Stormhaze

Chapter 8: Trawlton

Gillien woke to the sound of the raft creaking and scratching against the sandy shore. He felt droplets of water hitting his face as the waves rushed towards land, splashing against the wooden raft. It had been nearly two days since Kilas had been dragged overboard, and there was still no sign of life anywhere around them. Once again, Gillien found himself curled up in fetal position among his soldiers, but this time, they had not landed on a foreign land.

As Gillien sat up, he struggled to believe he was not seeing a dream. In contrast to Ryken's arid wasteland, Alecaria was a land of green peaceful meadows with rolling hills and lush mountains in the distance. A herd of wild galoprex moved across it. Instead of dry salt crystals cutting across the air and piercing his skin, he could see flower petals dancing in the mild breeze around him. Gillien was home.

After waking the others and scouting around with a map he had pulled from his backpack, Gillien discovered that they were merely a short walk away from the village of Trawlton—the very town Kilas' sister had been inspecting before the Stormhaze Event erupted. Thin whisps of smoke rose from behind the distant hills, and he wondered for a moment whether the entire village was still burning after the devastation.

"Perhaps it's just warm food?" said one of the men.

Worn, hungry and aching, the small party of soldiers made their way up the nearest hill towards Trawlton. A small coastal town met their eyes, containing no more than a thousand cabins, weathered and old with wooden racks lining every building. As the soldiers drew closer, however, Gillien noticed they were in fact not really cabins at all, but upside-down boats. The original city seemed to have burnt down completely the past few days, but already its lost houses had been replaced with ships that had been dragged to land and turned upside-down.

"Clever way to rebuild quickly." he said.

The air reeked of dry fish, yet in that moment, Gillien had never smelled something so sweet and appetizing. No roads seemed to lead into the town, nor did it appear to have anything modern left in its ashen ruins, apart from Zenobia's idle gunship standing out like a lion among housecats. Trawlton had naturally experienced some form of chaos during the eruption, however, the town seemed now as calm and collected as one could hope.

The initial panic seems to have worn off. Gillien smiled in relief, allowing himself to admire the boat-roofed architecture of each house as they approached. Fields of yellow berries surrounded the town, tasting both sweet and sour as the soldiers' hunger got the best of them.

Though Trawlton was merely a small town within the greater nation of Alecaria, Gillien began to wonder how it would evolve in the coming future. To his disgrace, his own nation was the most technophile he had ever heard of, save perhaps for the Iruvians. But those knife-eared isolationists rarely developed new devices, choosing simply to export the raw materials and import the technology.

He wondered if these rural people would dig underground like the Iruvians to shield themselves. Or perhaps they would abandon technology completely like the tribes of Mizdrak had centuries past. Would these people prefer to hunt and gather like their ancient ancestors on Earth, to avoid the inevitable collapse from the Stormhaze Event? Or would the opposite happen, build skyscrapers to fuel the next evolution in cybernetics?

"Friend!" Gillien called out with his arms raised as a small garrison approached from Zenobia's domineering gunship.

"Regiment?" a firm old woman demanded as she stepped forth.

"Etherion guards, sworn to Grand Arkon Kilas Istendil. Our commander is General Brodd." Gillien said, recognizing her immediately as Xianwei—an unyielding general from the old east, and Zenobia's closest advisor.