The Lost-Folk

A standalone story fragment from the Eastsong Cycle (second epoch)

The child fidgeted with a lock of her dark hair and watched droves of shaggy, hump-backed steppe-beasts drift across the horizon. They were wanderers, like her.

After a spell, she asked her father, “How come we’re always on the move? Can’t we stay put for a while?”

He looked down at her with his kindly eyes, great long beard, and tattooed cheeks. “When our folk had a city, little one, we made our tents of stone and planted them in the ground like trees.”

Her tiny brow furrowed. “What happened to our city? Did we lose it?”

“Indeed,” he said softly. “And then we lost ourselves, too. But we’ll have another city, someday, if we keep looking—”

“Under the rising sun?” she blurted.

Her father nodded with a smile and gave her hair a tousle. “Yes. Then we’ll be lost no longer.”