Prisoner of Fate by Tony Shillitoe Page A

too many people into them for work. I like a simpler life. Good for the lad as well.’ He talked as if there was no war as he described how he had bought the farm cheaply and modified it to suit his plans to grow crops and run sheep, and how Esta and he were planning to have more children now that the farm was established and going strong. His chatter left her drifting through memories of conversations on the edge of Bill’s world in another place and time, another life when she was living like Esta and raising three children with her husband. There were long discussions of the future, of plans for the farm and for the children, of dreams. The Kerwyn invasion changed everything—destroyed her calm and beautiful world and her hope. Now, another invasion in a different world threatened to do the same to her again. She prayed Emma was safe. She hopedthat Marella was as untouched by the war as Bill and Esta’s farm.
    The buck and sway of the wagon rolling along the track, the clip-clop of the piebald horse’s hoofs, Bill’s mellow voice and the sun’s warmth made the morning journey pass as if in a dream, and for a while she could imagine there wasn’t a war between the Ranu and Andrak people. A flock of skimmer birds traversing the sky in V-formation reminded her of the grey-and-white plovers that frequented the hills above Summerbrook in Tayooh cycle—in West Andrak the season was called spring. For fifteen years, her life in Marella had returned to the simplicity she craved and enjoyed in Summerbrook before the Kerwyn invasion—a life revolving around her daughter, her garden and her cottage. The legacy of the amber shard and the sorrow and death it brought to her was almost forgotten, the shard hidden in the jar in her cottage, but the peace was dissolving again and she knew there was a chance she would need the amber for her daughter’s safety. She prayed in her heart that circumstances would not force that decision upon her as it had before.
    Relaxed, soaking in the morning’s ambience, she felt at peace with everything—but froze when she saw the white crowd massing at the ferry as they crested a hill and descended towards the river. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked Bill as she stared at the Ranu soldiers.
    ‘Cross the river,’ Bill replied calmly. ‘The Ranu soldiers have no issue with us. They’re under orders to take as much of the land as peacefully as they can. They only fight other soldiers.’ He eased his foot onto the brake to slow the wagon as he gently pulled back on the reins.
    ‘Wow!’ Lee gasped from behind Meg’s shoulder. ‘Look at the peacemakers, Dad.’
    Meg took the boy’s direction to see the five large silver-muzzled peacemakers mounted on wheels assembled on the river bank. She also saw contraptions that resembled multiple peacemakers strapped together and mounted on small carriages, and three white dragon eggs moored with ropes to the ground. The Ranu were ferrying an army across the river. ‘We’ll have to wait,’ she said quietly as the wagon drew closer to the soldiers.
    A Ranu soldier stepped into their path and held up his hand when they reached the approach to the ferry. Meg noted that his head was wrapped in white cloth and that he wore a very loose white shirt and baggy white pants, separated by a deep-red sash around his waist. He had a peacemaker slung across his back. His skin was olive and his beard was black and his dark eyes scrutinised the wagon and rested on her momentarily before he spoke to Bill. Bill turned to Meg. ‘Do you understand Ranu?’
    She shook her head. In her fifteen years in West Andrak, she’d seen Ranu traders from a distance in the town market, but to her, throughout that period, the Ranu were an invisible enemy beyond the war frontline, distant and unknown. She knew little about their culture and even less about the people. There was a time, with the amber magic, that she could translate any language she heard or read—but that