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The thing swung around and the clan elders threw themselves away from it, but Levi Virtue was too slow, too distracted, and he noticed too late. The flitterjack’s jaws scythed through Levi’s midriff, slicing him in two right where he stood.

Frankhay’s first thought was,
By the gods, but now I’ll be fucking a clan-mother
, and his second was... shock.

There was no blood, no gore. He had seen people killed brutally many times, and always there was spouting blood, guts spilling out, torn flesh.

Levi just snapped. His insides were neatly ordered, what looked like fibres and plastics and flesh that could have been bread dough. Even as Frankhay watched, a film spread over the wound, as if it could somehow heal such a major injury. But Levi’s body was in two halves and it was beyond repair, and Frankhay realised he was standing in disbelief while the flitterjack swung round for another go.

He looked around, and in that brief check to see how he could get to safety he was still able to see that none of the other elders seemed surprised at what they saw.

There was a whine, a buzz, starting to shift pitch and grow louder.

A hand on Frankhay’s arm, the grip strong like metal, and he looked up and met Sol’s eyes, and for the first time he actually felt fear. “!¡
urgent
¡! Down!” she hissed, dragging him to the ground, and the flit swung by again, its long, sword-like jaws screeching against the stone ground where Frankhay had stood a moment earlier.

They tumbled down the steps to safety within the clan-nest, and Frankhay caught himself, squatting, peering around like a wild animal.

“!¡
calm
¡! T
HEY WERE
all like that,” he told me. “The elders. All but me, as I’d come to have my clan by different means. I ran. Never went to another Council again.”

After that day, Frankhay set himself to trying to understand what he had seen. “The guardians,” he said, “they’ve been there forever, setting their stall to protect us, nurture us. I think I’ve been waiting for all this to happen all of my life: if we have guardians set to protect us, then what are they to protect us
from
? Some serious shit, I’m thinkin’.”

“!¡
puzzled
¡! What are they?”

“!¡
uncertain
¡! Who knows? Back then, I set myself and my clan apart. We did things differently, separately. But the guardians have never done us any harm, so maybe I should have trusted them, eh, boy? Back then I thought they were scared of me, but they weren’t, they were just working out how to fit me into their scheme of things. But I wouldn’t have it.”

“!¡
gently pressing
¡! What did Sol do?”

“!¡
bitter regret
¡! She acted like a love-sick pup. She came after me, came to the Loop, sent messengers. I only ever saw her one more time.”

She begged him. There, in the street by the barge he had made his home, her arms spread wide, beseeching. To Frankhay, then, it was a charade, a show, an act just the same as fucking like animals all through the night had been an act to draw him in. She was a machine, a construct, not human.

She could not love him, as she said she loved him.

She could not feel the feelings she claimed. It was a routine, a sham.

She could not love him, and he most certainly did not love her.

“!¡
remorse
¡! I turned her away,” he told me. “I didn’t believe that she cared for me and I convinced myself that if I had really cared for anybody it had been a version of her I held in my head, not the real thing.”

Frankhay was pointing the handgun at me. Casually. Almost accidentally. But nonetheless, the pistol’s single dark eye stared at me.

“!¡
menace
¡! I ain’t ever told anyone all of this,” said Frankhay. “An’ I don’t know why I’ve gone and got so maudlin tonight. Just one thing, okay?”

I nodded.

“Don’t ever be repeatin’ this, you hear, boy? ’Cause if you do an’ you manage to convince anyone else that old Frankhay’s a moonstruck gawp then that might jus’ be the last thing you ever convince anybody. That clear, boy?”

I understood him now. Frankhay, terror-inspiring hard man of the Loop. He was about as much front as me. In many ways we were two of a kind.

I think he actually
liked
me.

T
HE NEXT DAY
we had a meeting, all of us gathered around that hollow.

It was time for some decisions, time to work out what it was that we were really going to do, now that we had escaped from Laverne.

Chapter Twenty-Five

O
UR CHOICES WERE
stark.

