World Fire

The sand stretched to the horizon in every direction. Great dunes formed like waves in the sand sea. The sun beat down from the cloudless blue sky, creating waves of heat that reached a few metres above the sand. The place was devoid of detail, except for a column of sandy dust that worked its way between the dunes as it headed westward.

A large, scaly beast charged through the column of dust. More than ten metres wide and thirty long. It was a triceratops, far larger than a normal one, and domesticated. Leather straps lined the body, holding a platform of wood and stone tight on top of its back.

There was a crowd of people on this platform. One of them was at the front, wearing a pair of goggles, looking through a spyglass to navigate the sandy land in front of them. This man was Miles Rodger. He was a man of the Amber Army, a squadron of the Royal Army of Justisar that was dedicated to roaming the land and bringing peace. He hid his sleek black hair underneath a leather cap and twirled at his moustache as he looked through the spyglass.

This was the Sandara desert, and while it did not look like much, the keen eye could spot where the ground was uneven, and the sand shifted in odd directions. Vicious, plant-like creatures hid underneath that sand, waiting to whip out its long vines and attack whoever had stepped over the sand.

'Are we almost there?' Arla asked. Arla was short and nimble, with tufts of copper hair jumping out from underneath her hat. She was a curious person who always stuck her nose in places it did not belong. She was a Red Elf, an elf with deep, red skin.

A Red Elf was almost always prejudiced again, and many people of the Amber Army still regarded her with distrust, but Miles had learned that when it came to passing a message, there was no one he could trust more than Arla.

'Two hours ago we passed by the Sandara Crags. We should reach Arindel in three more hours,' he told her.

'Bleh. So long.' She stuck out her tongue.

'Oh, cheer up. Did Stag send you?'

'Of course.'

Miles pulled himself away from the spyglass and turned. At the back of the wooden platform was Stag, the captain of the unit. Stag leaned back in his favourite chair made of leather and bone, one hand propped up on the arm rest and a velvet cloak draped over him.

Stag was an insufferable man that annoyed everyone, but he was very competent, who always found other people indebted to him. He was a man of noble heritage. Golden hair fell down from his face in waves and brilliant blue eyes stared out from under. Noticing Miles' gaze, he nodded to him.

'Why couldn't he have just come over and asked himself?' Miles said to Arla.

'Because I'm here and I can pass the message on for him.'

Miles clasped her on the shoulder. 'You know, you should take a greater pride in your own work. You're worth more than these petty assignments.'

'Not on here I'm not.' Arla swung her hand into a salute. 'Nothing here but a wooden platform. I don't want to be too bored here, and I don't want to ruffle any feathers by disobeying anyone.'

Miles regarded her with a raised eyebrow. 'Very well, go and tell him that we'll be out the desert in three hours.'

Arla nodded and ran back, repeating his words to Stag.

'The end of the day? We're making good pace, but I fear that we may not be fast enough.' Stag twirled a lock of hair around his finger. 'We got the signal too late, and many lives may slip from our grasp. Arla, give me a massage why don't you.'

'Yes! Right away.'

                                                                 ----

Locke ducked his head and pushed himself into the crowd, bare feet scraping against the grainy sandstone of the Arindel city square. People had set up makeshift stores all around him under the cover of blankets and shades. Some had cases of jewellery that they had set up and tried to pawn off, others had crates of apples and other fruits.

The sea glimmered to the west. The seaside city of Arindel was a marriage between the hot sand of the Sandara desert and the sea that stretched out far into the horizon.

The city was far from an economic powerhouse, and had little to trade with neighbouring cities, but the people who lived there thrived … sort of.

Hidden in the corner, in the streets no one dared travel, there were beggars and families struggling to survive. Locke was one of these people. With rags covering his nimble and hungry body, he pushed through the crowd.

There, he thought, noticing a man's pocket that the familiar shape of a money bag.

He stepped by the man, his hands working quick so no one would notice him, cupped his hand against the pocket and pulled out the bag of money. One second, he was there, the next he had left the crowd, a bag of money bouncing in his hand. He shoved the bag into his pocket and dropped two coins in front of an apple stand.

'Four apples, please.'

The salesman looked up at him, noticing where the thick bag of money pressed against his clothes.

'That's quite the bag of money you have, compared to those rags you call clothes.'

