It was a long journey to Sandfort. We traveled through plains, then into the desert. By the end of it, I no longer had my rifle aimed at the gardener. If he wanted to try something, he already would have, and besides, holding the rifle upright for a long time made my arms burn. The sun was setting. There it stood, at the bottom of a canyon, almost hidden beneath the dunes. A town surrounded by a pentagonal wall. The architecture resembled that of a medieval Italian village with lots of stone and brick. One of the city towers stood out; a tree grew out the top of it.

The wall was thick. Two guards greeted us as we passed through: “Welcome back, Mike. Who’ve you got with you?”

“Another victim of Harald’s, she’s a tough one though,” Mike, the gardener, replied.

“I wish you a pleasant stay then, young lady,” one of them said. Quite the upgrade from ‘little girl.’

We rode down the main street, through the marketplace. Children ran around playing tag between the stands. A dog came up wagging its tail and followed our horse for a while.

“So, this is Sandfort! I’m sorry you had to see Haraldstown, not a great first impression of the valley. It ain’t all like that though. We’ve got plenty of nice scenery and friendly people here,” Mike told me. “What you witnessed was the first of many battles to save girls like you from their inevitable fates.”

“The dynamite airship, was it from here?” I asked.

“Yup, designed by king Christoph himself.”

After climbing a big green hill on the other side of town, we found ourselves on top of the perimeter wall. It felt more like walking in a garden than on top of a fortified wall. We met a group of marching soldiers. They too, had the uniform Mike wore.

“Good work at Haraldstown, it should take some time before they recover from that blow,” Mike spoke to the tall female officer leading the March: “How many did we save?”

“Fifty one, most of them are being psychologically evaluated at the orphanage,” She had black boots to her knees and braided hair.

“Make that 52, I’d like to introduce you to someone,” Mike put his hand on my back. “This is Leah, she didn’t exactly need saving, but I brought her here because she could be a valuable addition to the community, but first we must help her.” So I wasn’t the only survivor.

“Nice to meet you, Leah. I’m Emily, Mike’s big sis and head of the Sandfort army, how can I be of service?”

“We’re planning an attack on Banana Island,” I told Emily.

“WHAT?!? THAT’S- THAT’S A DEATH SENTENCE!” Emily appeared terrified. Mike and I looked at her until she collected herself.

“Unfortunately I don’t have the authority to attack factions that we aren’t at war with,” Emily explained.

“He has my sister, so we’re going with or without you.” I firmly said. Emily turned around and walked a few steps away, then circled back.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask king Christoph himself,” Emily pointed at the mansion just below.

“You’re in for a sight,” Mike told me as we walked the gravel path through the statue filled yard. Two guards followed us with their eyes on our way in.

I could barely see the ceiling as it was at least four stories high, and at the end of the red carpeted walkway with greek columns on either side, King Christoph laid in his throne with his eyes closed, feet on the armrest, supporting his head with his knuckle. He looked to be in his early fifties, and had his greying hair tied back into a low ponytail. A snot bubble expanded from his left nostril, he was snoring.

Mike popped king Christoph’s snot bubble. Christoph snorted, sat up straight, and yawned.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Christoph mumbled half awake, “good evening Mr. Richardson, how are you?”

“Sorry to wake you, your majesty,” Mike said, “I’m doing well, but we’re here to request your approval to attack Banana Island.”

“He has my sister,” I added.

Grimmington looked uneasy for a moment. Understandable, child trafficking isn’t exactly the easiest subject matter.

“Naah,” Christoph replied, “and please, call me Grimmington. No need to be overly formal.”

“Wait, what?” Mike was surprised by the king’s response, “you’re not going to help us?”

“Going to war is exhausting, and sure we want to save little girls, but we have a lot more to lose than to gain if there’s only one,” Christoph Grimmington whined. “Let’s focus on Haraldstown for now.”

“Do you really think Joe Barth would only have one?” Mike seemed almost irritated.

“Perhaps not, but until we have a guarantee, my men’s priority is taking on Harald.”

“Harald won’t be a problem,” I told him. “The airship exploded right outside his office, he fell to his death.”

“Are you.. Sure..?” Grimmington straightened his back.

“Pretty sure, I saw his body dangling from a tree.”

He stared me in the eyes for a second, thinking.

“If my men volunteer, I won’t stop them, I suppose, but I won’t give any explicit orders. You won’t be fighting under the flag of Sandfort, and this conversation never happened, understood?”

