I was helping Da at the forge when our town's god died. He had me pumping the bellows – the only thing I was big enough to do yet – and when I looked back, Da was gone, the bar of iron in the coals going well past the yellow color he liked and on to white. I wanted to snatch the stock out. He always hollered big when I worked the bellows too hard and overheated the metal. But getting the tongs to take the metal out myself would get me a whupping, not a hollering. He said he wouldn't let me touch the tongs until I was at least eight, and I wasn't sure I'd ever get that old.

Justice and Baran were both gone from their spots too, which made no sense at all. They were his apprentices and lived at the forge even though Justice was my brother. Mama complained sometimes, but Da said apprentices lived in their trade house, and that was that. Even more worrying was that the red lines that connected us were gone. Do might cuff me if I ever mentioned them, but they were always there… until now.

I'd stopped working the bellows, and now the metal was going dull red, not quite hot enough to get more than a couple of good whacks on before it went cold. Should I keep pumping? Too hot, too cold. It was so hard to get it just right. Da would have to decide. He knew everything.

There was no one in the forge – no one, not even Aislin who always liked to peek in at Baran and bring him treats from her mother's bakery – and nobody in the street out front, either. It was midday. The main street of Hammertown was never empty at midday. A scared lump grew in my belly. Something was really, really wrong.

I ran unsteadily to the house of Sage Neera, our healer, praying to Sumendi that my bad leg wouldn't buckle under me. Neera always had a hard candy and a smile for anyone little. I knocked and knocked, but no one answered. I heard her baby Anda crying inside. Holding my breath to give myself courage, I reached up and opened the door. Never go in to people's houses without them saying so, Mama's voice said inside my head. They get mad. Well, I'd never seen Sage Neera mad, so I was just going to have to risk it.

"Hello?" I said shakily. No one answered, but Anda was still wailing. Following the noise, I found the baby in her swaddle in the middle of the kitchen floor. Limping over, I picked her up and shushed her with a bouncing pat like I did for Mama with baby Riri, my little sister. Anda had a big red mark on her cheek like she'd been dropped. It was like Sage Neera had just tossed her aside and wandered off. The lump in my gut grew.

I got to the end of the street, still holding Anda. She'd settled down and fallen asleep as soon as someone was holding her. What if everyone is gone forever? What will I do? I'm not big enough to pick the corn or milk the cows. Even just thinking those thoughts felt big and scary.

Then I caught sight of Badger, the refiner's boy, sitting in the shade of his house, his arms wrapped around his legs and his head on his knees. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was crying, but that couldn't be right. Badger didn't cry. He made other kids cry. Me especially. He hated that one of my legs was shorter than the other one and said just seeing me walk made him crazy. I spent a lot of effort avoiding him most days, but today was not most days. I was so glad to see someone older than myself that I went right up to him. He might not be an adult, but he was the next best thing. Being twelve was practically like being grown up.

"Badger, where is everyone?" I said, trying not to sound whiny. He said he hated it when little kids whined. "Did you see where they went?"

"Shut up, Nock," he said into the hollow behind his legs where his face was hiding. "Go away."

"Everyone's gone," I insisted.

"They're dead," he told me dully, looking up with a tear-stained face. "Sumendi took them."

"Don't say that," I whispered. "Our god is good."

"I'll say it if I please, and he can melt my bones if he's still around to do it," Badger said, wiping his nose on the knee of his pants. "Da was right in the middle of laying into me when his ring started glowing and he just disappeared." He shrugged. "Sumendi took 'em."

"No," I groaned. Anda whimpered in my arms. Everyone in Hammertown got their Sumendi ring when they were old enough – even Badger should have had one by now if his father hadn't been a drunk and a layabout that would never take his boy into the temple for the ceremony. We all knew the old stories that the elder mams told around the fire: when a god died, all who were pledged were taken up to the Endless Halls to serve them in the afterlife. But who would kill the god of smiths and volcanoes? Who would shoe all the horses now?

"Come on, you worthless lump," Badger said, standing up. "Let's see who's left."

* * *

There were ten of us in the end. Badger was the oldest, but Mersina took charge once she found us. Badger didn't mind – he knew as well as the rest of us that him being in charge was like a fish climbing a tree.

"We get to the walls," Mersina said. "We're all unpledged; someone will take us in."

"Will they make us pray to their god?" Denkun asked, lip trembling.

"You best hope they do," Badger snarled. "Sumendi's dead. You want to survive, you move on to a god that can help you." He rubbed the spot where his ring should have been. I'd always felt sorry for him that he'd be so low on the lists of the pledged once his da finally got him a ring, that he'd be forever less skilled and powerful than other smiths in Hammertown, but now it looked like his no-good father had saved his life.

