I’m in my shelter hiding from the afternoon heat when there’s a distant popping. Frowning, I sit up, listening for more. Silence. I shrug and lie back down.

  “Hey,” Kio shouts, “hurry, come look!”

  I jump up and duck under the fabric covering the entrance to my shelter.

  Kio stares into the desert, opposite the direction of the forest. They point towards the horizon. A streak of yellow shoots up from the sand, stark against the blue sky, exploding in a pale-yellow circle.

  “I didn’t know there was another camp that close to us.” Ihlan holds a hand above her eyes, squinting at the horizon. “Two means soldiers.”

  I straighten. “What? No way. How would soldiers get that far out without us noticing? They would’ve had to walk right past us.”

  Kio glances at the jillabird, also staring at the horizon and feather-scales straight out.

  “C’mon,” I say bouncing on the balls of my feet, “we gotta go help!” I whistle for Getlas. Ihlan does the same, and Kio goes for a hoverskid.

  “Fighters, runners, we gotta go!” Ihlan shouts.

  I dart back inside my shelter, grabbing a belt of disposable knives and the commander’s weapon. A few more wildlings, including Ritz, are getting ready to go when I come back out. Getlas is waiting for me. Jai comes to watch us leave. I give her a grin before kicking off. The whir of dragonfly gliders fills the air as we fly towards the signal, Kio speeding along on the sand under us.

  As we close in, I can make out echoes of fighting. Flares of lights—yellow-orange from soldiers’ grenades and all different colours from usamas—and dust clouds. The camp is only slightly bigger than ours, not that that’s saying much.

  Screaming and shouting reach us before we reach the camp. Craters litter the ground along with at least a few bodies. Not all of them are soldiers.

  Kio’s the first there. They jump from the hoverskid at a speed that would incapacitate the rest of us and roll. As Kio stands, purple electricity wraps itself around them. They take off towards a squad of soldiers. While Getlas circles lower, Kio releases a charge of purple lightning and the whole squad falls to the sand, twitching and charred.

  I drop and roll, drawing my weapon as I get to my feet. To my left, a wildling’s losing a fight with a soldier. I throw a knife at the soldier’s gut. He keels over. The wildling nods to me before retrieving her weapon and charging off again.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Ritz’s arrow flies by.

  Ihlan circles the camp, shooting fuchsia blasts at soldiers from the air.

  The fighting kicks up sand and dust that mixes with smoke from the explosions. I run through the mess, taking out soldiers as I go. A grenade hits my foot and I’m convinced I’m going to die right here—

  From the same direction, a wildling comes sprinting fast enough to mark her as an usama. She throws herself at the grenade, hands wrapped in blue light. It explodes, creating a crater under the shield, but doesn’t touch either of us. I stumble back, panting. She looks at me, wide-eyed, like she can’t believe that worked any more than I can.

  I swallow hard. “Thanks for that.”

  “No problem.”

  A burst of purple comes from across the camp, followed by shouting.

  “That usama yours?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell ‘em to be careful. Soldiers already grabbed two of ours and vanished with a huge bird.”

  A squad of soldiers emerges from behind a half-melted shelter. The usama and I face them, me with my stolen spear, her with more blue light around her hands. “Can you get me closer?”

  She puts a wall between us and the soldiers as they open fire. The blasts bounce off the shield, sending up puffs of sand as they hit the ground. She gives the wall a kick and it goes flying into the squad. I dart forward, stab two before they get up, and whirl to block another’s attack. The usama throws up walls to keep the bullets away.

  “How’d they get out here?” I ask over the fighting.

  “Not sure,” she pants. “I was getting supplies. They were here when I got back.”

  Through the overlapping voices on the coms, Opi says, “They’ve got a pair of jillabirds over her—”

  I pause fighting. “Opi?”

  Nothing.

  “Hey,” I ask, “anyone got eyes on Opi?”

  “I lost sight of her,” Ihlan says.

  “Fuck,” I hiss and knock an incoming grenade back at its thrower. “Kio, think you can do anything with the jillabirds?”

