Loonglight Legacy #1: Dirt Eaters

Chapter 1: Longlight

Chapter 1: Longlight.

In the Shrouded Valley, the people
of Longlight evaded destruction.
For seventy-five years they quietly
thrived, isolated from the world,
nurturing a small flame of hope.
It took less than one hour for them
to be annihilated.
—The Book of Longlight

A snow cricket leaps between two smoldering buildings onto a collapsed stone wall. It sits for a moment, antennae probing, then jumps to a footprint in the snow. It vaults again and again, from footprint to footprint, moving past snow-covered boulders, until it stops at a thick patch of blue bramble and settles beneath the thorns, on a mound of snow speckled red.

The white cricket sings one sweet, resonant note. The mound shudders and, within it, a pair of eyes snaps open. The eyes belong to Roan.

Roan listens, afraid to move. In the distance, the sullen cawing of crows. Stiff, cold, he considers sitting up. But then— crash! He stops breathing, terrified of being seen.

His father's anguished face.

—Quick, quick, Roan, move, move, move!

Hands pulling him up, throwing clothes on him. His sister, Stowe, clutching her straw doll, shaking. His mother, kissing him, hugging him, then pushing Roan and Stowe through the open window.

—Go! Hide in the blue brush! Run! Run!

There's another crash, this one landing at Roan's feet. It's only melting snow falling from the bramble. Hearing no human sounds, he rises. Slowly. Staying invisible inside the mass of thorns. Roan's head pounds. He feels his temple. There's a crust on his hair. He scratches off a piece and groans as he examines it. Scab-matted blood.

Smoke rises from the other side of the hill. The village they called Longlight is silent. No voices, no screams. Desperate to see, terrified of what he'll find, Roan breathes deeply to slow his pounding heart. Then, painstakingly untangling himself from the bramble, he crawls over the snow-spotted hill. His eyes catch something. He moves quietly through the brown whip-grass, staying low. A bit of purple cloth—Stowe's doll, wrapped in its vivid shawl, the one she dyed herself. It's been ground by a horse's hoof into the half-frozen mud. Hands trembling, he lifts the precious object.

Shouts. Explosions. Crazed, skull-masked invaders on horseback, waving torches, slashing, burning. An eerie, rumbling sound pulsates from the village, like hundreds of voices humming in unison.

Scrambling, sliding on the icy whip-grass, Roan and Stowe race, closer every step to the blue bramble, to safety. A piercing scream. Stowe's finger-nails rip Roan's palm as a hideous red skull leans down, lifts her. The masked rider kicks off Roan's bleeding hand. Stowe is reaching, reaching for Roan, but high in the air above her the rider's bone club swoops down.

Shivering, head throbbing, Roan gently places the ruined doll in his pocket. He inches close enough to see the smashed walls of Longlight. Beyond them, smoke rises from the shells of crumbled wood and clay houses. No sign of riders. No human sounds at all. Trembling, he edges closer, then rushes toward the broken gate and dives for cover. He is lifting his head for another look when a black shape whirls past him. He ducks, terror-struck, waiting for the death blow. It doesn't come. He waits, then peeks again. The ground past the gate is a mass of foraging crows, shattered pots, burned woven baskets.

How did they find us?

An acrid smell flares in Roan's nostrils. From the Community House. Burning plastic: the solar energy panels. Years spent scavenging the parts to make one unit. Gone.

House after house, all smoldering, all empty. Drag marks scar the gravel walkways. Past the Worship Place, across the Forum, to the Fire Hole. Roan hesitates, dreading his next few steps. Every year his father spoke where Roan stood now.