Locke raised an eyebrow. 'What does it matter what I'm wearing? I just want some apples to feed my family.'

At this moment, a commotion stirred in the crowd. A desperate man emerged, clapping at his pockets. 'There's a thief somewhere!' he called. 'Someone took my money and made off with it. Find him!'

Clap. Locke tried to jerk his arm free but found that the salesman had grabbed his hand. He squirmed against his grip, pulling and clawing at the hand, trying to free himself.

'He's here. The filthy sneakthief is here!' the man yelled, holding up his hand. Citizens from all around converged on him.

Locke pulled and pulled, twisting against the fingers, then finally he broke the man's grasp and was free! He scrambled to his feet, swiped an armful of apples, ducked under the waiting arms of men and women and broke free from the crowd.

Shouts rent the air – 'catch him!', 'get that thief!', but he had already made it to one of the side streets, bouncing up window ledges and eaves to reach the roof. He crouched low on the roof so that no one would see his head from below and took a moment to rest.

The moment was short lived, and hands appeared along the edges as people climbed up.

They weren't ordinary hands – these were the hands of Arindel's law enforcement. He jumped up, tightened his hold on the apples and the money and jumped to the next building as two burly patrolmen climbed up onto the first building.

'Oi, you runt, you had better stop there, unless you want to see us when we're angry.' The first man clapped a club against his open palm as the other stepped towards the gap that separated the two buildings.

'Been a lot of news about a sneakthief buzzing around the city square recently. Of course, it would be some scrawny kid, day by day scraping food without paying for it and eating it without an inkling of guilt,' the other man said.

Locke took a step back to create greater distance between them. 'Please, I need to feed my family.'

The two men looked to each other, then burst out laughing. 'Then pay for it you fool!'

The patrolman jumped over the gap, and Locke, feeling a rush of air, swept his leg across the edge, finding the man's leg as he landed and tilting him off balance. The man, gravity winning him over, plummeted from the rooftop and crashed to the ground, a pile of boxes and bags taking the brunt of the fall.

'Leave me be,' Locke said to the other patrolman. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the bag of money and threw it over to the other side. 'Let me keep the apples, I need to feed my family.' His stomach growled to emphasise the point.

The patrolman narrowed his eyes and sighed. 'Fine. Make yourself scarce, and don't come back to the city square tomorrow.'

Locke nodded, then jumped along the rooftops of the buildings until he had found his home. Where he lived, the splendour of the city was gone, and all the houses were shabby and breaking apart. Hungry children hung from the dismal windows with cracked skin and dry lips.

The women of the slums would wake up in the morning, go to the city square's well, and carry home buckets of water upon their shoulders to give some relief to their thirsting children, but food was another problem.

The peasants of Arindel would work day and night for coin to feed their children a measly meal. They could not change jobs or find something that is better paying, because the city of Arindel forced them to remain in that job due to the low amount of food that they produced.

There were two main food sources in Arindel, the sea, where fish only swam during the warmer seasons, and the farms that produced food during Summer and Spring. This left a large gap during Winter where no food was produced, and they had to survive by paying a high amount of money for food.

That is why Locke resorted to stealing. Why should his family have to suffer when the business owner who owned the farms lived without having to work a day in his life? He jumped onto the familiar rooftop of his house and found Fahrla waiting for him.

'You're back.' Fahrla tilted her head up to him, the light shining on the cataracts of her eyes. 'Can you come closer so I can see you better? That's right – veeeery close. Ahh, you look like you had quite the scare before, what happened?'

'Almost got caught. Someone started shouting that they had lost their wallet. I got some fruit, but I had to part ways with the wallet.' Locke placed an apple into the blind Fahrla's hand and bit into one himself, feeling the juices drip down his chin.

'I am glad that you're safe. And thank you for the food.'

'No problem, Fahrla. You know I'm always looking out for you.' He wrapped her arm around her and pulled her closer.

Fahrla was his precious sister and the only relative he had left. After an accident last year, their family which was already without a father, had lost a mother, too. Their home was just a pitiful shelter that the only use was to sleep in, and they lived every day searching for their next meal.

Fahrla used to go outside and beg in the city square, but cataracts had formed in her eyes, and everyday she found that she was seeing less and less, and Locke had to devote himself to stealing full time until he was old enough to be able to work, but that was years away.

Through all the hardships that they had experienced, they had formed an irreplaceable bond between them.