Read a Sample

“Max! Wake up, buddy!” Dashi the red cat rhythmically tapped at the door with the knuckles of his furry fingers. “Hear that? We’re leaving, just as we agreed. It’s almost midnight, it will be too late soon.”

“Yeah? Already?” a sleepy voice responded from behind the door. “Coming out. Just gathering my things.”

“Finally! I’ve almost knocked my paws raw against the door. Thought you had called it off.”

“I’m getting ready!”

Dashi wanted to sit on a bench near the entrance to the dilapidated hut, but a light rain began to fall, and he was forced to remain standing under the leaky roof on the tiny wooden porch. The hut stood on the very edge of a dwindling riverbank. Years ago, the river was fuller, and there was enough fish to live off without knowing grief. Now, only the scattered nets and fishing gear with dried black algae hinted at the past bounty.

After some rustling, the frail, rotting door creaked open slightly. A long, coal-black body slipped out. Max turned to the door, attempting to close it quietly, but it betrayed him with a squeak. Someone coughed inside the house. Both froze, but it seemed no one else woke up.

“Shh…” Max hissed. “Don’t want to wake mother. The rain… As if we needed this. Is it acidic?”

“Uh-huh,” grumbled Dashi under his breath, “the only good thing about this rain is it makes it harder for the guards to spot us.”

“I don’t fancy itching like last time. I’d rather get soaked by regular rain… through and through… down to every last fur. But this…” Max extended a furry paw, catching the fine droplets.

He brought his paw to his nose and sniffed. His nostrils flared, pulling the air in deeply. Max licked his paw with the tip of his tongue and concluded:

“The acidity is mild. We can go… in cloaks. But not for long.”

“Maybe we’ll wait a bit. It’ll die down soon,” Dashi smirked in response.

With a swift, confident motion, the black cat Max draped a cloak with a hood over himself and stared thoughtfully across the river, where the dark outline of a tall stone wall was barely visible behind the sparse underbrush.

Ever since the river had silted up and the fish disappeared, venturing beyond the wall was the only way to make a living. Usually, Max was completely calm before a trip beyond the wall. But today was different. A nagging premonition that they shouldn’t go there today wouldn’t leave him. Anxiety had settled deep inside, and no matter what he did or how he tried to distract himself, he couldn’t shake it off. But they needed to go. Necessity compelled them.

The rain eased into a light drizzle. The guys wrapped up in their cloaks, slung homemade bags stitched from old fabric under them, and approached the steep, low bank, jumped into the murky water, and waded across.

Slimy algae, unpleasant and sticky to the touch, clung to their paws, hindering their steps and accumulating more with each stride. The current was weak, and the water waist-deep, so they quickly reached the opposite bank, shook off the algae from their paws, adjusted their bags, and moved towards the trees.

“We should have enough food for three days. I hope we won’t be there any longer,” Dashi whispered with a smile.

Max was silent. He was never a chatty cat. Especially now, with the uneasy feeling lingering, the last thing he wanted was to talk. Dashi, on the other hand, was always light-hearted. In stark contrast to the perpetually serious, brooding silent type, the Redhead was always ready for a chat, which often irritated Max.

Crouching low, they drew closer to the trees. The wall soared so high that it was hard to see its top. But the guys knew that guards stood somewhere up there. Max and Dashi wore dark green capes made of coarse hemp fabric, which made them less noticeable. Their figures blended with the surroundings.

Dashi particularly needed such a cloak: the fabric almost completely covered his fiery-orange fur. Underneath the cloak, he wore something akin to a jumpsuit with sleeves, hugging his body from neck to ankles. Dashi was slightly plump and very tall, taller and bulkier than Max. Despite this, he moved with extraordinary grace, which seemed unnatural for such a bulky figure.

Under a shallow hood on Dashi’s head, worn askew, sat a linen cap the color of his outfit, from under which peered his perpetually cheerful, spirited eyes.

Max, on the other hand, was a lean, slender cat, shorter than Dashi, but hardly anyone would call him short. It’s just that Redhead was a giant, rivaling many adult dogs in size. Max didn’t need heavy camouflage like his friend; his body was covered in short black fur. Only a large white patch on his chest, extending up his neck, broke the darkness.

