gently tugging me up the stairs.
The sudden flash of light at the surface is overwhelming, made so by our brief stint in darkness despite the lanterns within the bunker. I reach up to cover my eyes, but Wade is too far ahead of me, the rope instead tensing and pulling me his direction.
I decide to swallow my frustration and deal with the lack of freedom I have to even move as I please until we get into Vanguard. Once we reach the road a few miles away, which we’ve been shadowing for a couple days now, we take a break so that Yori can completely cover our heads with thick hoods.
We walk much slower after that since it’s hard to see beyond our steps with heads down, something Yori explains will identify us as serfs before we reach the gate. I mostly just try to study the ground and keep my mind from focusing on how sore and tired my body is from weeks of travel, but every once in a while I start walking a little too slowly and get a sudden jerk from Wade as the distance between us becomes too great. I get more irritated each time it happens, but I somehow manage to refrain from getting outwardly upset with him.
Late in the afternoon, we come across the first of several guard patrols. My head is bowed too low to see their faces, but their feet and legs are armored in a manner similar to the soldiers of Kalepo. Fortunately, they do not stop to inquire about us, though I do at one point tilt my head to the side and notice Yori’s hand subtly over the handle of his blade as they pass.
“We’re almost there, you can take a look Kaela,” Yori whispers back after another long while, anticipating my desire to behold the first real city I’ve seen other than my childhood home.
Even from such a distance, the size of the city is a wondrous sight. I don’t know why, but I had imagined Vanguard as something smaller. Its great wall and towers stretch all the way down to the river and even across it, seemingly swallowing the water at its far edge. More buildings reside on the opposite shore, though they pale in comparison to the city on our side.
Yet despite its grandiose appearance, there is scarring and inconsistency throughout the wall’s construction that leads me to conclude it has been through much destruction. There are areas that seem to have been rebuilt entirely, with materials not matching in color or pattern. Some parts also seem to be crumbling and falling into disrepair. This differs greatly from Kalepo, where everything matches like a beautiful piece of art.
I can imagine, considering all that Yori has told me concerning the wars that have occurred over the ages here in the plains, that this place has been the site of much death and sorrow. Yet it remains standing in triumph, a memorial of worse times. Still, I fear with all the urgency and mystique that surrounds my arrival that the worst of it might be just around the corner.
Overall, the city is beautiful, and I admire it for a moment as we get closer, in particular the way that the pinkened evening sky illuminates the stones of the wall, giving it a peaceful aura even in this clouded wilderness. But that peace immediately flees the instant I notice a large contingent of soldiers standing at attention near the entrance and tuck my head back down.
My heartbeat quickens with each passing step, my breathing accelerated as I think about what will happen if we get caught. Would they kill us? Throw us into a tower or jail? Or worse? Maybe they would take me back to Anastasia. The thought makes me shudder. Whatever feigned kindness she had offered me before would surely be gone, replaced by her true dark self.
Someone calls out ahead of us just as the city walls come into my slanted view. I can’t make out what he’s saying at first, but as he gets closer, his scruffy voice becomes clearer.
“If you’ve any other place to be, turn around.”
Wade’s footsteps stop, and I follow suit. A brief silence follows until Yori speaks up.
“And if I don’t?”
He speaks half-heartedly, as though the warning means nothing to him.
“You look like you’ve been dragged behind some horses,” the man replies, his voice a little calmer now.
“Yeah, by these two mutts,” he says derisively, jerking forward on the rope and nearly dragging me to my knees.
“Caught two runaways all by yourself?”
“No, there was another,” Yori says softly.
It gets quiet for a moment, then my heart jumps as I hear the man stepping toward me.
“It’s been a long week,” Yori interrupts, walking after him and stopping him from getting any nearer to me. “I just need a place to rest, resupply, and get these two back home.”
“I’ll have to see their records.”
