Vanguard Read online

  “Farrell, Netta. How have you been?”

  Netta smiled. She was a pretty woman with a round face, a pointed chin, and a dimple to the left of her mouth that flashed when she spoke. “Well enough, as you can see.”

  “Looks like there will be another Gwynne before much longer.”

  “I have some time yet,” Netta protested.

  Advika addressed the husband. “You should give your wife some peace, man. Four is enough, don’t you think?”

  Two small children clung to the woman’s skirt, and a big-eyed girl around seven held her father’s hand. Morrow could tell by her expression that she liked the look of the Catalina. He knelt, wishing he had a gift from Rosemere to offer her, but he hadn’t realized part of the excitement of putting into port came from the anticipation of small children.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m James. And you are?”

  “Lucilla,” she told him.

  Before he could say more, the throng parted, making way, and a tall, silver-haired woman with brown skin stepped forward. “Whadda ya at, Advika? We were after our supplies almost two weeks ago.” She spoke with broad vowels and a lilt that rang with unfamiliar charm.

  The captain offered an apologetic smile. “It’s been a rough run, Khamish. I’ll tell you all about it over drinks as my men unload.”

  By then Morrow should have been exhausted, but he caught a second wind. He waved at the little girl and followed the other sailors. The town nestled on the shore against a wild fir forest, taller and older than all the trees on the Evergreen Isle combined. Here the air smelled different, too, sharp and crisp, brine and the promise of more snow. These buildings clearly had survived from the old world. He’d seen the style before, usually in ruins, but here they’d shored them up with good patches to crumbling walls, and the roofs were a combination of earth tiles and metal sheets. The settlement seemed larger than Antecost and Rosemere combined, enormous by his standards.

  Everywhere he looked, there were people. Some of the houses had faded signs proclaiming what kind of trade they did. They had old-world machines, too, but instead of letting them run to rust, they’d repurposed, so here a bright-blue motor wagon had been turned into a spot where children played, clambering in and out with giggles of delight; and there, something he couldn’t identify had been hollowed out and somebody had planted flowers in it. There were no walls, either, and certainly no weapons, no signs that strife had ever touched this place.

  He paused to examine some loom craft, beautiful scarves and overshirts in bright patterns. The woman selling them gazed at him with cheerful curiosity. “How’s you getting on, me fine friend?”

  Her accent resounded even stronger than the leader Captain Advika had spoken with. Morrow had questions, but it must be impolite to ask. So he said, “Just looking.”

  Evergreen Isle chits were probably worth nothing here, and he didn’t think she’d offer something so fine in exchange for a story, the way he usually paid for food and lodging on the road.

  “Good and soft,” she practically sang. “Treated these lovelies better’n my own children.” Her laughing eyes said this was a joke. “You’ll need a bit o’ something warm this far north.”

  Fascinated, he noticed that she contracted certain words like than and of, she dropped certain consonants, and she pronounced the th at the end of words like an f. He’d never encountered the like before, so he tried to keep her talking. Not difficult, since he had lots of questions about Peckinpaugh, unrelated to accent.

  “Come from away, did ya?”

  He nodded. “I arrived on the Catalina.”

  “Ah, good ship, that. Where ya longs to?” She seemed to be curious about him, too, but he had no idea what she was asking.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Your home, boy.” At least, he guessed that was what she meant, for it was so compacted that it sounded like yr home by.

  “Rosemere, on the Evergreen Isle.”

  “G’wan!” That seemed like an exclamation of surprise. “Reckon I couldn’t find that with a pencil and a map.”

  Since she seemed in no hurry to move him on, even if he wasn’t buying her wares, he decided to inquire. “If you have a moment, I was wondering…”

  “Yes, buddy?”

  “Did you have much trouble before the War of the River?”

  The weaver stared at him blankly.

  Morrow realized he didn’t even know what to call the old ones. Before, they had been known by several different names, town to town: Freaks, Muties, Eaters, and the list went on. “There was trouble in the south.…”

  “Ay.” She made a dismissive gesture. “It never travels this far north. They have all kind o’ sorrows, or so I hear, but we mind our own business.”

