Fire Country

Overhead there’s a caw and a croak—half a dozen vultures circle lazily overhead, as if they’re expecting their next meal to come from Confinement. Perhaps it will. Perhaps they’ve gotten a lot of meals from this place.

  “Welcome to paradise,” Luger sneers.

  “Thanks,” I say, stone-faced. Inside I’m trembling a bit and I’ve got to grizz. I squeeze hard and hold it—both my fear and my bladder—refusing to let this mouse-mouthed Greynote see my weakness.

  He explains everything as we approach. “You’ve been sentenced to a day. Someone will arrive tomorrow at this time to collect you. You’ll receive one meal from the Keeper, and I can tell you, it won’t fill even that shrunken belly of yours.” He smiles and my stomach rumbles, although I’m not really hungry. Maybe I shoulda nabbed that bag-throated ’zard when I had the chance.

  “And water?” I ask hopefully.

  Luger laughs. “Let’s just say you’ll be willing to drink your own grizz by the time the day’s over.”

  I try to swallow, but already my throat seems dry and full of dust. “Anything else?” I croak, sounding more like the circling vultures’n a Youngling girl.

  “Yeah. Learn your lesson and you won’t end up back here again. Stay away from that trouble-making Youngling until after your Call.” At first I think he means Lara, but then I realize it’s Circ he’s talking about. My father probably put him up to saying all this. Circ is anything but a trouble maker.

  “I will,” I lie.

  “That…I doubt,” Luger says. I clench my jaw shut tight to stop it from snapping at him.

  When we get to the first “hut” I realize they’re nothing like the Greynote huts, which are solid buildings with well-thatched roofs that keep the sun and rain and wind out. What stands ’fore me is a cage, that’s the only way to describe it. A series of vertical wooden poles are the bars on both the sides and top. Heavy rope and tug glue lash them together at the corners. Nothing covers the gaps between them, leaving them fully exposed to the elements, as well as prowling animals.

  I gulp. “Have the Killers ever…?”

  “Only once,” Luger says, stopping to face me. “Back during the first Killer war. At that time the Killers were pretty much running unobstructed across all of fire country. There were thirty prisoners in Confinement at the time. When the Hunters went to check on them, every last one of these cages was smashed to pieces.” I close my eyes, wishing I hadn’t asked the question and hoping he’ll stop there. He doesn’t. “There were huge paw prints everywhere. They were filled with blood.”

  My stomach’s doing backflips—and not the good kind, like when I see Circ every day at Learning. I think I’m going to throw up. If Circ’s right ’bout there being someone hunting in Killer territory, they might be prowling all around our land right now, sniffing out weaknesses. A bunch of Heaters in cages would undoubtedly be considered a weakness.

  “Just get on with it,” I say, trying to sound tough. My voice shakes with every word.

  We continue past the first cage, which appears to be empty. The second also seems unoccupied, but then I spot him: A curled up blotch of flesh in the corner, no more’n a collection of elbows and knees. If he wasn’t staring at me, his eyes blinking every few seconds, I’d think he was dead. His face is gaunt and ageless. His beard long and matted. He’s been here a long time. I wonder what he did to deserve such a punishment.

  “Welcome to Scorch,” he says, his voice whisper-thin.

  The next cage is also used, and I’m surprised to recognize the prisoner right away. Bart. A big guy. Well known around the village for starting—and finishing—fights after a night of too much fire juice and fireweed. He also has a reputation for using his hammer-like fists on his Calls. He’s prowling around his space like a caged animal, growling and pushing and pounding on the wooden bars every so often. Despite their crotchety appearance, the cages are sturdier’n they appear—they don’t so much as quiver under Bart’s unceasing assault. When he sees me staring at him, he stops, bares his teeth in what I think is meant to be a smile. “Please, nice Greynote, sir, can I share a cage with her?” He licks his lips.

  I look away and we keep going. Luger doesn’t say a word.

  Behind us, Bart hollers, “Just as well. I’d probably crush her under me anyway.” He laughs, a gritty, throaty sound that reminds me of the growl of the Killers that got me here in the first place.

