something like a piece of me

Narcasus, southern Adala

They say that in the south, all news travels with the sea breeze. The scent of smoke tells you another settlement is in ashes, or a fleet is drowning in flame and water alike. The scent of blood tells you that you should pack up camp and move to the next place before the blood you smell is your own. The scent of mould tells you that health forsook your whereabouts long ago, with no intention of returning. The kindest scent is the salt. It is blown inland and reminds us that there is more to this world than war. It reminds us that the sea god, Tabor, will exist no matter what occurs in the lives of men. 

Today, the air smelt clean, like the air does when the snow melts away. I took a deep breath of it, and said to the old, Exurian woman beside me, 'you're a wise woman, aren't you? Has something changed today?' She closed her small brown eyes, raised her tanned, weathered hands to the sky, and smiled. She wrapped her meagre scarf tighter over her pebble grey hair, then said, 'the air... it is as it was before the silver army came. It has expelled them.' We sat under a linen canopy looking out over the dusty village of Narcasus. Chatting mothers and their babies sat in the shade of the hut behind us. Some of their babies where theirs by blood, others were those of friends gone too soon, or found on roadsides alone with not even a name. Children shrieked at play, tossing a wooden ball around, crying when they tripped over the uneven cobbles. There were hardly ever any young men between my age and thirty. All had gone to fight unless they were unfit or too old. The young women often disappeared off with a soldier and never came back. That was the state of things.

I turned to the old woman again. 'What do you mean? You can't be serious that the silver army has packed up and left.' She shrugged, and took a sip of murky water from a cracked bowl. 

'You asked, I told. Perhaps you should listen to the air more.' I nodded to her out of respect, but I couldn't humour optimism. 

'I'm going to walk.' She didn't say anything, just kept drinking the dirty water as I left.

My footsteps echoed through sun-washed, sand-dusted alleys, the same ones I'd explored for two months now, the longest I'd stayed in one camp for over a year. Often, I'd encounter stray cats clustered together in little packs, only to be scattered by a dog or fox searching for scraps. I ran my fingertips along the sandstone walls of the walkways, brushing over a bloodstain or graffitied propaganda. Today, I'd come across something entertaining. 'DOWN WITH THE HARRIAN LINE, END THE WAR', was scrawled over, 'LONG LIVE THE MONARCHY AND THE ALLIANCE'. It seemed that this village had seen both armies pass through, and neither was merciful. The idiocy of war would've been funnier to me if I hadn't lost so much to slogans like these. 

Farthest from the centre of the village where everyone made camp in the crumbling houses, was a field of tall, sunburnt grasses. It sloped down into a valley that used to have a river run through it. That river fed the estuary to Ibanum, the primary port-city of Adala, but now, it was merely a stream even after the winter. 'Walking through the grass was a bad idea,' I complained to myself. I kept sneezing and sneezing away, cursing the ground that was too dry, the scorching sun, my grumbling stomach. I just needed water, to sit under a tree that's roots must've been a mile deep. It was still alive, green and full by the riverbank, all by itself.

It wasn't until I was a couple of stone throws away that I noticed someone else was there. Most people came down here from time to time, to wash clothes or collect water when the well had dried up. I didn't fancy disturbing someone but I needed fresh water. I called out, 'hello? Is someone there?' 

There was only one person, and they didn't reply. When I got closer, I noticed they were covered in blood and dust. I sprinted to them. He was a young man, a soldier, with a marred face covered by drying, rusty stains like the tunic he wore. He had a gash on his hairline as though he'd ducked away from a blade. His breathing was shallow, his eyes heavy with fatigue.