“You’re not trying to hide up there, are you, Morrigan? Oldfield’s waiting! You’ll have his bootprints permanent marked into the doorstep if you take much longer. Tsh, to keep a captain waiting!”

  “I’m still collecting my things, Mam! Saying goodbye to stuff!”

  “You’ll be gone a year, two at most. You’ll barely have time to miss it!”

  That wasn’t true. A lot of the things my parents said weren’t true. More and more as the years went on, or maybe I was just realising it more, I don’t know. Not all of it was shouted up the stairs through my door: most of it was said directly to my face. And the rest, barely in earshot behind my back. It’d at least make a change to be gratuitously lied to by someone else –

  “Get down here this minute!” Two thumps on the wall below shook a shower of dust from the rafters. “Your mother’s already asked you twice!”

  I was far too tired for this. Exorbitant thoughts of the inevitable had kept me awake the whole week. I bit the inside of my cheek, not hard enough to draw blood – not yet anyway– and savoured a final look at my room. What a miserable thing to have to do. I patted my bed and stood. Everything I needed was in my kit bag but all the things I wanted were going to be left here without me – my books and notes and all my sketchpads, apart from the one I’d managed to stuff into my kit between my thickest clothes and beside the stash of all the coins I’d saved. Bird feathers strung up like pennants, hanging from wall to wall. Pouches of herbs I'd gathered and dried over the years that were told to bring luck, fortune, prosperity, safety… No point bringing them along what obviously didn’t work. Double checked the window and hoped the honey cups I’d left out would bring enough bugs to keep Calico fed for, I don’t know, long enough until she could work out how to live through the longfrost on her own. I whispered an apology and my last thanks to her, hoped the breeze would take it to her. And the very last thing before I got yelled at again, on my way out I brushed a hand over the small bed that’d lain empty for too long, too long, but that I’d had no choice but to leave standing in case one day he got back home. Somehow. Two empty beds now… My gut twisted.

  Nothing I lacked was fixable in the only mirror we owned, up the top of the stairs. My horns had never grown in long enough, proud enough to be worthwhile in the towns of the Sunken Woods; the green patches on my lavender skin never distinct enough to be noteworthy; deep red hair which draped instead of standing. Claws that never grew evenly; a stubby, scrawny little tail flicking behind me. Nothing I could do to make it better but pull my cowl low over my brow and try to convince myself what they all said wasn’t true.

  *

  Captain Oldfield was one of those men who looked objectively too good to be that much of an asshole. If anything it’d got worse over the years. A face and a height and a frame and a hairstyle that should have gone to someone far more deserving. Bold of skin, mighty of horns. A tail bedecked in gold. He pincered a rebellious hair from his trimmed moustache with two deft claws and eyed me. “Ah’ll put you on orienteering first, lad. Poor squab can’t even navigate his own home. We’ll sort you well and proper within the week, don’t you worry about it.” And then he laughed mightily at his own joke, and both my parents snickered along with him.

  “I don’t get it,” I said flatly and failed to stifle a yawn.

  His marbled brow dipped. “It’ll all make sense to you soon, son,” he said in a voice that rolled like an oncoming storm. “Always been a straggler, a fall-behind – but this is your big chance to make it proper! Aren’t ya excited, eh?” I ducked out of the meaty punch that almost hit my shoulder. “What a glorious field to shine your blade on! Three days, just give it three days and we’ll find your natural aptitudes and it’ll be like you were in the Troop all along. The Marshmen will cower before you, aye – I’ve always said there’s a fighter in you somewhere, lad. Don't worry yerself. We'll find it.” He jabbed a raw sausage of a finger into my solar plexus and I swallowed an acidic rebuke. “Alright, let’s move out. Few more to drag to the wagons before midday calls!”

  He turned and his boots squeaked like he’d stepped on a rat. And he left.

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  For an awful age, I was standing in the kitchen of my home. Hating it so much but hating the fear of the miasmic looming war somehow more. I counted through my plans but so many had evaporated through the week since the first carts rolled out… Still had a few left. But I couldn’t try them now, not here, not yet.

  “Mam,” I nodded. “Dad.” Nodded at him too. Yawned again. And I didn’t know what else to say.

