Scorched

[Gilhert Greysand]

The night's chill clung to the early morning air as Gilhert opened the door of his make-shift home and began to drag a large, tightly bound pack through the threshold. A cool and gentle wind whispered across the scrublands, rattling the beaded string that held his spectacles about his neck. He stared through hooded eyes, smirking slightly as his snout tilted up to the empty, endless sky.

Gilhert inhaled the morning air, tongue poking out to taste the dawn.

"There's a storm coming," the grey fox announced, glancing down the broken stone path at the prairie dog who awkwardly hoisted a heavy bag of his own onto his back. "It'll likely meet us at the village."

"Good!" Cyno breathed out, crouching under the weight upon his shoulders. "Water will be welcome. It's a three-day journey to Sandsline from here, after all, and everyone could use the drink."

Gilhert hummed acknowledgement but crossed his eyes to inspect his stiffened whiskers. He tilted his head and dryly remarked, "No, no rain, my friend, not this time."

Cyno barked in dismay. "No rain? But it's been so long!" The prairie dog let out a deep groan before collecting himself. "Will the sky ever break?"

"Eventually," Gilhert said, giving Cyno a sympathetic smile. "For now, we just have to be patient. The day will come, my boy."

As Cyno helped Gilhert shoulder his luggage, the wooden door to the crumbling abode behind them was kicked open and a tall vixen with an even taller pack stepped out. Pots and pans, woven blankets and stuffed pillows, painted clay vases of water and grains all clung to the wooden frame the vixen had tightly strapped everything onto. She carried herself with dignified ease, seemingly unburdened by her large pack as she made her way towards her husband.

"Made sure you got everything, my dear?" Gilhert asked, unable to stop the spreading of his grin when the vixen bent down and planted a kiss upon his brow.

"Yes, my love, everything. I found this..."

The vixen produced a carved bone pipe in the shape of a grinning alligator, the effigy's bowl-shaped maw already stuffed with dried leaves.

"Oh, my, my, what would I do without you, Arize?"

Gilhert chuckled, letting his mate gently place the pipe between his teeth. He leaned forward as Arize fished two short sticks from Gilhert's vest pocket. The sticks, no longer than her fingers, were bound at one end; as she clicked together the small stones embedded in the wood, Gilhert quickly inhaled and let the sparks catch the tobacco.

"Alrighty, Cyno," Gilhert said around a cloud of smoke. "Let's kick up some dust before the sun stews our hides."

As the three set off, Arize briefly turned to look at the naked stone ruins that had been so easily made into a home. Gone were the coloured banners that shielded them from the burning day, packed neatly into Arize's bag. No more did silver smoke snake into the sky from a dainty cooking fire.

Gilhert caught the vixen's sigh and gently took up her paw.

"Town'll be much nicer, my gem," Gilhert assured her, looking towards where the morning sky had begun to glow with orange and blue. "And once this drought is over, I can retire, and we can dig our own den. Somewhere nice, not some old forgotten rabbit hutch."

"I know. Sometimes, I just get tired of moving about." Arize mumbled, offering her mate a small, sad smile. She lifted her chin, ears perking in Cyno's direction.

"It's a shame we have to visit Sandsline again when there are other outposts that need help," Arize said, her mouth twisting into an unimpressed look. "Seems like we do this every year..."

Gilhert laughed, his gut wobbling as Cyno looked down in embarrassment.

"Doesn't she just cut cleaner than iron!"

~*~

The three promised days of sand and parched tongues had been dull and long. When their weary paws had finally stumbled into the grey and dusty town of Sandsline, their pelts were soaked through with sweat. Gilhert, with sturdy legs and a strong back, had driven them as quickly as he could across the barren landscape. While Arize had easily kept pace with her husband, the already exhausted Cyno had buckled constantly under his bag.

"Home at last, Cyno. Well done, my boy, you did alright."

At Gilhert's words, Cyno collapsed to his knees and rolled gracelessly onto his side. His lips, dry and beginning to crack, mouthed out a silent 'thank-you' as he lay on the ground, still tied into his heavy pack. The fox handed him a painted bota and Cyno sucked the last remaining drops of precious water from the skin.

Gilhert peered into the small town beyond the cracked and peeling sign that hung between two posts, a deep frown settling upon his brow.

Sandsline's thatched roofs were thinner than seasons past and the small clay storehouses that dotted the fields were crumbling and cracking from the heat. The one road through town was hard beneath Gilhert's paws, his claws settling on top of the dried soil without leaving so much as a dent. The only souls braving the midday heat were several skinny beasts that lounged about under the covered stoops of their creaking wooden homes.

