There’s a sound that people make when they cry. It spills out huge muffled gulps when the lump in their throat gets too large to choke down, but they still don’t want others to hear. It can almost sound like laughter, until you see the tears and the red, raw eyes.

That sound woke me. I cracked my aching back all the way down the spine, one vertebra at a time; my mother always said it’s bad for the joints, but it feels so satisfying that I just can’t help myself. I smiled with the quiet arrogance of youth and followed the echoes of the laughing crying nose-wiping sound out of the barn.

Mirabella was crying into a dainty handkerchief. Figuring that hovering like a spectre by the wall was potentially more awkward than trying to comfort her, I sat down. She dabbed at her eyes with a finely edged handkerchief.

“Are you alright?” It sounded hollow even to me. I tried again. “I know we don’t really know each other –“

“It is my father.” Mirabella interrupted me, wiping her nose. “It’s daft, considering that I’m twenty and it has been less than a day.” She was slightly older than me and I wondered if this was her second or possibly even third year of trying to become an apprentice. “I’m supposed to be a real adult; I could be married, even. My mother was at my age. But I’ve never really left his side and now I miss him.”

“That’s not stupid. I miss my mother. She’s probably halfway to work now, like she’s done every day for years except today I wasn’t there to watch her go.”

It turns out that what adults have always told me is true: we spend our teenage years eager to grow up and expand out into the world, but when that time comes we want to fold ourselves up into the space of the familiar. I was out now, an apprentice, forging a path for myself just like I had always wanted. The thing I had worked for, had studied for until my mind swam and my fingers were cramped from writing. Now I just wanted one more normal day at home, one more chance to rise early and wave my mother goodbye.

“My friends too. We’ve always been so close.” I said. “We were all busy, y’know, studying and working and becoming ready to be apprentices, so we didn’t see each other every day. It was close enough though and now it could be months.”

Lori would also be on her first real day as an apprentice. No doubt she was somewhere warm and dry – inside, I thought jealously, with her feet devoid of the pus-bulging blisters that I hadn’t dared to pop - doing perfectly ordinary first day activities. Andrew too, if he had been successful.

“I don’t have many close friends, ” Mirabella admitted.

“Really?”

“Not many socialising opportunities,” Mirabella said.

We sat quietly and my stomach began to make its displeasure known. In fact, almost every part of me was displeased – my blistered and sore feet, my back from sleeping on the barn floor, and I certainly didn’t smell like a field of daisies. After only a couple of hours walking no less.

“I didn’t say goodbye to my father.” A second admission from Mirabella.

I startled. She hadn’t struck me as the rebellious type. A bit feisty and defensive, sure, but not the sneak away in the middle of the day to literally run away type. Why was she here? She didn’t appear like she needed the money, needed the security of an income and a job like Jorram and I did.

“Why not?”

“He wouldn’t have let me go.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed.”

I had seen Andrew’s struggled relationship with his father, watched him spend as much time as possible outside of the confines of the four walls that his father ruled with an iron fist. Mirabella didn’t have quite the same look in her eyes as he did; sometimes Andrew looked like he wasn’t all there. Mirabella was simply sad. Like she was sorry she had disappointed her father. It made me miss my own mother even more.

“He wanted me to stay and run his,” she hesitated, “business. It would have been fine, I suppose. Respectable work, more than many daughters can expect or ask for, especially considering I have a brother.”

I nodded sympathetically. Westal wasn’t a particularly patriarchal society, yet there was the odd family that still clung to the older traditions: sons were for wealth, for business, for building an empire; daughters were for alliances, for networking, for marriage.

“But I wanted, well, it sounds daft to say it aloud. I wanted to serve my country.” She blushed faintly in the morning light.

“A true patriot, huh?” Amusement coloured my voice, just as much at her embarrassment as at the sentiment itself.

“Something like that.”

