A Girl From Nowhere

by James Maxwell

  The wherry had a sixth sense for finding game, and even Taimin was surprised by how much extra meat they were able to bring home at the end of a day. Taimin still worked to keep the homestead safe and carry water from the spring, and was always exhausted by the time he went to sleep. But with a surplus of meat, and Abi bringing more vegetables to the table, he was now a few inches taller than his father had been. Abi’s constant lessons and his own exertions had given him broad shoulders and strong limbs. Dark stubble covered his cheeks.

  He followed the escarpment for a time and made absent sounds of encouragement to Griff as he walked. Reaching the steep trail that led to the plain below, he began his careful descent, and with Griff far more surefooted Taimin held on to the saddle for support. The cliff cast a long shadow on the plain, but slowly the darkened swathe shrank as the golden sun climbed higher. A warm, dry wind blew against Taimin’s face and rustled his dark hair. Distant specks dotted across the terrain became cactuses and rust-colored boulders. Raptors and smaller scavenger birds hopped around on the branches of withered trees.

  Completing the descent, Taimin reached the row of caves where he had found Griff. Hot air shimmered over the plain, causing everything but the largest rock formations to waver. He scanned the sky, and looked both ahead and behind him, always searching for threats, the way he had been taught. Satisfied, he walked a little farther until he found a hollow in the rocky ground. He then poured out a small amount of water, which Griff greedily lapped up. While Griff drank, Taimin checked the wherry over, pleased to see that the peck marks on the sand-colored hide had healed.

  “You ready?” Taimin asked, but he could already sense that Griff was eager to run. As he felt his own excitement rising, he gripped the horn at the front of the saddle he had made, and mounted.

  The wherry immediately bounded forward, eager for the hunt and the chance to stretch his legs. Taimin leaned forward and held on hard. Air rushed past his ears, but he easily kept his seat. Griff pulled toward the cactus field, and Taimin let him choose the direction. The pace settled to a steady run, and Taimin readied his bow, on the lookout for raptors and rock lizards.

  Griff soon hunted down two big lizards on his own before wearing himself out chasing a third. Taimin let him rest near a basalt tree crowning a knoll where he had a good view of the plain, but Griff wouldn’t settle while the raptors in the tree shrieked down at him. Taimin shot one of the ugly birds and tied it to his pack while the rest fled. He smiled to himself as he dragged Griff away; the raptors would return, and Griff hated raptors.

  Lux finally rose, giving the terrain another shade entirely, adding the color of blood to the landscape. With the golden sun close to the middle of the sky, Taimin decided to find somewhere to escape the heat.

  He led Griff by the reins and directed the wherry to a ravine they had sheltered in previously, with steep walls that cast the interior in perpetual shade. Griff’s calm demeanor made Taimin confident there was nothing dangerous hidden within, but he still scanned as he descended, before allowing himself to settle in and slip the pack off his back.

  Griff ate the raptor, crunching the bones in his strong teeth while Taimin drank sparingly from his water flask. It was still too hot to resume the hunt, and Griff finished his meal and sprawled out on the ground. His eyelids closed, and the wherry’s broad chest rose and fell while he slept.

  Taimin sat with his back against the rock wall and thought about his aunt. He remembered seeing her gray hair and realizing that she was getting old. She had always taken care of him, but now he was beginning to worry about her. She was still spritely, but her movements weren’t as swift or sure as they once were. If something happened to him, she wouldn’t have anyone.

  Thinking about his aunt made him reflect on his parents. One thing he was sure of was that Gareth and Tess had loved each other. He knew he was now a full-grown man. Abi would die one day, and he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to have a companion to share the red and gold sunsets with. Someone to travel with. Someone his own age, who shared his curiosity about the wider world.

  The time had come. When he returned to the homestead he would talk to his aunt, and they would both make the journey to find a group of settlers. The homestead’s location made it safer than many other places, but there would also be safety in numbers. Abi was something of a loner, but she was practical enough to face facts.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a sound.

  Griff immediately lifted his head. His floppy ears pricked slightly and his eyes narrowed, as if he had never been sleeping. A low growl came from deep within his chest.

  Taimin carefully set down his water flask. He picked up his bow and nocked an arrow to the string. As he listened intently, he soon heard multiple voices with a gruff, sandpaper quality to them. The coarse throatiness was something he had never heard up close, but his aunt had described it to him, drilling him so that he would be wary of the creatures he might one day find himself fighting in the wasteland. The voices belonged to bax.

  Taimin’s pulse began to race. His immediate impulse was to lift his head out of the gully, but he told himself to stay still and instead cocked his head as he tried to estimate how many there were. It was difficult at first, but the harsh voices were coming closer, and he soon knew that it was far from a small group. Bax hunting parties were usually no larger than a few warriors. This was four or five times as many.

