Page 56 of Resisting the Alien Rider

So. No walking. And barely any riding.

I couldn’t cover any cursed ground. I hadn’t even gotten out of the mountains yet. And Magnolia was many days of travel beyond that.

So home it was. For now. I’d make a splint of some sort. And I’d charge my data tab so that I could update the warden. And then I’d make the journey again later in the summer.

I could only hope that she would wait for me.

My foot throbbed. I’d have to stop and rest soon. Irritating, considering I was so close to home now. We were near the lake. My ears twitched, picking up the sound of water lapping.

And then, the sound of…

Chopping wood?

“Hold on, Fiora,” I muttered, halting my shuldu. I strained my ears.

There it was again. The slightly uneven rhythm of something sharp (like a blade) hitting something dull (like wood).

I had to be mistaken. There was nothing out here but my own cabin. Besides animals, I was the only one who lived for spans in all directions.

And yet…

I really was fairly certain I hadn’t gone mad since I’d last left my cabin. The sound was real.

I clicked my tongue at Fiora and we sprinted towards it. Hurt like the blazes, jostling my foot aboutlike that. But the pain was soon forgotten when I circled a low, grassy peak and came upon approximately fifty bracku, three shuldu, two tents.

And one boy.

The boy’s hair was a gleaming shock of white.

His eyes were white too.

In his hand was a rudimentary blade that I half wondered if he’d carved himself from some poor slab of stone. It was not a typical Zabrian blade, though he was certainly Zabrian. He’d been hacking away with his pointy rock knife at some large hunks of wood.

He held the weapon up as I came to a stop before him.

“You know that’s easier if you use a hatchet or an axe to chop the wood. Instead of… whatever that is.” I pulled my own hatchet from my belt and hoisted it in the air, letting the early morning sun glance off its blade.

The boy just stared at me in mutinous silence.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said gently, returning my hatchet to my belt. Though I wasn’t precisely certain fear was even what I was witnessing here. “My name is Oaken.”

At the sound of my name, the boy’s white eyes flared. His lips drew back from his lips in a genka-like hiss. He looked like he was about to tackle me right off Fiora’s back.

Delightfully strange child.

“Are you alone?”

He was too young to be on his own out here. He had to be someone’s convict-ward, though I could notimagine whose. I dismounted, biting back a vicious curse as I landed. I still hadn’t figured out a good way to get down without agony seizing my cursed ankle. I breathed through the pain and glanced at the boy again, only to jerk back with surprise.

“Whoa, now!” I exclaimed. When had he gotten so close to me? And why was his weird little rock knife pointed right at my face? “Where’s your guardian?”

He scowled at me for so long I wondered if he would not answer. But then, without lowering his knife, he said, “I think Garrek went to the water for fish. I’m getting wood ready so he can make a fire when he gets back. I’m not allowed to start a fire on my own.”

I glanced over at the messy, shredded pile of wood the boy had clearly worked so hard to create.

“I see. You know, I wasn’t kidding about the hatchet. It really would… Hold on.” My head whipped back to him. My voice sounded strangely high, ringing in my own ears. “Did you say Garrek?”

The child looked at me like I barely had half a brain in my head.

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