Silent Skies

5. One

Solma’s breath mists in the air. The morning is crisp and frosty. The grass under her prosthetic leg crunches, making her wince. The rest of the forest is deathly silent. Here, the trees are thin, and sunlight penetrates the canopy. But there are enough shadows that the raider Solma’s tracking has evaded her for the last twenty minutes. Solma clenches her jaw as she scans the shade between the trees. Clusters of mushrooms sprout among roots. The broken remains of dead ferns rustle in a soft breeze.

Solma slips between the trunks of two vast oaks, their branches entangled in their endless race for the sun. She presses her back against the rough bark of one tree and unsheathes her hunting knife. She listens. Her heartbeat drums in her ears. It’s a struggle to calm her breathing. But …

There’s the skittering of a startled rodent, the shiver of feet on grass, the strange pressure of a body moving through the trees. The raider. She’s close.

Solma braces her back against the oak, waiting. She needs to be fluid. Relaxed but reactive. This raider’s no scrawny exile from some impoverished village. She’s muscular, swift, powerful. And she’s eluded Solma this long.

The footsteps draw closer. The raider’s not running anymore. She’s come to fight. That means she feels cornered and that’s never a good sign. Cornered people fight like crazy. She’ll be twice as deadly.

Solma waits, battling her pulse into submission. She tenses, holds her nerve. The raider’s close now, close enough that Solma hears her breathing. It’s steady. Confident. She thinks she can best Solma.

She’s going to learn differently this time.

Solma forces herself to wait until the raider’s footfalls sound less than a metre behind her. She’s close enough for Solma to smell, now. That familiar, gunpowder scent she’s been chasing so long. She braces an elbow against the oak’s trunk.

Closer. Closer.

The raider’s footfalls stop. There’s a moment’s pause, then a gasp as she realizes her mistake. But by that point, Solma’s already moving. She springs from behind the tree and slides across the grass on her hip, hooking her blade foot under the raider’s ankle. The raider yells and goes down, landing hard on her back and rolling away. Solma leaps up and lifts her blade-foot, ready to bring it down on the raider’s belly. But the raider grabs it and twists, sending Solma sprawling. She grunts with pain but is on her feet in moments. The raider’s already up. Her face is obscured, mouth and nose covered by a neckerchief, and a black scarf wrapped over her head. Her green eyes gleam, fierce and determined. She’s got a knife in one hand and a wicked-looking sickle in the other. She faces Solma, body tensed. They circle, blades flashing in the morning sun. The raider’s eyes narrow.

But there’s no way Solma’s letting this girl get away again.

The raider lunges and Solma dodges left. The raider curses and stumbles as Solma throws a punch into her ribcage. She grunts, but absorbs the blow, twisting so she lands in a crouch. Solma resists the urge to charge. She’s done that before and this enemy is too smart for it. She’s ended up doubled over and gasping while the raider disappears into the forest again.

This time, she feints left, then right, jabbing with her fists and knife. She drives the raider back against a cluster of trees, where a knee-high wall of brambles blocks her escape. The raider growls, punching and blocking, but Solma doesn’t let up. She needs to trap the raider against the brambles so she can incapacitate her. She sees the raider’s eyes widen and knows she’s worked out Solma’s plan. Solma smirks.

The raider’s blocks become more desperate. She stumbles backwards, deeper into Solma’s trap. She feints left, then right, trying to dodge past Solma’s blows, but Solma’s wise to her. She blocks one escape with a punch to the jaw, and another with an elbow to the sternum. The raider grunts in frustration and backs away. She’s surrounded on three sides by trees and brambles, now, with no clear path of escape. Solma advances and relief floods her. She’s won this time. She’ll bring the girl down and take her back to camp. Finally.

She curls her fist, ready to deliver a final blow.

But then the raider springs. With a shout, she propels herself off a tree stump Solma hasn’t seen. She braces her foot against a tree and twists, leaping at Solma. They both go down in a tangle of limbs. An elbow lands in Solma’s gut and the wind goes out of her. The raider rolls away, springs upright, and suddenly her knife is at Solma’s throat.

