Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

the main thoroughfare that once led through the village, he took in the curve from shore to shore where the gardens now grew wild. Not one living soul remained. Though, in the soot and muck, he could see that some of the fishing boats were gone. Someone had got away. He hoped it at least, continuing on. It was unsettling, as he had to step over the remains of villagers he once knew—tall skeletons and small ones. The Sky Children had not spared anyone, just like in the Southwest Corner.

After walking a while among the wreckage, the boy broke into a jog. He rushed to where he remembered his home once was. He hopped through the charcoal landing where their floor had been. He searched around for bones, feeling over the burned and currently damp wood, lifting up the broken pieces of pots and bowls he recognized. The remains of his room had a few of his old belongings still there. Most were now rusted. His collection of polished marbles rested in a pocket of algae and burned leather. His small sheath knife was just a rusty blade. The wooden handle was long gone. Searching the rest of the house, he found the bone comb his mother often wore in her hair and a number of metal pots she had used for cooking. But there was no sign of her. Not in the burned charcoal or behind the house.

Hopping over the wall, he jogged down the path to the smithy shop. He had run in so many times before. It looked smaller. Everything felt barren—especially as the wind scattered sand into the crevices of the ruins.

Of the smithy, only the stones remained. All the wood had burned, leaving the anvil and hammerhead next to the lichen-covered furnace. Wild grasses sprang up from the cracks in the stone.

He climbed over the threshold, dodging the fallen hinges and the iron lock on the ground. Looking down at the floor among the grasses and lichen, he found the skeletal remains of his grandfather. The man still lay face first on the ground, the same as the day he had been killed. The boy crouched down, reaching to what was left of the kind man who had comforted him in the loss of his father. The leather strap that held the family seal still hung around the remains of his neck. It was to be his, but to take it and disturb his grandfather felt cruel.

The boy rose.

Gazing over the shop ruins, a tightness formed in his chest. He walked over then felt the ground where the tools should have fallen. The iron bar they regularly used to pry up the stones was lying along the wall. He had to pull at the grass to unearth it. Dragging it with his left arm, the boy walked to the hearth, heaved the bar up with effort then jammed it in between the stones.

Leaning on it with all his weight, he pushed until the hearthstone lifted. He jammed it deeper inside. But when he bent down to heave it off, he found the compartment empty. All their weapons had been taken. Whether it was Sky Children or rebels that took them, it didn’t matter.

He dropped the stone and the iron bar where they were then walked to the other side of the anvil. Leaning his left shoulder against it as he braced his feet against the stone hearth, he pushed.

It took everything he had to topple the anvil. But when he did, he reached down into the hole that was still there and took out the wrapped-up package underneath. Dropping to the ground, the boy unwound the wraps that were only slightly damp and mostly oily. There was at least three yards of it before he uncovered the top of the scabbard. Peeling off the rest of the oiled cloth, he lifted up the first and last dagger he had ever made. His grandfather had called it a work of art. Grandfather Smith had said the boy’s father would have been proud. Unsheathing it, the boy peered over the perfect shine that was still on the blade. The dagger was leaf shaped. Its curves and blades were masterfully balanced. It had been hard work to make it, but the smith’s son had wanted to make something worthwhile to show he was trying to fill his father’s shoes after he was gone.

Rewrapping the dagger, the last of the Bekir Smiths looked up.

The sound of the wind and the lapping of the water on the shore soon had been joined by another sound—the familiar rumble of an automobile.

Crouching down, the boy hastily crawled over to his grandfather’s body, wishing that he could bury him properly. But he had no time. Most likely the general had sent a small team to pick him up—or in the least the general had telegraphed the local authorities about his escape. Begging his grandfather’s forgiveness, the smith’s son grabbed the family seal and pulled the strap to go over his grandfather’s neck. The leather broke off, crumbling in his fingers. Quickly wrapping the family seal in his palm the boy crawled away, climbing over the low algae to the shore. As he did, the sound of the auto drew closer.

“I don’t see why we have to come here,” complained a Sky Child soldier as he climbed out of the passenger side of a shiny black auto.

His traveling companion exited the other side, snorting at him. “The general sent notice that the boy would come here before going anywhere else. Besides, there’s a reward.”

The boy slipped down into the water. He shivered as he glanced toward the far shore to the west.