“Awesome!” Mike held his hand up to high five the king. Grimmington just looked at it, then went back to sleep, leaving Mike hanging. I felt bad so I tapped his hand with my palm, he gave me a thanking smile.

 

Once back outside: “All who want to volunteer in the battle against Joe Barth, step forward!” Emily announced in front of her lined up soldiers. At first, not one of the 24 soldiers stepped forward, but soon a very short muscular ginger had pushed his way to the front. He saluted us.

“Slightly disappointing,” I mumbled.

“We take all the help we can get,” Mike told me. “One is a whole lot better than none.”

Well hello there Mr. Optimism.

“What happened to ‘we’ll need an army of our own’?” I asked.

“We can head towards the sea, and by the time we’re there, I’m sure we’ll have made some friends along the way.”

Cringe.

“‘Made some friends along the way’? What kinda cliché line is that??” Time wasn’t exactly on our side, and now this guy wanted to make some friends along the way. “How many mercenaries does Joe have?” I asked.

“Around five hundred, according to our estimations,” Emily replied.

Five hundred. We had four.

“We’re going to make four hundred ninety six friends? My sister is as good as dead by then!” I lost all hope. Town on one side, desert on the other, I ran.

My legs didn’t take me very far, I realized I hadn’t eaten since dinner. That dinner. Even then, I didn’t have time to finish my food.

I hunched down, and cried. I had no one, no way of escaping the hellish situation I found myself in.

“Hey now, don’t cry. We’ll find a way,” Mike had caught up to me.

“I just want to go home.. This is a nightmare, please wake me up..” I sobbed.

“It doesn’t have to be a nightmare,” He wrapped his arms around me and leaned his head against mine. “It could turn into the most wonderful dream.”

Too many memories of Bobby and McDowell, so I pulled away and looked up: “What do you think you are doing?”

“Sorry! I couldn’t help myself, you just looked so huggable,” Mike chuckled as he let go. I could see he meant no harm. The only way to get past what happened would be to fight the trauma head on.

“Actually, I could use a hug,” I muttered. He began hugging me again. Warm.

Emily and her short companion arrived at the scene.

“Hey, that’s illegal,” Emily glared at Mike.

“What?! It’s just- just a hug!” Mike blushed.

“I’m just messing with you, brother,” Emily grinned. “But could we get moving? I’d much rather crush skulls than watch people hug.”

“Okay, we’re stopping by Grimmington Arms to pick up some stuff. We don’t need as big numbers if we have superior equipment,” Mike let me go.

The town had been engulfed in the shadows of the setting sun, but the tower with the tree on top was tall enough to still still catch some of the rays, and shone in an orange hue. A sign saying ‘Grimmington Arms’ hung above the door of the tower. A bell dinged when we entered. Various display cases contained revolvers, pistols, and other firearms, as well as cartridges of ammunition. There was a set of stairs leading up behind the counter. Grimmington stood fiddling with a screwdriver and some gun parts by the cash register.

“So you’re up now?” Mike asked Grimmington.

“Yes, I tend to be more creative at night,” Grimmington said, “I had a dream about this new rifle design that I just couldn’t discard.” He held up the thing he was working on; a very long revolver. I had never seen such a weapon before.

“I call this the Vengeance Revolving Carbine, VRC for short. I forgot to ask you, who’s the little girl you’ve got with you?”

“The name’s Leah, cool airship, by the way.” I nodded at the miniature airship hanging from one of the wood beams in the ceiling. Had a very distinct look, there was quite literally a ship deck on top of the big cylindrical balloon, and a mast down underneath, acting as a counterweight. Sails wrapped around two poles extended out on either side of the balloon.

“Well thank you, Leah, come ‘round back and give the VRC a shot, will you?”

Grimmington picked up a golden cane, and used it as third leg when making his way to the door behind the counter. Mike, Emily, and the short ginger waited in the shop while I followed Grimmington.

The door led to a garden enclosed by the surrounding buildings, none of which had windows facing the garden. Torso shaped chipboard targets had been put up on the far-end side of the garden. Grimmington handed me the VRC, and held onto the rifle I had brought with me. I thought twice about handing my firearm to an almost complete stranger, but if Mike trusted him, so could I. Operating the rifle was not much different from what I was used to with father’s revolver.

