A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1

by Justin Woolley

  A crowd of young men were gathering in the yard; Squid estimated just under a hundred. They all looked to be aged between sixteen and eighteen, ages at which some of them had started growing patchy beards or straggly moustaches. Squid had never seen so many boys in one place and all of them, every single one, was bigger than him. He had jostled, or more accurately been jostled, to the front of the crowd just in time to see the head bounce.

  That, thought Squid, was interesting. He hadn’t expected it. He had never seen a decapitation before. There was the time Uncle had killed some chickens on the farm, but that hadn’t had quite the same impact as seeing the head fall from a six-foot-tall man. Of course this was just a training dummy, but Squid had a good imagination. The tightly bound wool-stuffed head rolled to a stop at his feet and stared up at him.

  “That is the single purpose of the Diggers,” said the gruff voice of the man who had deftly removed the head with a sword, “To remove the heads from ghouls.”

  That man had a beard unlike any of the wispy offerings of those watching him; it was a huge bushy thing that grew from his face in a chaotic explosion of wiry hair. It was only provided with some semblance of order by being tied into a kind of chin ponytail. This, Squid realized, was Major Berant Essenburg, Training Master of the Academy. Squid had heard some of the older boys talking about Major Essenburg. Apparently he was known to the students, and possibly the other Diggers, as simply “The Bear.” The boys would learn soon enough that he was even more commonly known as “Look Out, He’s Coming.”

  The Bear sheathed his sword and stood like a carefully arranged pile of bricks. Broad shouldered and stocky, he looked as though his main aim in life was deciding which bar stool to smash over your head.

  “Don’t worry about keeping domestic peace and upholding the rights of citizens,” The Bear continued. “We exist, we have always existed, for one reason—to hold back our greatest enemy: the ghoul, the destroyer of civilization.”

  The Bear looked at the boys in front of him with what Squid would normally have understood as hatred, but it could also have been fierce determination. Squid didn’t like people at the best of times and this Bear, with his crazy beard and crazy eyes, was the scariest person he had ever seen.

  “Some of you are here because you have important daddies, some of you are here because you might actually have what it takes, and others of you are to be Apprentices. But whatever your background, remember that we all exist to support the sword that cuts the neck of the ghoul. Understood?”

  The collection of boys was silent.

  “The correct response,” The Bear yelled, “when addressed by an officer is ‘Yes, sir!’ Understood?”

  “Yes, sir!” chorused the boys, all except Squid, who was too terrified to move.

  Although he was just a pimple on the face of the crowd, The Bear noticed that Squid had not responded with the chant of military submission. Squid looked back at him with a wide-eyed stare of anticipation that could easily be confused with stupidity.

  “Do you not understand me, maggot?”

  All of the possible options ran through Squid’s brain: he could run, he could hide, he could curl up into a ball, he could cry, he could faint—the list continued scrolling through his mind but none of the choices seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, the one option that didn’t pass through his mind was that of speech.

  “I’m speaking to you!” The Bear roared.

  Squid swallowed.

  “What is your name, Scant?”

  Finally a squeak of voice returned to his throat. “Squid, sir.”

  “All of you take note,” The Bear said, addressing the entire yard full of boys, “either Squid here doesn’t understand or he thinks he is too good for all of you. Which is it, Squid: are you stupid or too good for everyone else here?”

  “No, sir,” Squid said as loud as he could manage.

  “No, sir, you don’t understand, or no, sir, you aren’t too good?”

  Thoroughly confused, Squid felt for the key that hung around his neck. There was a rising heat in his face and he was just a little bit dizzy. “I’m not good, sir,” he said.

  “I know you’re not good,” The Bear boomed. “You’re not good because you’re a filthy little Scant. Also, you annoy me.” The Bear raised himself up slightly and his voice carried out across the yard. “Normally,” he said, “you wouldn’t begin your training until tomorrow. But because of Squid here you will all begin training tonight with a nice session of PT. That’s Physical Training, boys, and you’ll grow to love it.” The Bear smiled. “Trainers, see them squared away and out on the oval in two hours—star jumps might be nice.”