  There are at least fifty more cages spread out in front of us, but Luger stops at a real hut, complete with a door, walls, and an inclined roof, one half of a triangle. Above the door is a painted sign: The Keeper. The scraggly words are splotched in a red so bright it could be fresh blood.

  “Wakey, wakey, Keep!” Luger shouts, pounding on the door. “I’ve brought you another gift.”

  I hear grumbling, a bang, a curse, and then the heavy trod of footsteps on a wooden floor. “Keep yer britches on,” an unfriendly voice says through the door just ’fore it opens.

  The door rotates open with a bitter creak that makes me think it’s as equally annoyed to be awakened as the Keeper. Lit by the bright sunlight, the bare-chested Keeper is as pale white a person as I’ve ever seen. Some of the Hunters told Circ that some of the Glassies that attacked our village a few full moons back were as white-skinned as the snow. But I ain’t seen snow, nor have I seen any Glassies, so that might all be a big load of tugwash. Anyway, this guy looks like he spends most of the day in his windowless hut. He squints his coppery eyes and winces, as if being exposed to the sun gives him physical pain, which maybe it does. His unlined face is barely visible behind a dark mask composed of a thick beard and mustache, bushy eyebrows, and a mop of curly hair that bobs just over his eyes. I guess there’s not much point in grooming when you don’t see anyone but prisoners.

  “A young’un, are ya?” he says, yawning and scratching his hairy chest.

  “Pre-Bearer,” I say, determined to answer any questions he has with as few words as possible.

  “Yer got a name?”

  Huh? What kind of question is that? Who doesn’t have a name? I’ve got a few smart responses cooked up, but I settle for just, “Siena.”

  “She’s the Head Greynote’s daughter,” Luger adds unhelpfully.

  “Shiva’s kid?”

  “Shiva’s about two coughs away from kickin’ it. She’s Roan’s,” he says, as if my father owns me, like I’m just another piece of his property, like his hut, or bow. It’s probably not far from the truth.

  “Burnin’ scorch!” the Keeper swears. “Bein’ out ’ere I’m always out of ter loop. I didn’t e’en know Shiva had ter Fire.”

  “Well he does. Can we get on with it?” Luger says, more a command’n a question. “Some of us would rather not spend the day here.” Like me, I think.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t git yer britches inna knot.” The look on Luger’s face makes me wanna laugh, but I keep it inside. I’m starting to like this Keeper fellow. He doesn’t take crap from anyone, not even a snide Greynote like Luger.

  He staggers out, clutches the door to get his balance, and grabs a shovel that’s leaning against the side of his hut. “C’mon,” he grunts. We follow him to the next row of cages. We skip the first one, which is empty, and stop at the next one. He hands me the shovel, takes a piece of chalk from his pocket and draws an X on the ground in front of the cage. “Start diggin’,” he says.

  I look at him like he’s wooloo, which I’m starting to think he might be. “What?”

  “You hard of hearin’?” he says. “Dig!”

  Maybe I don’t like him after all. With no other choice, one-handed I dip the tip of the metal shovel into the durt, right away feeling the burn of all those blaze-shoveling muscles flare up. As I awkwardly scoop away clump after clump of durt, Luger makes small talk with the Keep.

  “How are the other prisoners doing?”

  “Eh? As good as can be ’spected considerin’. Most of ter long-stayers ain’t gonna last much longer. Ter short-stayers, like Bartie, gimme plent
y o’ trouble, but nothin’ I can’t handle.”

  “Good. And what about the work?”

  I glance at the Keeper, who turns away from me, drops his voice to a low rumble. “Them Icies seem happy enough, but we need more lifers cuz they keep dyin’ on me.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Luger says, his voice all heavy and sharp, like the slash of a knife.

  “That’s deep enough fer a skinny runt like yer,” the Keeper says, turning his attention back to me. “Now push it through to ter other side.”

  As I peer through the bars, I try to figure out what the point of this is. Then I realize: the cage has no door. Getting in and out can only be accomplished by digging. Opposite where the Keep had me dig is another hole, on the inside. I’m s’posed to connect the two. The tiny flywheels in my head start spinning. Is it really that easy to get out? Do you just hafta dig a hole with your hands? Seems crazy none of the other prisoners have escaped.

