text: Although the weather was clear, strong westerly winds made for choppy seas as we sailed towards Granite Vowhorn. The Deer Drum boat, with Alessia’s towed behind, lurched over each wave, a spray of water shooting up into the sky as we ploughed through. Alessia, Xander, Lachlann and I were on the quarterdeck behind the wheel as Eir navigated the seas. “So the island’s at war,” Xander said, his calm voice only just audible over the billowing sails and churning water. “Yeah. Has been longer than anyone alive can remember,” Alessia nodded. I pursed my lips. “Last I heard it was a stalemate. Neither side was making any ground.” Alessia shook her head. “Word on Sneppath Head was that the North has been pushing the South back. The South’s down to two small towns. Everything else been lost.” The boat hit a sharp dip. A plume shot into the air, the smallest droplets carrying the length of the boat and landing on our faces. “So we go to the North then, presumably safer.” Lachlann said, shaking the dew from his hair. Alessia shook her head once more. “The one thing the south does have is the harbour. Unless you wanna be sitting in seas like this the whole time, we need the bay.” “Besides,” I sighed. “Is anywhere going to be safe in a war zone?” Alessia cocked an eyebrow and nodded to me. “He’s right.” “We know what this war’s about?” Xander asked, looking out to the sea as the next wave approached. Alessia shrugged. “Ferdinand?” “Religion was all I heard. Nothing more than that.” “Oh. Well, that’s good.” Lachlann smiled wryly. “Religion always keeps people nice and calm.” The next wave caught us at a three-quarter angle. Water poured down onto the deck drenching Xander’s carrots and cabbages before running off the side. Xander squirmed slightly as though he could feel the vegetable’s pain. “How we doing there, Eir?” Eir turned half a shoulder, getting Xander in her periphery but keeping her eyes on the seas in front. “It’s handling a bit differently than the last rough seas we caught. Lighter load. Need more passengers and more cargo again.” Lachlann chuckled. “The pole beans not creating enough weight for you?” “As much as the seven people who left and all their things? No.” Eir sighed. “We’ll make do though.” Xander took a look at the waterlogged soil beds. “But yes. Let’s head to the bay to the south.” Two days later, we arrived at Granite Vowhorn, most of Xander’s vegetables intact. We were greeted by two long stretches of cliff that stuck out from the southern end of the island like the prongs of a fork. The harbour walls were made of great chunks of chiselled stone and stretched almost the full length of the western cliff, before wrapping round in a curve where the two crags met. At the point, a few small shacks nestled by the water’s edge. Weaving between them, I could see a zigzag path cut up across the hill to a small town at the top, big enough for a few hundred residents. The only other way up the cliff was at the end of the harbour wall to our left. A hill climbed up a gully. Centuries of erosion had carved a smooth run to the sea with steep, rocky banks on either side. We moored the boats a short distance from the harbour and rowed the rest of the way. Xander dropped off Alessia and I first, before returning to fetch Kurbani and Lachlann. The harbour itself was quiet. There were one or two people milling around, and a couple of officers by the shacks at the end, but a port this size was certainly capable of much greater traffic. The fighting had driven much of the trade away, so that now an arriving boat was a rare blessing. As soon as the five of us began walking towards the town we saw a gaggle of islanders sprinting towards us. They were all children. The youngest maybe only six or seven. The oldest in her low teens. “Welcome, welcome,” said a young boy around ten. He puffed his chest out, trying to deepen his voice. “Are you here to buy anything? The war’s slowed down some of our production but we’ve still got plenty of granite available.” “Sorry,” I interrupted, bowing my head. “We’re not traders.” The boy’s frame sagged, his features becoming more childlike, his sales pitch removed. “Have you come to help with the war effort?” the oldest girl asked. “We’re here looking for someone,” Alessia interrupted. “Would’ve arrived maybe two weeks ago, maybe with a few other people.” Young scrawny shoulders rose in sharp pillars. “No idea. But speak to Rory up top if you can,” the oldest girl said in a flat tone. “Rory?” Alessia asked. “General of the army. He keeps tabs on everyone. If you catch him before nightfall he should be free.” “Thanks.” Alessia began picking up her pace with the new information. “Your ship,” a girl said, looking