Sons of Chenia

Chapter 1

Tobin hated the silence.

It hung in the air, suspended by the fog that blanketed the Green River, a wall that grew around him to stifle all sound. The quiet was so menacing that all movement slowed to a crawl, lest any motion measured in seconds be made to produce a sound. Tobin opened his mouth, not so much to speak, but just to make sure he still could. The silence choked him up, so that even should he need to yell, out of distress or as a warning, he would be less than able. The silence, just as the water around him, had the ability to drown.

Tobin dipped his fingers into the river. They raked the water, creating the smallest ripples that disappear into those made by the rudder. Tobin turned back to Alexandrov, who stood at the helm of the raft, guiding it through the swift current. This time the silence works to our favor, Tobin told himself. The current will take us all the way to camp. Our raft will glide through the water the way a breeze stirs a length of silk. Quietly. A feather in the wind.

The arrival will be effortless. As for the departure - it will be a miracle if they can manage to pull it off at all. Tobin closed his eyes. He breathed. His focus drifted away from the challenge at hand, to the cool sensation that kissed his fingertips. His hand turned numb from the icy touch that had crawled up his arm. But Tobin didn't care. He liked it. To his surprise, as he thought about the Green River, he smiled.

Alexandrov's firm hand on his shoulder broke his trance. His calm demeanor now gone, Tobin opened his eyes to find the faint outline of a riverbank ahead. It seemed inviting at first, the sight of a calm, flat beach along the river with no debris or snags to stop the raft. But as they drew nearer, the fog that covered the river thinned. It was then that Tobin saw what really awaited them on the shoreline: despair.

Up and down the bank, dozens of tents lined the river in random order. There was no structure to this shanty town. Each tent was unlike the one next to it, as all of them had been built from whatever materials were at hand. Strung together with thread and cords, the shelters provided little in the way of comfort or protection. All it would have taken is a single downpour to raise the river a few feet and all that the inhabitants had left would be lost.

Those that lived in this squalor varied as much as their tents. Some meandered outside their dwellings, in little more than tatters, mumbling to themselves. The sheer waiting for rescue after months drove some insane with anxiety. Others – through all odds – endured through hardships to make the most of their circumstances. How they escaped persecution to come to this refugee camp with any glimmer of hope was impossible to imagine. But somehow they carried on, as evidenced by how much cleaner their tents looked from others, in how there was always plenty of firewood outside their dwelling even though others helped themselves frequently. A deeper sense of pride, of wanting to raise themselves up from their hardships, burned within them. That was the range of people who dwelled in these camps. From the destitute in spirit to the enduring phoenixes, these refugees gathered on the Green River for whatever chance they had to escape.

This sight was far from a surprise for Tobin. This was his third visit in a month to the western banks of the Green River. His first time was more than fifteen years ago. Back then, he and two other villagers rowed three canoes upstream to the riverbank. There were only seventeen refugees camped out along the reeds. Tobin and the others were able to transport them safely back to the southern bank without incident in one trip.

The rescue excursions continued for a short while before conditions on the western banks turned for the worst. Within two years the scene on the shores could not have been more different. Following the melting ice of spring, Tobin and the two others who had been with him in the beginning, floated up the river during the third year that the Purge had touched Osley. But this time, waiting for them on the shore were over two hundred despondent souls. Though no immediate danger was apparent in the bordering forest, the crowd rushed forward into the river upon seeing the canoes. All three were overrun by the mob. It was only because of Tobin's stature and his quick thinking that he was able to fend off the frantic, although his canoe did overturn as one or two of the stronger men reached the boat to try to climb inside. Tobin brushed them off before using his paddle to wade back deeper into the middle of the river, away from the panicked mob onshore. His two companions were not so fortunate. They drowned, trampled by the very people they had come to rescue. Whatever happened to their canoes, Tobin could not say. All that he knew was that he was the only one to return to Osley that night.