  “I see what yer thinkin’,” the Keeper says, “and yer can stop thinkin’ it right now.” I look at his white face, surprised a man who sounds so dense would be able to guess what I’m thinking. “The bars go down twenty feet, so unless yer a burrow mouse, there’s no chance of yer diggin’ yer way out. And this front hole, well, I’ll take care of that as soon as yer in.”

  I groan inside, but I guess it’s good to know there’s no way out, so I can stop thinking ’bout it and just settle in for the long haul. Turning my attention back to the hole, I jam the shovel sideways and under the bars, which don’t go into the ground at this point like they do all the rest of the way around. I break through the durt easily, creating a narrow crawl space into the cage.

  “Get in,” the Keep commands, taking the shovel back. As I get down on my stomach, I think how big ol’ Bart would hafta dig a hole four times as big to fit through. I guess I’ve found a benefit of being skinny. Too bad it only applies to when I’m stuck in Confinement, which I’m hoping won’t become a regular thing. I wriggle under the bars, using my one free hand to pull myself through the gap and wondering whether I look like the ’zard we saw earlier.

  Inside, durty and tired and ready for my little trip to Confinement to be over, I lie on my back and watch as the Keep busies himself filling the hole. But ’fore he gets too far along, he rolls a large stone I hadn’t noticed into the hole, stamping it firmly in with his foot. Even if I was able to channel my inner burrow mouse, the boulder’s far too big to pull inside the cage, and far too heavy to push through. He fills the gaps around the stone with crumbly durt and throws a final couple of scoops over the top, hiding the barrier. An invisible guardsman.

  My day in Confinement begins with a soft whimper that slips from the back of my throat.

  Chapter Eleven

  The worst thing about Confinement: the boredom.

  Forget my parched throat and grumbling stomach. I’d trade a tug leg sandwich and a skin of water for a flat rock and piece of chalk to sketch with. I look around at the other cages but there’s nothing of interest. The other prisoners know how to pass the time in this sun goddess forsaken place. They sleep.

  But I’m not tired, not even after the long hike across the desert to get here. I’m wide awake, partly ’cause I got lots of sleep last night, and partly ’cause of all that’s happened over the last couple days.

  So, to satiate my growing boredom, I take to writing my thoughts in the durt with a rock. First I list the potential groups involved in the Killer attacks. Glassies. The Wild Ones. The Marked. Icers. It could even be a group of our own, so I add The Heaters.

  Next I list out what I know about each group to narrow down the field. I start at the top.

  From what they tell us in Learning, Glassies appeared long ’fore I was born, as if the earth itself vomited them up, all pale white and squinting at the bright sun. At that time we didn’t have a name for them; the term Glassies would come ’bout later, after they built the Glass City. My people just watched from afar as they tried to build shelters and settle down in fire country. Not long after they appeared, they were all dead. The Fire took them.

  But more of them appeared, and they lasted a little bit longer before succumbing to the awful disease that’s forever shackled my people. Seems their bodies weren’t as well-equipped as ours to handle the air. Eventually though, they built a big ol’ glass bubble, sprouting from the ground and shooting way up into the sky, as high as the vultures fly. That’s when someone started calling them Glassies, and the name stuck. Well, inside that bubble they built all kinds of crazy structures, the likes of which we ain’t never seen ’fore. We still don’t know how they did it, but it seems like the bubble protects them from everything that’s bad in fire country. They live long now, even longer’n us.

  We know it’s the air that’s doing it, lighting the Fire inside of us, sweating us and cramping us and killing us, but we can’t do what the Glassies’ve done with their big ol’ bubble. We’re lucky to build our huts and tents and survive the dust storms and wildfires.

  For a long while, the Glassies didn’t bother us, and we didn’t bother them. Then, a few full moons back, they attacked us, out of nowhere, coming with their fire sticks and chariots of fire. It was all the Hunters could do to hold them off, but we lost many in the fight. Circ desperately wanted to fight, but he wasn’t eligible. Only Hunters eighteen and up can fight other humans. The younger Hunters hafta stick to the tug.

