Kaï-ro

KAÏ-RO

Remember this…gods are like Tinkerbell, if you don’t believe in them, they fade away. But, because they’re gods, they don’t die. And if the need returns, so, too, do the objects of belief. Remember this, because it is true.

1 A BAD THING HAPPENS

Dusk fell, the light fading like a lamp running out of oil, and the temperature began to plummet. On the southern edge of the Vix territory, where it met the banks of the wide, tidal river, a boy, thin and wiry, small for his age, nervously waited for his father to return – hopefully with something to eat – to the outskirts of the shanty area where they lived.

The boy’s job, ever since his mother had died five years ago, just before his sixth birthday, was to light a fire and keep it going so they could skin and cook whatever his dad might’ve caught. But today his dad was late. And the night was no time to be out hunting because, as Stretch Wilson’s father never tired of telling him, it was all too easy to end up as prey yourself.

What was keeping him Stretch didn’t know, but in the near distance, over towards the dark, slime-covered tunnel that went under the river, he thought he heard something. He stood up from where he’d been crouched, tending the fire, and caught the sound again: raised voices and the soft thunder of hoofs. And he knew this could only mean one thing...a raiding party from the other side, from the place people called Kaï-ro.

Kaï-ro...

The name, more than the cold night air blowing in from the north, gave Stretch gooseflesh. It was an evil place, if you believed all the stories that were told about it, and because of all the stories he’d listened to, it was somewhere that he’d grown up fearing more than anything. “Be good,” every child was told, “or you’ll get taken to Kaï-ro...” This threat was the seed of many a nightmare because no one ever went south by choice. And nobody who’d been taken over ever, ever came back.

Nobody.

Then, out of the gathering darkness Stretch saw a figure running towards the confusion of discarded rubbish, sun-bleached wood, mud bricks and weathered tarps that only a close inspection would reveal as homes, places people had built to live in. Behind the man, whose arms and legs were a blur, dust exploding round his feet as he ran, he could now see the riders; one of these men, he knew from experience, would soon be whirling a weighted net above his head. Was it his father they were chasing? He couldn’t yet see clearly enough, but he didn’t think so. Surely not. It couldn’t be, he was always so careful...always.

Stretch was torn between wanting to break cover and run to help the man who might be, could be, his dad and obeying what he’d had drummed into him since almost before he could walk. Which was that survival came first. Above all else. Everyone knew this, it was like a religious belief, and as Stretch glanced around the neighbouring
lean-tos he realized that he couldn’t see another person anywhere. They’d all got out of sight, so they didn’t end up being caught themselves. His legs appeared to make the decision for him, backing him into the shadows.

Folded into a tiny, cramped space, he watched as the leading hunter trapped his quarry, bringing him down with the net as if he was nothing more than an animal. Stretch could feel the dread and fear of capture spread its cold, cold fingers through his gut and he wanted his father there with him, now, to protect him.

Where was he? Maybe he’d heard the riders coming out of the tunnel – they didn’t seem to care who knew about their arrival as people rarely, if ever, fought back. Maybe he’d hidden so they wouldn’t get him. That had to be it. He was waiting until they’d gone before he came back. Maybe...

Then, as the last of the blood-red daylight seeped into the darkness of the horizon, Stretch had a thought that made him bite his lip so hard it bled. What if it really was his father he was watching being hauled off the ground by his hair and shackled like a beast?

Watching, and doing nothing.

Stretch saw the hunter get back up onto his horse and ride away, the man he’d caught and roped stumbling into the night after him; just before the gloom swallowed them up, Stretch saw the man glance backwards over his shoulder, and then he was gone. For a moment Stretch was quite positive the man was looking straight at him. Did he shout something? Stretch couldn’t tell as it had all happened too quickly and too far away. But all he did know for sure was that he had just witnessed a disappearance and, as a single, hot tear ran down his cheek, he felt alone in a way he never had before...