As I unlaced my sandal and shook out the pebble, I saw the last of the villagers go by, five grandfathers in rear guard, clutching old swords and flensing poles. They were so anxious, they failed to spot me where I crouched beside a wall, and in moments a cloud of dust raised by hurried feet hung betwixt me and them. I laced my sandal and, with the unthinking valiance of innocent youth, turned back toward Whitefish village.

I knew my mother would be angry when she found me gone, but I soon enough dismissed that concern and ran back to the cliff path.

I halted amongst the pines, where they edged and then fell down over the slope, looking first at the village and then at the sky. The village was empty; the beach was lined with men. The sky was still that steel-hot blue; the shape of the Sky Lords’ boat was larger.

I could discern its outline clearer now: a cylinder of red, the color of blood; the carrier beneath was a shadow, like a remora suckered to a shark’s belly, sparkling with glints of silver as the sun struck the blades of the warriors there. I wondered how it had come up so fast. I watched it awhile, my eyes watering in the sun glare, picking out the strange sigils daubed over bearer and basket, fear and fascination mingling in equal measure. I looked back and thought perhaps I should have done better to go after my mother and find the safety of the wood, where the ancient crypts ran down into the earth.

Instead, I ran down to the village, through the emptied houses, to the beach, to my father.

He did not see me at first, for his face was locked on the sky, etched over with shadows of disbelief. He stood with a flensing pole held across his chest, high, the curved blade striking brilliance from the sun. Thorus stood beside him, and in his hand was a sword, not rusted like Robus’s old blade but bright with oil, darker along the edges, where the whetstone had shaped cutting grooves. It was a blade such as soldiers carried, and for a moment I stared and lusted after such a weapon.