VI - Sesuthia

A Chapter by Tertia

Chapter 6 - Sesuthia

The fire crackled as I threw a log the size of half a tree on and a sparky orange light went skyward. We didn’t worry about the smoke now as we had defeated our chasers in a chaotic shoot out and one of those chasers was sitting with us with hands tied. I felt the heat on my face and neck and loosened my shirt, moving back from the fire’s rage. I picked up the shot-up radio we had recovered from the dead Narsians and remembered cheering as we learned that the war was over. Our cheers had soon turned to gloom as we were told that the Narsians had won the war and taken total control of Medvia. Only Cultarr sat smiling with his wrists bound. It might’ve been propaganda and didn't mean that we might not still be pursued. So our instinct was to push on.

What do I know about Sesuthia? My first thought was that it didn't exist and it was only when we walked on it, after the mountains had ended that I believed it was actually there. I, like many others thought it was a myth for story books and drunken tales in fireside alehouses. When we were at school we were told it was an empty land where nothing grew. We were told that it had been decimated by war and famine and was only inhabited by a few survivors who lived wild eating from the trees and drinking from the rivers. Gossip and hearsay in the rumour mill of day to day conversation was that the people of Sesuthia were only the old men who had survived its 40 year civil war as all the civilians had been killed. Little else was known other than, Sesuthia was hard to get to because of the mountains and ice.

‘Tell us about Sesuthia will you, Sophie’ I said sitting down around the fire with the others.

‘Well, the land itself is divided into three. There is the capital of Sesuth City itself. There are outlying areas, known as the Queen’s Lands and then there are the Wilds on the coast. That is what I know of its geography. I live in the south away from all of that, in a little village.

‘Is there a city near that we can get to?’ Briggs asked.

‘There aren’t’ Sophie said. She looked around at our blank faces of disbelief. ‘There are some towns, but I don’t know where, if we head north we may run into a village’

‘People?’ I asked. ‘What about the people?’

‘Sparse’ she said. ‘And although I am lost I know I need to head west’ she said changing the subject. I rotated my hand in mid air with a frustrated frown, looking up at the sky for some kind of inspiration. ‘Old men, some young children, although I don’t know where they came from and a few women, most of which are in the army’

‘Oh’ Briggs said poking the fire with a stick.

‘Would we better going to the capital?’ I asked her.

‘You’d be met with hostility’ she said. ‘Death’ she added. There was an awkward silence that filled the air with pressure and unease and I realised we were going to split. I waited for something to happen, sitting on a boulder, looking discretely around at the mood of the others. Rowan looked happy, he sat close to Sophie Onion indifferent to the world as they chatted and laughed about nothing. The feeling of love had created a blanket around him and he wasn’t worried about our situation. And then it came.

‘I’m going with Sophie back to her village’ Rowan blurted out. I looked at him straight ‘There’s a farm and a lot that needs doing’

‘You’re deserting us, you can’t do that’ I said.

‘The war is over, we are all free men’ he said angrily. ‘I’ve done my bit, we lost, get over it, Alf….Sir’

Monopolising on what he saw of the mood of the camp, Cultarr came up to me and I stood to face him. ‘Set - me - free’ he said, having to think about every word of our language he spoke. He held up his bound wrists, shaking close to me. At that moment I wanted to shoot him at the cheek of his aggression, he and his kind were the cause of our situation. The stupid petty boundary war had made millions of lives a misery and hundreds of thousands had died.

‘You’re our prisoner’ I said

‘As your - friend said - the war is - over. I - am no one’s - prisoner anymore’

‘If I set you free, where will you go?’ I said containing my anger.

‘Back’ he said

‘If you go back there, uh, well you’ll never make it’ I said. ‘Stay with us’

‘No - I go - back to Medvia and then - to - Narsia’

‘You wont make it on your own, Cultarr’

‘I - have - to’. he said holding up his binding again, but more passively this time. I pulled out my belt knife and cut it in one clean stroke. He immediately stepped back and set off, rubbing his wrists and shouted ‘Thank you’ he turned to face us, smiling, bowed and then turned back again, heading back towards the mountains.

He would pass his dead comrades that we had shot and scavenge anything of use from them. He would head into the foothills of the mountains, into the ice and around the mountain passes themselves. He would see the mighty Taragas and breath the pure mountain air.

Again there was a moody silence, wisely Briggs kept his head down, not catching anyone’s eye. ‘You’re right, I should have said this days ago, the unit is officially disbanded. But as survivors of the war we need to stick together. Rowan, stay with us, I’m asking you as a friend’

‘I’m still going’ Rowan said. ‘And Sophie reckons you’d be better off coming with us than where you might end up’

‘Why doesn’t she come with us?’ I asked. Rowan shook his head.

‘I’m not going where you’re going. I’ve got a home to go to’ she snapped. ‘There’s work to be done and repairs to be made. I have sisters, you won’t be lonely’

‘Tomorrow morning, Sir’ Rowan said cutting in in a low, serious voice. He held my eye and then looked down and chatted quietly to Sophie. I didn’t know what to do, it would be just me and Briggs left. Two out of five and I didn’t know what we were going headlong into.

The lowlands and marshlands of Sesuthia were an endless maze of low grass islands, small interconnected pieces of flat land, deep creaks and snaking waterways. It was soft ground and what looked a grass meadow was quick sand. We found ourselves sinking many times to above boot level and retreating back; we were making little progress (the two of us, Briggs and I). It was a huge wasteland that spread beyond the horizon and we sat that day not knowing what to do or which way to turn. There were some low trees that broke the view and occasionally a broken fence or a disused outbuilding that when reached were an isolated feature of a forgotten time.

‘I can see something, Alf’ Briggs said standing on tip toe on a hillock. The sun was low in the sky, giving light at an angle that made long shadows and blurry orange-yellow features.

‘What is it?’

‘Its a sort of ridge’ he said holding a hand over his eyes like the peak of a cap.

‘Let me see’ I said balancing on the hillock with him, grabbing him around the waist to catch my balance. Sure enough the low light had revealed a low ridge that we came to call a spine. The spine was unbroken and higher and dryer than the surrounding marsh, it disappeared far out of sight. The next day we walked in a straight line at a consistent rate and made good progress through the marshlands to an unknown destination. Birds I had never seen before flew over us in large flocks, making the sky dark at times and they deafened us with the sound of their many voices. I watched the shapes they made as they followed each other in their chaotic, rudderless form. They made figures of eight, an eagle spreading its wings and a whale swimming in the ocean. I had never seen anything like this in Medvia.

Our feet marched on until our joints were numb and our bones pulsated. The mud was thick under our feet making our boots wet and claggy and the marsh grass was high around us making our uniforms wet. My hands brushed on flower heads as we walked, there was yellow marsh lily, damson devil’s tongue and ravens-foot in abundance.These names I had learned as a child

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