  They both stood too proudly, chests puffed like preening doves. Red on their cheeks. Faces pulled achingly tight into masks of good and upright Foresters – not that they’d been staying upright easily any night this week, habitually home late after their studious evenings in the you-know-wheres. “Put proper honour on the Oakley name,” she said.

  “Show us the years haven’t been wasted,” he said. “We want good reports.”

  “Do it like we did,” they both said.

  I hid the shuddering revulsion under my cloak and just left. I didn’t want to ever be back, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  Oldfield was across the street, haunting the door of the Hammersmith’s place, arms akimbo like he’d been chiseled by some master craftsman – a craftsman who should’ve spent their time and skill doing entirely anything else. I saw the Hammersmith daughter at the market sometimes. Didn’t know her name. She was nice enough to buy tools and sewing needles from. Another of us who deserved far better. She came out blotchy and hiding her face in her sleeve, and so did a tall sliver of a girl I didn’t even recognise from the next house, and moving on, finally Sunder. Sunder looked like she’d only just woken up – knowing Sunder, she probably had. One verdance a few years ago, I’d spent weeks learning how to make bread from her the way her family’s generations had done it since the Clearing. I wasn’t much good but it didn’t matter. It was a blessed escape. The hells knew I’d needed one that year.

  *

  We were the last, so we got the caboose cart to ourselves. Lucky us, ay? Oldfield secured the little swing door that was barely worth having really, but he probably did it as an excuse to work those huge, thick, firm hands. He kneaded them as he headed off to the more important people – those who might even survive – and it was just us. Me, Sunder, the Hammersmith daughter, and another who by now was almost buried in her kit bag.

  I clung to mine, tapping my fingers, trying to find a way to make the rhythm feel right. Gnawing at my cheek. Eyes heavy. Checking through my plans. Now we were no longer watched, I could run for it and I didn’t think anyone here would mouse me up. Probably wouldn’t be worth the effort to come find me. If I were a Trooper, they’d send half the town as a search party. If I were Omen, the other half would insist on joining. But I’m not. I’m just me. That’s all.

  Another yawn kicked its way out of me. Every night this week had me laying sick with worry, snatching only fleeting hours of rest. I wasn’t suited for this, for any of this. Soon as I was put on the war front, I’d be turned to mincemeat or worse.

  I could never be Omen.

  But I could do a few things at least. The train of wagons wasn’t yet moving, but as soon as it was, I could take the first plan: slip over the sideboards and circumscribe the town and run south. If anyone saw me, it’d be over, but I found the folks here only ever noticed me if I was stealing something. Handy, sometimes. Far to the south lay Exile, a mining settlement lodged deep in the mountains the same way a forgotten cabbage lodges behind the larder shelves. I heard convicts were sent there from all across Wrevondale and indentured, convicted deserters especially. I’d never been but I’d seen the mule path, and they said you could walk there in a day. The deep woods weren’t too harsh unless it was snowing, as long as you knew what you were doing out there, and the snows weren’t due for a month. It’d be tough work in Exile but I figured they’d need people, especially with the war now. I could survive, at least.

  Sidetracking from that, I could always go and forge an existence in the deep woods in the way of our ancestors when the Clearing came. But I didn’t know anything about building a home in the wilderness except that it’d take a complete cobb to try it this late in the year. I'd spent a night out in the undergrowth once and had worked so hard since not to do it again. Even worse than Exile.

  Or there was some other old hamlet between here and Baronbridge – I passed the turning for it a few times a year when hitching a ride to the city on the odd trip for stuff we didn’t keep in Dreadfall, like books or wildflower seeds or a sense of humour. And the little place was always signposted like an afterthought. Like they never expected anyone to actually want to go there. A yawn like a punch to the gut now, still trying to keep my mind focused on the options but the week and honestly, the life was catching up to me quickly.

  The wagon jolted as it rolled off, tugged along on taut ropes, we the last in the train. With the air so achingly moribund, I didn’t bother trying to talk. None of the others looked like they wanted to say anything anyway – none of the words I’d discovered in the pages I’d squirreled away felt big enough for feelings like these. We wallowed in our silent commiserations, wrapped up in ourselves, the ash grey clouds hanging above us like an awaiting shroud… the steady rocking of the wagon so soothing in this rancid world… and I couldn’t help but lay my head down onto my kit bag and…