Sadly Sings Destiny

14

The caravan left the city in the grey of a new dawn. It was going to be a long journey from the city of Maranthia on the Elkhorn River to the Elsiderian border, but for the people making the journey, it seemed to be all they had left to hope for. Heather Von Trent was one of the four hundred people who had been forced to flee from the city she had called home for as long as she could remember. Heather was a sixteen-year-old girl, slight in form from a lack of decent food, of middle height, and with a long tangle of blonde hair. Her blue eyes were fixed on the person in front of her, and the straps of her backpack dug into her shoulders. To her side was her Elsiderian born grandfather, a bent old man with thinning white hair, and to her other side was her grandmother, an equally slight figure with chocolate brown hair streaked with grey. Despite the apparent age difference, both of the elders were born in the same year. They had been begged by their son to take their granddaughter to the camps in Elsideria until the Queen could make good on her promise to rebuild Lotherania.

Heather couldn’t bring herself to look back over her shoulder at the receding gabled roofs of the city she had called home on the shining, silver Elkhorn. This was not the first caravan to leave the city, and it would not be the last. Heather’s parents had been forced to stay in the city due to their positions within the Bank of Sabbistahn and within the Education Ministry. Neither of them could leave without causing harm to the people they hoped to serve, but neither of them wished to have their only daughter left in danger in the city. Now, the young girl who had lived her whole life in Maranthia was routed and forced to run to a distant country she had only ever read of.

She looked to her right, past her grandmother at the Sabbistahni soldier who was escorting them. The four hundred people had been able to pool enough gold to hire a ten-man detachment from Sabbistahn to protect them as they crossed the wilds. The nearby soldier was not much older than Heather. It was often hard to tell when they came from a country that required a three-year military service starting at age fifteen. Heather was able to casually switch spots with her grandmother, though she suspected the older woman wanted to walk side by side with her husband anyway. The soldier didn’t seem to notice the change, and Heather was alright with that for now. She was still working on how to phrase what she wanted to ask him anyway.

“Excuse me, are you allowed to talk?” she asked, speaking in her native language, it was a stretch, many of the usual enlisted soldiers in Sabbistahn’s army did not speak anything other than their harsh tongue.

“Technically, no.” he replied through a thick accent, “But that won’t stop me.” Heather couldn’t help but smile at the reply, though it was harder to understand then she would have liked.

“How do they teach you to lead?” she asked flatly. It was not the kind of question that a soldier would expect from a refugee that they were charged to escort across a nation. The soldier almost tripped over his boots as he eyed the girl he was under orders not to talk to.

“I can’t tell you about Sabbistahn training.” he said flatly as his eyes returned to facing forward, “But there are a lot of you in this caravan, and only ten of us. I know the Lieutenant is hoping to find a few of you Loafers to step up and work alongside us. I’ll introduce you when we make camp tonight.” Heather smiled and thanked the soldier as she adjusted the bag on her back. The journey continued throughout the day for the four hundred refugees on their way to Elsideria. Heather kept to herself, much like most of the dejected travelers. The mood was low as they crossed the fields leading away from their home to an unknown haven only rumored to exist north of the border.

The sun was hanging low in the western horizon when the order was given to stop. Fewer miles had been traveled than they had been hoping for, and it would be another week before the group reached the Rass River, and two more on top of that before they came to the Tyne River marking the southern border of Elsideria. True to his word, the nameless soldier took Heather to meet the single officer that was in charge of the ten men. Heather was told to sit outside of the Lieutenant’s tent as the junior enlisted man she had spoken to earlier in the day went inside. After a period of time that seemed far longer than it should have lasted to bring good news, the soldier poked his head from the tent door and ordered her inside. Once she was inside, he gave the raised right-hand salute and left.

“Well, so you’re the one who actually wants to do something other than walk and whine.” the woman said. She was short, thin, and intimidating in the well-cut uniform that flared at the hip, tightened at the waist, and gave the impression of broad shoulders. The Lieutenant had hard red eyes that pierced through Heather’s soul, pale skin with a spattering of freckles, and long, curling hair the color of molten copper. Heather almost took a step back, stung by the sharpness of the words that came from her.

