Title Page

Dogchild

I dont know how to do this.

Ime sitting here on the floor with my writing book open in my lap, the whiteness of the empty page flickering orange in the flamelight of the fire, and I still dont know how Ime going to carry out Gun Surs order. How can I write an account of this world when I know so little about it? What do I know of our times, our lives, the war? What do I know of anything?

Its cold, I know that. The nights are always cold.

And when the sun rises in the morning, and the cold of night melts away in the blazing white light, and the rocks and sand and the dustblown air begin to shimmer and burn in the searing heat---It will be hot.

I know that too.

The days are always hot.

And above all I know that tomorrow the Dau will still be there – just half a mile away across the empty black glassrock of Nomansland – still watching and waiting, biding their time, just waiting for the day when the moment is right to storm our wall and swarm into town and slaughter every last one of us---

But what else do I know?

What else is there to know?

Its late now, getting colder by the second.

I need to sleep.

Tomorrow---

When the sun rises in the morning and the cold of night melts away---

Tomorrow Ile go and see Starry.

Starry isnt just my uncle and mentor – the man who rehumanized me and taught me all I know – hese the only human whose ever meant anything to me.

Most men of his age – hese 26 – are Fighters, but Starry was retired as a Fighter when he lost his left leg after the attack by the Wild Ones nearly 10 years ago, so hese only a fighter now in the same sense that all of us are. We all have to be ready and able to fight, from the youngest child to the oldest of the Olders, and none of us are ever without a weapon of some kind. Starry has an ancient Colt Dragoon revolver that he carries in a holster on his right hip. It was probably a perfectly good weapon once, but its been fixed and refixed so many times over the years that these days its mostly held together with wire and mismatched nuts and bolts.

I dont have a firearm. I have a 3-foot leather sling that I carry on my belt, and a bonehandled knife with a 9-inch blade that I keep in a sheath on my thigh.

It wasnt hard to find Starry that morning. Hese a man of habit, and at sunrise every day he takes his fishing pole down to the beach and sits on the same ruined remnant of the old sea wall, fishing until noon for whatever he can catch, which usually isnt much.