Currently, the patch was covered by the cloak, and its whiteness peeked out only occasionally between the folds of fabric as he moved. Max moved so gracefully that sometimes it seemed as though he wasn’t walking on his hind paws but gliding smoothly over the grass.

Their paws were bare. There were reasons for that. Shoes would have greatly restricted their movements, made their steps louder, and significantly slowed them down.

The guys approached the edge of the small forest before the wall. Now, the risk of being noticed was reduced. Dashi stepped into the woods first, followed by Max. They did not walk directly to the wall but in large zigzags, as if an invisible path twisted back and forth among the bushes. And so it was. It was their path.

Only it was barely visible even in daylight: so light were their steps that they left almost no traces on the damp soil and low grass. The friends knew this trail by heart. And it meandered on purpose: to ensure no one discovered the place it led to. So even with their eyes closed, they could have found exactly the spot on the wall they needed.

Dashi suddenly stopped.

“Wait, buddy… I have a feeling we forgot something… Did you definitely bring the food?”

“I did, I did. Don’t worry, you won’t starve,” Max grumbled irritably.

“No… It’s something else… Did you bring the weapon? I have mine.”

“Yes, I’ve got everything, let’s go!” Max, just in case, felt for the handle of the homemade short blade hanging at his waist under his cloak.

“That’s it! I remembered what I forgot.”

“What is it?”

“This!” Dashi chuckled softly, leaned his body forward slightly, and with a squeaky sound, passed gas.

Max instantly gave him a kick in the rear and growled:

“Not funny. Your jokes are out of place right now, Dashi! You’ll get us thrown into the dungeon. Move it!”

“Going, going. Ouch, that hurts,” Dashi mumbled, barely holding back laughter and rubbing the sore spot.

The guys got close to the wall. It smelled musty and moldy, just like a dungeon. The gray, rough surface of the wall at ground level was covered with moss and lichen. These plants formed a velvety green cushion speckled with gray and yellow, covering the wall up to two meters from the ground.

Dashi, now utterly serious, pushed aside a piece of mossy blanket. A narrow crevice appeared. It was a through passage to the other side. They had stumbled upon it several years ago when they were still kittens.

The crevice, slightly less than a meter high, was somewhat wider at the bottom than at the top. The width at the top was barely enough to squeeze a head through. So, getting to the other side was not a quick task, and definitely not an easy one. The guys, bending their paws at the knees, sidled through the crack.

The rough, cool surface of the stone unpleasantly scratched their cheeks and left scratches on their skin even through the fur. Max, silent, concentrated on overcoming the distance step by step. Following him, huffing and puffing, squeezed through Dashi, the Redhead. Due to his large body size, it was exceptionally difficult for him. Yet, puffing, he hummed something to himself. Such was his character. In the most hopeless and difficult situations, Dashi amazingly managed to maintain carefreeness and a cheerful disposition.

“That’s it… I can’t anymore! Can’t breathe. Are we going to suffocate and stay here forever? Is this the end?” Thoughts swirled in Max’s head. But outwardly, he was calm and focused, as usual. And just when it became almost unbearable, the air became fresher. That meant one thing – the exit was near. It got easier to move.

“Finally! Just a bit more effort – and the long-awaited exit! We’ll make it! Dashi and I have gotten out of worse scrapes than this!”

And that was nothing but the truth. Just a year ago, they ran into several thugs from the hostile gang of Lame Cid. They were outnumbered five to one. And those had cornered the two friends. The opponents were several years older than Dashi and Max. Taller by a head, or even two, and stronger. Their faces were painted in the manner of the war paint of wild tribes. They looked terrifying. It was clear that the friends were in trouble.

The strongcat Dashi pulled out a huge post of a broken fence standing nearby. Swinging it powerfully, he struck a couple of dolts. Max, with a short stick from the same fence, covered Redhead ‘s back and thumped those who tried to jump from the flanks. And they backed off. The guys barely fought them off. There were plenty of similar stories. They often got into trouble. And always managed to come out alive and almost unscathed.