“I… uh…” she tried, but the short woman cut her off.

“Yea, that’s what I thought. I’m Lieutenant Sigrid Hunter, I’m the officer stuck to this command, and you’re not paying me to be nice.” the short woman said as she stalked forward on hard steps, “Do you know how to use a gun?”

“I read about it in a book once,” Heather said weakly, looking at the ground. It was difficult to tell if Sigrid was on the verge of laughing or screaming at the girl to get out of sight.

“I suppose that’s the best I can hope for in a city Loafer these days,” she said barely able to contain whatever mixture of emotions she was feeling, “Tell you what girl, you show up first thing in the morning tomorrow and I’ll give you a crash course and a repeating rifle. It’s good to see one of you taking an interest in your own people. Now get out of here and get some sleep before I put you on a night watch.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Heather said through an excited smile as she mimicked the Sabbistahni salute, earning herself a disapproving head shake from the other woman before she left. The next morning, Heather met with Sigrid as instructed, and promptly woke the camp with the echoes of rifle fire as she drilled rounds into a nearby hill under the supervision of her new officer. When the group began marching again, Heather shouldered her backpack and took up her assigned point at the rear of the caravan to stand watch as the journey continued.

Over the weeks that brought the refugees from Maranthia across the country, Heather worked alongside the contracted soldiers from Sabbistahn to protect her people. She worked hard to earn the trust of her people, and she was one of the people on guard when the group was waylaid by a band of roving thieves. She had fought alongside three Sabbistahni teenagers and forced the bandits away under a rain of rifle fire, and among her people, she was seen as something of a hero for her work. When the caravan had crossed the Tyne, they were greeted by a small division of Elsiderian soldiers who directed them for another two days of traveling to a peaceful vale set aside for Lotheranian refugees.

Heather’s heart dropped when she saw the land they had been given. The small valley was filled with the tents and wagons of thousands of other Lotheranian refugees. Heather and her family set up their tent where they found the room, and they fell into doing the best they could to survive. Her grandparents were able to find work on a nearby farm. It didn’t pay much, but it allowed them to survive. Heather didn’t take one of the few jobs offered by their Elsiderian hosts. Instead, she took a role alongside the leaders of her people, doing what she could to help them with their relations with the local Elsiderian government. She worked tirelessly, and as the weeks and months passed since she arrived at the camp, she gained some notoriety for her actions.

Nine months after Heather had arrived at the camp, the people who were living there held an election to properly select a leader to not only manage things within the camp but to maintain the relations with the locals. Heather used her growing reputation to her advantage and put in a bid to be the elected governor of the Oak Hollow refugee camp and spent two months going back and forth with the other people who sought to rule the camp. In the end, she was able to secure her place as governor. There were many doubts among the people of the camp that some so young should have that position, but the narrow majority that had voted for her genuinely believed that she could make a difference for all of them.

When Heather took control of the camp, she used her position to begin negotiations with the nearby towns and cities in Elsideria to give help to her displaced people. She was able to set up civil works programs when the fleeing Lotheranians were able to earn their keep by building and maintaining roads and canals and helping irrigate the fields of the nearby farmers as the seasons changed. As word reached other camps in other parts of Elsideria about how Heather had worked with locals to help the refugees become something useful and not seen as a burden by their host nation, her reputation grew, and more people sought her guidance. With her work, she was noticed by leadership in Lotherania.

Eighteen months after Heather Von Trent came to Oak Hollow, the Boar of the South, Sven Grimsson, came to the refugee camp on behalf of King Charles. Heather and the Boar met and worked together on a long term plan to handle the growing refugee issue in his country, and when Heather told him that she had no plans to have an ongoing situation, he helped her be put in contact with the Wolf Hound Queen in Lotherania so the two women could work to return the people to their homes. For the time being, Heather’s life in Elsideria did as much to bring hope and change to Lotheranian people as Verona’s initial revolution in Albion.