“Have a look at this,” Grimmington said after I had shot a few rounds into the targets. It was nice hitting plywood rather than living, breathing beings. He flipped a little notch on the rifle hammer, I took aim again.

BANG.

The rifle kicked much harder. I looked at the target, it had been littered by dozens of small holes. A shotgun rifle. Genius.

“What brings you to Grimmington Arms on this fine evening, Mike?” Grimmington asked when we had returned to the shop.

“I was hoping you could supply us with enough firepower for our mission. We need something, anything that gives us a fighting chance against Barth’s mercenaries.”

“Anything?” Grimmington’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, anything, anything at all.”

Grimmington danced around the room: “Ooh! I have so many wonderful creations! Follow me!” Grimmington walked up the squeaky stairs behind the counter, everyone went with him.

Rifles, double barreled shotguns, swords, and axes of all sizes lined the walls of the room above. There were cannons and gatling guns standing around by crates of ammunition.

“That’s a lot of weapons,” I said under my breath.

Emily drooled over two revolving flintlock pistols: “Such craftsmanship!”

“The Double Vortex Destroyers! One of the first weapons I ever created, they still work like a charm,” Grimmington explained.

“May I?” Emily asked while stretching her arm towards the guns.

“Of course, what is mine is yours. They do no good on a shelf collecting dust.”

“In that case, I think I’ll borrow this one,” the short ginger announced, holding an axe musket with an unusually large muzzle; kind of like a trumpet.

“Ah yes, that one was especially made for someone to just go berserk. Last time I saw it in action was decades ago. It all started when a man by the name of Leif stepped off his boat,” Grimmington began. I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the story, because I had spotted a red holstered dagger up on a stand. Two red candles were lit on either side of it. Behind, a black and white photo of a young Asian woman.

“Sakura’s Kodachi. Once wield by a beautiful female warrior in the province of Chisanaki,” Grimmington said behind me. “I met her during my travels there. She happened to be my first love, swept me off my feet right away.” He was going to tell another long story.

“Need something to defend myself with once the bullets run out, I suppose,” I interrupted him.

“Very true, Leah, very true,” he patted me on the back. “Go ahead, it won't bite.”

I took a few steps towards it, and lifted it from its stand.

“Give it a swing,” Grimmington presented a straw man standing in the corner. I unsheathed the blade, brought it up above my head, then sliced down.

The hay straws felt like nothing more than air. Sharp.

The others came around. “Wow, nicely done,” Mike said.

Emily now looked like a pirate with her leather jacket, and the ginger had a helmet with horns. We all felt ready, and walked downstairs.

“Wait, don’t you need some shoes, young lady? And perhaps some new clothing?” Grimmington had pulled out a tape measure. It was about time someone noticed my bare feet. When he measured my height, feet, and arm span, I couldn’t help but notice that the door underneath the stairs was blocked by a large wooden plank. Odd.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

Grimmington froze for a second: “Let’s not ask questions we don’t want to know the answer to, my child.”

Weird way of responding, which sparked my curiosity.

“Oo some top secret experiment, huh?” Mike seemed to admire Grimmington.

“Ye, something like that.” Grimmington rolled up his tape measure, “I’ll try to find something that fits your size, be right back.” He headed up the stairs again.

“What’s that about?” I asked Mike once Grimmington was out of sight.

“The door? Ol’ Christoph is the most ingenious inventor in the valley, he’s bound to have some trade secrets.”

Sounded reasonable enough, so I left it at that.

“Miss, could you try this on?” Grimmington almost tripped down the stairs holding up a red dress with baggy sleeves that ended at the elbows. Handed it to me along with a black corset whose strings hung loose, and a pair of black leather boots similar to the ones Emily was wearing. I went around back and tried it on. It felt good taking off the not so white dress. New clothing, clean slate.

The red dress hung loosely down to just above my knees, but was held in place by the corset that I tied tightly around my abdomen. Its strings formed a criss cross pattern along my belly.

I revealed myself for the others. Grimmington handed me the VRC and turned me towards the mirror in the corner of the store.

“You look badass,” Mike pointed out.

“So you just keep girl clothing around?” I wondered.

“I tried to get into the fashion design, one of my less successful endeavours. Now I have stockpiles of clothing that I can’t seem to get sold,” Grimmington said.

My stomach grumbled.

“Perhaps it is time for some food,” Grimmington had noticed the noise.

“We could have dinner at my place,” the short ginger suggested. “I want to say goodbye to my mother before we depart.”