Outlanders

Chapter 30: Revolt

"Zoltána," said Erdmuth, "I have bad news."

Zoltána sighed. "Don't we all? Let's hear it."

"We have a threat from one of the factories. I am not sure which."

Erdmuth handed over a thin slip of cheap paper listing the factory bosses' demands in nine long sentences. Zoltána clenched the paper, her eyes passing quickly over the typewritten letters.

"They talk as if they still have enough workers," Zoltána noted. "Do you suppose they're bluffing?"

"I don't know."

Zoltána hummed with thought. "Do you have anything else to do today?"

"Aside from the business with the orphan, no."

"Then I have a favor to ask you. I need a count of how many people we have. It doesn't have to be exact. Can you do that by tomorrow?"

"Yes, Zoltána."

"Thank you."

With that, Zoltána returned to the tenement where they stayed. There, she found Eva holding up a book, the children arrayed on and around her lap, their eyes all locked onto its yellowed pages. Not far from them, Leif leaned over an old desk and wrote something with a feather pen, his nose barely an inch above the paper.

"Hello, Zoltána," said Eva, looking up from her book.

The children echoed her in chorus.

"Welcome back, dear," said Leif, his ears training on her.

Zoltána sighed heavily. "It's so good to see you again. All of you." She stepped up to Leif. "Are you writing someone a letter?"

"Not really. I'm practicing my penmanship. It's been a long time since I've written anything. In the north, we spoke basically the same language as you do, but we didn't have any alphabet. I had to learn this from nothing."

"Really? Who taught you?"

"Well, there's an odd story behind that." Leif took his eyes of his letter and sat up, stretching his back. "Do you want the long answer?"

Zoltána sat down on her cot and motioned Leif to join her. "Honey," she said, "one of your stories sounds perfect now."

* * *

Qasikay and her army marched down the wide, ruddy expanse that passed for a road in these lands. After nearly a day of walking, the soldiers seemed to have gotten accustomed to the flatter terrain. The same could not be said for the pack llamas. Watching them forge awkwardly through the brush and grime, she could not help but pity the poor, mindless beasts.

Qasikay managed a thin smile, remembering how hard it had been for her to get accustomed to these lands. Now, at least, she was not alone.

Inevitably, her smile vanished when her eyes fell on Astrapi. He walked behind her, led by his bound wrists. That handsome face had lost some of its hope, and beneath it, she saw betrayal. She saw herself.

"You cannot hurt me," she murmured. "I am an Inti. Inti hearts do not break."

One of her advisors perked. "Did you say something, general?"

"Keep marching, soldier."

* * *

Leif slept quietly in the tenement with Zoltána and the rest, his chest slowly rising and falling as the stale air puffed through his lungs. For seven days now, he had slept in Textile Town, and still he was unused to the feeling of grime in his fur. Wriggling under his sheet, he tried to remove the heavy sensation from his coat, longing to feel his hairs air out once again.