Status: next few chapters being written
City of Stones
Chapter Two
Chapter Two
(Year 1266)
*mutt- a person born with both Fire and Water Tribe blood. Decrees were passed in both tribes in Year 1258 banning mutts from either tribe’s land. The mutts were forced to hide away in the desert mountains to survive.
*
My fist slammed into Niko’s shoulder and he fell to his knees where he attempted to ward me off with a poorly aimed punch of his own. I dodged it easily before lashing out at his chest with my foot and springing on top of him to pin him to the ground.
“Okay,” he panted heavily. “I give up, just get off me would you?”
I grinned at him cheekily but complied and then pulled him to his feet. He stared down at me, shaking his head in defeat and cradling his sore shoulder. Niko was three years older, about a foot taller and easily had fifty to sixty pounds on me, yet he’d never beaten me in a fight. My grin stretched wider.
“You’re a beast Al,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
“And you’re just jealous.” I replied, squinting up at the noonday sun.
We were about a half hour walk outside our home hidden in the desert mountains, the only place we could live without fear of being caught by Raiders. If we were caught by Raiders one of three things would happen: We’d be killed on the spot, kept as a slave to whoever caught us, or kept alive for a short while to provide entertainment to whichever tribe caught us.
Niko snorted from behind me as he ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “Who wouldn’t be?” he demanded. “You’re easily our best fighter even without using the elements. Imagine how much power you’d have if you just-“
“No,” I cut him off in a growl.
I refused to use my control over the elements. My father had left me and my mother once the decrees had been passed against the mutts, proving him and the Water Tribesmen to be cowards, something I refused to be. The men who had brutally murdered my mother were the very same men I had grown up with in the Fire Tribe believing them to be my friends. I had been proven wrong, however, and I refused to use the same element that had killed my mother.
“Aleah, you’re not betraying anyone by using your abilities.” Niko said softly.
I glared at him fiercely. “I said no.” I said furiously. How many times would he ask before he got the message?
Niko sighed in frustration as I walked away from him. I heard him following but was too angry with him to bother looking. The walk back was silent save for the clattering of the rocks we dislodged as we climbed back up the mountains. It took us about fifteen minutes to reach the top of the mountains, to anyone who hadn’t been climbing these rocks practically their whole lives the climb would have taken twice as long. Niko continued to the hidden entrance of our home but I hesitated for a moment.
To the east of the mountains lay the desert that contained all the Fire Tribe’s land. To the west of the mountains lay the Sea of Sorrows, across of which the lands became cold and icy. It was on these foreign lands that I had been told the Water Tribes lived. I had never seen them for myself, but mutts who had escaped from there had told me about it. It was supposedly beautiful, dangerous for anyone of my kind but beautiful all the same.
“Aleah!” Niko called to me. “Let’s go!”
I turned to see that he was waiting for my help to move the large boulders that blocked the entrance to our home. Eight years ago, when my foster parents Zane and Amani had found me lying in the desert sand, we had found the City of Stones. The City of Stones had been the first city of the Fire Tribe but had been abandoned during the first Elemental War. The Fire Tribe never returned because the protection it provided wasn’t needed anymore. With the peace treaties between the tribes, the Fire Tribe had been free to move their cities into the desert.
The City of Stones had gone forgotten until my people showed up. We had discovered it accidentally while trying to cross the mountains to get to the sea. Niko’s father, Jonah, had slipped on a loose rock and stumbled down the side of the mountain before seemingly disappearing. We had heard his voice yelling and soon we found him lying at the bottom of a long tunnel cut into the side of the mountain. Jonah’s accident had led us to our safe haven, the same home we’d hidden in for the past eight years.
We’d hidden the opening of the tunnel with large boulders that we could roll back into place as a door whenever someone came or left the city. The only problem with this plan was that it took several people to move the large boulders, so Seanna, an artist who had run from the Water Tribe, had created lightweight models of boulders so we could conceal the opening and be able to get in and out of the city easily.
I sighed and tore my eyes away from the view before making my way towards Niko and the entrance. Together we moved the four fake boulders from the entrance and ducked inside before pulling them back. A long winding tunnel went forwards for a few feet before suddenly dropping down seemingly into nowhere. It was down this tunnel that Niko’s father had first fallen, and the same one that we still used.
