The Outcast and the Survivor: Chapter Seven

“Here, put this on,” Yori says to my right, tossing me a peculiar black garb as I turn.

“What for?” I say curiously, holding the outfit in front of me and recognizing it as something similar to the dark cloaks worn by cult priests back in Kalepo.

“You’re going to be a serf today.”

“What’s a serf?”

“It’s a slave,” Wade answers. “That’s not how people here see it, but that’s what they are among the river cites. Serfs work in shops, stores, fields, or wherever their taskmasters need them, but they’re bought, sold, and traded as though they were animals. Treating them like domesticated pets doesn’t change that they’re considered less than human.”

“So I’ll be snuck into Vanguard as a slave.”

“Not just you,” Wade says dryly, draping himself in an outfit similar to mine, though much taller.

Once I get the garb properly on me, I look back over and notice that Yori is also changing into something else, a clean and elegant outfit, though not after any fashion I ever saw in Kalepo. Yet despite its strangeness, Yori for the first time doesn’t look rustic, but sophisticated, and appropriately so. I can imagine this version of him attending important events before justices and kings, presenting significant ideas and discoveries. I’m very fond of him. I hope to keep him around.

Just as I’m admiring his new look, however, Yori reaches down and starts dirtying his pants and cloak, even going so far as to rip and tatter it. I watch in further apprehension as he then makes a few light scratches on his face and hands, wiping the blood off by using the fabric of

his fine suit as a towel.

“What are you doing?” I ask dismayed.

“Can’t appear too clean after chasing down a couple of runaway serfs,” he laughs. “I need to be dressed like I’m important, but not above dealing with the city guards.”

Wade walks over and begins binding my arms and hands with coarse rope, tying another line to my wrists so that I can be pulled along. Yori then does the same for Wade, lastly tying the strands together, Wade in front and me at his rear.

It makes me panicky being so helpless, suddenly incapable of defending myself in any meaningful way. With how tightly squeezed together my wrists and arms are, I’d be lucky to even protect myself from a fall. And even worse, I’m bound to the one person I can’t bring myself to feel comfortable about.

Yori grabs the rope that connects us and leads us to the stairs.

“Ready?” he says as though there could be an answer to stop us from moving onward.

Wade gives a straight-faced response, but I just look past Yori back toward the room. It is amazing all the supplies that are here, from food stores and clothing to munitions and jewels. It is a good thing that the rangers thought ahead to build such places of refuge, having predicted the tide turning against them long before it actually did, though too late to stop it.

“We’ve only got so much light left,” Wade says tersely, rousing me from my stupor and

gently tugging me up the stairs.

The sudden flash of light at the surface is overwhelming, made so by our brief stint in darkness despite the lanterns within the bunker. I reach up to cover my eyes, but Wade is too far ahead of me, the rope instead tensing and pulling me his direction.

I decide to swallow my frustration and deal with the lack of freedom I have to even move as I please until we get into Vanguard. Once we reach the road a few miles away, which we’ve been shadowing for a couple days now, we take a break so that Yori can completely cover our heads with thick hoods.

We walk much slower after that since it’s hard to see beyond our steps with heads down, something Yori explains will identify us as serfs before we reach the gate. I mostly just try to study the ground and keep my mind from focusing on how sore and tired my body is from weeks of travel, but every once in a while I start walking a little too slowly and get a sudden jerk from Wade as the distance between us becomes too great. I get more irritated each time it happens, but I somehow manage to refrain from getting outwardly upset with him.

Late in the afternoon, we come across the first of several guard patrols. My head is bowed too low to see their faces, but their feet and legs are armored in a manner similar to the soldiers of Kalepo. Fortunately, they do not stop to inquire about us, though I do at one point tilt my head to the side and notice Yori’s hand subtly over the handle of his blade as they pass.

“We’re almost there, you can take a look Kaela,” Yori whispers back after another long while, anticipating my desire to behold the first real city I’ve seen other than my childhood home.

Even from such a distance, the size of the city is a wondrous sight. I don’t know why, but I had imagined Vanguard as something smaller. Its great wall and towers stretch all the way down to the river and even across it, seemingly swallowing the water at its far edge. More buildings reside on the opposite shore, though they pale in comparison to the city on our side.

Yet despite its grandiose appearance, there is scarring and inconsistency throughout the wall’s construction that leads me to conclude it has been through much destruction. There are areas that seem to have been rebuilt entirely, with materials not matching in color or pattern. Some parts also seem to be crumbling and falling into disrepair. This differs greatly from Kalepo, where everything matches like a beautiful piece of art.

I can imagine, considering all that Yori has told me concerning the wars that have occurred over the ages here in the plains, that this place has been the site of much death and sorrow. Yet it remains standing in triumph, a memorial of worse times. Still, I fear with all the urgency and mystique that surrounds my arrival that the worst of it might be just around the corner.

Overall, the city is beautiful, and I admire it for a moment as we get closer, in particular the way that the pinkened evening sky illuminates the stones of the wall, giving it a peaceful aura even in this clouded wilderness. But that peace immediately flees the instant I notice a large contingent of soldiers standing at attention near the entrance and tuck my head back down.

My heartbeat quickens with each passing step, my breathing accelerated as I think about what will happen if we get caught. Would they kill us? Throw us into a tower or jail? Or worse? Maybe they would take me back to Anastasia. The thought makes me shudder. Whatever feigned kindness she had offered me before would surely be gone, replaced by her true dark self.

Someone calls out ahead of us just as the city walls come into my slanted view. I can’t make out what he’s saying at first, but as he gets closer, his scruffy voice becomes clearer.