  “So there are no Uroch here?” he said, astonished. “A long time ago people got sick and they changed and then—”

  “’Tis a mauzy day, no?” The vendor seemed a little uncomfortable now, as if she didn’t want to give a history lesson instead of selling scarves.

  “Never mind. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

  Morrow headed away from the stall, struggling with the possibility that any land had emerged unscathed from old-world struggles. Life obviously lacked certain things, technology they could no longer produce or repair, but these folks weren’t broken or wounded the way he’d seen on the other mainland. Quietly, he walked through town, wondering whom he should ask.

  And then he saw it.

  A white building, worn and ancient, with the word LIBRARY across the top. Apart from Rosemere, he’d never seen the like. Though he’d found books in the structural remains of such places, this one seemed to be intact. He practically ran for the door and burst inside, fearing to find waterlogged wreckage and burned bits and—

  He almost wept.

  This room smelled of old books, a trace musty, but mostly, he breathed in leather and polishing oil. Row on row of intact books, different colors and sizes, organized in a way he could scarcely imagine. This was the incarnation of a fantasy he’d never even dared to dream. A distinguished older man with white hair rose from behind a desk, offering a half bow.

  “Seen a ghost, have ya?”

  “I’m having a hard time,” he confessed. “It’s so overwhelming. I’ve never seen so many resources assembled in one place.”

  “We were lucky.”

  That felt almost like an invitation to ask for answers. “I don’t understand how this place is so … untouched.”

  “I’m no historian, but … I’ll explain if I can. Never were a lot o’ us. For such a sprawlin’ land, at our height, only half a million souls.”

  “Half a…” Morrow couldn’t even complete the phrase for the weight of his wonder. This town must be a thousand strong, and it was the most enormous intact settlement he’d encountered.

  “Not all in one city, o’ course. Even back then, we were flung like copper pennies. I think … that’s what saved us. When the trouble started in the south, it just … passed us by.”

  “It was worst in the largest settlements,” Morrow agreed.

  He had found artifacts from the old world that had filled in some of the gaps. Yellowed papers that told him some of how it all went so wrong, but he hadn’t realized that things were radically different in the north. These weren’t ruins as he understood them; people were still simply living here, maybe not as they had before, but better than elsewhere.

  The librarian went on, “When the machines died, the rest of the world went quiet. We knew a lot about getting by, so we kept to ourselves and, during the worst, turned away ships by the dozen. Sometimes they burned ’em in the bay rather than let ’em touch ground.”

  “So you’re prosperous and safe because you refused to offer help or sanctuary.” Morrow didn’t mean to sound so angry, since these crimes were long since past, but outrage twisted into a razor coil inside him.

  The old man didn’t offer any defense. This probably wasn’t the first time an outsider asked how and
why. He must be used to giving this explanation. “It’s only been, oh, roundabouts fifteen years since we opened trade. ’Twas a right flutter when the first ship came in. So many tasties we hadn’t eaten before.” He smiled, a touch wistful.

  Morrow made an effort to recover from his outburst, hoping he wouldn’t be banished. “I’m sorry for my rudeness. Is it all right if I look around? I won’t touch anything.”

  “O’ course. And books are for reading. Just be delicate with ’em. For many of these, they’re the only copies left in the world.”

  With that caution ringing in his ears, it was a wonder Morrow got up the courage to pull even a single volume off the shelf. And it did take him a while as he wandered the rows, reading titles with a slow, precise pleasure. There were books on how to keep bees and build aviaries, books with murderous phrases as their title and ones that sounded sweet as love. He eventually picked up a tome, enormous and weighty, bound in battered leather, dated from a time so long ago that it felt like holding history in his hands. He read the complete sonnets of William Shakespeare for the first time. He’d read portions before, sometimes not even getting to finish a poem because the pages were damaged. But standing there in the Peckinpaugh library, he read them all, one by one, and when he finished the last, he realized tears were trickling down his cheeks.