  Words muffled by static from their electricity, they say, “Um… Okay, here’s the thing: it’s impossible they trained them properly, meaning they’ve brute forced their way into it. I don’t know if I could get through to them.”

  “What about—”

  “Look out!”

  I’m tackled to the sand by the usama. Another explosion sends us flying. We come down hard. I sit up, coughing. The other wildling gets up first and offers me a hand.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Thanks. Again.”

  “Help get rid of these guys and we’ll call it even—” She falls forward, groans and then goes silent, the charred hole of a bullet in her back. I blink. The solider takes aim at me.

  I dive behind a still-intact wall.

  Alright. Let’s make it even.

  In not-too-far distance, a jillabird shrieks. Ignoring the rest of the chaos around me, I sprint for it. The soldier holding the bird’s restraints struggles to keep it under control. I throw my spear through his chest. The bird shakes its head and screeches again. I pick up a piece of debris and chuck it at the jillabird’s head.

  “Hey, over here!”

  Its feather-scales ripple and it charges.

  Gasping, sand in my mouth and smoke in my nose, I run. “Ihlan, where are the most soldiers?”

  “By Kio. They’ve been wreaking havoc.”

  “Kio, can you signal where you are?”

  To my right there’s a bolt of purple lightning.

  I skid around a shelter and veer towards Kio. “Okay, I’m headed for you with a pissed off jillabird.”

  Kio sputters. “Wait, what? Xen, Jai could barely talk to the one we have, and these guys are going to be way worse.”

  “Just zap the restraints off, let him take care of our problems for us.”

  “You know that could end up killing it, right?”

  “Well, don’t do that.” The jillabird crashes through something too close to me. “Ready?”

  “No, but here we go anyways, I guess, Xen.”

  Kio stands in a deep crater, successfully fending off six squads of soldiers. I jump and slide down the crater’s edge. Soldiers cry out as the jillabird chases after me.

  “Now!” I shout and dive at Kio’s feet.

  The hair on my arms stands up. The jillabird squawks. Metal clanks on metal, followed by an ear-splitting shriek.

  Kio screams back in wrangler speak. The jillabird tilts its head, then turns on the soldiers.

  They take off towards the second bird, at the edge of camp, the first snapping at their heels. More soldiers flock to the other jillabird, but its very angry friends is close enough that when they teleport away, both birds go with them.

  I flop back, staring the sky. Panting and gasping, I laugh.

  Kio keels over, hands on their knees. “Not funny, Xen.”

  +++

  I place the blue light usama’s body in the circle and go look for more.

  I find Opi dead in the sand with more than a dozen soldiers around her. At least she went out fighting… Her glider lies beside her, wings ripped. Getlas nudges my calf.

  “Hey don’t worry about me.” I force a smile. “You didn’t even have to come save me today.”

  She beeps sadly.

  “Yeah, I know.” Grunting, I pick up Opi and Getlas picks up the dead glider in her forcefield. We bring them into the center of the destroyed camp with the rest of the bodies.

  One of the wildlings from this camp stands near the edge of the circle of bodies, arms wrapped around herself. “That’s more than half of us,” she mutters mostly to herself. “Some of our best fighters, and our usamas, too.”

  I lie Opi in the circle. Close her eyes. Getlas drops her glider beside her.

  Ihlan stops her circling above and lands. “That’s everyone.”

  The six of us from our camp and the eleven left of this one make our way into the center of the circle, joining hands.

  “For all the souls whose sun has set today, turn them to sand and whisk them away.” We chant, over and over. The bodies become blurry, then fuzzy, until they’re sand that blows away in a gust of wind. After we fall silent, I stare at the sand under my feet. Wonder who else I’m standing on.

  “What are we going to do now?” one of the younger wildlings asks no one, staring at a spot where a body used to be.

  “You come with us,” Ihlan says. “Our camp’s not far. Grab your things if there are any left and let’s get walking. Hopefully, we’ll make it there be nightfall.”

