The Unfinished Land

The Dividing

AS YUCHIL and Calafi fed the horses, Nikolias and Andalo walked around the wagon, speaking in low tones. Nikolias approached Reynard and Widsith a few minutes later. “It is time for the wagon to leave. Soon dawn will light the way.”

“Where will we go?” Sophia asked, with a sharp look at Reynard, to which he did not know how to respond. “There is no way back!” Yuchil came down from the wagon and joined Nikolias.

“For now, we divide,” Nikolias said.

Reynard looked at his feet and his worn shoes. He could not think of a reason why he had not run off and left them, rather than explore the city. They could all return if he simply ceased to exist. His insides felt as knotted as the cloud that rose from the krater.

But now, he knew, there would be no fleeing. He could feel the tightening of his life, the reduction of his choices—the focus of his companions, those he had likened to his family in Southwold. When his uncle had called for him to board the hoy, he had not escaped. He could not flee now. All he could hope for was that soon he would know why he could never keep a family for long.

“Calafi and I will go on. The rest of our family will stay. The wagon will return to the fields around the first city,” Nikolias said. “There should be water enough and wood to last until we rejoin. Yuchil has stores for a few days.” With a look of sorrow and concern, Yuchil ran her fingers along his arm. He smiled assurance and returned the gesture. Calafi looked up at them, silent and serious. “Andalo will protect them with his drake—when it arrives. And we will leave our horses. This land will be rough on horses.”

Yuchil and Nikolias kissed and made their farewells as everybody else went about their preparations. Calafi stood away from all, but watching, small, her shoulders low, eyes big, like a frightened rabbit.

Yuchil swung the wagon around. Sophia helped the team to maneuver and roll on. Bela and Sany took the reins of the riderless horses and urged them along with clicks of their tongues and light songs. The Eater horses screeched their night cries as they passed out of sight of Valdis.

With fewer supplies, and no access to Yuchil’s magical stores, it was obvious their time was limited—that they must find, inside a day or two, those who might still exist to receive Reynard. They did not see the figures that Kaiholo had spotted earlier, nor anyone else—this land felt and sounded empty, and as they walked on, was plagued by drifts of salty dust that stung their eyes and made them sneeze.

“Salt is creation,” Kaiholo said, folding a cloth over his mouth. His next words were muffled and accompanied by a sardonic squint. “All the seas are salt. We have salt in our blood. Why doth it have to creep into all our holes and sting?”

Widsith and the giant also covered their faces with a cloth. The Pilgrim dug into his pocket and extended a kerchief to Reynard. All regarded the boy with barely concealed resentment. Their loyalties were being put to the test, and he did not know any more than they!

Calafi danced around them, chanting her nonsense, looking more and more like a witch, and while small, not all that young. But she might have been distracting from their fear or anger.

The reduced group followed Nikolias down the rugged trail. “We will avoid the krater,” he said.

“Dig deep, fox-boy,” Widsith warned in a low tone, leaning close. “They need to be assured.”

“I have nothing to give them!” Reynard cried. “Why did you find me, why did you save me?”

“I saved you to save myself,” Widsith said, then fell back that the boy might simmer his anger alone.

But Kaiholo, looking ashamed, took his place and walked beside him for a few minutes. “I do not question thee,” the Sea Traveler said. “I question this place, and all it asketh of us, and all it bringeth.”

“Why did they not defend their city?” Reynard asked. “It was beautiful here!”

“Signs of the island’s change might have overwhelmed.” Kaiholo shook his head forlornly. “What was left to them? A dead Crafter? What work was left to them, and what were they willing to die to defend? Perhaps they were waiting for us. Or you.”

“Myself, who knoweth not my use, my quality or strength? I fear I have none!”

“And yet, thou hast been judged by those who should know—Guldreth, for one.”

Reynard gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could say—the Sea Traveler was trying to smooth the waves between them, but that magic was not natural for him.

“Others judged you. Maeve and Maggie—and Dana. Anutha even saved thee a drake. She said that thou hadst a fate, a place in the great map of this island… In its last days.”

“Where did you hear this?” Reynard asked.

“From Yuchil, who tended her.”

Calafi danced closer. “I have a fate as well,” she said.

“Do you know what it is?” Reynard asked, his voice cracking.

Calafi turned to him with a sad glower. “No. But I know why thou art called fox-boy.”

“Why?” Reynard asked.

“Perhaps thou wast once a fox! Thou barkest like one.”

Then she laughed and ran off.

Something whirred in the air. Kaiholo and Kern hunched their shoulders and looked up. Calafi, close to Nikolias, cried out and fell to her hands and knees.

Nikolias crouched, and they all saw in the dawn light shadows flitting high west to east across the rugged land.

“They are here!” Kern shouted, his voice like a great horn.

Kaiholo said, “I do not feel them!”

“Nor I,” Widsith said.

Neither did Reynard.

The eastern brightness above the waste, many miles off, was broken by dozens of wide, winged shapes, swooping and diving: more drakes than Reynard had ever seen, even during the first battle of Zodiako.

“They are not ours! They are death,” Calafi wailed. “They bring death! My head hurts!” She wrapped her arms around her chest, and Nikolias clasped her and folded her in his cloak.

Valdis studied the sky in all directions. “They are not ours,” she agreed. “They seek vengeance against those who killed their masters.”

“That must mean the armies of the Sister Queens are near,” Nikolias said. “Just beyond the waste, or nearer still.”

“And being chivvied and reduced day by day,” Kern said.