Solma freezes. Something hot and wet drips from her lip and she knows she’s bleeding. She glares at the raider kneeling above her, having won. Again. She rolls her eyes.

“That was a mean trick.”

The raider chuckles. She lifts her knife away from Solma’s throat and sheathes it, pulling off her scarf and neckerchief to reveal a braid of flame-red hair and a pale face with constellations of freckles. It’s a face Solma loves dearly, which is why she’d told Olive to cover it—and her hair—before they sparred. It’s hard to throw a punch at a face you’d do anything to defend.

Olive raises an eyebrow as she tucks her raider disguise back into her belt. She stands, offering Solma a hand. “You’ve had all winter to learn, and you never do,” she says, hauling Solma to her feet. “You reckon you’ve won and you relax. If I can see it, so can a real enemy. If I ain’t unconscious on the ground, you ain’t won.”

Solma scowls. “I ain’t gonna knock you out.”

Olive glares. “Why not?” she demands. “We’re s’posed to be practising for war, right?”

Solma shakes her head. “It’ll be different when we get there,” she says. “I’ll—”

But she can’t finish. Her brother’s face bursts into her head again. She’s lost count of how often she’s thought of him while she and her friends have travelled all winter. She’s lost count of the nights she’s lain awake, wondering if he’s ok, if he’s still alive. Earth, she misses him! She replays the memory of his cries last summer, just audible over the roaring flames, as he’d begged her to abandon him so she could save their friends.

Help them, Sol!

And she had. She turned her back on her brother. She left him.

But she’s going to fix that. She’s going back for him. And this time, she’s not leaving him.

The days are lengthening now. Spring is stirring. And the relentless march across the continent is almost over. They’re weeks away from Sand’s End. Solma’s home—if she can still call it that. Her brother’s prison.

And yet, Solma feels as if Warren is half a world away.

She hits the heel of her hand against her head until the echoes of his voice fall silent. Olive draws her into a hug. Solma lets her head fall against Olive’s neck and breathes in the other girl’s scent. She closes her eyes as Olive kisses her cheek.

“He’ll be ok, Sol,” she says. “Maxen won’t hurt him.”

Solma doesn’t ask how Olive knew what she was thinking. Olive always knows.

She lets her fingers entwine with Olive’s and they fall into step. There’s going to be hell to pay when they get back to camp. Bell disapproves of their training sessions. Games, she calls them. Only, this isn’t a game. It never has been. It’s preparation. They’re not exactly expecting a warm welcome at Sand’s End. Maxen has squads of trained soldiers at his disposal and all Solma has is—

All Solma has is hope.

The sounds of camp drift through the trees. Already, the sun is high and warm. Solma’s come to expect that in High Savannah Province. Sweat prickles on her brow and she wipes it away. Olive winks at her.

“You’ll get me tomorrow,” she says. “You gotta stop assuming you’ve won. That trap was a good idea, but you never scanned the ground when you cornered me. You can’t do that in Sand’s End—”

Solma’s heart feels as if it’s made of lead. She lets Olive chatter on. But who are they kidding?

They’re a sorry band of tired travellers against a village stronghold. Four weary women and a bunch of kids. Mamba and Cobra, the lead Earth Whisperers, might be adults in the eyes of Alphorian law, but they’re still teenagers really. Barely seventeen and sixteen, they’re still gangly with puberty and neither of them are fighters. Solma’s Aunt Bell is terrifying with a rolling pin but that’s useless in the face of a flying bullet. And Roseann’s a doctor; trained to save lives, not take them.

And the others? They’re just kids. Ana is barely fifteen and Taipan and the boys haven’t even made it to double figures. They can’t fight.

Or at least, they can’t win.

Solma closes her eyes against tears. Behind her eyelids, her brother’s face comes into focus.