The soldiers strolled through the empty ash-filled road as if taking a causal walk down a lane. One had stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Yes. I know. But really why bother?” The man kicked at the burned wood. “He was a disagreeable human to begin with. Didn’t the general say that he was difficult to handle?”

“I don’t care what the general’s rationale is,” the other one said. “I just want the silver.”

The other laughed. “A thousand in silver alive. But isn’t the general just going to kill him once he gets him back?”

The boy ducked under the water, frog-swimming westward.

“I think he wants to torture him before he kills him,” his companion replied. “Mete out punishment.”

The soldiers laughed, continuing their stroll.

The boy emerged from the water out of their view near to the tower. From there the boy took a breath and dived under again.

*

General Winstrong tossed and turned in his bed. Behind his eyelids, he kept seeing those ghost-like demons with blue eyes over and over again. Their cries against Camus out at Foreston repeated like a private war cry.

Rising from his bed, Gailert walked to his lampstand and switched on the light. The woman he had hired to keep him company rolled over, turning to face the wall. She pulled the blankets over her to keep out the chill, but he grabbed his robe and pulled it on. Sliding on his slippers, he trudged to the door and out of the room, going down the stairs to the study. There, he turned on a light and sat in the chair at his desk. Exhaling, he picked up the newspaper. Scanning over the words there, his thoughts wandered. The reporters had been busy.

The headline was about the opening of the national airports, announcing domestic flights from Danslik to Mistrim, Calcumum, Sundri, Holm Lake, Harmas, and Kolden. They also mentioned the other airports still under construction. Below that showed the new highways he had made. Though, the next page reported on the Battle of Foreston where the captain there was interviewed over the wizard’s appearance in the event. It mentioned the closing of Foreston Village due to too much damage and the infestation of demon spiders discovered there. It also banned the use of the Semple Forest road. In fact, Wenden Village had been declared as the outpost of the insurgents, which was now under boycott for trade. Not like that mattered. The village had been autonomous, self-sustaining. It was the image of the thing that mattered.

He flipped the paper to the next page and stared at the other article that had concerned him. The three Cordrils had been spotted again. This time near Wingsley. They had killed five Sky Children with blue eyes with their own pistols, though the article said something disturbing that was at the same time secretly reassuring. The Cordrils had overwhelmed those they were attacking but spared the brown-eyed Sky Children as if they were not worth their notice.

Not worth their notice. It was insulting.

And yet, feeling his age, Gailert was glad he was not their target.

He turned the page. His eyes rested on the picture and he frowned. Not a photograph, the picture of his missing boy had been in the papers for the past week. He had telegrammed the north and had the notices sent by truck to Harmas where they were flown to the north. Yet there hadn’t been one word of the boy’s whereabouts. The general was starting to wonder if he had been wrong and if in fact the child had been a victim of a spider parasite.

Closing the paper and resting it on the desk, he closed his eyes.

“Master? Do you need something?” his new little slave crept into the room from where his other boy used to sleep, a side closet.

“Go back to sleep,” Gailert said to the child without looking at him.

“Yes, master,” the child said and turned around, returning to the closet.

This child was eager and willing to please. His eyes were so different than his former boy’s. Besides being an ordinary brown, this one was all innocence. In fact, he was working out perfectly. There was no need for heavy irons on this kid. Maybe even when he was older Gailert could teach him to read and what he ought to read. The other one had been too broody. This child also did not flinch as much, looking up to him as a father figure rather than as an owner. It made Gailert contemplate his position in life and his age. This was how he had wanted it: a woman in his bed and a child to listen when he spoke.

Yet he stared into the darkness wondering where that boy with the intelligent eyes had gone.

*

The grass was warm. The boy had wrapped it around himself after the long swim back across Lake Bekir, only this time he climbed out north of Holm Lake far from the villages there and happily distant from any Sky Child military post. When he awoke, the boy stared up at the sky, breathing deep.

His home was gone. He had his dagger. He had his family seal. And he was a marked man. Where could he possibly go now?

Lying there, letting his thoughts float in and out of all the places his father had talked about and through the stories of the heroic people in the legends, he let his mind settle on one place. Herra. The Herra Hills were legendary. Besides having an intact Kitai tower where perhaps he could hide out, the town of Herra was also the location where the raiders used to have a hideaway. If he could find that and them, if they were still around, then maybe he could join them. Certainly they were enemies of General Winstrong. And they couldn’t all be gone. They had his father’s weapons.

So, deciding on it, the boy rose and walked west.