Ahem, strictly speaking it isn’t Saturday, but it’s still time to share with you the first snippet of The Resolute, Star Legend book four. Taylan and Wright’s story continues, with input from the legendary King Arthur, Merlin, and Morgan le Fay.
But this week’s snippet begins with two new characters. Can you guess who and where they are?
The Resolute, Chapter One
The boy toiled under the hot sun. Exposed skin on his neck, arms, and calves had begun to burn, but the day’s work was far from over. The pumpkin crop was ready. The ripe vegetables had to be brought in before the season turned, or mice and rats would gnaw and damage them and make them unfit for storage. The harvest had to last the group until next year. In a few weeks the wet weather would arrive and the pumpkins would rot.
His scrawny arms wrapped around a large pumpkin, the boy walked to the cart, stepping through the rough remains of faded foliage. The vegetation crowded closely in the field, sprawling over and between the rows. Tiny hairs on the vines would scratch him and embed themselves in his skin, leaving sore, itchy welts, so he was careful to avoid brushing up against them, but sometimes he couldn’t help it.
Two horses stood at the front of the cart, lazily flicking flies with their long tails, ears twitching and thick haunches moving as they shifted their weight from one foot to another. The horses were the only thing the boy liked about working in the fields. He wanted to rub their soft noses and reach up to stroke behind their ears, but he didn’t dare. The supervisor sitting on the cart’s box seat seemed able to see everywhere all the time. The minute anyone slowed down or stopped doing what they were supposed to he would notice. If he was feeling lazy, the perpetrator only received a harsh word of warning, but more often than not, the man would be out of his seat in a flash, racing over the field, and laying his stick across his victim’s back.
The boy knew the feel of that stick too well. He was careful to never slacken his pace if he could help it, no matter how tired he got.
Straining with effort, he lifted the pumpkin high for the supervisor’s assistant to take and stack with the others in the back of the cart. Relieved of his burden, the boy took the long way around the vehicle to return to his row, briefly enjoying relief from the blazing sun as he dipped into the cart’s shadow.
The field stretched as far as he could see, and everywhere children were working in it. Carts and horses waited on the dusty red lines of tracks threading through a sea of gray-green, dying plants. A faint odor of decay hung in the air, accompanied by the gentle rustle of quiet labor.
When the pumpkins had been gathered, they would start on the soybeans. That’s what Summoner Seba had said at dawn before they left the compound. Next would come the task of shelling the beans and putting them in the big pottery containers to protect them from weevils. Not that the containers worked. The boy had eaten plenty of beans dotted with tiny, dead insects. At first, he’d been disgusted. Now, he didn’t bother picking them out.
A crescent of orange peeked out from among the dead leaves. His next pumpkin. He pulled his small knife from his shirt pocket and cut the sinewy vine that attached it to the plant.
“That’s a monster,” said a voice.
Narrowing his eyes against the sun’s glare, the boy spied a girl a little older than him in the next row over. He didn’t know her name. She was from a different section of the compound. Children from different sections were not allowed to mix. Talking at work was forbidden, too, but the supervisor was too far away to hear.
“Yeah,” the boy agreed, taking care not to pause in what he was doing.
“Gonna be hard carrying it,” the girl went on. “Want a hand?”
In rare cases, when a pumpkin was too heavy for one child to carry by themselves, they were permitted to help each other. But it was risky. The supervisor had to agree that help was needed, and that couldn’t be decided until the two children had reached the cart. If the supervisor didn’t agree—and some of them never agreed, out of pure spite—the kids were punished.
“No thanks,” the boy replied. “I’ll manage.”
The size of the pumpkin daunted him, and he was grateful for his neighbor’s offer, but he’d grown strong in the months since his arrival on the farm. He guessed he could probably carry it by himself.
He slipped his knife into his pocket, and then squatted and grabbed the pumpkin. It was so big, his hands didn’t meet on the other side. As he straightened his legs, his already tired arms began to ache.
He set off.
The cart appeared impossibly far away. He staggered forward, the great weight forcing him to push through the tangled vegetation rather than step over it, heedless of the tiny cuts scratched on his legs. He began to regret refusing the girl’s offer. His destination seemed to come no closer despite his efforts. Now he’d started, he couldn’t stop. The supervisor would notice if he put the pumpkin down to catch his breath and rest his arms, and even if he didn’t notice, the boy would have to pick it up for a second time, and he wasn’t sure he could do it again. He would just have to make it all the way. Maybe the assistant would be kind and jump down from the cart to take the massive vegetable from him.
Trickles of sweat ran like spiders down his neck and legs. He’d been thirsty for a while, but no water would be given out until the short afternoon break. He hoped that was soon. It had to be soon. The sun had begun its journey down the sky.
His ankle caught on something! But his forward motion propelled him onward. He couldn’t stop. He overbalanced and fell.