Anda and Riri were the only babies. I'd cried good and hard walking into my home and seeing everyone gone, but the relief at finding her asleep in her crib had knocked back the sadness. I was used to having Riri on my hip; Mama had never been a big one on paying too much attention to us littles anyhow. At this point, it was mostly just a question of how a gaggle of kids was going to feed themselves and stay alive.

Denkun started to cry. "I want Babu!" he sobbed. He was only five. My eyes watered, but I was six now. No crying allowed.

"Button up your face, Dunk," Badger snarled, rapping him on the head. "We're taking you to the City. It'll be fine."

I made a corn mash over the fire at Marsina's house, enough for everyone to have a good big meal, and we set out. Hammertown was half a day's walk from the City, but none of us had ever made the trip by ourselves. The big ones, Marsina and Badger and Took, all held long sticks and kept to the outsides of the group as we walked on the rutted road through Adginton Wood. Usually beasts would only attack lone travelers at night, but usually a bunch of little kids weren't on the road by themselves, either. At first every rustle of the branches and underbrush made us jump, but before long the weariness of the walk wore us down and we made good time.

Between holding Riri and having a gimp leg, I soon fell to the back of the group. I gritted my teeth against the grinding in my knee and ankle and pushed harder. Nobody's gonna wait for you, Da always said, and he was right. If I fell behind and some direwolf came up on the road to eat me, not a one of the others would do anything except run. If I wanted to live – if I wanted my little sister to live – I had to push through the pain. It hurt worse than usual, but I set my teeth and dealt with it. I'd been doing this as long as I could remember.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

We all breathed a little easier when we got out of the woods and the bright stone walls of the City reared up ahead of us in the distance. Behind the tall outer wall was another further back that was even taller, and behind that one yet another that seemed to stretch up to the sky.

"Babu said he got into the second ring once," Denkun said, sounding awed. "They had cobblestones made of gold."

"If your Babu ever made it past the outermost street of the last ring I'll eat my shoes," Badger sneered. "You've got to be in the top thousand pledges to get through the second gate, that's what my Ma said."

Denkun shifted Anda on his back. "Your Ma was dumber than dog poo," he grumbled to himself, so quiet that even I barely heard it right behind him. He knew better than to talk back where Badger could hear.

Finally, finally, the great gates of the City rose overhead. The dirt road had been replaced with hard, close-packed cobbles half an hour back, and the rest of them practically ran the last stretch. By the time I caught up the others were already talking with the guards. The red lines between us and them were barely there at all. They didn't care about us at all.

"...all that's left," Marsina said.

"Kids coming in from all sides with Sumendi going down," the fatter guard said, spitting through his teeth. "You're the fourth group today. Hammertown, you said?"

"I can't keep track of all these flyspeck villages," the other one grumbled. He was tall and bearded, and he held his spear like he'd just as soon spit us on it as talk to us. I kept well back.

"We're all unpledged," Marsina said. "We know how to work and we'll follow the prayers of whoever takes us in."

The fat one snorted. "Right good of you, kiddo. Here's the facts: nobody over six gets fostered. Any older than that, you gotta have a ring, and you have to be ranked at least twenty thousand if you want through the outer gate." He patted the vambrace on his right forearm, which shone bright and new where the other was dull and pitted with rust. A number was etched into the bright metal: 18246. As I watched, the etchings shifted, and now it said 18245. Mama and Da had had numbers like that on their hammer rings, just like every other adult I'd known in town. The lowest I'd ever seen on Da's was 23091, and Mama's had been in the thirties. I'd never seen anyone with a god token that wasn't a ring, but I guessed it made sense for whatever god a soldier would follow to give armor instead.

"What are the rest of us supposed to do?" Pemma said. She was nine and skinny as a rail.

"Not bother gate guards," the tall man said, sounding bored. "Find another village out in the forest or something. They won't have entrance rules."

"We didn't pass any," Marsina said, her voice rising in panic. "You're going to send us back through the woods? We won't get back home before night!"

"Better run, then," the fat one said. "Leave the littles and be on your way."

Badger stepped forward, and I tensed for the yelling, but for once in his life, he was quiet. "Please," he said, sounding sincere. "I'll do whatever I have to. Please. Nobody's ever cared about me."

"Nobody's gonna start now," the guard snorted. "There's rules, little man. You think I'm going to lose my job because a village boy drops a few tears? Get gone before I put a hole in you. Come back when you've got a god token or not at all."

Lips tight and eyes worried, Marsina shooed us smaller ones forward. The guards each took a baby as if they were holding a live adder. It hurt to hand Riri over, but I knew it was for the best. They'd find her a family to keep her safe and fed. Maybe we'd even get to go together. The fat man told the rest of us to stand against the wall, well out of the way.

"Hold up," the tall one said, dropping his spear butt in front of me as I limped after the others. "Not you."

"I'm six," I said.

"Don't care," he replied. "No cripples."