out at the harbour. “It’s the biggest I’ve ever seen.” Lachlann smiled. “Yeah. We live on it.” “Like. All the time?” the girl asked. Lachlann knelt down beside her. “Yep. We travel around on it.” “Cooool.” Xander leaned over, trying to get Lachlann’s attention, nodding back up the hill. Lachlann glanced to us. “Go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you. I’ll talk to this lot. Little knowledge exchange.” We reluctantly agreed and left Lachlann by the docks, and headed up the winding path up until we reached the town. The ground was worn down to soil, churned up from the endless footprints of the people stacked on top of each other in the cramped space. The small homes were painted white with dark oak crossbeams acting as supports. The buildings stretched back a couple of hundred metres before coming to an abrupt end at a wall made from piles of rock and old debris. On this side of the wall there was a flat section some four feet from the top with planks laid down as a walkway. I watched a man in thick black clothes and a balaclava - too warm for the weather - walk by. He held a small pistol in his right hand. I looked around at the villagers. I was startled by how still everyone was. The children played slowly in the dirt, drawing patterns in the ground with sticks. The adults were quiet. They sat in doorways, looking out at the town with emotionless faces. They glanced at us as though we were a passing moth, a brief distraction, something to concentrate on for a moment, but nothing more. We continued walking through the town, inspecting each of the streets as we passed. As I looked down a road to our left, I could see a crowd gathered in front of a wooden gate built into the wall of rubble. We turned and headed towards the gathering. As we got closer I could see a man standing atop a stack of wooden crates. He was dressed in the same clothing as the man on the wall, except his was dyed a dark red. It was a hue that reminded me of the first light of a sunrise. From someway away I could already hear the man shouting. His hands gesticulated in large mannerisms as he spoke, stretching his arms out as wide as he could, before pounding his fist into his palm, his eyes fierce. As we got closer the inaudible boom became clear distinct words. “Tonight we thank the brave men and women who continue to defend all we hold dear. Though we lose a few true believers each time, we continue to take more of the bastards down with us. If I die, but I kill seven northerners as I do, then that is a victory that God can be pleased with.” Cheers erupted from the crowd. “They do not believe you have the right to worship the God that you know to be true. They do not believe that you should praise the summer solstice. They do not believe in giving to our God when He is at His strongest. They want nothing more than to come through those gates, and slay every last man, woman and child here. Why? Because they hate the unshakable faith that you have. We shall not let them defeat us.” The man pointed to the sky and paused with each word. He waited for the inevitable applause to die down before leaning in, getting closer to his audience. “The summer solstice is two weeks away. They know that. They know how much life and power our conviction will bring us that night. How God will bring us victory. They are terrified. So to our soldiers who enter the battlefield tonight, I want you to remember what we fight for. I want you to remember the slaughter at Camweirr. How they brutalized the bodies. How they murdered children. I want you to remember that and let it fuel your anger. Let it spark your revenge. And go out there and fight for the South. Praise be to God.” The crowd chanted back in unison. “Praise be to God.” “Praise be the sun,” the man shouted with a fist raised in the air. “Praise be the sun,” the crowd replied. The gate opened and a group of men and women splintered from the crowd and headed off through the opening and off to the war. Their marching frames cast long shadows as the sun set to the west. The man who had given the speech jumped off his podium and walked up to remaining members of the crowd, clasping fists with some, embracing others. Slowly, the audience dispersed as the man headed down the street towards us chaperoned by two large guards. Alessia stepped forward as they neared. “Hoping you might be Rory.” The man halted and turned to us. “Well you’re in luck then.” He inspected us with casual glances. “Don’t recognize you. Take it you’re not from here.” The two men beside Rory pulled out long knives from their belts. “No,” I replied. “The North send you?” He smiled a wide grin: a charming, smooth smile. “We’re not from the