Despair and fear erupted from his lungs in a yell, abruptly cut off. His ribs had impacted the vegetable at the same time it hit the ground and forced the rest of the air soundlessly from his lungs.
Though it had been short, his cry was enough to attract the supervisor’s attention.
With a growl, the man leaped from his high seat and stomped across the field.
The boy knew what was coming. He closed his eyes, curled into a ball, and braced himself.
“Lazy, stupid, worthless child!”
Thwack!
Stinging pain burst from the boy’s back as the stick cracked against his spine.
“You only have to do one thing! A simple, easy thing, but even that’s too hard for you.”
Thwack!
The pain redoubled as the stick hit the same spot. The boy whimpered.
“A waste of time, a waste of food, that’s what you are.”
Thwack!
More pain, from lower down his back. Tears filled his eyes, but he refused to cry. Mam had said it was okay to cry when you were hurt or sad, but he didn’t want to. Crying meant giving in. Crying meant you’d let them get to you. Crying meant forgetting who you were and where you were from.
“I’ll teach you to slack off.”
Thwack!
“I’ll teach you to be clumsy.”
Thwack!
Thwack!
Thwack!
***
That night, the boy was hunched over as he waited outside the compound. His back hurt too much to stand upright. The carts, piled high with pumpkins, stood in a line at the closed gates. White sweat coated the horses’ flanks.
All the children huddled in one group. They had walked the long distance home while the supervisors and their assistants had ridden on the carts. A lot of the kids appeared dead on their feet, especially the younger ones, only just old enough for field work. But they still had a while to wait until they could rest, drink, and eat.
The snap and click of a lock opening broke the evening quiet, quickly followed by the loud rattle of a chain being pulled against metal. One of the double gates swung open. A creak and clunk signaled it was secured. Then the second gate opened.
“Walk on,” ordered the supervisor in the lead cart, slapping the reins on the horses’ backs.
Wood groaned and wheels rumbled. The line of carts began to slowly move forward. One by one, they disappeared into the gap in the high compound fence.
The last cart went in. Now it was the children’s turn to enter, but not before the final check.
A woman walked out of the shadowy interior, a clipboard in hand.
“Lukas,” she read from the board.
“Here,” a boy answered.
He split from the group and trudged into the compound.
“Ben.”
“Here.”
A second boy shuffled apart from the others.
“Hannah.”
“Here,” a girl said.
It was the girl who had offered to help the boy with the big pumpkin that had been his downfall.
She walked through the open gates.
The woman read more names, one by one, and each child answered in a weary tone before they were allowed admittance.
When only a few kids were left standing in the dark, the woman called out, “Elias.”
It was not his name. Not his real name. It was the one they’d given him and forced him to use. He remembered his true name and he would never forget it. But, tonight, if he wanted to eat and sleep, he had to answer to the false one.
“Here,” he said, though the word grated like sandpaper in his throat.
Grimacing, he hobbled toward the opening that led to food and rest, until tomorrow.
Later, when his belly was full of watery porridge and boiled vegetables, he searched for his sister among the little kids in the barn where the children slept. He found her sitting alone in a corner, her skinny little legs sticking out from the skirt of her grimy dress. She was holding a bunch of grass stalks and he thought she might be about to eat it—hunger had tempted him to eat all kinds of things—but then he saw she was talking to it and bouncing it on her lap.
“Hey,” he said, sitting beside her.
“Elias!” she exclaimed. The stalks fell from her grasp as she grabbed him around his neck. He winced but tried not to show his pain.
Had she forgotten his name? She was smart, and when he told her she had to call him something new, she’d caught on right away. He was glad. It had saved her from beatings less clever children had received.
“What’s that you’re playing with?” he asked.
“Oh!” She noticed the scattered stalks and picked them up. When she held the bunch again in her small fist, she whispered, “This is Mam.”
“Mam?” he said softly.
“Uh huh. I’m telling her to come and find us. I want to go home. I don’t like this place.”
He put an arm around her. He hated the place too, and he was worried about his sister. She was too thin. He could see the bones under her skin. Sometimes, in the morning, one or two of the kids didn’t wake up, and when he came back from working in the fields, they were gone. No one ever mentioned them again.
“Is Mam gonna come and get us?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. But don’t worry. If she doesn’t, I’ll look after you.”
“I know. But I miss Mam. I want to see her.”
“I do too. Maybe one day we will.”
His sister put her head on his shoulder and clutched the grass to her chest, crooning over it like a mother soothing a baby. He guessed she’d reversed roles and she was soothing ‘Mam’ in the way she wanted to be soothed by her.
An ear-piercing crack split the air, making all the children jump and shudder. Echoing reverberations of powerful engines followed, quickly dying down. A second crack followed, and a third. Fighter jets were passing overhead, Alliance planes, off to fight in the war.
I hope you enjoyed the first part of The Resolute. Check in again this Saturday for part two. Series page here.