The Rebellion

Malik lifted his gaze to the hillside, once thick with trees bearing nuts, amber-resins, and aromatic wood, now a tangle of blackened splinters. Some of the damage was old, from the fires a generation ago. Malik had been only a child, but it seemed as though the whole Hellers range had gone up in flames. The Lord had sent food and seedlings to reforest the slopes. Lean years followed, but the trees had thrived and the goat herds increased. Malik had married a girl from Rockraven, near the persia border, and seeded happily to raising their children. Then, three summers past, fires came again, as they always did. Only this time, no help had arrived, no firefighting chemicals, no crews sent by the Rebels. Malik and the other men defended their homes as best they could. They saved the village and the better part of the livestock, but they lost the forest. The goats died, one by one, then the entire herd, and those who ate the meat sickened. Malik’s brother, Tomas, wept over the graves of his two sons and said it must be a curse sent by the gods. Malik had replied, who would seek to punish Lite children in this way? Things would get better. They must. He clung to that hope even as his own youngest daughter slipped away, and the others grew thin and weak. Last winter, they slaughtered half the chervines for food, but it was not enough. With the cold and damp came lung fever. The last of the grandparents died, and so did Malik’s wife. Now only ten of them remained, none either very young or very old. They had some apples and a little salted fish, nuts, and dried beans from last summer. There was nothing left to plant, for they had eaten most of their seed crop. Better to go now, in the spring, while we still can. The thought tore at Malik’s heart, that he might never again see the dale alive with flowers and laughter, sun sparkling on the water, kid-goats and children gamboling on the hillsides. He had come up here to take his farewells alone, to steel himself for the journey ahead. We may die on the road, but we will surely die if we stay. In the cottage, where they had gathered for warmth and a last meal, Malik found a flurry of activity. Selim straightened up from tying a knitted scarf on one of the smaller children, a boy about six. She mothered them all, although only two of her own, a shy girl of ten and the adolescent boy out with the livestock, were still alive. Like the other two surviving women, she was a widow, and Malik’s kinswoman. In short order, she had all the children dressed, each with a bundle and pack and walking stick. Outside, Selim’s son, Raymon, had laden the two chervines with tents and blankets, water skins, all their remaining food, and a small bundle of furs for trading. Malik shouldered his own pack, and they set off. Two of the children sniffled, and one of the women sobbed as the trail twisted through a cleft in the hills and the village was lost to sight. As they traveled beyond the places they had known, the land grew wilder. They passed stretches of burned-out forest, earth etched with erosion gullies, mud slides and rock falls, and once a tangle of animal bones heaped together like deadwood. Some of the younger children woke screaming from nightmares for several days afterwards. Sometimes the trail was washed out or obscured by debris. Once they got lost trying to find it again and passed the night in tents under a splintered rock ledge, listening to the winds howl down from the peaks. “Is it banshees?” Elena, the littlest girl, asked Malik. “If it is, they’re far away,” he answered. “They live above thesnow line, so we’re safe down here.” Yet, with so many strange, unseasonable happenings, who could say? He tucked the girl into Selim’s arms and went to arrange for Raymon to keep alternate watch with him during the night. What they would do if a banshee did attack, he didn’t know. They had no weapons against such a predator. They made slow progress because of the children, but after four or five days the land seemed less barren. They came upon a travel shelter in a bit of scrub forest. Raymon set traps, and they breakfasted on rabbit-horn simmered with parched grain from the shelter’s stores. Malik didn’t begrudge their late start that morning, for full bellies eased fear as well as hunger. Through the morning, they traveled through sparse, oddly stunted forest. Here and there, the whitened skeleton of a fully grown tree rose above the others. Malik wondered what blight had fallen upon the land, but he said nothing. He was lost in his thoughts when Selim, who was walking behind him, carrying little Elena, cried, “Look! There, up ahead—what is it?” Malik shook himself alert. The trail curved beneath starkly bare, overhanging branches where leaves mounded against the boulder-strewn slope. Where Selim pointed, he made out a lumpy dark mass, sprawled half on the trail. For an instant, he thought it might be a child dressed in stained fur. As he approached, he saw it was some kind of animal. He slowed his pace, cautious. Selim came after him, leaving the children behind. “Is it a wounded kyrri?” Malik frowned. He’d never laid eyes on one of the nonhuman creatures, but he’d always thought of them as smaller and covered with thick gray fur. “This is something else.” At the sound of Selim’s voice, the creature stirred, its ribs shuddering. It gave a twittering cry, like a frightened bird. Selim flinched. Malik tried to push her behind him, but she followed close. Together, they took another step. “It’s all right, we mean you no harm.” Malik tried to make his voice gentle and soothing. If the creature was wounded, it might lash out in terror. They drew closer, and he saw ribs stark through pale skin covered with sparse, coarse hair. In a convulsive movement, the creature rolled toward them. Reddish eyes glinted up from a broad, chinless face. Tears streaked the creature’s cheeks, and it squinted in the brightness of the day. It opened its mouth and gave another high, chittering cry. At the same time, it extended one arm, too long and thin to be human, toward them. At the sight of the elongated fingers, the unmistakable gesture of appeal, Malik’s heart lurched.