  Came there for cure, and this by that I prove:

  Love’s fire heats water; water cools not love.

  Carefully, he replaced the massive volume on the shelf. While he’d read, his anger had cooled, and now that he knew this place housed such treasures, he couldn’t even bring himself to hate the locals for safeguarding it. Though countless souls had died due to their course of determined self-preservation, they’d also saved a great many priceless relics. I’m not sorry, he thought. He had expected to explore more ruins, not to find so many thriving settlements. His father ought to see about commissioning a ship in Antecost and sending a crew along Captain Advika’s route to expand trade potential for Rosemere.

  By now it was quite late, so when he stepped out of the library, the old man locked up behind him. The street was dark, lit by lanterns hung at regular intervals. Even in smaller villages, there was usually a public house, and in Peckinpaugh, he found a whole row of them. They had interesting names like Crown and Barrel, Rose and Thorn, Gull’s Roost. None of them were large, but they all seemed inviting and clean, so he chose the Rose at random and stepped in for a look.

  The smell of sawdust, sweat, and ale drenched him in the first breath. Unlike many taverns, the patrons weren’t all men. Male and female alike drank up after a long day. The room had two long tables with eight chairs each and then smaller tables nestled against the back wall. Since there were no vacancies and no familiar faces, he went along to the Roost to find a similar setup, only with one big table surrounded by smaller ones. At the center of the crowd, he spotted Millie, rosy-cheeked from drinking or the merry fire, or it might even have been the way the man next to her leaned close to whisper something in her ear.

  Shock rooted his feet to the floor. At some point, he’d gotten used to the way she followed him and the way she gazed up at him with those eyes. But now she wasn’t doing either of those things, and he finally noticed how ridiculously pretty she was. Her drinking mate put an arm around her shoulders, and she shoved him off with a smile and a joke.

  Morrow dove through the crowd as if he’d been shot by an arrow. Instead of chairs, this pub had benches, so he shouldered between Millie and the ass who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He planted himself with a cheerful smile, as if he didn’t realize this was rude. A chorus of colorful responses greeted his arrival: “’ow’s it coming?” and “’ow’s she cuttin’?”

  “Fine,” he said. “What’re we drinking?”

  “We offered to stand drinks for this pretty love.” The man he’d interrupted gave him a flinty look.

  “You’re some crooked,” said one of the others, flinging a handful of white shells.

  They had the remnants of a meal on the table: what looked like boiled eggs and some kind of fish pie, judging by the smell. Morrow’s stomach rumbled, and it had to be during a lull in the roaring laughter, so the men broke down. A short one shoved the leftovers toward him.

  “You’re just about gutfoundered. Have a scoff.”

  Millie leaned over. “He means, ‘You’re very hungry; eat something.’”

  Something about her easy translation rubbed him the wrong way. “I knew that.”

  What was she doing while I was reading sonnets?

  But the man on the other side of her pushed the food away. “Paid good coin for that. Why should I waste it on this skeet?”

  An intake of breath told Morrow he’d just been insulted, though he had no idea what that meant. But he forced a smile and lifted a hand to signal the owner. “I’ll entertain your patrons for a bit of food and drink. Fair trade?”

  As they usually did, the woman agreed. “No sad stories, mind. I don’t want the old ones cryin’ in their beer.”

  “So you’re the storyteller.” The fellow he’d aggravated seemed to have taken it personally, so he sneered the last word. “Tell us a story, then.”

  Since this was his bread and butter, he went to the hearth, where everyone had a good view of him. It didn’t take long for the patrons to quiet. Quickly, he sorted through his repertoire and settled on a story with plenty of action and a dragon in disguise. At first the man next to Millie set out to heckle, and some of his friends encouraged it, but it wasn’t the first time he’d won over an unfriendly crowd. When the princess chose the dragon instead of the knight and lived with him amid all that hoarded gold, the crowd went wild.