Jorram announced his presence with a grunt and just like that the private moment between us was over. Mirabella wiped at her eyes again and brusquely folded up her ‘kerchief. Jorram had stepped out of the barn, dressed for the day with his bag slung over one shoulder. I tapped Mirabella on the shoulder in a gesture of intended comfort before rising.

“Morning Jorram. Up early?” I said. “Suppose we’d better make the most of the day.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jorram smiled. “We’ve got twenty odd miles to go.”

“I’d best go find something to eat then.”

Twenty miles. I couldn’t even really conceive of it in my mind. It was like one of those visualisation games: picture one person, then five, then ten, then one hundred, one thousand. Soon they don’t even look like individual people, just a crowd of nameless faceless human shapes. It was fifteen minutes to walk the mile or so to market, over flat roads that I had walked my entire life. I tried to imagine doing that walk, there and back, ten times. That didn’t sound too bad.

We left Little Swallow to a crisp and clear spring morning. The first few hours passed well enough as we stuck to the main paths, meandering northwards; these were packed dirt roads that were easy enough underfoot, often with worn dual ruts where carts had passed through. Other people were not too infrequent a sight and we passed them by with nods of acknowledgement. We had covered perhaps ten miles or so before we halted and the map came out and our heads bent together to confer over it.

“How are you holding up, Anya?” Mirabella smiled at me tentatively. “Feet doing okay?”

“Not so bad, thanks. Heels are rubbing a bit, ‘specially as I’m trying not to let my blisters burst.”

In truth I was feeling tired. The arch of my right foot was burning and in my attempts to prevent further pain I had cultivated a somewhat lopsided gait. I wondered if it was possible to walk in the wrong way. Surely not? Someone would have mentioned it to me. But it wasn’t just my feet; my calves needed a good massage to work the tension out and my shoulders were tense from hunching. None of it was so bad as to warrant a complaint. Especially not when the three of us seemed to be getting along easier today, passing a few words of conversation as we walked.

“I’m a popper,” Jorram announced. “Drain my blisters with a needle.”

“Oh Lord that's disgusting,” Mirabella wrinkled her nose.

“It’s better for you!” He insisted. “Gets the pus out and then you tape down the skin so it doesn’t rub.”

“That does not sound true,” I said doubtfully. “My ma always says I should trust my body to fix itself. Unless something is really obviously wrong, of course.”

“Your ma hike much?”

It was a rejoinder that would have been amusing from a friend; if Andrew had said it me I’d have rolled my eyes and said something like, “yeah, that’s why she’s better looking than yours.” From Jorram it had more of a bite, like he was trying to prove something. I scowled but refrained from snapping back – I still wasn’t going to pop my blisters though.

Our journey was going to be more difficult from here on out and all of it was foreign to me: the terrain, the villages, the sights and the sounds as we drifted further from Wardwatch and the boundaries of my lived experience. I’d never thought of my world as small; it was as wide as a bustling city, filled with family, friends, school and learning, working and markets and drinking and open streets. But like the city itself, my life so far had been surrounded by a wall. Now I had walked out the gate.

The thick line on the map that marked the road that we had followed all morning was about to narrow into a snaking path. My finger traced the thin black line as it rose up, bisecting the contour lines and cutting through swathes of forest green ink. There the line broke up, becoming a series of jagged dashes: elusive hunting trails, rough underfoot and invaded by vegetation. There were other symbols too: angry hashed lines for crags and rock faces glared up at me from the paper as if to say step not here, city girl, we will devour you.

Jorram could look at those marks and visualise a landscape. When I closed my eyes all I felt was tired. The land was a mystery that would only, could only reveal itself to my feet.

We started to move on and I dropped back a little from Jorram and Mirabella, forced as we were into a single file line by the narrowing track. Mistress Farrow walked last. Everything about her intimidated me but I had questions that needed asking, and what better time than now? I wet my dry lips with my tongue.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“What are we going to find when we get there? What is it like?”

