Fire Country

“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 i

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 go

“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 ski

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 co

“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 ski

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 cha

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.