6. Stubborn Proof

Larsh did not take the news well. “You were supposed to turn them around, not destroy them! If Sumiser finds out we killed their fleet …”

He didn’t even let her back into the city. The wolves left the ship and carried whatever supplies remained back to the general storage. But she was pushed back by the crowds, back facing the river.

When they asked about the remaining supplies, they realized the truth quickly.

“You worthless piece of garbage! Disappear!” Larsh yelled. A heartbeat later everyone yelled it with him. The crowd closed in on her like an unclimbable wall, their angry faces and flashing teeth even scarier than the masks. They waved flaming torches her way. Somebody grabbed her arm and nearly tore it off.

“Go away!” she screeched. “Don’t touch me! I’m going!”

She fell backward. On all fours she crawled through the wet earth, as fast as she could. The claws did not let go. More and more parts of her body were grabbed.

Nobody came to help her.

The probably thought that sounded like work.

A burning fireball landed on the beach and parted the crowds. It gave her just enough time to flee.

She stumbled, tripped, shoved through the mud along the river until she could barely hear the angry voices anymore.

Carefully, she looked over her shoulder. Nobody was chasing. She was gone—this piece of garbage was gone from their pretty civilization. That was all that counted to them. Only a few creatures remained, studying the burning fireball and the river for signs of the ship that fired it.

She was alone, close to the city walls, but on the wrong side. She shivered—from fear, from the cold, from the hunger. The reality of what she had lost consumed her all at once, huddling in the darkness.

“What did you think?” a proud voice asked. Welpon. Of course that fireball was his. The echidna ran circles around her.

The Clayskipper stepped out of his hut to tell his son it was time for bed.

Clayskipper! His hut was outside the city! Warmth. Not alone. Food.

She hobbled after Welpon, but as she entered the hut she was pushed away.

“Larsh has commanded nobody admit or help you.”

“Larsh is not your boss. You live here, outside of al the Regions!”

He shook his quills. “Larsh is distracted. Everyone should listen to his father’s message—the message you took from that first trade. I don’t want to distract them even more. Maybe we’re already too late to safely flee the coming disasters! My calculations—”

Prebuha frowned. “You believe the message? You want us all to just leave our beautiful civilization behind?”

“Civilization is a noble idea, not a people nor a place.”

“Very noble,” she sneered. “Kicking a young sloth girl out to die.”

“My calculations have been wrong for years. The water grows more wild. The earth more askew. Cracks appear in odd places. Yes, I believe disasters are coming. If even a big leader like Larsham believed it … why is nobody listening?”

“They don’t want to leave!” she said, realizing deep down how true it was, and realizing something else. “They want to stay so badly … they’d kill Larsham in hopes of killing the message!”

The Clayskipper frowned. “You’re still doing your detective work? Even as they sent you away?”

“I must be good at something, right? If I fix this, I’ll have provided value for my Region, and then … and then they’ll let me back.”

“Doing something once is not enough. A civilization runs on doing something every day, until you die.”

“Is that so,” she growled with claws crossed. “Stealing something once is apparently remembered forever.”

He sighed. “Maybe the disasters won’t come for a while. Maybe they don’t come in the shape we expect. I only know we’ve been living the exact same way for a thousand years. Our cities were planned beforehand, built, then never changed! That’s not natural. We lag behind. The Sumiseri have apparently invented a script allowing them to write down anything with ease. And what can we do? Draw birds on clay?”

“You think they killed Larsham?”

He shook his head, then rapidly took some valuable Bulla out of his son’s paws. “I only know civilizations either change or they die.”

“Oh. Come on. You must know something to help me? Some calculation?”

The Clayskipper stepped inside, protectively taking his son with him. He led down a thick piece of cloth to cover the opening. ""

“I know all animals in your Region like the quills at my back. None of them did anything. Stop your pointless research.”

Torches burned once more out of the corner of her eyes. Larsh led a group specifically searching for her. They were still far out, but yelled she had to leave. Leave the entire Indus territory. Or punishments would follow.

“Go,” the Clayskipper said with sad eyes. “I’ll take care of your mother.”

Prebuha ran into the shadows. She ran and ran, tears in her eyes, until she was certain Larsh had lost her trail. But she couldn’t lose the city. Her back leaned against the cool city wall, as she heard laughter and singing on the other side.

Her stomach rumbled. She’d never gone this long without food or drink. Where was she supposed to get it now? All food in the area was owned by Indus, grown on their fields. All drinkable water came from their wells, not the river.

She looked around. Would she be able to find the way to Sumiser? Not in the dark, that was for sure. What was on the other side? She had heard about a small, hesitant civilization around the Gangris, but she didn’t even know their names.

She looked to the other side and saw a puddle of blood.

Dried up. Not too large. But it was clear: somebody had died here and—

Wasn’t this the wall from which Larsham fell?

She looked up. It wasn’t the sturdiest wall, or the one with the least cracks. But she could not see how a gust of wind could throw anyone off, let alone a heavy hyena.

Her claws felt something. Stone chunks. She followed the trail until she found a large stone that was roughly a ball.

Some steps later, the earth still held the imprint of a small, round crater.

A ball. A catapult ball?

Larsham didn’t fall and wasn’t pushed. He was shot from the wall.

She ran back to the Clayskipper’s hut to speak to Welpon.

But Larsh had not lost her trail at all. His torches suddenly burned at her back.

“Stay away from me! Don’t touch me! I go! I go!”

She ran to Sumiser, the only direction she knew. Creatures chased her, yelled she had to disappear, for longer than she could handle. Until she stood on the hill where she met the masked creatures, out of breath.

She studied the shipwreck. But no, that thing wouldn’t float in any way.

Pawprints were left in the dirt. Heavy paws. One pair had to be from that bull. The prints were conserved well, easy to find.

They didn’t want her? The Indus exiled her? Fine. She’d go the other way. To the masked army that was probably already preparing to attack her city, now that they knew where it was and that they lacked weapons.

On her last legs, she followed the pawprints. Images of soft beds, delicious breakfast and lounging in the shade of beautiful trees filled her head. Images of climbing over the lower walls and playing in The Great Bath merged with them.

They all had to leave her head, or she wouldn’t be able to take another step.

Either she’d die of hunger and thirst, or she’d take her revenge for how they had treated her and her family.