  Squid had tried hard to go unnoticed, to be no more important to anyone here than the dust they walked on, and up until now it had worked. He hadn’t spoken to anyone, no one had even known his name—but now everyone did.

  As shouts began to fill the air someone slammed into Squid from behind. “Nice one, you little dust rat,” a voice hissed at him.

  As he barked orders at them the Scants followed Lieutenant Walter through the crowd. It would be an understatement to say the Rock was a busy place. As the center for training and administration of the Diggers it made Dust on market day look like an empty dirt paddock. Everywhere Squid looked there were people: Diggers dressed in green and recruits in their simple gray uniforms. Apprentices and Workmen hurried about their duties, seemingly moving at twice the speed of everyone else. There were others at the Academy, too: clergymen of the Holy Order in their red cloaks and even a few Sisters striding about in their white gowns.

  As Squid looked up at the walls around the main yard he saw countless windows and open-air walkways, all filled with the same eclectic mix of people. Squid found all this activity rather terrifying. The Rock itself, however, was the most marvelous thing he had ever seen. He was certain he could never understand all the people inside it, but the patterns of the Rock, the walkways with their wooden and metal support structures spiraling up the inside from where he stood, the long metal gas lines that looped around, linking all the hundreds of gas lamps together, and the mechanical drives that always filled the place with clicks and clacks, he could understand all that. It was magical.

  Soon the nervous group of Scants passed through a doorway into the buildings of the Academy. The corridors were narrow and featureless and Squid eventually lost all sense of direction. He could only follow the boy in front of him and hope that Lieutenant Walter knew exactly where he was leading them. The deeper they went into the Rock the darker the corridors became, until the only light around them was the constant flickering of gas lamps burning with an audible hiss. Eventually they came to a stop in the middle of a corridor.

  “All right, Scants, listen up,” said Lieutenant Walter from somewhere up ahead. “These three doors along here lead to your barracks. There are thirty-six of you, so twelve in each room. Get in there, choose a bed and change into your PT gear.”

  Squid was the last one into the last room, so he had to go right to the end and take the bed furthest from the door. The other boys watched him walk past.

  “They must be really desperate for recruits,” one of them said with no attempt to hide his scorn. “They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

  The barracks was long and narrow with six beds on each side of the room, the heads of the beds alternating against either wall so that Squid had to zigzag slightly as he made his way through the room. This, Squid thought, would not be ideal if they ever needed to evacuate quickly. Each of the beds was covered by a tightly tucked-in pink blanket bearing a single green stripe and a single pillow in a white pillow case. At the foot of every bed was a wooden trunk sealed with a small padlock. Squid saw a key lying on the pink blanket of his bed. He used it to open the trunk. Inside were a pair of light shoes, some socks, shorts, a t-shirt and an empty box marked “personal belongings.”

  Squid heard the muffled voice of Lieutenant Walter in one of the other rooms. He couldn’t m
ake out the words through the thick walls but he was quite certain he was angry. They were supposed to be getting changed into their Physical Training uniforms. If the trainers here were anything like Uncle they would always want things done in an impossibly short amount of time. Squid guessed Lieutenant Walter would be in here any second to give this room the same stern words he was giving the recruits next door. The other boys were sitting on their beds talking, looking around the room or becoming acquainted with those around them. Squid began changing into the shorts, t-shirts and shoes from the trunk.

  As he was changing Squid noticed the boy sitting on the bed next to him, and recalled that this was the boy he had been walking behind: the second smallest of the trainee Apprentices. He sat with his hands in his lap looking around the room, the corner of his mouth turned up in a kind of disgusted confusion. He had short-cropped blond hair and like Squid, seemed to be out of place.

  “Hello,” Squid said. “What’s your name?”

  The boy looked at him. “Max,” he said.

  “I’m Squid.”

  The boy half-smiled at him before turning away.

  “You should get changed,” Squid said. “I think we’re about to get in trouble.”