Soon the friends were standing at the foot of the wall outside, eagerly breathing in the air, shaking off the dust. A steep grassy slope led to a swamp. Long ago, there had once been a lake here. But it had dried up and turned into a swamp, like the river near Max’s hut.

A fairly long journey lay ahead: they needed to cross the swamp, and beyond it stretched an almost endless steppe, beyond which to the northwest, before a dense ancient forest, was their goal.

The rain had stopped. The moon appeared between the dispersing clouds.

Regaining their composure, the friends descended the slope to the marshy area. The entire surface was dotted with grassy hummocks, between which glimmered muddy sludge in the moonlight. They didn’t want to walk through the swamp, but it was the only short way. If they had thought to bypass it, their journey would have stretched out several times over.

“Damn it! Without the rain, they’ll eat us alive!” Dashi exhaled with annoyance.

They tightened their cloaks, tied fabric masks over their faces, leaving only their eyes open, and began to hop from hummock to hummock, trying not to step off and unnecessarily soak their paws in the mud. As soon as the friends entered the swamp, a cloud of aggressive, hungry gnats descended on them. At first, there were few, bearable. But the deeper into the swamp they went, the more bloodsuckers threw themselves at them, trying to bite through cloaks and masks, some succeeding.

The gnats tried to penetrate any gap in the fabric of their clothing and cling to their bodies. Soon there were so many insects that they formed a dense curtain around the guys, which hampered visibility. Dashi kept groaning, scratching, and after every two or three jumps, slapped himself on the head or body with a paw. Max jumped in complete silence. The stale air was filled with a tense buzzing.

Thus, they hopped until dawn.

*            *            *           *

“Phew,” sighed Dashi as the friends finally emerged from the swamp. “When are we going to stop for a break, buddy? I’m starving.”

“Hold on. We need to get further into the steppe to make sure no one spots us. We’ll reach our clearing and rest there.”

Dawn was breaking. The guys took off their masks, enjoying the cool breeze that soothed their bodies heated from the long run with leaps. Their long whiskers and the fur on their pricked ears fluttered in the sharp gusts of wind. The air was fragrant with the sweet smell of steppe herbs.

Before them, the vast steppe stretched out to the horizon, and there was nothing else to catch the eye. No trees, no road, no house—just the endless steppe covered with sparse, sun-bleached grass of a pale greenish hue.

Max glanced back. In the distance, a thin gray line marked the wall surrounding the city-state of Jaako, his home—both beloved and loathed to the point of nausea. From here, the wall seemed tiny, almost toy-like. It brought on a wave of sadness and nostalgia.

He thought of his mother. She was surely awake by now, thinking of him. And he wasn’t there. She hadn’t been able to get out of bed for weeks and was constantly coughing. Before leaving, Max had left some food and plenty of water on the table by her bed.

“I hope it lasts until I return… I hope it’s enough.”

Dashi also turned back, stretching out his furry paw and, squinting one eye, framed the wall between his thumb and forefinger.

“It looks so tiny from here!” Dashi exclaimed in surprise. “Every time I look at it from here, I just can’t get used to it.”

As they ran through the swamp, the constant irritation from a persistent mosquito or the focus of their exertion momentarily lessened their sense of dread. But now, it all came rushing back. Max tried to dismiss the dark thoughts, shook his head, stretched well, adjusted his clothes, took a deep breath, and began walking towards the endless horizon. Dashi followed him.

The cool of the night slowly receded. The sun was already high and starting to beat down when the guys decided to take a break. They stopped in the middle of the steppe at a small clearing with a fire ring circled by stones of various sizes. Red knelt down and, humming an old fishercat’s tune under his breath, began to unpack his stash.

They decided against making a fire; it was too hot, and they weren’t planning to cook. The friends spread out all the food each had brought on the grass. They needed to divide the provisions into portions that would last three to four days: three loaves of bread, a couple of small heads of salted curd, a dozen thin strips of dried beef, and two large skins of clean water—that was all their food.

“We need to be in the Ruins by evening. We’ll spend the night there, and we have a full day’s work ahead of us,” said Max, settling comfortably on the ground in front of an improvised table made of a square piece of cloth spread on the grass. “You hear me? Dashi!”

