Bandits

Chapter 1: Bandits

Gideon sat on the railing of a fence watching the lights of falling stars dance across the dark sky. He had never quite fit in around the village. He had never been satisfied with the life of a farmer. The vast expanse of the sky and the adventure it promised seemed too much for him to resist. His obsession tended to get him into trouble; when he should be hard at work plowing the fields, often his uncle would find him gazing at the stars, or when it was time to bring the harvest into town Gideon would be off practicing swordsmanship with a tree branch.

Today was no different; Gideon's pitchfork lay unused beside him and a mound of hay lay entirely un-bucked at his back. How could he be expected to work on a day like this? Dark Days only happened five or six times a year, how could anyone treat it like it was just another workday? Stars that were invisible most times of year now graced Gideon's eyes with their light. Wonder and awe filled him. Though he was only eleven years old, for as long as he could remember he had wanted to travel the Petra Field on one of the great skyships. He got it from his father, he supposed. His father had been a deckhand on a trade cog, one of the three that sailed out of Lentus. Three years ago his ship was raided by bandits, and the vessel and all the crew were lost.

Ever since then Gideon had lived and worked on his uncle Thomas' wheat farm. He tried to be a hard worker, he tried to make his uncle proud, but the lure of the sky was too great. Gideon longed to fly, to see more of Regius than Lentus had to offer. He wanted to see the great spires and domes of Palateo, the vast palace in Reliquem, and the numberless throngs of people in Solium. And the very thought of traveling on a skyship—how could he be satisfied to live out his life as a farmer when there was so much to see? So much to do?

"There you are!" The angry greeting brought Gideon out of his imaginings and back to the task at hand, a very incomplete task at hand. "Honestly boy, I asked you to do one thing—one simple thing. You can't even buck the hay without losing yourself to your daydreams."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Thomas, I just, the sky–"

"The sky?" sneered his uncle. "It's the same sky as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Why can't you just go make yourself useful and take this into town and see if the smithy can fix it?"

Thomas handed Gideon a broken shovel. The head was cracked down the middle and the handle was splintered and rotting.

"But we've never used this shovel, it's been sitting in the barn for ages. We've got plenty of shovels."

"I know, I just want you out of here so I can actually get some work done! Now, do you think you can manage this? Or do I need to ask someone more reliable like, say, the dog?"

Gideon looked at his feet, embarrassment rising in his cheeks. "No, Uncle, I can handle this. I promise."

Thomas crossed his thick arms in front of his wide chest. His muscles were strong and defined, his jaw and nose were crooked where they had been broken and poorly reset. All in all, Thomas was not a man that Gideon was looking to irritate. He grumbled something inaudible then turned to walk back toward the barn.

Gideon sighed. Maybe Uncle was right. No one from Lentus ever got a part in the Armada, few even managed to join the crews of trade ships. Maybe it was time for Gideon to accept that his life was here, on Lentus, the life of a farmer. It could be worse, he supposed, as he vaulted over the fence, shovel in hand. He could be a miner on one of the thousands of tiny fragemns, or he could be one of the foot soldiers sent to fight the vicious Bandits—few of them ever survived. It could certainly be worse than being a farmer.