  Max ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t like changing in front—” But he was cut off when the door opened.

  “Holy Ancestors!” Lieutenant Walter barked from the doorway. “You maggots haven’t even started getting ready yet.”

  He looked around the room and saw Squid standing in his uniform.

  “There are two things wrong with this picture,” Lieutenant Walter continued. “First, the rest of you don’t look like Squid, and second, he didn’t tell you all to get changed. Now hurry up, you have two minutes.”

  All eyes in the barracks turned to look at Squid.

  “Thanks again, Pumpkinhead,” said a voice from the front of the room. “Haven’t you done enough damage for one day?”

  Squid recognized the boy from the journey to the Academy; he was someone you couldn’t help but notice. His name was Darius Canum. Though not an obviously handsome boy, he was striking in that he had one green eye and one brown eye. It was his attitude, however, that made him memorable.

  Darius was from Cameron, a town even further away than Dust, though it was a wealthier place with soil that was ripe for dirt farming. Darius was, Squid had overhead him saying many times on the journey to the Academy, the fourth son of Big Ed Canum, the most successful dirt farmer in the history of the Central Territory. They were an extraordinarily wealthy family, at least by the standards of dirt farmers, and had considered sending their son to join the Diggers as their way of giving something back. Darius had had no say in this, as he had loudly informed anyone who would listen, and was less than pleased. Squid had already seen him release his frustration on other boys during the trip and had marked him early as one of the people he should avoid. But it appeared that the things Squid wanted were not always going to happen.

  “I’m going to be watching you, Pumpkinhead,” Darius said.

  In a few minutes the rest of the boys had changed into their training gear. Lieutenant Walter led them out of the barracks, through the labyrinth of corridors, across another yard and outside of the Rock. On the large patch of dirt that passed for the football oval Squid spent the next two hours doing ridiculous things like running around, jumping and pushing himself up and down until he felt like vomiting. He found himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, life on a dirt farm wasn’t so bad after all.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I can’t believe how hard they work us,” Darius said as the boys were woken in what seemed like the middle of the night by an insistent thumping on the barracks door. “Do we have to get up this early every morning?”

  “Move it, Scants,” came Lieutenant Walter’s voice from the hall. “Weapons training before breakfast.”

  The boys, still half-asleep, mumbled their agreement with Darius. All except Squid and Max. Max was already up and in uniform. This was their third day at the Academy and each day Max was always the first to be ready in the morning and the last to go to sleep at night. Squid rolled out of bed without saying anything. These early starts were still later than the hour he’d had to rise most mornings on the dirt farm and so that, at least, was one thing he didn’t have to complain about.

  Each day the routine was practically identical: up with the sun, out into the yard for exercise, then classes all day and sometimes into the night, with meals in between. They learned the practical skills they would need as Apprentices such as tending horses, shining and fitting armor, sharpening swords, cleaning rifles and mending clothes, but they were also instructed in the theoretical aspects of the Diggers, such as the history and structure of the organization. Then, of course, there were the religion sessions with the Sisters of Glorious God the Redeemer. While most of the boys complained about the long days Squid found it all quite interesting. He wasn’t very good at a lot of things they had to do here, but he relished the opportunity to learn something new, something that had nothing to do with dirt. They didn’t study enough about numbers, Squid thought, but at least he had the chance to think about things. It was almost as good as school. It might even have been better if it wasn’t for all the people.

  Eventually the trainee Apprentices managed to assemble in the main yard. Since their arrival at the Academy they had spent most of their time with the other boys from their barracks. The twelve boys in Squid’s room were known as Scant C. They were standing quietly in their gray uniforms facing the flagpoles, the same place they assembled every morning. The flags always hung motionless; there was no wind inside the Rock. The boys from Scant A laughed at some shared joke. The other Scant groups had a camaraderie that even Squid noticed was missing from Scant C.

  “That’s enough, you little insects,” a voice snarled from behind them. “Scants don’t get to laugh.”

  Most of the boys turned. Squid didn’t need to. That voice was clearly the deep, rough bellow of The Bear.

