Page 1 of Stars in Umbra
1
Forgotten Fables
MOLAN
The alleys of LeCythi, Iccythria Prime’s capital city, were made for the forgotten.
For broken promises and lost, hungry souls who bled desperate ambition and fear into its cracked pavements.
The boy moved through them like a wraith, barefoot, thin as a whipcord, his skin streaked with ash and gutter dust.
He threaded his way beneath the skeletons of rusted sky rails and between the leaking exhaust vents of collapsed market towers.
The wind reeked of burned synth-oil and old battles.
He was thirteen. Old enough to be dangerous, too young for anyone to care.
Most times, he was a phantom in the cracks of the poverty-stricken district.
With fast feet to escape the street cams, and an intellect wily enough to avoid the radar of neighborhood gangs.
Or so he thought.
He rounded a blind corner, breath steady, stride clean, and stopped dead.
They were waiting for him.
Ten of them, maybe eleven if you counted the one leaning against the light post pretending he didn’t care.
Most were eighteen and nineteen-year-old wrecks, their souls already worn and jaded.
They wore parkas crafted from scraps of cracked leather, all branded with the rust-red sigil of the Rakkar Blades, the scavenger mob that ruled these blocks.
The symbol of a jagged serpent wrapped around a broken sword was stitched to their jackets, scraped onto their boots, and tattooed behind some of their ears.
The Blades didn’t believe in mercy.
They believed in speed, strength, and survival at any cost.
They also took what they wanted and burned what they couldn’t keep.
Tonight, his number was up.
‘Yo,kinai,’ one of them sneered, a tall guy with a smile too broad for his face. ‘Those are some sweet kicks for a street rat. Give ‘em over.’
He glanced down at the only possession he owned worth over fifty schills.
Recalling how every night, trudging home, he’d stop at a corner shoe shop.
He’d press his face into the window, dreaming of possessing just one pair of the displayed mag boots that would fly him away from the misery of his present existence.
He’d worked day and night washing flyers to afford the cheapest version now on his feet, sans the grav thrusters. That upgrade cost 2,000 schills.
Still, the basic edition was warm, solid, albeit caked in dust and grime, and he had no plan to hand them over without a fight.
‘Bag too,’ another one grunted, cracking his knuckles. ‘Bet we’ll find more smart shit in it, like books we can hawk.’
He sensed it then, a coil of dread, pungent and cold in his gut.