Marsina opened her mouth to object, but whatever she saw on the man's face made her shut it again. She pulled me back. "Let's go, Nock."

We trudged away, and I spared one last glance for my little sister. She was looking at the fat man who held her with a vaguely confused look. "Bye, Riri," I said softly. "May Sumen… oh. May somebody watch over you. I don't know who."

Once the guards and little kids were just little blobs in the distance, Badger turned to me. "We're going to have to run all the way home."

I nodded, gritting my teeth. "Okay."

"No," he said, pushing me away from the others. "If we wait for you and try to keep you safe, we'll all die. You follow on your own."

Once again Marsina looked like she wanted to argue, but she stayed silent. She wouldn't meet my eyes. Neither would any of the others. The red lines between us faded to nothing.

"Okay," I said. "Run fast."

They did, and soon they were gone. Nobody's gonna wait for you, Da said. I was surprised they'd put up with me this long. If I was going to get through the forest, I'd have to do it on my own. When I reached the forest's edge, I searched until I found a good stick for beating and held onto it. Clouds were gathering and the wind was blowing, and it'd be dark in a couple of hours. I was scared, but all I could do was keep walking. Either something would eat me, or it wouldn't.

The rain started not long after that. I was soaked and shivering even before night fell. The road turned to mud and sucked at my shoes. I wished I was back at the forge worrying about if the metal was too hot or too cold, but somehow I knew I was never going to do that again. Sumeni was dead; why would I? Nobody tried to win the favor of a dead god. No more rings with hammers on them and a number that said where you fit with the others. I'd wanted one for as long as I could remember, and now I'd never get one.

The strangest and loneliest thing of all was to be walking in the dark with no red lines to connect me to anybody. I'd always known where to find someone to be with – just follow the lines! – and now there was no one. It was so dark in the forest, and the rain and wind pushed on me like they hated me.

Finally I found a big pine with thick branches that hung down all the way to the ground and crept in underneath to keep most of the rain off me. It was still cold, and I was shivering badly, but it was better than being on the road. If some beast wanted to crawl in after me and eat me up, I wasn't even sure I cared anymore.

I laid there and shivered until I couldn't feel my fingers. I kept closing my eyes and trying to sleep, but they popped open on their own every time. After a while, I realized that it was because I was staring at something there in the branches and hadn't realized it. There was a line there, and it connected to me, but this one was green. I'd never seen a green line before.

I followed the line out from under the tree before I could stop myself. I wasn't sleeping anyways. The line was weak and flickering, but I could see it. Who was I connected to?

The rain came down harder than ever, but these lines didn't care about wind or rain or sun. Deep into the forest I went, pausing when the line flickered out of existence and walking when it came back. After a time that I couldn't keep track of, I found what it was connected to.

A beast lay on the ground, gasping. An arrow jutted from its ribs, and its lips were bloody. It was a huge boar, and its tusks were as long as my arm. As I watched, it shuddered, gave a great, hacking cough, and fell still. The green line between us disappeared.

I stared, confused. Why had we been connected? Why had the line been green? I'd never seen that happen with squirrels or rabbits when I chased them with my slingshot. It was like it had been waiting for me to get here before it died.

A glimmer caught my eye in the darkness. It had spit something out with that deathrattle. Reaching down, I picked up what looked like a tiny ball of glass. It glowed green inside, and it was warm. I huddled around it, willing the little thing to take away the cold.

It felt good on my hands, but I needed the center of me to get warm, and my dripping shirt felt suddenly in the way. I dropped the little ball down the neck of my shirt and caught it against my belly with my hands outside the fabric. It felt good. It felt like being wrapped in a blanket by the fire.

Then there was a sudden pinch in my skin where the ball was, like a big ant had bitten me or something. I gasped and tried to pull the ball away from my skin, but it wouldn't budge. It had glued itself to me somehow. Reaching up under my shirt from below, I tried to pry it away, but when my fingers felt it, they only felt a small bump with skin all around. The thing had buried itself inside me.

I wanted to tear off my shirt and cut the little ball out of me, but I didn't even have a knife. I was panting in fear. I was even more scared now than when I'd realized everyone was gone. Suddenly a loud voice boomed behind me, and I jumped.

"All hail, favored of me, first of my devotees – oh endless skies, you're a child. You're a tiny child. And you've got a bad leg. Fantastic."

Spinning, I saw a man floating in the air… but he wasn't a man. He had arms and legs, but his head had a great mane of fur, and his face was a lion's. I stared at him, completely forgetting the magic ball that had burrowed into my guts.

"I finally get a sentient devotee, and this is what I end up with," the being grumbled, distracted. "If I didn't know better, I'd say someone has a rich sense of humor."

With a great gusty sigh, the being settled to the forest floor in front of me. "Congratulations, kid, you're the first follower of a beast god. We're gonna have a hell of a time together."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.