We could find a place to settle and try to become self-sufficient.

We could try to find a community to join.

Or we could continue on our quest for a city of which we only knew by rumour, and that maybe none of us really believed existed.

T
HE NIGHT HAD
passed, Frankhay and I lapsing into a surprisingly easy silence and then standing down when Divine and a young Hay called Idle took over. I found Hope and curled myself around her, in an uncomfortably asexual way, aware of her body and her easy welcome of this intimacy, but equally aware of the lack of privacy and that I did not really know where her feelings lay.

I woke, damp and cold from the night’s dew, alone. Hope, as was her way, had extricated herself from my embrace and gone to sit on the rock where I had sat in the night with Frankhay, losing herself in the view.

I joined her. No words.

The land spread out before us. Down below, the river wound through the countryside, silver in the early morning sunlight. Woods and fields slotted together. Scattered thinly were a few warehouse-like buildings, and some small, clustered settlements. All were alien constructs: improbable architectures, clean lines and sharp angles, bulbous growths that emerged from the ground like pox, a single sharp spire with a coil of silver at its tip.

Back to the west, Laverne was lost somewhere in the haze of the horizon. I wondered if the city still stood, or if all was melted to glass, or unsung.

“!¡
intimate
¡! Are you thinking of where we’ve been, or where we’re going?” I asked, leaning close to Hope. The scarring on her face had healed to a pink layer now, a little shiny, distorted. The wound on my hand had healed similarly.

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m thinking of where we are.” And with that she tipped her head and kissed me tenderly on the jaw.

I wanted to put my arm around her like I did at night, but held back. I had no idea why I was so nervous around Hope, so tentative. I’d had my fair share of girls over the years. I had my lines, my moves. But Hope wasn’t a girl for lines and moves and maybe that was why I was left frustrated and confused in her presence.

Behind us, our ragged band stirred, gathering meagre belongings together, bundling blankets, tending to the four children and one mewling baby that travelled with us.

“!¡
commanding | over-stretching
¡! Gather round all,” called Herald. He was puffed up with self-importance. Leaving Laverne had given him something he had never had back in the city, but in my opinion he was no better for it. He had always been a nail in the butt as far as I was concerned. “Clan-father Frankhay has called Council. Gather round.”

Frankhay had told me he would do this. You either let opposition grow or you tackle it full face, and Frankhay was never one to dodge a fight.

We gathered round, a subdued group, and I wondered how we had reached such a low ebb without me really noticing.

Frankhay was right. We needed to tackle this now. We needed to know what our purpose was.

“!¡
PATIENT
¡! I
’VE BEEN
investigating our surrounds,” said Herald. “I’ve detailed people to explore this area.”

We’d been talking forever, it seemed, the morning sun now high in the sky. There was still no giving of ground by either faction. What surprised me was the extent to which Herald had established himself as the leader of those who wished to settle. I remembered Frankhay, frail and vulnerable in the night, and wondered for the first time if his moment had passed.

I’d had little to do with Herald back at Cragside, but away from the city it was as if he had come to life, found purpose. “!¡
factual reporting
¡! It’s been two days since we passed through cultivated land, three since we passed a settlement of more than a few farm buildings. We’re as far as we’ve ever been from settled territory. The land here is fertile. It’s ours for the taking. We have a vantage point here, so that we can see whatever’s coming. This is the perfect place for us to establish a new community, one new clan.”

“!¡
doubting
¡! We need food,” said one of the Hays, an older man in a kilt and a leather jacket with one arm hanging loose. “Had you remembered that?”

“There’s fish in the river,” said Herald. “And as I say, the ground is rich. There are fruit and nuts in the forest. Wild game. We have people among us who’ve worked in the pap-houses. We know how to prepare and preserve food.”

“!¡
frustrated
¡! But we have no supplies,” said Jerra. “It’s madness. We can’t just live off the bushes all winter!”