"Quiet time of day," Gilhert muttered to Arize. He clicked his teeth in Cyno's direction. "Let's get him up and into some shade, then."

The two foxes helped Cyno to his feet, half-dragging the prairie dog to a wooden porch he pointed them to. There, they plopped him down and dragged him out of the straps that bound him to his pack.

"This is Missus Albi-Lee's haberdashery," Cyno explained. "She's offered to put you up for as long as you need."

Cyno gestured weakly to the open door behind him, covered only with a woven flap of cloth nailed to the top of the doorway. A single large window with four panes of dusty glass barely showed off dozens of button-filled jars and several rolls of sun-faded cloth.

Gilhert knocked on the doorframe. Almost immediately, a grey and brown woodrat with a colourfully banded shawl poked her head through the flap, sending a bemused Gilhert back a pace.

"Missus Albi-Lee, I presume?" Gilhert drawled, offering her an easy smile. The rat blinked at him several dozen times before excitedly bobbing her head up and down as she looked over the visitors.

"Oh! Oh! Cyno has returned! Oh!" she cried, the entirety of her little round body bursting out of the narrow doorway. "Oh! Oh! Toma! Toma! Bring some cactus milk! Cyno has returned with the interpreter!"

The rat's excited squeals brought a larger, rounder rat outside. His large, sleepy eyes widened upon seeing Gilhert and Arize and he quickly retreated back into the shop. A mere moment later, there was the sound of clinking glass as Toma reappeared with bottles of milky white liquid in each paw.

"Ah," Gilhert hummed happily as he accepted one of the skinny bottles and uncorked it. "How kind!"

Gilhert and Arize lowered their packs onto the haberdashery's porch and sat beside Cyno, sipping easily from their uncorked bottles as Missus Albi-Lee's many children scurried down the road to find Cyno's father.

It wasn't long before the woodrats returned. Walking slowly behind the several skipping pups, a prairie dog with a silver-streaked pelt approached and Cyno nudged Gilhert. They stood, greeting the beast with a raised, open paw.

"Father!" Cyno approached the other prairie dog. Their noses briefly touched, twitching as they sniffed at the face of the other. "I've brought you the interpreter Gilhert Greysand." He gestured to the fox, bowing his head.

"Sylian," Gilhert greeted, touching his whiskers to the smaller beast.

"Greysand," the old prairie dog slowly said. "Thank-you for coming with my son. Our troubles are running very deep. I hope you can help us as you have in the past."

"Of course! I've brought my notes from my previous visits. What's giving you grief, now?"

~*~

The field of agave sat desiccating next to ruined row after row of grey and beige prickly pear plants. A kangaroo rat ladled water from a barrel onto the survivors that still showed green while, behind her, the woodrat pups played tag around the spread-eagled form of an antelope squirrel lying in the dust.

"Just step right over old Burrows, there," Sylian said, poking nonchalantly at the unconscious squirrel. "He wasn't always useless, what with keeping the crop-eating bugs away. Now, he's just a bug wrangler with nothing to do but sample from our distillery."

Smelling the mezcal drooling out of Burrows' wide-open mouth, Gilhert's nose curled. He moved around the squirrel, following after Sylian as the prairie dog nudged dead plants with his cane.

"You see, Greysand? It happened so fast, barely past spring this year when half the field was almost dried up...Cactus shouldn't be doing that. You said yourself, seasons ago, that these crops will last. Well, we dug our dens deep into these ones, and while they've fed us and filled our kettles, they won't be lasting much longer."

Gilhert looked across the field, his face blank and eyes unblinking behind his spectacles. In his paw, a small book bound with woven reeds fell open. A stick of charcoal made quick little marks as Gilhert wrote out the scene before him.

"I see gaps in the rows."

"We've been salvaging some of the agave. Ropes need to be braided, roofs thatched, baskets woven, kits are growing and need new clothes all the time..."

The fox hummed quietly, jotting down more of his observations. He walked ahead of the prairie dog, bending to inspect the drooping arms of an agave. He scratched at the dirt with his claws, then at his notebook, grabbing up fistfuls of soil to smell and taste before crumbling the dried and useless sand in his paw. The afternoon passed in the fields under the heat of the sun beating down on Gilhert's broad back.

When Gilhert's book finally snapped shut, he stood silent for several moments.

Sylian, having jolted awake at the sound of the closing notebook, began the slow process of lifting himself from the ground.

"Well, Greysand?"

"How much water do you have left?"