The sturdy cat sat on the grass, fully stretching out his large paws, busily gnawing on a strip of dried meat. It seemed this activity completely absorbed his attention. Max threw a dry stick lying nearby at him, aiming for his stomach. Dashi swiftly batted the stick away with a swipe of his paw, sending it flying far into the grass.

“I’m listening… listening, buddy. Sorry, just really hungry,” Redhead looked earnestly at Max and tried to smile with his mouth closed, revealing a couple of sharp fangs.

“Tomorrow morning we’ll split up. Carry whatever you think is valuable and that we can drag through that damn hole in the wall. But I don’t need to teach you; you know all this,” continued Black.

“I know… I know…” mumbled Dashi with his mouth full.

“We’ve only ever scouted the outskirts before; this time, we’ll try to get inside the houses. But it’ll be tough—we’ll have to fight through the overgrowth. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll sleep there and head home before dawn. Got it?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Especially look for any small metal objects. The Ancients often embedded different colored stones in them. Larger pieces of iron are good for smelting, definitely take those. But we can’t haul anything too big back to the city.”

Replenished, they continued on their journey. Mostly, they ran at an easy jog, occasionally breaking into a brisk walk. The flat steppe occasionally gave way to hilly terrain. Everything around was covered with the same parched, monotonous grass. Max’s mother, who had lived beyond the wall as a child, told him that the grass used to be greener, thicker, and much more varied. Then came the acid rains, killing the vegetation and corroding, poisoning the soil. It was dying and could no longer support life.

Max knew that if things continued this way, the local steppes would turn into a desert, like far to the north. His mother had told him a legend, a tale, that far beyond the lands of the wild tribes, a vast desert stretched with red, blood-like sand, and in the middle – the Poison Sea. It all seemed more like fiction than fact. Max had mostly forgotten the details.

Max had always been an average student at school, although he was far from dumb. He just lacked diligence. Lately, he had been skipping classes frequently: his mother could no longer support them, she had fallen ill, and Max had taken on the responsibility, as there was no other choice. But he hadn’t dropped out of school, mostly for his mother’s sake, who always said there was a chasm between an educated cat and an uneducated one.

He barely remembered his father; his mother disliked talking about him. And Max himself didn’t ask, not wanting to upset her. Lately, he often woke up at night and heard his mother sobbing and sniffling—crying quietly, remembering his father. And Max, pretending to be asleep, lay there and couldn’t fall back asleep, thinking.

Dashi had dropped out of school long ago. Since childhood, he had no one to take care of him, and Dashi had learned to survive on his own. He had long chosen his path, joining a gang of street urchins who begged and picked pockets in the trading quarter. Red was incredibly strong physically and had been very good at fighting since childhood; he could easily take down three older guys by himself. He always dreamed of really joining an adult gang, becoming a fighter, and then one of the leaders.

Max and Dashi had been friends since early childhood, both from families of fishercats, their mothers had once been best friends. Max’s mother told him that his father and Red’s parents had died during a war with the wild tribes.

Dashi had lived with them for a while. Then he was taken to an orphanage, from which he constantly ran away. And they always brought him back. He’d jump out of a bedroom window and run to the streets to his friends, and then a whole search party would go out, scouring the alleyways. They’d find him and drag him back. And he’d do it all over again. He preferred living on the street, nothing could be done about it. Eventually, they stopped looking for him, realizing it was futile. But Dashi never lost touch with Max.

Late in the evening, friends climbed a high hill and, falling to their stomachs, crawled to the very top, peering out cautiously. Like a creeping snake, a small dark water river slowly emerged from the east beyond the bald mountains and, in the valley of the Ancient City, flowed into a larger river, after which the merged rivers wound their way through the hills far to the northwest and disappeared from sight.

Boulders that looked like rocks but had rectangular silhouettes jutted out along the banks. Max knew that these ruins were once towering houses, much taller than those in their city. Some were almost completely overgrown with plants, while others had long been buried under the earth, forming mounds from which stone masses protruded. Like empty eye sockets in skulls, the dark holes of empty window openings loomed ominously.