The tunnel dropped for about twenty feet inside the mountains before leveling out again. It was pitch black until the end of the fall in the tunnel. Where the tunnel leveled out again there were torches every twenty feet. These torches were kept lit by my family and friends. It was easy enough, controlling the elements didn’t take nearly a hundredth of the energy for a mutt than it took for a normal person. Everyone in the city rotated at keeping them lit, everyone except for me because I refused to use my powers.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the first tunnel quickly and I saw Niko reaching for the rope that would help us down the steep tunnel. He slid down it first and I followed closely after. He waited for my feet to touch the tunnel floor before turning without a word and following the tunnel towards our home.
This last tunnel was about fifty yards long and ended at the first street of the City of Stones. The city had literally been carved out of the inside of the mountains. The ancient Fire Tribesmen had burnt away the rocks to carve out the streets and create the stone buildings. The streets were set up in a large grid-like pattern, and the buildings were all three stories high. Small tunnels had been carved out all the way to the tops of the mountains to allow in light from the sun. There were hundreds of these small tunnels so the city was well lit.
“Where is everyone?” I asked Niko.
Niko glanced around the deserted streets and then back to me, his dark brown eyes filled with worry. “Maybe they called a council meeting.” he said.
His nervousness was making me nervous. “Let’s go look.” I said.
The Council Room was set up in the building located near the center of the city. Niko and I practically sprinted all the way there. Once we had reached it I was relieved to hear the sound of arguing voices. We entered the Council Room and it seemed that all two hundred mutts that lived in the city were packed inside, including all the children who were currently amusing themselves by having screaming matches.
“Everybody, shut up!” Jonah, Niko’s father, bellowed. His voice echoed off the stone walls of the large Council Room. I winced slightly before Niko pulled me through the crowds towards his father.
The room quieted down after a few moments, and Jonah glanced over every face. “Thank you,” he said in a softer voice. Jonah was the elected leader of the mutts. We didn’t want to have a king, because it had been the kings of the Water and Fire Tribes that had forced us out of our homes, so we elected our leaders instead of passing the job down through a family. This was fine for Niko, who would rather try and live in fire territory than be the leader.
“Look,” Jonah said. “There’s too many people in here for this to work. Could everyone who’s not a member of the Council get out?”
The Council was made up of twenty elected members. I was considered an honorary member of the council because I was the youngest of the original twenty-one mutts to discover the city.
I watched as the majority of the people began to exit the Council Room. It took ten minutes before only the Council was left. It consisted of eleven men, nine women, and me. Niko was in the Council too, but since he was almost nineteen he wasn’t considered an honorary member anymore.
“Aleah, Niko,” Jonah said, nodding at us. “You missed the news that Cade brought us.”
Jonah’s normally jovial voice was grave. I stared at him.
“The Fire Tribe suspects that we’re hiding somewhere. They caught Bianca and Tristan a few weeks ago, and I believe they may have tortured something out of them.”
I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands.
“We have a few solutions.” Dante, the oldest member of the Council added. I didn’t like Dante. He didn’t agree with my decision to not use my element powers and was always trying to trick me or provoke me into using them.
“You mean you have a solution.” Jonah interrupted. “And I don’t particularly agree with it.”
“Let me guess,” Niko said, leaning back in his chair. “It involves Aleah using her abilities to kill every member of the Fire Tribe single-handedly.”
I looked up to see Dante glaring at Niko. “It’s selfish for the girl to not use her abilities. We could all be killed by the Fire Tribesmen and she still wouldn’t use them.”
“Even if Aleah used her powers it wouldn’t make a difference,” a woman named Cerdwin argued. “Any one of us has the strength of ten of them, but they outnumber us twenty to one, it wouldn’t make a difference for us even if Aleah had the strength of a hundred of them.”
Dante turned his glare on Cerdwin. “It would make enough of a difference so that at least when we were dead they would suffer damages too.”
“You cannot ask this from a child!” Another woman cried out.
“She’s not a child, Lilliana, she’s seen too much for that. She can handle the responsibility,” a man argued from across the table.
Soon everyone was in on the argument. I was becoming overwhelmed. This whole fight was about me, and my possible ability to save all my family and friends. I couldn’t take it any longer and I leapt from my seat to make my escape out of the room.