“Do I look like I have them? I barely got out with my—”
“You can’t bring them into the city without them,” the man interrupts. “Don’t give that smirk like you should be surprised, this is how things work.”
Yori pauses, and I feel like we’ve already lost. But then he starts speaking with a lot of emotion.
“If I go back out there, I die, either by their filthy hands, some beast, or worse.”
“Then let them go free and you may enter, it’s simple as that.”
“You know that I can’t return empty-handed,” Yori pleads.
There’s another pause, one I don’t quite understand. Then a surprising concession by the man barring our entry.
“Wait here, let me go talk to the captain of the gate.”
The time comes and goes quickly, my heart racing with every beat, fearful that at some point they will insist on uncovering us. But to my surprise, the man returns and grants permission to enter with a hospitable calmness in his voice.
“You are free to enter the city,” he says, the sound of unfolding paper scratching in my ears as he continues giving instructions. “These documents will let you keep your cargo in holding, but only for tonight. In the morning you need to report back at this gate, not the south or river gates, and leave the city by midday. If you don’t meet all these conditions, you will be arrested on site, do you under—”
“Of course,” Yori says excitedly, the noise of crumpling paper suggesting that he has taken the documents and is stuffing them in his vest. “You’ve saved my life.”
“Today, at least,” the man mumbles as he walks away.
With another tug on the rope, Yori has us headed into the city. Once we get beyond the gate and walls, the sound of rushing crowds immediately encompasses me, as well as the smells of food and spices. This is hardly the impoverished city I was expecting in a place so dire. Instead, wonderful aromas tickle my nostrils as throngs of people push by.
It reminds me of Kalepo, except the streets here are stuffier, more frantic. I can’t help but look around at people, see their faces, and wonder what is going on in their minds. My father once told me that you can see people’s stories by looking into their eyes, and if that is true, then I see a lot of difficulty and hardship. There is definitely an anxiety, a fear beneath the surface of this hectic place, but maybe it has something to do with the hurried movement of soldiers throughout the city.
“So strange,” Yori muses. “You can feel the panic.”
His words, directed toward us, make me feel as though we are safe to walk a little taller. I lift my eyes up and find that he is glancing back at me.
“Not here,” Wade says snappily to my left, “We should wait until we get somewhere less likely to have eyes.”
Yori nods, and I lower my head a little more to avoid the periodic glares I’ve been getting from people. We turn right just before a bridge that goes over a canal, one of many I’ve noticed throughout the city, and walk along it until we cut back into a narrow corridor leading to a square.
The square is empty, at its center several low-hanging trees whose branches are heavy with dark green leaves. I observe them, admiring that such luscious things could thrive in the shadows below the wide edifices here that hide all the light. The buildings themselves are made of a white-cream brick, unlike the darker sorts used in many of the city’s other structures, but the differences go beyond cosmetics and into actual design. The
peculiar architecture used for the buildings surrounding this square, along with how timber is integrated into their framing, makes them quite unique. Yet they appear abandoned despite their obvious appeal, contrasting with the bustling parts of the city we traversed just moments ago. It’s difficult to even hear the crowds from this secluded nook.
“Why is there no one here?” I ask.
“This is the new quarter,” Yori explains while untying me. “It was developed when the rangers first came, one of the original settlements offered by the river cities as refugees from our world poured in. That’s why it looks so different.”
“So is this how buildings looked where you came from?”
“Kind of,” Yori answers. “It all depends on the resources you have available. These lands had limited timber, at least at that time, so our builders did the best they could with the kinds of stone, brick, and cement available. This was the result.”
“Makes sense,” I muse.
Considering the history, there is an inescapable elegance to the structures that surround me beyond their eye-catching appeal. They would be better described as works of art, of meaning, but I could really say that about the rest of the city as well. It is, in a way, like a painting, one where artists of different ages and styles stroked different parts of the canvass, creating a synthesis of different eras, or rather, of different worlds.
“To answer your actual question,” Wade says abruptly,