island at all. We came by boat.” Alessia thumbed towards the coast. “The big one in the cove. You can go look, you can’t miss it.” Rory turned to the two men either side of him. “Calm down boys, if they were gonna kill us they’d have done so already. Besides, this lot don’t look like they know how.” I didn’t want to correct him, but my mind flickered. Here it was again, the world reminding me that I was a killer, even though I hated myself for it. The next bit of conversation seemed to pass in a haze. As though I was a spectator, watching from afar. “We mean no harm.” Xander tilted his head, raising his hands. Rory signalled to the two men. They sheathed their knives and returned to their slouched postures. He stepped forward, closing the gap between us. “Can’t say we’ve had a lot of visitors here lately. But we are always pleased to welcome people to Granite Vowhorn, or at least what’s left of it.” “War will always leave a scar,” Kurbani said, her voice soft, but her eyes steely. Rory looked at her. He paused for a second before the boisterousness returned. “Just like the sun, we will rise again. How can I help?” “We’re looking for someone,” Alessia replied. “Would’ve come by boat, maybe a week or two back. May have come with a small group.” Rory scrunched up his face. “Don’t remember the boat. But ten days ago we lost Camweirr. The survivors flocked here. If they snuck in with them and kept low they could’ve gone by unnoticed. Few new faces.” “So he could be here,” Xander muttered. Rory nodded. “This person you’re looking for. They a friend or someone unsavory?” “The worst.” Xander replied, a contained rage in the undertones of his voice. “Well in that case he probably chummed up with the North. That’s where I’d go if I had no conscience.” My mind arrived back in my body, and I managed to force out a thought that was lingering in the back of my head. “What you said in the speech - about what the North did - that all true?” I asked. I caught Alessia out the corner of my eye glaring at me. I guessed she would be annoyed at me veering off topic, but after a second or two, her face softened, replaced by a smile. I suspected she felt the same warmth I felt as the words left my lips. The comfort of knowing that the inquisitiveness that brought me to sea was returning. “Every word and worse,” Rory snarled. He leaned to his left and spat on the ground. “They caught a whole cohort of our soldiers a few months back. I knew they’d execute them. That’s war. But they chose to build a scaffold few hundred metres away from our front gates, far enough to be out of range, but close enough to make sure we could see. We watched as they hacked off limbs one by one, and then beheaded them, one at a time. They’re bastards.” “We’ve suffered too,” Xander replied. “The man we’re after. He attacked our island. Only a few of us survived. I’ve buried most of my island.” Rory’s mouth fell open slightly, as his head tilted back. “Deer drum?” Xander and Kurbani looked at each other in confusion. “I’ve heard of you. Travelling in that massive boat.” Rory snapped his fingers. “Is that the one you sailed here? It’s here, right now? In our harbour? Oh, you must let me see it sometime.” “How do you know of us?” Kurbani asked. “Word travels. The story of an island on a boat, travelling the seas. You’re all folk heroes. Staying together, after everything you’ve been through.” He paused, a delighted chuckle escaping his lungs. “That’s true resilience. Please, walk with me, I’ll introduce you to some people. Help out in any way I can.” We began following Rory back down the path. “We’re trying to find the person who attacked Deer Drum. We believe he came here,” Alessia said. “Well, if he’s anywhere in the south, we’ll rat him out. I’ll bring you the man’s body on a spike. But, you should go check with the bastards in the North too.” “Is there a safe way to get there?” I asked, taking a couple of paces to get in front. “Sunset right now.” Rory pointed to the orange sky to the west. “That’s when the fighting starts. Go in the morning, wear blue.” “Blue?” I asked. “This is a nasty war, but there are still rules. We have nurses, priests, who tend to those on the battlefield. Blue is the colour of neutrality. You wear that, keep your hands up, travel unarmed, and no one will hurt you. That, and travel during the day.” “Easier to see.” I concurred. “That, and no one wants to commit murder when the sun is up. God is watching.” He nodded to the sky. It seemed strange to me to believe so fervently in your God that you could kill in their name while they slept but not while they were awake. “That stuff you said about the summer solstice...” Rory nodded, understanding where my questioning