“What a horror,” murmured Dashi. “I don’t understand how they lived here. These… what do you call them… Ancients.”

“You’re always amazed. You should have realized by now. When the Ancients lived here, everything was completely different. See, the houses are thickly overgrown with plants? Nature has taken over the city for many centuries,” Max mused, gripping a clump of grass tightly, showing he was very nervous. “We’ll look around a bit and then need to head down.”

“Let’s just hope we don’t accidentally run into any savages. That’s never happened before,” whispered Dashi, his breath becoming choppy, visible in the swaying grass.

“Anything can happen. Beyond the ruins are the hunting grounds of one of the tribes.”

“Yeah, what are they called again… Brucks? Broka?”

“Brekkie, the lynx tribe,” Max almost whispered, as if afraid of being heard.

“Bre-e-ekkie,” Dashi elongated the name. “Maybe we should spend the night here? What do you think?”

“Let’s wait, watch a little longer, and decide.”

Max looked anxiously beyond the city. There, a dense pine forest began. The sun had almost disappeared behind the forested mountain ridge; the dark green of the trees transformed under the rays of the setting sun, becoming fiery red as if engulfed in flames, and then slowly turned crimson. Suddenly, a strong wind blew.

The sharp gusts swayed the trees from side to side. Max felt as if the trees had noticed the travelers from afar and were warning them not to enter the forest, waving their branch-hooks. This thought made his skin crawl, and he felt a deep unease, longing to be home, safe, curled up in a warm bed.

“Maybe this time it’s better to stay up here for the night, not going into the city itself. I feel uneasy,” Max mused.

“Let’s… I didn’t want to tell you… I feel uneasy too,” Dashi immediately began to prepare his sleeping spot.

Friends silently ate bread with meat, washed it down with water, spread their cloaks on the grass, and lay down on them, wrapping themselves up. It grew dark. It became much cooler. After the winter, the earth hadn’t fully thawed yet and was still cold; they felt the chill coming from it. The fact that their winter fur hadn’t completely shed yet, only just starting to molt, really helped. They weren’t especially cold, and they weren’t afraid of catching cold, lying on the cold ground. For a while, they watched the stars and were silent. Only the chirping of crickets in the grass could be heard.

“Buddy, what do you think, if something happens, could we handle even one savage from these Brekkies?” Dashi broke the silence.

“I don’t know… probably not. I heard that one warrior from the savages is as strong as five of ours. Probably an exaggeration, but still…”

“I heard that too… What do you think, do they even look like us? How do they talk? And where did they come from?” Dashi suddenly raised his head, pleased that Max had engaged in the conversation.

“The teachers at school say that they… are different. And their language is some sort of primitive.”

“What does ‘primitive’ mean?”

“Well, simpler. The sounds they make don’t resemble our speech.”

“But they think almost like us, right? Surely not like stupid cows. So they must have some intelligence. I don’t understand, why are they different, not like us? Why do we walk on two paws, and they on four? And what about the Ancients?” Dashi fired off questions and stared intently at Max, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know! I don’t know,” Max growled irritably. “Maybe… should attend school more often. That’s it, Dashi, go to sleep now.”

Redhead lowered his head and in a moment was snoring. The snoring was quiet, almost blending with the sounds of the steppe, the chirping of insects, and the howling of the wind, so there was no concern that it would attract anyone’s attention. Max always marveled and even envied Dashi’s ability to fall asleep in just a few seconds. Max himself had too many thoughts swirling in his head. There was too much to think about before he could fall asleep.

Max decided for himself that as soon as he returned home, he would try to learn more from his mother about her past life beyond the wall and, most importantly… about his father. He was growing up, and different thoughts were coming to his head. He wanted to know not just about life in the city, but also about what was happening beyond the wall.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what his father had been like, but no image formed in his mind; if one had appeared, it would probably have been shaped by his mother’s stories rather than real memories. He had no memories at all. He didn’t remember him at all. This time he wouldn’t be shy and would definitely ask his mother… He would definitely ask…

With that thought, Max fell asleep…