The Continent (The Continent #1)(86)

As ever, the threat of the Topi hangs in the air, casting a sickly shadow over everything: every conversation, every moment of happiness, every drifting thought as one settles down to sleep. It’s like a fog that no one can see, though it taints the very air we breathe. I look for hope in the faces of the villagers, but find only resignation. Hayato is quiet, and that is a strange thing indeed.

We try to enjoy the relative quiet we experience now: the calm before the storm. But the Continent is a hard and merciless place, and peace in the south was not meant to last forever. Soon enough, Inzo’s scouts return with news that the Topi are making ready to march. There is a bustle of activity as the villages rush to join together in council—sometimes in Hayato, sometimes farther north near Kojima and the Narrow Corner. Time runs thin, but a decision is made: the Aven’ei—all of the Aven’ei, save for a small contingent to be left guarding the northern border—are to advance. We will meet the Topi in the south; we shall not live to see them burn and plunder our homes. I am afraid, but my sadness is greater than my fear.

Over the course of the next week, preparations begin in earnest for the battle to come. Night and day, smoke rises from the forges of the smiths as new weapons are made and old ones reinforced. Woodworkers produce arrows by the thousands. Food is gathered, collected, and made ready for transport. And all through the day and night, villagers from northern settlements pass through on their way to the designated point of assembly: the wide, flat hilltop that looks down into the Southern Vale, a place scarcely twenty miles west of Hayato. Though I am no tactician, even I can see the brilliance of this plan: the Topi will be at a distinct disadvantage as they bottleneck through the valley, the only natural place of passage practical for a large deployment. The Aven’ei shall have the high ground and will be able to rain down arrows for quite some time before the Topi can reach the top of the valley wall.

Every able person in the south has been called to fight—only children under the age of ten are to forgo the battle; they shall flee to the caves with a contingent of caretakers. And I, being skilled in only the most minimal sense of the word, am considered able—and so I shall fight along with the Aven’ei when the battle comes. Yet even had I no skill at all, still I would fight—for the Aven’ei are my people now, though the majority may yet consider me to be an outsider.

While making preparations to leave Hayato, I pack a few items to bring along: small things, like the phototype of my mother and father and the bits of glass given to me by Keiji. The boys wish to bring nothing but weapons and battle gear—the Aven’ei are not given to sentimental attachments.

The day before we are to leave, Noro arrives home from a meeting with the council. He looks very grave.

“What is it?” I ask, as he removes his shoes in the entryway. “What’s the matter?”

“The Topi are on the march, and our scouts have returned with the count. The news is not good.”

“How many are they?”

“Seventy-five thousand. They have reinforced their legions.”

I draw in my breath. “And the Aven’ei?”

“We can gather fifty thousand at most—we cannot withdraw all of our forces from the north, lest the Topi burn their way through and flank us.”

He glances around the room, taking in the stark tidiness of the place. Everything has been cleaned and put away—there are no blankets strewn about, no clothes draped over the sofa. It almost appears as though no one lives here. “Well,” he says, “Keiji should be home late, he’s over with Yuki baking sweets or bread or some such thing for the journey.”

“All right.”

“Let’s retire early, Vaela. I would be alone with you in our home one last time.”

“Goodbye to Hayato,” I whisper, as Noro and I lie curled up on the bed, facing one another. “And what a sad goodbye it is.”

“I feel the same.”

“I wish—”

“I know.”

We lie quietly, lost in our own thoughts. After a moment, I reach over and take his hand. “When I was in the Spire… they said it was the Aven’ei who started the war. Is it true?”

He sighs heavily. “Yes, it’s true.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“You did not ask.”

“Tell me how it started.”

He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “It was foolishness, no more than that. Our people thought it would be an easy thing to take land from the Topi. We did not anticipate what they would become.”

“But why hasn’t it ever ended? All these years, hundreds of years, and so many dead.”

The muscles in his jaw become tight, and he closes his eyes. “So many, Vaela—you cannot know how many.”

I watch him for a moment. “Are you thinking of your family?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about them.”

He glances at me. “What can I say? They are gone, most dead at the hands of the Topi—save for my mother, who died of illness. She was a skilled archer, she was. Fair of face, and slight, but strong—very strong. Like you, miyake. She would have liked you very much, I think.”

This fills me with a strange sense of longing; I would have so liked to know his mother, and to have earned her love and approval. “What was her name?”