I was running again, because running was the only thing I could depend on.
(Year 1266)
*mutt- a person born with both Fire and Water Tribe blood. Decrees were passed in both tribes in Year 1258 banning mutts from either tribe’s land. The mutts were forced to hide away in the desert mountains to survive.
*
My fist slammed into Niko’s shoulder and he fell to his knees where he attempted to ward me off with a poorly aimed punch of his own. I dodged it easily before lashing out at his chest with my foot and springing on top of him to pin him to the ground.
“Okay,” he panted heavily. “I give up, just get off me would you?”
I grinned at him cheekily but complied and then pulled him to his feet. He stared down at me, shaking his head in defeat and cradling his sore shoulder. Niko was three years older, about a foot taller and easily had fifty to sixty pounds on me, yet he’d never beaten me in a fight. My grin stretched wider.
“You’re a beast Al,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
“And you’re just jealous.” I replied, squinting up at the noonday sun.
We were about a half hour walk outside our home hidden in the desert mountains, the only place we could live without fear of being caught by Raiders. If we were caught by Raiders one of three things would happen: We’d be killed on the spot, kept as a slave to whoever caught us, or kept alive for a short while to provide entertainment to whichever tribe caught us.
Niko snorted from behind me as he ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “Who wouldn’t be?” he demanded. “You’re easily our best fighter even without using the elements. Imagine how much power you’d have if you just-“
“No,” I cut him off in a growl.
I refused to use my control over the elements. My father had left me and my mother once the decrees had been passed against the mutts, proving him and the Water Tribesmen to be cowards, something I refused to be. The men who had brutally murdered my mother were the very same men I had grown up with in the Fire Tribe believing them to be my friends. I had been proven wrong, however, and I refused to use the same element that had killed my mother.
“Aleah, you’re not betraying anyone by using your abilities.” Niko said softly.
I glared at him fiercely. “I said no.” I said furiously. How many times would he ask before he got the message?
Niko sighed in frustration as I walked away from him. I heard him following but was too angry with him to bother looking. The walk back was silent save for the clattering of the rocks we dislodged as we climbed back up the mountains. It took us about fifteen minutes to reach the top of the mountains, to anyone who hadn’t been climbing these rocks practically their whole lives the climb would have taken twice as long. Niko continued to the hidden entrance of our home but I hesitated for a moment.
To the east of the mountains lay the desert that contained all the Fire Tribe’s land. To the west of the mountains lay the Sea of Sorrows, across of which the lands became cold and icy. It was on these foreign lands that I had been told the Water Tribes lived. I had never seen them for myself, but mutts who had escaped from there had told me about it. It was supposedly beautiful, dangerous for anyone of my kind but beautiful all the same.
“Aleah!” Niko called to me. “Let’s go!”
I turned to see that he was waiting for my help to move the large boulders that blocked the entrance to our home. Eight years ago, when my foster parents Zane and Amani had found me lying in the desert sand, we had found the City of Stones. The City of Stones had been the first city of the Fire Tribe but had been abandoned during the first Elemental War. The Fire Tribe never returned because the protection it provided wasn’t needed anymore. With the peace treaties between the tribes, the Fire Tribe had been free to move their cities into the desert.
The City of Stones had gone forgotten until my people showed up. We had discovered it accidentally while trying to cross the mountains to get to the sea. Niko’s father, Jonah, had slipped on a loose rock and stumbled down the side of the mountain before seemingly disappearing. We had heard his voice yelling and soon we found him lying at the bottom of a long tunnel cut into the side of the mountain. Jonah’s accident had led us to our safe haven, the same home we’d hidden in for the past eight years.
We’d hidden the opening of the tunnel with large boulders that we could roll back into place as a door whenever someone came or left the city. The only problem with this plan was that it took several people to move the large boulders, so Seanna, an artist who had run from the Water Tribe, had created lightweight models of boulders so we could conceal the opening and be able to get in and out of the city easily.
I sighed and tore my eyes away from the view before making my way towards Niko and the entrance. Together we moved the four fake boulders from the entrance and ducked inside before pulling them back. A long winding tunnel went forwards for a few feet before suddenly dropping down seemingly into nowhere. It was down this tunnel that Niko’s father had first fallen, and the same one that we still used.
