A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 by Justin Woolley

him, “Sergeant Bentley and Corporal Bosco.”
    Both Sergeant Bentley and Corporal Bosco looked older than Lieutenant Walter. The sergeant was a large gruff man with skin as white as the clouds and hair as red as the world around them. Corporal Bosco was smaller, a dark-skinned man with close-cropped black hair and a flat nose. He had white lines tattooed on his face. He was one of the Nomads.
    “We’re passing through on recruitment detail,” Walter said. “The ranks of the Diggers are low and they need bolstering. We are looking for talented young men to take the role of Apprentices, and maybe even become First Apprentices or Diggers themselves one day.”
    “Well,” Uncle said, glancing at Squid, “I don’t think you’ll find too much stock to call on round here.”
    “We are looking for boys of sixteen,” Walter said, looking at Squid.
    There was a short pause in which no one spoke.
    “What’s your name?” Walter asked Squid.
    “Squid.” His voice threatened to give way. He didn’t like speaking with people at the best of times, and this was a Digger. He’d never been this close to a Digger before. “Squid Blanchflower.”
    “And your age?”
    “Well now,” Uncle interrupted with a forced laugh, “I’m afraid Squid here is only fifteen, not yet come of age.”
    “But it’s my birthday today, Uncle,” Squid said. “Remember?”
    Uncle smiled at Squid. He put his arm around Squid’s shoulders, squeezing him tighter than was comfortable. “Yes,” he said, “fifteen years old today.” Uncle moved in closer to Walter and Squid overheard him whisper, “He’s a little bit slow.”
    “Indeed,” Walter said coolly.
    “Even if he were of age,” Uncle said, “which he isn’t, he’s all the help my wife and I have on the farm. It would be too much of a burden on us poor old farmers if you took our boy away. Dirt farmin’ is the most important job in the Territory, you know?”
    Sergeant Bentley leaned forward on his horse, looking at Uncle. “What about halting the swarms of ghouls that come from beyond the fence to devastate our lands with the curse of the Ancestors?”
    Uncle swallowed. “Well naturally,” he said, smiling again though less convincingly, “I meant the most important of the, um, the common jobs.”
    Lieutenant Walter looked at Uncle and then down at Squid. “If you were, hypothetically speaking,” he said, “older than fifteen, would you not wish to come and train at the Academy? You could be made Apprentice to a Digger who has sworn an oath to protect the Central Territory and all those who dwell within her. You would leave behind a hard life on the land and see the Territory. One day you may even become a fully fledged Digger yourself.”
    “Is that like a school?” Squid said.
    “Well yes,” Lieutenant Walter said, “it’s a school for Diggers. Does that interest you, Squid?”
    Squid felt Uncle’s fingernails digging into the flesh at the top of his arm.
    “No,” Squid said, “I need to stay on the farm and help my uncle and aunt.”
    Walter looked at him for a moment, his flat and expressionless face giving nothing away. “Very well,” he said, and he turned toward Jon Pickles’s stall. “Are these your sons?” he asked Mr Pickles.
    Uncle looked down at Squid. His small round eyes became two black slits in his face.
    “You ain’t going nowhere,” Uncle said.
    Lieutenant Argus Walter, out of the corner of his eye, saw Uncle raise the back of his hand threateningly to Squid.

CHAPTER 7
    They had sold most of their barrels by the afternoon, but that was only because Uncle had begun drastically reducing the price to avoid carting it all back to the farm. This had put him in an altogether worse mood than usual.
    “Ancestors’ sin in a tin,” he said as the sun sank lower and the shadows stretched long. “Let’s pack up. We’ll get some rooms at the pub.”
    “It’s still light,” Squid said. “We could make it back to the farm before