  “Great yarn!”

  “You’ve got a callin’, b’y.”

  He smiled. “Storytelling is thirsty work.”

  People patted his back as he returned to Millie. The groping ass had sidled close to her again, but after a long moment she shifted to make room. The proprietor brought him a fish pie, some kind of fried bread topped with crispy bits of meat, and a huge tankard of amber liquid that smelled both yeasty and sweet.

  “Many thanks.”

  After he took the first bite, Millie whispered, “I’d choose the dragon, too.”

  And Morrow wondered why that stung so much.

  When You Alone Remain

  Tegan stayed close to the tower for a few days after she nearly froze.

  After the strange, early snow, she expected winter to settle in for a long stay, but the weather warmed enough to let them continue Szarok’s swimming lessons. He complained all the way down to the shore, but he steadied as she explained about holding your breath, at least according to Uncle Walter. Funny how years later she still ached at the thought of him, and she couldn’t decide if she hated the idea of him living well without her, or if that would be comforting. Or maybe the pain would only disappear if she knew for sure that he’d died.

  Szarok studied her for a moment. “What’s wrong?”

  With anyone else, she would’ve donned a bright smile and rambled intellectual nonsense. It was absurd that others believed she was made entirely of altruistic desire and love of learning, but Tegan supposed if you played a role long enough, people accepted it, even when it defied credence. False reassurance faltered on her tongue, and she couldn’t speak. The Uroch didn’t judge things the same as humans, so in that reality she took refuge.

  “My uncles.” She hoped that would be enough of a prompt.

  It took him a moment, likely because he had so many memories. But the fact that he could retrieve her confidence at all … Well, it resonated like winning a prize. “I’ve been thinking on that. Is it possible they went out to hunt and … something went wrong?”

  “Sometimes they did scavenge,” she admitted.

  “Did they steal all the supplies as they vanished?”

  “No. But they could have only taken a few things—”

  “Tegan, my treasure, would you hear my candid thou
ghts?”

  For a while she stared at the rippling water. Today it was chilly, with a bright sun, and it would be frigid in the dark. Soon the sea would be too cold even for a brief breathing or paddling lesson. Hard not to feel that their time was running out.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “They went to search for food … and they died. I don’t believe they intended to abandon you. If they had, they would have taken your remaining provisions. It was easier to believe they did, because then you could blame them for leaving you vulnerable and kinless. You swallowed a pit of anger and never spat it out. Otherwise, it’s too painful to admit that they died while you were sleeping, and you can’t even fault them for it.”

  His words hammered home, relentless, chiseling away, until hurt spilled over her in a drowning wave. This, this is why I don’t ever tell the truth. Because people say true things back and it feels like dying. Dropping to her knees, she gasped for breath. I won’t cry. I won’t.

  Warm hands curved over hers where she dug her fingers into cold, packed sand. “I wish I could take this from you. Every hurt, every memory that left a scar. I would carry it all gladly.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Not for your people.”

  Unwillingly drawn, she asked, “Can it? If someone’s not dying?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m intrigued, but … I don’t wish for that. Terrible things made me who I am, and … I don’t think I deserve to be unmade.”

  But there are still secrets you don’t know.

  He whispered in Uroch and cradled her close as the sea washed about their ankles. “Mourn for your uncles, or you will carry this pain always, like a blade lodged in your heart.”

  Tegan wept into his shoulder, sandy fingers on his arms. “For so long I thought it was their fault. That if they had taken me with them…”

  The Wolves wouldn’t have gotten me.

  They were ignorant, violent, and territorial. Warring over ruined buildings and bits of salvage, it never occurred to them to cooperate or share. And unless you were physically strong, capable of fighting your way up the ranking hierarchy, you had no hope of being treated like anything but chattel. The Wolves took “survival of the fittest” to extremes and acknowledged no quality but brutality as a virtue. “Might makes right” encapsulated their credo, and living among them had been unmitigated hell.