Sylian sighed, slowly and deeply, and shook his head. "Sandy Lake dried up about two weeks ago; we scraped the bottom but there is nothing there, not even mud. Without the spring rains, we're parched. The cistern is down to its bones; even the distillery hasn't produced a fresh batch since last year..."

"I suspect the rest of the clan isn't very pleased one of their main trading commodities isn't being pushed. Have they offered you any of their water?"

"We reached out to the other villages of the Long Tooth clan..." Sylian shrugged and shook his head.

"But they're just as thirsty as you." Gilhert sighed and tapped his chin. "Most other Long Tooth towns still aren't trading with their neighbours-"

"Can you blame them?" Sylian barked. "The Curved Claws and Long Tooths have been at each other's throats since before the Gila's robbed our ancestors of our lands."

Gilhert offered the prairie dog a fanged smile. "Never stopped you from shaking paws, Sylian. I know all sort of tales about you running crates of mezcal and cactus milk across clan lands while keeping the Gilas blinder than a toad at noon."

The fox's olive eyes flickered to Sylian's cane. 

"Heard you use that stick of yours not because you're silver but because you grazed your haunches on a lizard that had tried to bite your roast before you were cooked, so I know you aren't shy. Have you reached out to the Denner for help? Their mines sometimes find springs."

"True as it may be that I trade with the Curved Claw and even your gem-eating Denner kind," Sylian said hoarsely, "nobody is trading away water. Not for anything."

Gilhert's smile faded as he turned away and looked towards the distant Sandsline. Smoke rose from almost every chimney standing against the sharp, grey clouds that reached across the sky, blown by a wind that kicked up dust across the dead field.

~*~

While Missus Albi-Lee's shop had proved cluttered and cramped, the woodrat had been perfectly capable of keeping track of supper. She served the Greysands plates of toasted flat bread with lime and avocado spread sprinkled with sunflower seeds beside pickled carrot roots and marigold petal salad. Her children then presented wood bowls of hot pepper and pumpkin soup full of seeds and corn, delighting in Gilhert's enthusiastic slurping. The rats squeezed lime juice over whole baked potatoes rolled in salt, wrapped in maguey leaves, and roasted in a clay oven, all the while encouraging the foxes to leave room for sliced yucca sweetcakes drizzled with agave syrup and sips of prickly pear juice.

The feast was enough to feed the entire town, and Gilhert delighted in every bite.

"Missus Albi-Lee, your cooking leaves me ready to meet my maker and invite them down for dinner!"

Albi-Lee beamed at her guests and uncorked a bottle of clear mezcal to settle their stomachs. Behind her, Toma poured uneaten soup into jars which he passed off to his children to store away.

When the dishes had been cleared and both husbands had lit their pipes, the children of Albi-Lee gathered around Arize's feet and watched their mother pierce new holes into the vixen's ears. Glittering peridot studs were gently nestled between the silver hoops and dangling garnet teardrops that already decorated Arize.

The smallest child, wearing yellow bows around her ears, tugged on Arize's long skirt. She stared with wide eyes at the glowing green stones.

"Little Petal, just the gal I wanted to see! Do you like my lovely earrings? Your mother is so kind to give them to me!" Arize tilted her head, letting the gems glitter in the candlelight.

"After everything your husband has done for us folk here, setting us all up so well for so long, it's the least I can do to show our appreciation!" Albi-Lee replied.

"Burrows said foxes are good luck," Petal stated, momentarily tearing her eyes away from the earrings to watch Gilhert flip through his notebook. "Does that mean you can fix the crops?

"Of course, little mallow," the fox replied. He chewed on the tail end of his alligator pipe, the carved grin glowing orange. "I'll see that everything ends well for Sandsline."

~*~

The bed Missus Albi-Lee had put the Greysands up in was small and meant for a single body. Gilhert did not mind at all, curling tightly around his wife's lithe form and shamelessly tickling her back with his whiskers until she swatted him away and demanded sleep for her paws and soul. He chuckled, rolled over, and eventually had nothing but the soft sound of Arize's breathing for company.

His mind, as it often did in moments meant for rest, refused to stop ticking. The grey soil and greyer leaves of agave plants had startled him in the daylight and now, through the window, their boney stalks reached up from their baked graves to a sky that was grey with cloud and barren of water. Without that crop, even if the prickly pears grew in with just enough vigor to feed the town for but a single season, Sandsline would dry up like shed lizard skin.

