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I was living a quiet, uncertain, and sometimes perilous existence near the shore. We had managed to avoid outright warring with the scavengers, though I was in charge of all the farming in our community. The scavengers knew better than to face more of my kind in combat, but that did not stop them from stealing crops and harassing people.
My settlement was far from the ocean, the highest ground this side of the coast, but it was still prone to the vagaries of the weather. The scavengers could not possibly know where we were, but I tended to keep to myself anyway for the most part.
I had seen the smoke several days earlier in the water and had wondered at the time what kinds of things the scavengers were doing. I am not one accustomed to magical occurrences, but I was intrigued. Upon seeing the smoke appear, I had wondered if it was a warning of some kind, the doomsday of our people in the making.
My heart was in my throat and I almost did not hear Elynthia's voice calling my name.
"Cane. You need to see this," she said and ran up to me.
"What is it?" I asked, my heart hammering.
"Come with me. You do not want to miss this," Elynthia said.
I followed her away from the others, and I could sense that every eye in my camp was on the two of us. I looked back once and saw Selina staring at us both, her eyes bulging. Selina was my equal, though she had never been my friend or anything resembling one. She and I were the only ones with any magic after two unfortunates had been locked away. Selina was a telepath, and I could only sense my surroundings.
"What is going on?" I asked as we hid behind a cluster of trees.
"Look," Elynthia said.
I watched her breathe her mouth and we both stared out at the water. A ship sat on the water, a single ship of wood and steel that looked as old as the Earth itself. I could only stare at it, my soul in my throat. The man standing before it had pale skin, deep brown eyes, and a full head of black hair. He wore fine clothes that seemed to have been made from some animal hide, and the armor he wore had strange figures etched into it. It looked ceremonial, as if something he had been waiting for had arrived.
The man began to walk up to the ship, but stopped and turned to a scrawny person beside him. The scrawny person threw the hair from his eyes and opened the door to the ship, bounding up the steps and inside it. The strange man stopped again and clasped his hands together, smiling to himself.
A moment later the ship roared to life, and I instantly knew what it was. The man who had gone inside of it was on it. The ship that had floated above the ocean and sat for what had probably been months, at my watching, was the Arathos and the man was the Scavenger King himself. The news of the artifact coming to fruition was carried throughout my camp in an instant, and I prepared myself for whatever might happen as the boat came closer.
The ship touched down ground with a great blast of thunder. The Scavenger King stepped out of the ship and waved at all who had gathered around him. He looked over to us, crouching nearby, and his eyes stared into mine. His smile faltered and some of the jauntiness in his expression was removed, replaced with deep lines of worry around his eyes.
"How was the trip?" he said to Elynthia and me in a rich sense of awe.
"How did you get here?" I blurted out.
"I vas habbing here, of course," he replied.
The scavengers around him spoke in their language, clearly happy for their leader. He smiled at them and made some quick hand signs that inspired a flurry of activity. They seemed to disperse, leaving only him and one of his lieutenants on the beach. From the looks on their faces, the Scavenger King had quite a tale to share with a few people. I led him and his lieutenant back to my camp and led them past everyone else until they were inside my home.
"Why do you look so concerned?" the man asked, his voice a little too high pitched for his features.
"We expected you a day or so ago, and had held our breath for you. We did not imagine it would be this soon," I said, making him wonder.
"I was very disappointed when you told us you could not do this," he said, gesturing to his lieutenant.
"This man is very good with tools. We could not convince him to take the trip," I said, gesturing to the scrawny man.
"And she will protect you," the man said, looking to Elynthia.
"We have no wish to be teased or harmed," I said, but could not keep my skepticism from sneering at his face.
"I will not hurt you. I have my own troubles. The scavengers are very forthcoming toward me for some reason," he said.
"What troubles?" Elynthia asked.
"We are very low on resources. It would have been easy to turn to the scavengers and sell what we had, but they seem more interested in trying to force me to their side. I believe they put out this device to try to get me on their side, which is why I needed to be here as quickly as I could," he said.
I took a deep breath and wished I could make a snide comment, but he seemed sincere and we did not have much time to deal with this.
"We shall have to trust you and your lieutenant," I said.
The man smiled again, but there was something puzzling about his smile. I began to wonder if he could manipulate our thoughts at all. He seemed sincere, but I did not think that he was aware of how he acted on our minds. I could only hope that he would be able to help us.
The Scavenger King and his lieutenant escorted me and Elynthia back out into the daylight camp where the rest of the encampment was. The people were curious about the two men and the other Scavenger King who had also come to us, but there was too much action to be done. We went to my village to get my tools and talked to anyone that wanted to be involved.
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