was going. “It’s the most important holiday of the year. When we make our offerings and celebrate all God gives. The longest day of the year. It is when He is at His most powerful. The time when we must celebrate Him. And in return, He will give us the strength to win this war.” His smooth smile suddenly turned to gritted teeth. “There’s nothing we hold more dear. We will fight to the death for the right to celebrate the summer solstice and the Sun God.” Rory led us through the town and introduced us to a couple of his lieutenants, informing them to help us with our inquiries in any way. We spoke for a while, mostly discussing the war and what happened on Deer Drum. When we parted we had a plan. Two of us would head off the next day to the North. The rest would stay in the South and try to find Sannaz here. \ As darkness fell we found ourselves back on the Deer Drum boat. Whether we were all genuinely in the mood to celebrate each other’s company, or if it was the morbidity of the island making us need to respond with something joyous, we decided a party was in order. We opened a few bottles of rum and sat around a large fire on the quarterdeck. Old planks crackled in the summer twilight as the majority of the remaining Deer Drum residents drank and talked. It wasn’t long until Lachlann had broken out the guitar and was leading the group in song. The old tune of the Nightingale played once more. *My friends, come along. Don’t you hear the fond song?* *The sweet notes where the nightingale flows?* *For to hear the fond tale of the sweet nightingale,* As he reached the refrain the entire ship sang back. Xander wrapped his arm round Mirai, Alessia raised her glass to the air, Eir sat with a blanket wrapped around her legs and her head held back bellowing the words. *As she sings in the valley below,* *As she sings in the valley below.* Lachlann led the second verse. *My trav’lers don’t fail, for I’ll carry your pail,* *Safe home to a harbour we’ll go.* *You shall hear the fond tale of the sweet nightingale* Once more, the entire boat sang the chorus. *As she sings in the valley below,* *As she sings in the valley below.* The guitar took over again. *I still think of my home, where I’d lands of my own.* Though the chorus did not sing it, I saw Xander mouth the words. *The spirit of Deer Drum’s hard as stone,* *We will hear the fond tale, of the sweet nightingale* The crowd chimed in. *As she sings in the valley below,* *As she sings in the valley below.* The guitar strummed again, this time softly. Lachlann leaned in close, his voice like a lullaby. I looked at Alessia next to me as he sang. *Pray sit yourself down, with me on the ground,* *On this bank where sweet primroses grow,* *You shall hear the fond tale of the sweet nightingale.* I sang with all my heart. *As she sings in the valley below,* *As she sings in the valley below.* Lachlann lifted up his guitar and placed it down on the ground beside him. “Well, that’s enough of that.” There were sporadic jeers from the crowd. Xander bellowed above them. “Thought you said you’d adapted the last two verses Lachlann. Let’s hear them.” The crowd cheered the proposal. Lachlann laughed. “I have. But not yet.” Xander lifted his hands up to his mouth. “Booooooo.” Lachlann shook his head, his tongue bit between his teeth. “I’ll do you a deal. When this is all over. I’ll play them then. Wouldn’t be right to do it before.” “I’m keeping you to it.” Xander pointed to his friend. As the crowd quietened, Kurbani walked up to Alessia and I. She waited till we turned to her before speaking. “I’ve spoken with Xander about it. I want to go to the North. With whoever goes.” I looked to Alessia. “Why?” she asked. “Eir’s been teaching me about medicine. I can help. Plus, it’s my turn.” She smiled. Alessia turned to me. “Fine by me. You and Kurbani head North tomorrow?” I chuckled. “I’m going am I?” “Ferdinand,” Alessia placed a hand on my shoulder. “Which one of us is always dying to go off on stupid, =deadly, trips to see the world?” My face stayed flat for a half a second until a grin slowly emerged. “I am.” “settled then. Xander, Lachlann and I will meet up with Rory’s lot here. You two head North. Now, let’s see what else Lachlann can play.” Alessia headed off to go grab the bard slowly slipping away with his guitar. I turned and looked around at these people I’d met. The friends I had made since I left Kadear. I thought back to my old life where I so tirelessly worked for an impossible dream. During that pursuit of wealth and a home in the Citadel, I had never taken a moment to think of what a home truly was. And I realised in that moment that this place was more of a home than Kadear had ever been.