Blink and he’s gone. In his place is the snarling face of a boy she once thought loved her. A boy she once loved. She knows better now, on both counts. Maxen was always his father’s son, and he used her. She’d been ready, last year, to turn away from all that. To bury her hurt, her anger, and leap, with her whole heart and her whole self, into Olive’s arms.

But Maxen was never going to let her do that. He’d come for her brother last summer, sending his servants, Vulkan and Ignis, the Fire Makers, to do his bidding. And with only a thought, they’d lain waste to an entire forest. Burned a glade full of Alphor’s precious insects just as they were building their numbers. Solma remembers the scorched bodies of bees and butterflies littering the ground, the shrieks of the Keeper children—whose power linked them to the insects—as the creatures died. Smoke filling the sky, the screams of her friends. She shudders.

How are they supposed to win against a power like that?

Eleven exhausted travellers against an entire village Gatra? Against the Fire Makers? Impossible.

Olive pushes through a tangle of branches and they emerge from the forest. A modest stream gurgles nearby and a few ground squirrels skitter into the grass. Here, the land is wide and flat, with only scrubby trees and bushes breaking the endless expanse. Just visible against the horizon is the village they found refuge in a few days ago. The only village for the last month and a half that has given them shelter. Solma expected to be driven away, like they were with all the others.

For some reason, villages don’t think they need Earth Whisperers anymore. They don’t trust them, so they’ve driven Solma and her friends out.

Two villages ago, they found a Whisperer hanging from a tree. Dead. They’d put as much distance between themselves and that place as possible.

A few feet from the stream is a cluster of tents. The camp was quiet when Solma and Olive left it that morning. Now, it’s bustling with activity. Aunt Bell, red-faced with her flyaway auburn hair drifting in the breeze, tends a fire over which a pot of something delicious-smelling bubbles. She uses both hands to stir the pot with a stick, and Solma sees her grit her teeth in concentration. She was injured during the battle last year, a nasty burn to her right arm, which has left her with numbness. She rarely mentions it, but Solma knows it frustrates her. Solma smiles at her aunt as she and Olive pass. Bell looks up and nods. Roseann sits cross-legged beside her and the two bicker amicably. The three Whisperer boys—Krait, King and Habu—squeal as they chase each other in circles, tripping over the hems of their green Whisperer robes.

Ana stands a little way off, her bow slung over her back, feeding the two tan ponies,Burdock and Poppy. Burdock pricks up his ears as soon as he sees Solma and nickers a greeting. Solma smiles. That pony might be only small, but he’s mighty. Without him, Solma would never have been able to save her friends last year. He braved fire, smoke, and death for them. She counts him among her dearest friends.

Mamba and Cobra emerge from a tent just as Solma and Olive flop down beside the fire. The two Whisperers hold hands and Mamba strokes Cobra’s knuckle with his thumb. Solma smiles. Those two are good together, though Mamba always looks like he can’t believe his luck.

Cobra shields her eyes as she steps out of the tent. Solma notices that the freckles on her usually pale face now stand out against a deep tan. Cobra spots Solma and her green eyes light up. She heads over, kissing the top of Solma’s head and wrinkling her nose.

“You two smell awful.”

Solma laughs. She’s still amazed her friend forgave her, even after all this time. A lifetime ago, little Kobi was exiled from Sand’s End because of Solma’s betrayal. She became Cobra, the Earth Whisperer. But before all that, they’d been two misfit children playing together, trying to find their place in the world. Kobi had been a girl everyone believed was a boy, and Solma had been newly orphaned with no idea where to turn.

Mamba settles down beside Olive. Sweat shines on his dark-skin and he wipes his brow. “Hot this morning.”

Solma nods agreement. “It’s always hot here.”

Bell passes round bowls of soup. It’s always soup when their supplies are running low. Smelling breakfast, the Whisperer boys tumble over.

“Krait!” Bell shrieks as the little boy wraps his eager hands around the wooden bowl she hands him and mushrooms sprout all over it. Krait and Bell both let go of the bowl at the same time and it drops, spilling its contents. Krait looks up, red-faced.

“Sorry.”