Clothes, roofs, baskets, shoes, food, the distillery. The plants shouldn't have failed; I picked them so carefully. For living, for trading... Copper, salt... They're perfect for this area, for the type of soil. Medicine, lumber... Even if the folk can't water them as consistently as they ought to, they still should survive...

"This drought...it's destroying...everything," Gilhert murmured to the darkness.

Sandsline isn't some fine city, but it's still known throughout the Long Tooth clan. If they can't get help, then how are the other outposts of the Long Tooth supposed to make it...

Gilhert sat up, reaching to the nightstand for his tobacco pouch and his notebook.

I've never heard of a drought like this outside of stories. If Sandsline dies...if they blame me...

The fox grabbed up his pipe and striker, and carefully slipped away from Arize's side. Slinging his travelling cloak about his shoulders, he crept through the sleeping household and made his way to the haberdashery's porch.

A rocking chair greeted the fox; he seized its empty seat and began stuffing and lighting his pipe.

Thunder rolled over the sky, shaking the stones on the road. Gilhert's whiskers stood stiff on either side of his face as he peered up at the overcast sky.

"What to do, what to do..." the fox mumbled to himself. His chair creaked with every thought that passed through his head.

They'll starve. They'll die of thirst before they starve. There won't be enough of a harvest to keep everyone going. Depending on how deep their root cellars are, the drought may very well outlast them...

"There's got to be a way. I can't be the one who failed 'em all."

Gilhert began to thumb through pages of weather observations and lake depth counts. He looked up sharply from his notes as a bolt of lightning arced over the town, lighting up the roofs and billowing laundry lines.

~*~

A bell rang, its rich, brassy tones cutting through the thunder and crackling orange light that engulfed Sandsline. The distillery at the far end of town shook with every note, it's peeling white paint bubbling in the heat.

Townsbeasts ran in every direction, screaming warnings and pleading for help as wind-swept embers showered down from the neighbouring fields and storehouses, threatening to set new fires from unlit homes. Every available paw hurled basket after basket of sand onto the well-fed flames while others desperately tried to hurl their valuables and children from windows choked with smoke.

The distillery exploded in the early morning, just as the sun was cresting. Pieces of burning wood, glass, and hot metal rained down onto Sandsline, shattering windows and punching holes through walls.

~*~

It took two days for the fields to finish burning. Gilhert still felt the flames searing through his pelt; the crops had been so parched, so utterly desperate for water that they had simply ignited into a blanket of dancing fire. The livelihood of an entire town had been cremated beneath the grey clouds that refused to spare but a single drop of rain.

The homes and shops of Sandsline stood wounded, barely clinging to their bones. The buildings were all stained a chilling, pale grey from the ash that was blanketing the town in the aftermath of the fire. A glass cutting shop had burned down to its foundations, ruined and smouldering next to a bakery. The family had escaped alive but lost everything within when the flour dusting every surface had ignited.

"Petal! Where are you?! Where, Petal, where...!"

Missus Albi-Lee's increasingly hollow calls drifted up and down the town road, the glassy, unblinking eyes of only three of her children watching from their smoke-blackened doorway. Toma walked beside her, their arms linked as he held his wife upright, trying to coax her back home.

"Lightening struck the field. Must have been in several places... Cyno?"

Mere steps away from Gilhert on what remained of the haberdashery porch, Cyno seemed not to hear the interpreter's voice over the desperate mother's cries down the road.

"Cyno!" Sylian barked, placing a firm paw on his son's ash-smudged shoulder and giving him a rough shake. "We need to focus. Come on back, boy."

The prairie dog shuddered, screwing his eyes shut before forcing himself to look at the others. His ears flicked towards the sound of Albi-Lee's distant voice.

"It was a vicious storm, for sure." Sylian turned to Gilhert. "More than one strike?"

"Oh, my, my, yes, at least," Gilhert replied, nodding slowly. "No doubt, there'll be glass to be found in the fields."

Albi-Lee's voice somehow seemed closer when she next screamed out her missing daughter's name, her shriek hitched and far louder than before. All three beasts turned towards the distillery, it's burnt shell as broken as the small crowd that had gathered in front of it's remains.

A freezing cold feeling sank low into Gilhert's stomach. He swallowed, standing from the rocking chair and stepping into the road. Cyno hurried past him, grabbing up a shovel for what the young creature desperately hoped would be a rescue attempt.

"May that poor little soul find her ancestors waiting for her..." Sylian bowed and shook his head, brushing a claw over his eyes.

Gilhert watched, jaw tightly clenched, as Cyno and several other townsfolk began to pull from the ruble a small, disfigured, and blackened body. The fox's nose flared as he tried to smell anything but smoke.