  On the ground next to Glassies, I write “Recent attacks.”

  The Wild Ones are harder, ’cause I don’t know how much of what I’ve heard is just people being people and making crazy blaze up, and how much is the truth. Now that I know the Wilds exist, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. So I write “Kidnap Bearers,” which is the only thing I really know ’bout them, ’cause of my sister.

  The Marked are an enigma. I like that word, and it most certainly applies here. If they do exist, then they very well might be the culprits, whether on purpose or by accident. If they mistakenly crossed into Killer territory to hunt, the Killers mighta thought it was us. I’m sure that to them, humans are humans, just like we can’t tell one of their packs from another. Next to Marked I write “Enigma” and “Painted bodies,” ’cause that’s all I know.

  Icers are next to last. I probably know the most about the Icers ’cause they’ve always been around. I’ve never actually seen them, but they’re our next door neighbors and people talk ’bout them all the time. “Another shipment of timber has just come in from the Icers,” or “They say the snow’s always falling in ice country.” There are trade agreements with the Icers, where we give them tug meat, dried pricklers, and other such fire country delicacies, in exchange for some of their endless supply of wood. My father always says they’re a private people, who keep to themselves most of the time. They live in the mountains, where it’s cold, or some nonsense like that. I never understood exactly what that means, ’cept Teacher Mas describes it like you take the little shiver you sometimes feel when you get hit with a winter breeze at night, and multiply it by about a million. That’s cold. But to feel that shivery seems impossible, what with the sun goddess’s eye heating everything up.

  I remember something else. When I was digging and Luger and the Keeper were chatting away, Luger asked about how the work was going. Keep replied that the Icies seemed happy, or some blaze like that. He also said his lifers keep dying on him. I don’t know what any of it means really, but it seems there’s something going on with Confinement and the Icers.

  I write “Confinement work” and “Timber trade” next to Icers.

  Last is us. The Heaters, getting our name ’cause everything we do is in the hottest of hot under the watchful eye of the sun goddess. Teacher told us one of the forefathers called us that after we crawled from the caves, after twelve moons went by with nothing but heat. We’re the long-time residents of fire country. It’s our land, and although there are others that live on it, we’ve never really had to run anyone off. We’re a peacefu
l people, unless provoked of course. Then we fight like dogs to protect ourselves. Like against the Killers. Or the Glassies. Every Midder learns about the Killer war and how there’s a strict hunting zone. And the Hunters, they’re trained even more. I can’t see how any of them would go in the restricted zone to hunt. I don’t write anything next to Heaters, just erase them with the back of my hand.

  The other four are all in the hunt, so to speak.

  ~~~

  All my thinking and writing has passed the time right along. Lunchtime comes, which I only know ’cause my stomach’s trying to eat itself, making all kinds of growling and gurgling noises. And ’cause the sun is directly overhead, trying to burn a hole right through me.

  But today, lunchtime don’t include food. Or water. Or anything really. Just the same old, same old. Sitting and thinking and trying not to go stir crazy, like I bet most of the prisoners have gone long ago.

  Some more time passes, maybe a thumb of sun movement. Finally something happens. I get a visitor!

  Lara.

  She wouldn’t be my first choice, but not my last either. Scorch, I’d take anyone at this point, even Hawk. At least I could give him a piece of my mind. The only ones I’d refuse to talk to would be my father, and maybe Luger.

  “Hi, Siena,” she says.

  “What in the vulture’s beak are you doing here?” I say.

  “Come to see you,” she says.

  “What about Learning?”

  “I snuck out.”

  “It’s an awful long walk,” I say.

  “Not that long,” she says.

  “Sneaking out of Learning…you could get in some nasty trouble for that. Maybe end up in the cage right next to me.”

  She laughs. “I’ve done worse.” I bet she has. All sheening with sweat from her gallivant across the desert, she looks like a female warrior, her muscles toned and strong. “How’s Confinement?”

  “Boring as all scorch,” I say. “And hungrifying to boot. Not to mention the thirst—I could drink a gallon skin of water in two shakes.”