“!¡
patient
¡! That’s why we put down our roots now, build up stores before winter settles in,” said Herald. “Aimlessly wandering through the countryside isn’t going to get us through the winter any better, after all.”

When Herald spoke, there was always a rumble of agreement, a nodding of heads. The few who argued against him were more passionate, frustrated, but they were a definite minority. The longer this went on, the more convinced I became that the decision would be that we should settle and try to eke out our survival from the land.

I looked down at my soft hands, pale in the morning light. On the streets of the city I was tough, smart; I’d back myself against anyone, not only to survive but to emerge on top.

But out here? Out here it was blustery mediocre people like Herald who were better equipped. This was not a future I relished.

Earlier, another of the Hays elders had spoken in favour of finding a community to join. We had many talents among us, she had argued. Surely some small settlement would see the value in taking a band of humans in, exchanging our skills and effort for food and shelter? No-one had really believed her. Why would any community take in nearly forty vagrants? Some of us had valuable skills, yes, but we were a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of bodies to accommodate.

Forging our own settlement seemed more sensible, and a number of Frankhay’s clan were falling in behind Herald. We had survived by foraging and gathering as we travelled, so surely we could do even better if we stayed in one place? Supplementing living off the land locally with foraging raids farther afield, we might just see out the winter to a point where we would be able to start cultivating the land ourselves.

It seemed the obvious solution, but to me such a choice was as good as giving up. Did anyone really believe we would be safe out here from the Hadeen watchers, or whoever else wanted to wipe out our kind?

“!¡
hesitant
¡! What about Harmony?” I asked. “We could be safe there.”

“!¡
dismissive
¡! What makes you think we’d be safe there?” asked Herald, shaking his head. “What makes you even sure that it exists?”

“!¡
tired | frustrated
¡! Oh, Harmony exists,” said Marek, joining the debate for the first time. For days he had kept himself aloof from the rest of us, as if unsure where to fit in, unsure whether he even wanted to fit in.

“!¡
factual reporting
¡! The people I was with in Angiere, the Vanguard. We smuggled people out before the end. That was what we did. We sent people on the road to Harmony.”

“!¡
confrontational
¡! You sent them to a fantasy,” said Herald. “You sent them to a place you dreamed of, not one that exists!”

Marek shook his head. “!¡
tired
¡! No,” he said. “We sent them home.”

There was silence, then, a silence I eventually broke by asking Marek, “!¡
disbelief | excited
¡! You’re from Harmony...?”

He shook his head. “!¡
factual reporting
¡! No,” he answered. “I’m just a poet and keeper of histories from the district of Seagreen in Angiere. But the others, those I travelled with... Callo, Lucias, Pleasance... they came to Angiere from Harmony, and recruited people like me. Harmony is real.”

I stared at Marek. He was a cagy one, keeping everything guarded. Just how much more had he chosen not to reveal?

Herald waved a hand in dismissal. “!¡
contemptuous
¡! Hearsay,” he said. “You’re telling us you know someone who claimed to come from Harmony and that’s enough to justify us marching onwards until winter hits, and we run out of food, and one by one we start to drop. No one has yet convinced me that Harmony is real. No one has yet convinced me that such a city would welcome us. And no one has yet convinced me that even if it did, we would be safe there.”

“!¡
admonishing junior scholar
¡! Harmony is safe because Harmony is sung to be so,” said Saneth, in her-his whispery voice. Saneth stood with Hope, a little apart from the gathering, perched partway up the rear slope of the hollow. Sitting was not a position that seemed to suit chlicks.

“‘Sung’?” asked Frankhay, finally joining the debate.

“!¡
patient | lecturing
¡! Sung,” said Saneth. “Sung because their starsinger sings that it is so.”

Until that point, Harmony had been a dream for me, a desperate hope that there might be somewhere better. Saneth’s words changed that. Saneth’s words gave the dream substance, rationale.

“!¡
excited
¡! They have a ’singer?” I asked.

Saneth inclined the upper part of her-his body in the chlick equivalent of a nod.