The tunnel dropped for about twenty feet inside the mountains before leveling out again. It was pitch black until the end of the fall in the tunnel. Where the tunnel leveled out again there were torches every twenty feet. These torches were kept lit by my family and friends. It was easy enough, controlling the elements didn’t take nearly a hundredth of the energy for a mutt than it took for a normal person. Everyone in the city rotated at keeping them lit, everyone except for me because I refused to use my powers.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the first tunnel quickly and I saw Niko reaching for the rope that would help us down the steep tunnel. He slid down it first and I followed closely after. He waited for my feet to touch the tunnel floor before turning without a word and following the tunnel towards our home.
This last tunnel was about fifty yards long and ended at the first street of the City of Stones. The city had literally been carved out of the inside of the mountains. The ancient Fire Tribesmen had burnt away the rocks to carve out the streets and create the stone buildings. The streets were set up in a large grid-like pattern, and the buildings were all three stories high. Small tunnels had been carved out all the way to the tops of the mountains to allow in light from the sun. There were hundreds of these small tunnels so the city was well lit.
“Where is everyone?” I asked Niko.
Niko glanced around the deserted streets and then back to me, his dark brown eyes filled with worry. “Maybe they called a council meeting.” he said.
His nervousness was making me nervous. “Let’s go look.” I said.
The Council Room was set up in the building located near the center of the city. Niko and I practically sprinted all the way there. Once we had reached it I was relieved to hear the sound of arguing voices. We entered the Council Room and it seemed that all two hundred mutts that lived in the city were packed inside, including all the children who were currently amusing themselves by having screaming matches.
“Everybody, shut up!” Jonah, Niko’s father, bellowed. His voice echoed off the stone walls of the large Council Room. I winced slightly before Niko pulled me through the crowds towards his father.
The room quieted down after a few moments, and Jonah glanced over every face. “Thank you,” he said in a softer voice. Jonah was the elected leader of the mutts. We didn’t want to have a king, because it had been the kings of the Water and Fire Tribes that had forced us out of our homes, so we elected our leaders instead of passing the job down through a family. This was fine for Niko, who would rather try and live in fire territory than be the leader.
“Look,” Jonah said. “There’s too many people in here for this to work. Could everyone who’s not a member of the Council get out?”
The Council was made up of twenty elected members. I was considered an honorary member of the council because I was the youngest of the original twenty-one mutts to discover the city.
I watched as the majority of the people began to exit the Council Room. It took ten minutes before only the Council was left. It consisted of eleven men, nine women, and me. Niko was in the Council too, but since he was almost nineteen he wasn’t considered an honorary member anymore.
“Aleah, Niko,” Jonah said, nodding at us. “You missed the news that Cade brought us.”
Jonah’s normally jovial voice was grave. I stared at him.
“The Fire Tribe suspects that we’re hiding somewhere. They caught Bianca and Tristan a few weeks ago, and I believe they may have tortured something out of them.”
I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands.
“We have a few solutions.” Dante, the oldest member of the Council added. I didn’t like Dante. He didn’t agree with my decision to not use my element powers and was always trying to trick me or provoke me into using them.
“You mean you have a solution.” Jonah interrupted. “And I don’t particularly agree with it.”
“Let me guess,” Niko said, leaning back in his chair. “It involves Aleah using her abilities to kill every member of the Fire Tribe single-handedly.”
I looked up to see Dante glaring at Niko. “It’s selfish for the girl to not use her abilities. We could all be killed by the Fire Tribesmen and she still wouldn’t use them.”
“Even if Aleah used her powers it wouldn’t make a difference,” a woman named Cerdwin argued. “Any one of us has the strength of ten of them, but they outnumber us twenty to one, it wouldn’t make a difference for us even if Aleah had the strength of a hundred of them.”
Dante turned his glare on Cerdwin. “It would make enough of a difference so that at least when we were dead they would suffer damages too.”
“You cannot ask this from a child!” Another woman cried out.
“She’s not a child, Lilliana, she’s seen too much for that. She can handle the responsibility,” a man argued from across the table.
Soon everyone was in on the argument. I was becoming overwhelmed. This whole fight was about me, and my possible ability to save all my family and friends. I couldn’t take it any longer and I leapt from my seat to make my escape out of the room.
I was running again, because running was the only thing I could depend on.