~*~

Albi-Lee's wails carried on throughout the day and well into the night. Her husband did his best to console her while Arize distracted their terrified children.

Between his trembling claws, Cyno gripped at the singed remains of a yellow ribbon.

"Little thing's older sister says she went to warn old Burrow of the fire; he's been sleeping there lately to hit the drink earlier and she figured that drunk wouldn't wake up in time to run," Cyno told Gilhert from across the porch. "Turns out, neither of 'em was getting out of there alive."

Gilhert took a swig of mezcal before passing it to the prairie dog. They sat in silence, passing the bottle back and forth until finally the wailing petered into haggard crying.

"Sandsline is going to die," Cyno whispered, looking down at his still-shaking paws. He turned to Gilhert and stared at him until the fox was forced to meet his wide eyes.

"There's no point in rebuilding, is there, Interpreter?"

Gilhert shook his head. "No. The damage is...incorrigible."

"So we die, too."

Gilherts' breath caught in his throat as the bottle hovered just in front of his lips. His mind ticked, desperately trying to find a few words of comfort, or of hope, or advice. There was nothing that came to mind and the fox wondered if Cyno was right.

"Everything my father fought for... everything I helped build so that we could live happy... for nothing."

Cyno took the bottle from Gilhert's paw and swallowed back the rest. He tossed the empty glass into the street where it shattered, pieces glittering amongst the ash and wreckage.

You're not the only ones.

Gilhert's ears perked up. He stopped rocking in his chair.

"We...we worked for a future, you, your father, myself, 'n many others like us. Many in this town, I'm sure, struggled for a life where we could govern ourselves freely and be happy," Gilhert began. "Many others who would want to help not just your town, but the Clan, if'n they knew what was happening out here."

"The Clan?" Cyno's lip curled up.

"Yes, the Long Tooth. The Denner, the Curved Claw, and the Sky – all five clans ought to know!"

Gilhert leaned forward, directing a claw towards the now barren fields in the distance.

"Your town was suffering from drought already before it took a mighty killing blow from the sky itself; how many other towns you think I've seen are suffering, awaiting a similar fate? Fire, or drought, or hunger; the South lands are struggling. I've been doing this for years, Cyno; there are those who will want to prepare. Your Clan, once they get wind of this wretched business, they'll remember fear. They'll remember what it was like to be hungry and desperate. So will the other Walking Stones."

"What are you saying? That we should call upon the Clan to help us rebuild?" Cyno's face scrunched into an unimpressed grimace. "We tried that before. We've tried everything to have a chance; now we're worse off and nobody can help us!"

"No," Gilhert insisted, shaking his head. "I'm suggesting we go to the one who made sure all of us Southlands folk could have a chance. I shall inform him of what's happening and he shall command the other clans to help you. Then, he can set about helping the others, so they don't have to suffer what you 'n yours are."

"You mean..." Cyno trailed off, frowning.

"The people of Sandsline need to go to Kango Chainbreaker," Gilhert pressed. He picked his shaded glasses up from where they hung around his neck and began to polish them on his soft cloak.

"He has the power to save you, your father... your people! Without his help, no one will give you another thought," the fox finished, watching Cyno from the corner of his eyes.

Cyno chewed his lips and stared at the interpreter.

"You think the Chainbreaker would bother with us?"

Once he sees he has no choice, I reckon.

Gilhert smiled widely at Cyno and nodded.

"He fought too hard for the Clans. He won't let his people suffer if he can do a thing to stop it. Sandsline could set something mighty into motion, Cyno. I'll help you."

The prairie dog's paws began to slow their tremors, stilling in his lap. The ghost of a hopeful smile haunted his mouth as light returned to his exhausted eyes.

~*~

The night's chill clung to the early morning air as Arize packed up the rest of her belongings and hauled a large rucksack out of the haberdashery.

Sandsline was already in action, with beasts gathering as much of their surviving possessions and goods as they could carry. Food, water, clothes, tools, medicine; anything that would be of use on the journey to the Chainbreaker's court piled into makeshift carts drawn by strong farm-worked paws.

Gilhert, standing beneath the swaying town sign, put his shaded glasses on. He tucked a small telescope back into his pack then held his paw out for Arize as she glanced back one last time at the lost town of Sandsline and the desperate beasts trailing after them.

"Got everything, my gem?" Gilhert asked her.

The vixen adjusted the copper knife on her braided cord belt, a paw resting on the petrified wood handle before she hid it beneath her colourful cotton cloak.

"Yes, my love. Everything."