“Control yourself!” Bell snaps. Krait hangs his head, but Habu stands up, his eyes fierce.

“He can’t!” he retorts. “It’s hard! We can’t just turn off the mycelia whenever we feel like it!”

Bell rounds on him. “Well, learn!” she barks, pointedly placing another bowl at Krait’s feet. She glowers at Habu until he sits, then places bowls in front of him and King, too.

“Complete mess,” she mutters. “Mushrooms sprouting out of everything, wood rotting whenever they touch it, those damn silver thread-things growing over every surface! You lot have gotta learn to control this!”

Mamba sighs. “I know,” he says. “We’re trying.”

Bell harrumphs and heads back to the fire. Solma and Olive exchange glances. Last summer, their Whisperer friends discovered a remarkable new secret. A fungal network, deep underground. Slender, silver filaments that link all life in Alphor. A new way for them to use their power to communicate with Alphor’s plants. The mycelia. It saved them last year. Solma doesn’t think they’d have got out of the burning glade without it.

But since then, it’s been a problem. Solma often sees them with their fingers or toes dug into the soil, glassy-eyed as they struggle to extract their minds from the network. Mamba warned them that only the strongest Whisperers can withstand such a link. Younger, less experienced Whisperers lose themselves.

Go mad.

He’d told them a story about a Whisperer who’d linked with the mycelia and lost himself, ended up locked away by other Earth Whisperers.

Solma shudders. She couldn’t bear that happening her friends.

She and Olive finish breakfast and head to the cart to do their morning ammo audit. Solma counts three pistol magazines and no more than ten rounds for the rifles. They’re running low. And, with villages driving Earth Whisperers away, it’s becoming more difficult to trade.

She glances up, catching Olive’s eye. The other girl’s brows knit together. “We’ll have to be careful,” Olive says. “Hunt with knives. Ana can use her bow. Arrows we can make on the road. Bullets …” she shakes her head. Solma says nothing.

There are few people, now, with the expertise left to craft bullets. Fewer who can make weapons to fire them. That knowledge is precious, jealously coveted by villages. Solma feels a stab of fear in her core. They’re going into battle with barely enough bullets to take down a single squad of soldiers.

They return the ammo to the cart, tucking it safely under sacks of grain. Olive frowns and looks around. “Where’s Taipan?”

Mamba and Cobra exchange glances. “Um,” Cobra says. “In the mycelia.”

Olive’s eyebrows lift. “Still?” she asks. “Is that healthy?”

Cobra bites her lip. Mamba’s face darkens. “No,” he admits. “I’m worried.”

Ever since last summer, when Taipan connected with the mycelia to save the bees, that girl’s been different. All the Whisperers have, but Taipan’s connection to the underground fungal network seems deepest and strongest. For a year, Solma knew her only as the cheeky, orange-eyed Whisperer girl. Her brother’s best friend.

Now she’s something different.

A crease appears between Mamba’s brows. Cobra squeezes his hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says. Mamba doesn’t reply. Everyone else busies themselves with their soup. Solma feels worry claw at her insides.

Behind the tent, Burdock flicks his tail and nickers softly. A breeze stirs Solma’s hair, and she remembers she hasn’t bathed in weeks. Her dark hair is lank with grime, her skin mottled with sunburn. She looks around at the others, at the grubby Whisperer boys. At Bell, with dark craters round her eyes. At Cobra and Mamba, whose shaved heads are sunburned and whose faces are gaunt. Everyone is exhausted. It doesn’t matter how often she and Olive train, how much they hope.

They’re just a sorry band of starving exiles.

Solma lowers her bowl, having suddenly lost her appetite.

“This isn’t working,” she says. Everyone looks at her. “We need a plan.”

No-one says anything. Krait whimpers at the bowl in his hands, which is now empty but covered in mold growing from his fingertips. Bell snatches it away with a dark look, places it by the fire to dry out and comes to sit beside her niece. She puts an arm around Solma’s shoulders and Solma leans into her aunt’s warmth.

“Yeah,” Bell agrees. “We do.”