  No one else offers any better ideas—not that there are any—so this camp’s remaining wildlings scavenge through smoking shelters and craters for anything that might be left.

  Ihlan sends Kio ahead to tell everyone to set up new shelters and make extra food tonight. Despite some of us having gliders, none of us fly.

  The walk is long and somber, all of us near-silent. Only whirring gliders fill the gaps between shifting sand. We get back not long after sunset.

  Machines hum inside Hels’ shelter as they make extra supplies. “Line up out here,” I tell the newcomers. “Hels’ll fix you right up.”

  Jai waits with a few others to take new wildlings to the main building to eat, murmuring gently as she leads them away. Comforting a frightened creature.

  Much later, the six of us who made it back hang around the main building, too on edge to sleep.

  Ritz stops massaging her temples to ask, “We got there as fast as we could, but it’s like it was already over. What even happened?”

  I cross my arms and scowl, leaning back in my chair. “Soldiers, that’s what.”

  Ihlan gives me a fake smile. “Thank you, Xen, very helpful.”

  “We all know what happened,” I snap, “soldiers doing what they always do.”

  Keir, an older wildling who’s been through a few camps, cleans their nails with a dagger. “It’s strange. We usually know soldiers are coming.” Even a small battalion marching across the sand kicks up enough dust to be seen from the horizon.

  “Mm.” Kio points at Keir and lifts their head from inside their arms. “With the jillabirds, there would have been no warning.”

  “How is that possible?” Nzae asks, looking to Kio. “It doesn’t make any sense. We can at least read any texts that might survive about the jillabirds.”

  Kio holds their arms out to the sides.

  Ihlan shoots me a glare this time. “If someone hadn’t sent a feral jillabird after them, maybe we could have grabbed one and asked.”

  “If someone hadn’t gotten rid of the soldiers, maybe Opi wouldn’t be the only one not here right now.”

  Ihlan’s face darkens and she jumps to her feet. I’m right on her heels. Nzae, Keir and Kio pointedly push their chairs away from us. Ritz just shakes her head.

  “You wanna soldier? Fine. I’ll go get one.”

  “You’re not seriously considering kidnaping a soldier, are you, Xen?” Ritz asks.

  Gesturing to Ihlan, I say, “If that’s what Miss Shoots From The Air wants.”

  Ritz puts herself between Ihlan and I. “And then what? Even if the soldiers you found knew anything, then what?”

  I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. “I dunno… I’d figure something out…” With a sigh, I slouch back into my chair. I hate it when Ihlan’s right. She gets the most annoying smug look, which creeps across her face as she sits down again.

  I stick my tongue out at her.

  “Xen,” Ritz chides.

  “What do you think we should do then?”

  “I think we all need to sleep, Xen,” Ritz says. I didn’t notice until now, but she looks exhausted. Everyone does. “We can figure something out tomorrow.”

  We disperse, but I follow after Kio. “Hey!” I call, and they turn back. “I’m glad you came today, even though you’re not a fighter or runner.” I clap them on the back. “You really made the difference.”

  “Thanks…”

  I tilt my head. “You use too much magic or something?”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s nothing.” Kio stares down at their hands. A few strands of purple lightning buzz between their fingers. “But don’t you think sometimes when we do stuff like that, we’re just… perpetuating the cycle?”

  Frowning, I lean back. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean… yeah, they killed those wildlings, but we—I killed way more of them.”

  “Hey, they’re the ones starting the fights. Always. All we ever do is defend our own.”

  Kio sighs and crouches down, wrapping their arms around their knees. “But at the same time, I’m an usama. It’s wildlings like me they’re coming to hunt. So, it’s like I have to help.”

  I sit next to them. “Hey, I would kill to be able to do what you do.” Grinning, I elbow them in the side. “Imagine how much more chaos I could cause.”

  Kio laughs a little nervously. “I don’t think the goddess is good in any way that matters, but at least she wasn’t foolish enough to make you an usama.”

  Melodramatically, I shake a fist at the ground. “And what a bastard she is for it.”