Daughters of Men

Chapter One

Isak picked his way over the tumble of fallen bricks and wood. His balance wavered as he worked against the steep incline of the rubble, chunks of mortar rolling away, crumbling to finer fragments of dust as he reached down to steady himself on the shifting pile. Before he could right himself, a shout went up. He turned his head, listening through the patter of rain and the mingled voices of too many others. The cry shaped itself into words—a call for help, for a surgeon, for someone to identify the remains. Another body uncovered, then. Isak shook the drizzle out of his eyes and moved on. If it had been anything of real value, not even a whisper would have marked the find.

The path to the bottom was more a stream of filth, cutting its way through the debris. Slick and oily, the rainwater transformed the dirt to an even fouler mud that made him slip twice before he made it to pavement. On stable ground, he turned up his collar and tugged down on the knit cap that covered most of his hair. But the moisture still found its way onto the sliver of bare skin at the back of his neck, running down the back of his shirt and sending a chill through his bones.

"Isak!"

Through the haze of mist that seemed to exist without origin, he spotted another boy. Ben, he realized, and bit at the inside of his cheek before a curse could tumble out. The other boy stood several inches shorter than him, his shoulders broader beneath a nearly nonexistent neck. Ben tipped his head to one side, surveying Isak with a pinched face.

"Not much left, eh?" He stuck out his pointed chin in the direction of the ruin.

Isak shook his head, and shoved his hands into his pockets, letting his shoulders roll forward. His coat was large, he knew, hopefully large enough to conceal everything he'd stashed inside it during the beginning of the search.

Ben made his way towards the mound of stones and refuse. He tripped on the edge of a splintered board but straightened again with some speed, as if the sharpness of his reflexes would be enough to disguise the embarrassment that darkened his narrow face. "I'd say I'm about ready to pack it in. How about you?"

Isak scratched at his cheek. He realized too late that his blackened fingers had no doubt transferred a measure of filth onto his face. "They'll be stripping the bodies next, searching through their pockets." Another shake of his head. "I don't want anything to do with that."

The path away from the collapse was tricky, but Ben took it at a run, broken bricks and mud splattering in his wake. Isak chose a more careful route, though he still slid several times as the unstable ground carried his feet out from under him. At the edge of the ruin, Ben yanked at his cap, revealing a pale thatch of hair that appeared almost colorless beneath the cloudy sky, his hair blending neatly into his skin.

"Cor, but I think my stomach's about to eat itself," he announced, holding his hand against his abdomen for greater effect. "You wanna go find something? I'm about to keel over if I don't get a layer in there soon. I'll wager Birger has something he'll share with us. Not much, but he's always hoarding some bread or a bit of cheese under that desk of his."

Isak glanced left and right. They stood in the middle of the street, while their fellow pedestrians pressed close to one another in order to better skirt the pile of debris that spilled out across the pavement. Behind him, people continued to work, digging with broken trowels and picks, or with their bare hands when nothing else proved convenient. For a moment, he thought he caught the sound of wailing, but he shook his head, telling himself it was nothing more than his ears playing tricks on him.

"C'mon, Isak! Before we've got the bloody police breathing down our necks!"

He looked over at Ben, startled to hear his name repeated against the backdrop of murmured voices and foot traffic that lent its rush of sound to the general thrum of life that reverberated through the East End. "I'm sorry, what?"