A clanging sound started nearby.
With the setting sun behind him like a halo, Ban stood at his forge, beating a piece of glowing metal into shape. Slowly, a blade began to take shape under the pounding.
Metal things were difficult to make, but Ban knew how to do it. It was another lost thing that they had found again, just like reading.
For Ban, the knowledge had been in his family for years; he simply had to figure out how to use it. He had been taught by his grandfather, Martin, who had learned about blacksmithing from his own father. It went back in their family to the time of the Olders.
Ban looked up from his work; the clanging stopped.
“Leader,” he said.
Illya felt his cheeks redden.
“I’m sorry; I was going to the field,” Illya stammered.
Ban turned back to his work with a grunt. He pumped the bellows so that the embers under the forge glowed hot then returned to shaping the bright metal.
The raw material was scarce. There was not a lot of metal around that hadn’t been claimed by rust, but it didn’t take very much to make a knife. Ban would put a piece of scrap right on the fire and work the bellows until the metal was red as a coal.
It had taken Ban’s family a hundred years to find a way to make one thing that could replace something the Olders had left behind. The knives were a single tool, yet the Olders had used countless things like them. It made Illya’s head swim to think of the extent of all that his people had lost.
The planting was about more than their survival, Illya thought, feeling the seeds in his pocket.
They had to make a new world where it was possible to do new things, where they didn’t simply scrape by in the same miserable cycle day after day, season after season.
“Have you been out there then?” Illya asked.
Ban stopped and glanced at him, a slight frown on his face.
“I was,” he said. “Your Conna wanted more of these.” Ban held up the glowing blade with his tongs.
For some reason, the sight of the blade made Illya uneasy. He turned away and looked towards the field.
The diggers were making their way off the field to rest at the edge. They leaned on their digging tools and shovels, some no more than chips of wood wedged into crude tree-branch handles. The people laughed and talked, looking happy.
The Patrollers who had been out gathering started coming in from the forest with armloads of shoots and stalks. Nico, grinning, carried a basket brimming with new mushrooms. Everyone was working hard so that the dream of planting could have a chance.
His people deserved more than just survival. They deserved to thrive. It didn’t matter how he felt, how awkward being the Leader was for him, Illya realized. He could lose a hundred friends and it would still all be worth it.
He wasn’t doing this for himself. It was for the people who had put their faith in him. It was for his mother and sister, who could not make it through another hungry winter. It was for Charlie, who had come back to dig the day after being hit, even though there was still a lump on his head the size of an egg.
Conna was right. He had to do whatever it took.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IMPIRI, ELIAS, AND Jimmer came out of the stone house and walked to the edge of the field. Impiri crossed her arms across her chest; she shook her head as she talked to Elias. After a few minutes, Sabelle came out and joined them. She stood back from her parents. Like them, she was conspicuously clean of mud. She examined the field with a slight frown then crouched down and ran her fingers through the soil, her lips parting slightly.
It was time. Illya approached, feeling the eyes of all the assembled people shift to him one by one. The field looked just like the pictures in the book, soft and level with no weeds or rocks.
Next year, if this worked, they could extend it to the edge of the forest then maybe even start another on the other side of the village.
Next year.
He couldn’t help smiling at the thought. Until now, no one had been sure there would even be a “next year”. He felt their eyes on him, especially Sabelle’s. His belly clenched with nerves in a way that was becoming all too familiar. He repeated the thought to himself with each step.
Next year, next year, next year.
Then he was there, in the center of a ring of people. They stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak. He cleared his throat and opened the book. Conna had suggested that he read to them. It had taken hours of practice to make sure it would come out smoothly.
“Prepare the soil to the depth of two to three feet by tilling; break up large clumps until you can run your fingers through it.”
Reaching down, he picked up a handful of wet dirt. He smiled and let it trickle through his fingers to fall to the ground. The people cheered. A lot of work had gone into making this field, and they were proud of it.
“Remove all the rocks.” He nodded toward the stones they had piled into a large cairn at the edge of the field.
“Maybe someday we will be able to build more stone houses with those,” he said. He glanced up and saw Impiri’s scowl. She did not appear impressed with the idea at all.
“What’s it say next?” asked a young boy standing beside his father in the crowd. His little face was streaked with dirt, and he leaned on a makeshift shovel, looking much like a miniature adult. Illya smiled at him.
“Plant seeds along furrows. Depth and spacing vary according to species,” he read.
“What’s a species?” the little boy asked. Illya opened his mouth then stopped. He was about to admit that he didn’t know, but Conna spoke first.
“We have seeds to plant. Let’s go make furrows.” The people cheered again, and the little boy sulked. His father placed a hand on his shoulder, and he didn’t say anything else.
“The furrows are troughs in the soil, like long valleys. Make them as long as the length of the field,” Illya said, closing the book and using it to point. “They should be as deep as one of your fingers and as far apart as the length of a man’s arm.”
The book gave a general range for depth and spacing but recommended that they follow the “package instructions.” Illya didn’t know what those were, but he was fairly sure he didn’t have them.
Planting at the depth of a finger was a pure guess. He hoped that it wouldn’t prove to be a terrible mistake, but there was nothing left to do but try and see what happened.
The people spread out across the field with their tools. Sabelle picked up a stick and moved to join them. Impiri caught her by the elbow. Sabelle jerked away from her mother’s grasp and went to dig beside Benja.
Illya buried his fingers in the seeds in his pocket and watched them.
After so much labor, the people made short work of the furrows. Illya took the seeds out of his pocket, cradling them in his hand. Solemnly, he walked down the length of the field and placed them a foot apart along the bottoms of the furrows. The gray wedges looked tiny and insignificant, almost disappearing in the soil where they fell. He swallowed.
Now that he saw them lying in the ground, it seemed impossible that one little seed was all it took.
Then he was done. The seeds were all out there, safely in the ground. The people spread out and carefully covered the furrows with soil.
Illya smiled, feeling better than he had all week. Conna had approved of him planting the seeds himself because it was appropriately symbolic. It felt wonderful to do something practical after all of the tension of preparation.