Darva stepped out into the searing heat from the cover of shade. She pulled her shawl up over her head, ducking down the alley between the well and the stone walls of the community washroom. 

Candle clusters illuminated the crowded chamber. Darva narrowed her eyes but still could not see as far as the back wall. Immediately in front of the door, hunched over bodies, scrubbing and kneading, pressed close to a row of basins. Women groaned as they slapped steaming, wet clothes against hard stone. The heat inside of the washroom was stifling. The hot air was thick with humidity, fetid with the stench of sulfurous water and filthy clothes. 

Darva wound her way through the tight rows. She stood before an empty wash bowl along the back wall. Women on either side shuffled their wash baskets over, making enough room for her to work. She opened up the tap, releasing a steady stream of scalding water into the stone basin. She used a blade to rub blue flakes off of the soap block, dissolving into a frothy white mixture. Then she lifted the basket and dumped the dirty clothes in and began working them with raw fingers.

Half-way through her load, the woman beside her leaned in closer and pulled back her hood. She was an older widow with wiry gray hair and shallow pewter eyes. Darva recognized her face from around the village. Her name was Biseera. Her husband had been a soldier, killed in the War of Alliegents, those vicious battles claiming many of the elder men in Koryak.

At first, the woman hissed. Then she spoke, lips twitching. “Have you seen your boy?”

Darva’s stomach knotted up instantly. “Why do you ask that?” she replied. She was careful not to sound too defensive, but showing strain was inevitable.

“Because, lately I have seen yours running about on the ridge outside of the village walls,” Biseera said. “He’s a wild one.”

“My son is quite fine, thank you,” Darva said.

Biseera smirked. “Are you sure?” She laid her dirty clothes on the surrounding floor. 

Darva frowned, plunging her hands into the now warm, milky water. 

I don’t know anymore.

Darva was alone, hardly able to keep track of her son, let alone one with Nurlan’s constant, mercurial energy. He bounced about the streets of Koryak, racing with anyone willing across the Atraibar Plateau, wrestling in the village lawns, leading expeditions, occasionally venturing beyond the safety of Koryak’s walls.

When Nurlan was still just a young boy, Darva could tell right away that he possessed prodigious energy. But then again, she’d had her husband, Zhenis, to aid with his care. He’d often helped the boy work off his excess energy, taking him to gather water, scout the edge of the ridge, and forage for food. 

His father had shown him the way of life on the eastern steppes. But Zhenis was a fallen father of Koryak. Another slain in the War of Alliegents. 

Nurlan was seven years old when his father died, far too young to understand what grief meant. In that short time, however, he had seen many other fathers of Koryak fall in the fury of combat with his own. Losing the man of the house to war was, it seemed, forever etched into the fabric of his community’s dreary story. It was as much the story of his people as where their ancestors first originated from. Even when his father’s body led a mourning procession through the village streets to its eventual entombment in the mausoleum, honored as one of Koryak’s Legion of Martyrs, Nurlan was numb to its deeper meaning.

As he grew older, however, Darva clung to the faint hope that the boy would settle down. Nurlan, a teenager now, was clever and athletic, gifted in subjects like rhetoric and strategy. Sometimes she believed he had to develop these skills to escape trouble as often as he did.

Maybe he will seek a higher path than his father? Darva could at least hope. 

The older Nurlan grew though, the more the feeling that he would follow in his father’s grim fated footsteps weighed her down. It seemed that the fallen fathers of Koryak only sired more fallen fathers. It also seemed the boy was not happy unless he was chasing the edge of something. 

Most of the time that was his mother’s patience. 

* * *

Darva hung the wet wash on the clothesline outside of her hut. It was already late in the afternoon, but the air was still hot enough that she could see faint wisps of moisture evaporating from the rough fabric.

Reaching the end of the line, she savored a moment to pause and catch her breath. Only a few scattered huts lay north of hers before the road ended in a ten-foot stone wall. Beyond the village veil, foothills climbed off the steppes, rough crags of black volcanic rock, nearly impenetrable by all except the most intrepid climbers. Looming beyond those were the snow-capped Mirrored Mountains, a thousand-mile-long range of peaks that shielded the realm from everything that lay in the unknown beyond. Below the steppes to the south lay rabid fog-covered grasslands, a lawless expanse sprawling as far and wide as the eye could see. They spread further than anyone but the elders had traveled, all the way to the fringes of the Everwood. There only the tallest treetops spires penetrated the ever-present gray brume.

Darva gathered up the empty laundry basket. The sun was nearly set, bringing cold skies. Nurlan would be home soon.

Darva set about cooking dinner. The widow’s ration she received for the week had been more generous than in recent days. Usually, by the middle of the week, she needed to boil scraps of whatever meat and potatoes they gave her for meager broth. Now she still had an ample pantry to choose from. Darva carved off two hunks of dark deer meat and set it in the warm oven. Next, she washed clumps of fresh greens and set them on two plates with pieces of black bread she had baked the day before. There would be no skimping. Nurlan will be quite pleased.

The hut grew gradually darker as the sun set behind the ridge. The meal preparation filled the interior with the warm, delicious aromas of cooked meat. Darva was ravenous, but she waited. Eating without Nurlan meant they would share yet another meal in silence. 

An hour passed. Full darkness fell outside. 

Where was he?

Another hour. The meal cooled. 

Gathering her heavy shawl over her shoulders, Darva ducked out of the hut. Lamplight warmed windows along the road. She hurried up along the narrow path leading back toward the village square, eyes darting into alleys and crossroads. 

Maybe something is wrong?

Before reaching the top of the road in the village square, two tall figures appeared before her. One she recognized as a spear-carrying village sentry. His crude iron armor clanked with each step. The sentry led a slender, youthful figure. Her heart sank as their features came clear. It was no doubt Nurlan.

Darva stopped and folded her arms.

“Good evening, widow,” the sentry called out.

“Yes?” she replied. She was careful to rid her voice of any trace of anger or judgment. 

The two figures were in full view now, stopping short before the illuminated window of a nearby hut. The sentry dragged Nurlan by his shirt collar. Yet, despite this rough seizure, the boy wore a carefree expression. It was as though this reprimand was part of some youthful game.

“We found him on the outer road,” the sentry said, pushing him toward her.

Nurlan staggered, sagging loose-limbed before his mother. Darva tried her best to meet his foolhardy gaze with an air of concern. But somehow, she could not see fit to do so.

“Thank you for bringing him back,” she said.

The sentry shook his head with disgust. “The boy got lucky this time,” he said.

Her heart fluttered a bit. “Why ever would you say that?” Darva asked.

“We’ve been tracking signs of burrux for days in that area.”

Darva gasped. Burrux? They were nasty creatures. An ancient descendent of human beings, their race had long ago diverted into savagery. The grasslands were teeming with them. 

“Thank you,” she stammered, breath hitched. “Thank you for bringing him home.”

“You’re welcome,” the sentry said, tipping his helmet before traipsing back up the road toward the village square.

Darva seethed. There were always rumors of packs of burrux outside of the village walls, but now the guards were tracking them? She drew a deep breath, ready to give her son a piece of her mind when she turned to find he had run off again, racing down the road. 

Thankfully, he ran toward home.