Ch. 3— Ripples from a Distant War

Moonthread, by Anthony Lee Phillips

Chapter Three
RIPPLES from a DISTANT WAR

A sea of tents had sprouted up around the East Gate of Market Town, but these were not market tents. The tents were gloomy, ragged, whipping in the clutch of spring gusts. The tents all huddled up against the town, clinging to the moat like mold on a wet breadloaf.

Inside the gate, Market Town erupted with light and music and heat and smells.

But outside the town, night gloomed, grim and broad as death.

Wind hugged clumps of gaunt people, who huddled around little grass fires and half-destroyed tents.

Gran Akha grew tense.

Militant.

Alert.

Akha was a gentle old woman, notoriously gentle… Gentle to a fault. (Nala got that from her.)

But in an old life, she had actually been a soldier. A warring witch. That’s what Nala’s mama said, anyway.

She hadn’t been a soldier for long. Nala wasn’t sure how long exactly, but it was a brief chapter in Gran’s long life. Less than a decade. Still…

The battles she’d been in had been bad ones. Bloody. Intense.

Four, if Nala remembered right. Four battles.

Usually, it was hard to imagine Gran Akha as a soldier. It just seemed so unlike her.

She was gran-gran! The soup witch! The storytelling, curtain crafting, apology blurting Gran!

But Nala could see it now.

Gran had a wan look in her eyes, like something had eaten all her joy.

“Strange,” Akha murmured.

“What’s strange?” Nala asked.

Gran shrugged, looking pale. “Just… so many people. And not a single werelight.”

Nala thought about, and saw that Akha was right.

“Huh,” said Nala. “Weird. Why is that? They’re orcs, aren’t they?”

“Oh yes,” Gran said. “From the southern coast, most likely. Igtha, or Orlitheya, guessing by the blue skin.”

“Do they have magic down there?”

Gran shrugged, eyes nervous. “They used to. Could be a curse.”

Nala gulped. “A curse? what kind of curse?”

“There are as many curses,” Gran said, “as there are flavors of flowers. I could name not a few that take one’s magic away.”

“Forever?” Nala asked.

“Some,” Gran said.

“Have you ever… cursed anyone?”

Akha thought about it, before pursing her green lips. She looked down at Nala.

“…Some.”

Nala studied her gran then. They had stopped walking.

“Have you ever cured a curse?” Nala asked.

Gran was about to answer, when an explosion of flame rent the quiet apart. Akha jumped, flinching, and squeezed Nala’s hand.

“Ow!” said Nala.

“Sorry,” Gran muttered, though she did not loosen her grip.

A crowd cheered within Market Town’s tall gets, and Nala’s eyes went to a miraculous spectacle of fire, twisting higher and higher above the town, up toward the clouds, as if to try and tickle the moon.

But there, between the town and them, hundreds of hollow-eyed strangers stood solemn among the tents.

Their eyes did not go to the fireworks. No, they rested, fixed on Nala and Akha.

“Stay close,” Gran whispered, and kept her grip tight.

Not much choice, Nala thought, tonguing her sore tusk.

They were close enough now that Nala could make out faces. Expressions. Cheekbones.

As she looked, her mind went elsewhere. It drifted to the boy from her dreams, so starved that his lungs burned when he breathed.

She felt it. She felt it almost every night now.

War.

Most of the faces Nala saw were blue-skinned orcs, with white or red irises. Some of these strangers had light blue skin, the shade of unfaceted sapphire, forgetting how to glitter at the moon’s touch.

War.

Others had dark blue skin, almost blue-black.

One mother was so dirty, Nala couldn’t tell the color of her clothes. She held her sleeping youngest in her arms, while her three older kids crowded close around her, clinging to her grubby cloak.

So many dry lips, Nala thought. So many scabbed faces.

For all their combined nervousness, Nala and her Gran passed through the tents without event. Only when they finally made it to the East Gate drawbridge would Nala let herself breathe out.

“You okay?” Gran asked.

“Uh-huh,” said Nala, trying to convince herself. “You?”

“Uh-huh.”

The full moon was risen. Nala’s werelight flickered and swelled above her head, strangely swollen in the moon’s mellow glow.

There were other werelights now, all of them tethered to locals. Various towns and homesteads from leagues and leagues away gathered here. Even so, for every local, there must have been three dozen refugees, maybe more.

The crowd got so thick around them that it was hard to change direction. Nala gripped Gran’s hand with both of hers.

“Should we try Southgate?” Nala said. “It looks less crowded.”

“What?” said Gran, cupping her ear.

“I said it looks less crowded!”

“What does!”

“Southgate!”

“Oh!” said Gran, looking. But then she said, “Too late!”

The tents disappeared behind a thrush of pressing bodies. The wooden bridge beneath Nala’s feet creaked and moaned under the weight of so many feet.

The crowd carried them. From the furthest northern foothills, to the Mageriders in the south, every family and face Nala knew seemed to be there that night. very family but hers.

It’s just that this time, those familiar faces swam in a sea of strangers.

Hhhh, hissed the wind, whistling past them.

As Nala shuffled under the town’s gate, swept onward by the crowd, she looked up.

The gate had rough iron teeth. Its jagged points hung heavy above them, threatening to fall, to clamp down on her, like some horrible monster’s hungry maw.

That would be awful, Nala thought.

She imagined its jaws closing around her, around the crowd…

mmmm… mmmaybe…

She imagined a spray of a… of a something, the color of…

Not red, Nala thought. Not red, so…

She looked up, and there was the moon.

Oh. Of course. She imagined a spray of a something, the color of moonthread. It was such a full moon, she wouldn’t be able tell which color it was.

The shadow
Of a shadow
Of a color.

Easier to stomach than red would have been, should those rough iron teeth ever make a meal of her.

But then… Nala decided that that thought was gross. So she made herself think of something else instead.

Strangers shuffled on either side of her, bumbling against Nala’s shoulders. Body odour, everywhere. Heavy perfumes from locals, dressed their festival best. Unwashed bodies and spices on display, and cut lemons and seared meat and firesmoke and freshly baked bread… All the smells overlapped, like her worst true dreams did, the dreams where yesterday’s horrors overlapped with tomorrow’s worst fears.

It made her eyes water.

The open, rural valley dissolved behind them, and (still holding hands) they entered the claustrophobic din.

The town of Orcshire was buzzing.

Even Gran (who was nervous in crowds) sort of giggled, either because she was nervous, or because she was hummmmming with energy.

Then again, everyone was.

Even Nala could feel it.

Everywhere, she saw bones changing hands. (Bones are what orcs call their coins.)

The coins rained down, pinging. Yellow moonlight shivered on the silver slivers as they glinted, gleeful, through the air.

All her life, Nala would go back and remember the sound of those pay buckets singing, clanging, cutting through the din.

Customers sauntered smug through the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with envious blue faces.

“I’m hungry,” Nala realized aloud.

Gran laughed. “But we just ate!”

Nala blushed, grinned, and shrugged.

“Fine,” said Gran, shaking her head. “But first, I’m gonna get myself some Scrumpy.”

Nala followed Gran’s eyes, to some couple clinking their cheap clay cups together. Ting. They were children to Akha, but grownups in Nala’s eyes.

“Come on!” Gran said, squeezing Nala’s hand a little. “Gran-gran needs a little liquid courage tonight.”

* * * * / * * * *

Next chapter: Coins, Cups, & Ghosts

* * * * / * * * *

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^.^

(Art by Jess Tyree.)