  “Don’t turn around!” The Bear yelled. The boys’ heads snapped forward. “You’re supposed to be at attention!”

  The Bear walked around and stood in front of the three sections of Scants.

  “You are not real warriors,” he said. “You are boot-polishing slime scrubbers, but it is Academy policy that in the event you ever need to defend yourself in battle you are at least somewhat versed in swordcraft. If you ever make it to the rank of First Apprentice—a highly unlikely event—it will be your duty to follow the Digger you serve into battle if they fall and stop them from rising again as a ghoul. I expect Scants like you to run away at the mere sight of a ghoul, but nonetheless, you must be trained. Due to unforeseen circumstances that I assure you will never happen again, I am the one who is stuck instructing you this morning. My time is far more important than you will ever be, so I expect you to listen.”

  The giant man indicated a rack of small wooden swords off to the side of the yard.

  “These are wooden training swords. Collect one.”

  Squid swallowed and felt for the key around his neck. His palms were sweaty as he followed the boys toward the rack of swords. They meandered along in a group, talking among themselves in excited anticipation. Squid certainly didn’t feel that. He had known that he would have to use weapons sooner or later, but that didn’t make it any easier. As with a lot of things, he understood the principle, but when it came to actually doing anything with his hands it all fell apart, often in a way that left him in pain.

  “Hurry up!” Major Essenburg yelled, the vein in his forehead bulging, a sure sign that they should do what he said.

  Squid was hurrying along with the other Scants when he was shoved from behind hard enough to stumble forward, crashing into the back of a boy in front of him. That boy just happened to be Darius Canum.

  “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, Pumpkinhead,” Darius said. “I don’t like being touched, particularly by stinking kids from
Dust.”

  “Sorry, Darius,” Squid said. He turned to look behind him but his pusher was already gone. Apparently he didn’t want anything to do with Darius either.

  “Don’t let it happen again, Rat Licker,” mumbled Darius as he turned, whispering something to Glenden, Tank and Rusty. Darius had worked quickly to establish himself as the unofficial leader of Scant C. He was smart, Squid had noticed, in a cunning sort of way. He had a way with people that Squid didn’t understand. It seemed Darius knew precisely the right time to compliment or insult someone in order to have them join his little gang of followers. They had only been together a week, but already that gang consisted of nearly everyone in Scant C except for Squid and Max.

  “Yeah,” Tank laughed. “You lick rats because you’re too poor to have anything else to lick.”

  “Be quiet, Tank,” scowled Rusty. He smiled at Darius but Darius didn’t look back. He was grabbing a sword off the rack, the biggest one. Squid, on the other hand, picked up one of the smallest swords. The leather grip was worn, and the blade was chipped and bent to the left in a gentle curve.

  “Okay, get in line,” said The Bear, his tone impatient. “No, stop swinging them around and line up—a straight line, you idiots, facing me. Now, pay attention. Hold the sword in ... Just put the thing on the ground if you can’t help yourself, it’s not a toy!” The Bear waited a moment. “Right, now that’s out of your system we can start. Hold the sword in your strongest hand. For most of you that will be your right hand, but there’ll be a few weirdos who’ll want to use their left. If that’s you, you’ll have to remember to reverse everything I say.”

  Squid experimented with the sword in one hand and then the other. He settled on his left hand, weirdo style. The thirty-six boys followed The Bear’s instructions, copying the motions as he ran through them slowly with his own sword. Squid tried to make the sword an extension of his arm like he was told, letting it flow through the air, its weight doing the work, but it was altogether more difficult than it looked. After a life spent on a farm he should have had the strength to wield a wooden training sword smoothly, but it was like Squid’s muscles didn’t believe in learning. Instead he found himself banging his knees and elbows with the sword as he attempted to perform a parry and a thrust, a slice, hack and chop. He could remember which was which, but they all seemed to get tangled up as his body wouldn’t quite match the picture he had in his mind. As The Bear called out the movements, Squid somehow ended up facing the wrong way.