Editor’s note for audio version:
Please note that the date is incorrect in the audio version. It reads Harvest 71, but should be Sleep 11. Where the seasons of Waking and Growth have 90 days, Harvest only has 60, and Sleep has 120.
Harvest 11, 855
Buu sat in a circle of open books, admiring the roundness of the arrangement he’d made. The lines of text on each of the pages aligned with the next, creating the illusion of one very long book. He had meant to study — he really had — but between the words dancing away from him on each page and a complete lack of interest, he ended up sitting in a circle of knowledge with a piece of soft wood and a knife in his hands, whittling the evening into night.
To ease his academic guilt, Buu tried to focus his magic into his carving the way Professor Buryn had taught him in artifice class. The shape of a bear grew more defined with each flick of his knife, but no matter how he pushed or prodded at his powers, they did not seem compatible with lumber. He had hoped that he could animate a dead plant the same way as a dead animal, picturing his little bear marching back and forth on the table with a predator’s grace. Alas.
The hum of lowered voices reverberated through his door, followed by the crack of something heavy breaking. Buu hesitated, knife poised for the next stroke, waiting to hear the sound again. The walls dampened the sounds of a scuffle, but he could still hear thumps and high-pitched objections. As Buu stood, a cascade of woodchips fell from his lap like snowflakes.
Buu gripped his whittling knife with white knuckles, glancing back to Tuag’s usual place on the bed. The grimm had left that evening, doing whatever it was he did when he wasn’t with Buu. Buu considered waiting for his return, but remembered the crawling shame that spiralled through him as he watched Tiy and Kijah push Idah around. He would do better this time.
The door’s metal ring chilled his hand as he hauled on it, the hinges creaking as the door swung towards him. He forced one foot in front of the other, shuffling into the hall to face whatever challenge the school had for him next. He cocked his head in confusion when he spotted the man in the hallway.
He didn’t belong. In place of scholar’s robes, he wore armour made from a crisscross of hides. Smeared grey paint broke up the shape of his face, the yellow of his teeth a crack in the darkness as he sneered at Buu. A curving, jagged sword rested in his hand, looking as at home there as the man’s own fingers.
“Shut that Thaven brat up — he’s waking the others.” For a moment Buu thought the man had spoken to him, but then he heard a grunt and a wet, hard sound from the open door of his neighbour’s dormitory, like a Jaanti melon being smashed on stone. The man turned his full attention back to Buu, the tip of his sword slipping lower, less threatening.
“Where are you from then?” he asked, and Buu noticed for the first time that the man had a dark blue band wrapping his arm — the marker of the Zadyan militiaman.
“Red Birch,” Buu mumbled, trying to think through a fog of panic as the ghost of his neighbour — fifteen year old Vaelis — drifted through the wall, blinking and confused.
“Good. I got a cousin was in Red Birch before those Thaven pigs messed up the place. Yuravi. You know him?”
Buu bobbed his head, thinking of the crooked teeth and sloping posture of the town’s pig farmer. “He used to let me play with the piglets,” he murmured, sensing that the man wanted something more.
The man’s posture eased, and he waved his sword towards Buu’s room. Behind him, another man stepped into the hall, dressed like the first, wiping a bloody hand on his pants.
“We’re not here for you, boy. Go back in your room and stay there. Do that and you’ll be just fine.”
Buu’s heart pounded loud in his ears. He didn’t want to go into his room. Vaelis’ room didn’t keep him safe — it penned him in. These men shared Buu’s look, and his goddess, and his homeland, but why should that stop them? Their steel wouldn’t care, it just looked hungry.
Before he could think better of it, Buu turned and ran. The men stood between him and the dorm-minder’s room, so Buu headed for the courtyard and the teacher’s suites beyond it. Aru would know what to do. Or Sanir. Ryoh. Buryn. Anyone with that calm authority that screamed ‘adult’ to Buu’s young mind.
He realized his mistake as soon as the militiamen gave chase, swearing under their breaths before charging down the hall after him. Their boots thundered on the wooden floor, their longer legs eating up the distance. Buu didn’t look back, knowing that it would only slow him down.
Heaving in breath, Buu struggled to make his legs keep up a woodpecker-staccato as they grew leaden with each step. He considered yelling out, screaming for help, but knew that only students would hear him, and besides, he needed the breath for running.
Flying through the dormitory doors into the crisp night, he could hear fighting near the walls. The clash and clamour of steel. Cries rising from the wounded. The heavy crunch of bodies as they fell from the walls. The zip of arrows let loose.
Buu made it as far as the stables before something heavy struck his back, sending him sprawling. A dagger bounced past him, the unlucky throw hitting him pommel-first. The soldier with blood-stained pants caught up to him as he tried to scramble back to his feet, flipping him onto his back with a quick motion and kneeling on his chest. Buu felt his ribs crack under the man’s weight. He tried to cry out, but the man’s hand clamped hard around his throat.
“Just bash his head in and be done with it,” the other man said, hovering behind the first, sword still in hand.
Buu’s assailant just grunted, leaning harder on Buu and tightening his grip. Black spots pressed in around Buu’s vision, his head swimming as he tried to direct his power. He could do something — he must do something — he wasn’t useless anymore.
He wanted to latch on to the man’s heartbeat, to strangle it the way he had the general’s. Flailing and batting ineffectually at the man’s massive paws, he could not hear anything except the rush of blood in his ears and the deafening rhythm of his own pulse.
As the man’s face began to blur, darkness descending over Buu in a curtain, he thrashed, sending magic in all directions in uncontrolled, desperate gouts. Save me! He begged, pressing every ounce of power he had into the world.
He felt the earth crack under him and wondered if dying felt like this. If the ground opened up and swallowed your spirit before spitting it back out to roam as a ghost. Pain spiralled through Buu, radiating from his neck and chest, and he considered that perhaps he’d been too harsh on death — it couldn’t be as bad as this.
Then he could breathe. Racking, sobbing gasps shuddered through him. His body demanded he cough, trying to clear the bruising on his throat that would not budge, but instead spiking agony tore from his broken ribs and shot through him in waves. The world swam in tears, blurry and nonsensical as a horse pulled itself from the ground beside him, putrid, rotting skin clinging to the bones in places.
“Anaya preserve me!”
The militiaman that had been choking him fell back, scrambling away as the equine nightmare freed itself from the autumn ground. On Buu’s other side, the ground buckled, a hoof punching its way to open air. Standing together, uneasy, the men waited with weapons drawn, but the horses stood motionless over Buu, having done what he’d asked. Save me.
Ghosts crowded him, reaching through him with cold hands that stung like nettles but did not find purchase. He could barely see the militiamen through them. Buu’s mind protested as he tried to push them away, his magic wearing against his psyche like fresh sandpaper.
He wanted to sit up, to shout for help, or run, or do anything that would make him less vulnerable. But Buu knew his body. He knew illness and fragility and every ache and pain a nine-year-old should not have to know. He had never known pain like this.
When he heard the snarl, his eyelashes fluttered open — had he closed them? — and he saw Tuag running towards him. Buu melted with relief. The grimm would protect him.