There was a flurry of nods to this.
Rommond rose quickly, adding, “And it takes more than one tree to make a forest. Do you even remember the forests we used to have here? Now we are lucky if we can even find a solitary tree. We did not do that. It was the Regime. They opened the gates to Hell, and let the fire through. We've been standing on that scorched earth ever since.”
“We have to fight to reclaim our world,” Taberah said, without standing up. “I've always fought, and I'll keep fighting. I'll fight for you, but will you fight with us?”
Rommond and Brooklyn sat back down as some of the tribespeople debated quietly among themselves. Some seemed steadfast in their disapproval, but others were not so sure. Rommond masked a tiny smile beneath his moustache. He could work with uncertainty. He could make them resolute.
He nudged Whistler now, who stood up self-consciously, holding a rolled-up map that the general had given him earlier, a little ace in the hole. There was a mixture of approval and dissent in the council at one so you
ng being allowed to speak.
“Eh,” the boy began, an unsteady start to mimic the doubt among the audience. Whistler unfurled the map with a slight jitter in his hands, and held it up. “This is a map of the Iron Wall,” he said. It showed the long stretch of track that ran from the port in the south right up to the mountainous ridges in the north. He pointed to the part at the top. “This part is where the grass is, where the land isn't covered in sand. I never saw the grass before I came up here. It's beautiful. And I'm sure it's beautiful there too, beneath the iron tracks. They dig there. They dig for riches. But they don't see the riches of the land.”
The nods were more emphatic, and the sense of doubt was dissipating.
“Go on,” Rommond urged. Their guard was dropping. They needed to go in for the kill.
“Eh, uh, I think … I think this land,” Whistler said, pointing again to that strip of grassland close to the mountains, “I think this should be yours. I think you should be the caretakers, not them. I don't want to fight, but … but maybe we don't have a choice. Maybe we're not just fighting for us. Maybe we're fighting for the land.”
The kill was in reach. Rommond shot up like a bullet.
“Though we will fight this war alone if we have to,” he told the congregation, “we need every ally we can muster. To take down the Iron War, we need friends. We need you.”
Sitting Stone shook her head. “No. You need ground. You need sky. You need water. You need fire. Us? No, you do not need us.”
“To win this war, we need everyone to do their part.”
“Ootana do not win wars,” she replied. “We win peace, or we lose peace. Everyone loses war.”
“Then help us win peace,” Jacob said.
The Mianachi tribe were more riled up than the others. They looked disapprovingly on the Ootana's gestures of peace, scoffing at their lack of strength. Their leader frequently interrupted the discussions to say, “We choose to live, so land dies. If land dies, we do not live.” The more he said it, the more his people grew irate, raising their weapons for war.
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