  Griff climbed to all fours and his growl became louder. Taimin laid a hand on the wherry’s flank. He shook his head and met Griff’s eyes until he stilled. Taimin was tense as he wondered what so many bax were doing on the plain, dangerously close to the homestead. He wished his aunt were with him. He couldn’t tell from their voices whether they were traveling with females and young. One thing he did know, from the growing volume of their calls and the thudding of their footsteps, was that they were traveling with speed.

  He made sure Griff knew to stay where he was and then left the deepest part of the ravine to climb closer to the surface. He was already aware that the bax were on their way toward the gully. He kept his head down and body low while the rasping calls became louder. They were still a reasonable distance away when the sound changed. The bax were now past the gully and heading away. He waited until he was sure they would have their backs to him. He then raised his head.

  The bax were in a hurry and didn’t see him as he watched their departing group. They were ugly creatures, man-sized but shorter and broader, with thick, knobbed skin and a ridged spine that jutted out from their backs, just below their necks. Taimin couldn’t see their faces, but he knew that their noses were small compared to their squared jaws.

  His eyes widened as he realized he was looking at a war party. There were over a dozen male warriors burdened with packs, and all carried clubs, bone axes, and sharp spears. They wore leather armor but their splayed feet were bare as they ran and called out to one another. One had a bandage wrapped around his arm, which he held awkwardly at his side. Another warrior’s torso was strapped tightly with a strip of linen. The bandages were fresh. They had been in a recent fight.

  Taimin’s heart beat out of time.

  He forgot about the fact that at any moment one of the bax might turn around and see him. The water sack poking out of a warrior’s pack was frayed at the seams. It looked familiar. Another bax was carrying a well-crafted spear. It was Abi’s. A bundle of kindling looked like poles from the barrier fence.

  In moments the bax were gone. The shock was so strong that Taimin felt sick. He gave a piercing whistle and Griff bounded out of the ravine. Taimin immediately threw himself on the wherry’s back and dug in his heels. He headed directly for the homestead.

  The plume of smoke added to Taimin’s horror. Sensing his urgency, Griff flew over the uneven ground, bounding over gullies and swerving past boulders, kicking dust behind him.

  Taimin roared at Griff to hurry. He passed the first body, hundreds of paces from the homestead. He barely registered the bax warr
ior other than to note that he had two of Abi’s arrows sprouting from his chest. He saw a second body, and then a third. Abi had encountered them while away from the protection of the barrier fence. She had fought a retreating action, sending arrows at the bax while they tried to outflank her.

  As Taimin approached the homestead he pulled up sharply. Part of him read the tracks and scanned for threats. Meanwhile he gripped his bow with white knuckles, desperate for a sign that his aunt was still alive.

  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.”

  The last man to speak was Lars. He looked about fifty, perhaps even older. It was hard to tell because he scraped any ve
stige of hair from his head with his sharp skinning knife. The rest of his body contrasted with his bald head, for he was hairy from his ankles to his thick black beard. Lars wasn’t as big as Vic, but the other two skinners were wary of him. Lars’s eyes were dark and moody, but he had spoken up on Selena’s behalf more than once.

  Selena gradually felt the pain lessen. Her rolling slowed, her gritted teeth relaxed, and her breathing began to return to normal.

  Lars crouched down next to her and helped her sit up.

  “Water,” Selena said.

  Lars put his hand in the air but first Sully, and then Vic, stepped back.

  “She can have yours,” Sully said.

  Lars unclipped his water flask and dribbled some liquid into Selena’s mouth. It was barely a mouthful but she felt her strength return. Compared to the agony of her seizure, she could handle the nagging thirst. Even as she had the thought, she took it back. Thirst could mount until it was its own form of agony.

  “Better?” Lars asked.

  Selena nodded.

  “Did you see anything?” he pressed. “Are we going the right way?”

  Selena shook her head. She tried to speak, but was forced to swallow and lick her lips before words would come out. “I can’t cast when I can’t think.” She met Lars’s eyes. “I need more water and rest.”

  Sully snorted. “Absolute mud. Don’t let her take you in, Lars. You know what her kind is capable of.”

  Lars ignored Sully. “You know we’re low on water. Can you stand?” he asked her. She held out her hand, and Lars rose from his crouch to bring her up with him. “No rest, not here in the open,” he said. “That goes for all of us.” Lars glanced at the other two men as he spoke.

  “So which way do we go?” Sully asked.

  “The horizon’s red the way we’re going,” said Vic, staring out at the plain. “We’re heading toward the firewall.”

  “Which way?” Lars asked Selena.

  Selena’s mouth tightened. “I’ve already told you. I don’t know.”