It was slightly harder than I had anticipated trying to hold a conversation with one person walking in front of the other. I had to talk slightly louder for my voice to carry over the sound of the rustling wind and over my shoulder and I suddenly felt terribly exposed, which meant that I chickened out of asking my real questions. Why did you want me? Why am I here?

“Envisioning a dirty squalid labour camp?” Farrow laughed and I chuckled because, yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking. “It is nothing of the sort. There are barracks for the apprentices, segregated by sex with small rooms that fit one student per year. We encourage the mixing of runners of different ages to promote bonding and knowledge sharing. There are classrooms where you will study – don’t falter! Surely you did not think all you would do is run? What are your parents teaching you young people?

“You will study the basics starting with survival skills, foraging, cooking and the like. Also how to defend yourself and how to interact with people of different social classes. You might be interested to know that a skilled runner will cross paths with people from all walks of life; when you take the tattoo, if you do, you will represent Westal and you must do it well! Apprentices are tested often, with physical exams and written ones.

“But apprentices are not the only people at Verity. The place is divided between the training camp and Outpost Verity.”

“Verity?” I asked. It was a peculiar name; in Westal most cities had names made up of two parts, representing some physical feature or location marker or piece of history. Wardwatch, Farsight, Riversong, Blackdawn, all these places were named thus. Verity stood out.

“It is an old tradition, to name places and objects for the qualities which one values. Our places are named for selected virtues in line with those that we encourage in our apprentices. We have Perseverance, Duty, and Commitment amongst others, and, of course, Verity. We are bearers of the truth and we must,” her voice rose a little here, as if to stress the point, “be seen as trustworthy.”

The peaty soil was rising up into a slope harsh enough that I had to use my hands to push off my knees. I rolled the word around in my mouth: verity. It brought to mind again the story of Anvil and his heroic run, the way the names were similar in their short-syllabled simplicity. My breath started to come in harsh pants. Farrow continued to speak as easily as she had when we were on flat ground.

“Our outposts are stationed by runners. Those on a restful posting will work in the outpost itself, collecting shipments and prioritising batches by importance, allocating them to runners.” She paused. “I assume you do not already know much of this?”

“No,” I wheezed, shaking my head. Jorram and Mirabella had faded out of view, hidden by the curve of the path and the branches that encroached upon it. It didn’t matter though, the way ahead was clear and I needed no directing.

“We are all different, each and every one of us. We have different skills, different strengths, and different aspects of our roles as runners bring us joy. Some runners prefer stability and we assign them to predictable, regular routes; they might run between two towns, or between Outpost Verity and Wardwatch, for example. Back and forth, back and forth, providing a dependable service.

“In more remote areas, runners may be assigned to an outpost. They would run messages, and occasionally small parcels, to a variety of locations within a set distance of that outpost. Others still are assigned to a specific service – the diplomats, the archivists, the researchers and the traders, to name but a few – running messages solely for their needs. Last of all, our swiftest, our most trustworthy, are pledged to the service of the crown.”

I mulled that over. The services themselves are already beholden to the crown; to serve a diplomat is to serve the crown. What, then, was the distinction? Spies, I realised, she means spies. Or at least, in the service of spies, running messages that no one else is allowed to see. So the stories were true. I shivered despite the warmth of the fresh spring air and turned my mind to a different topic.

“I’ve heard tales of other countries where they have a messenger system for, y’know, normal people. So if my ma wanted to send her cousin in Farsight a letter, she could send it by runner. They call it the postal service.” Farrow didn’t say anything and I dared to press a bit further. “I’ve heard other stories too. Whispers that some runners will take a message for a coin, if they’re already headed in the right direction.”

“You’ve been a runner for twenty four hours and you are already thinking about how best to make a quick coin?”

I flushed and mumbled, “I was just curious. It is not permitted then?”

“There are organisations not affiliated with the runners who convey personal messages. Some apprentices and even more senior members, those who leave the service, may choose to find employment as such. But as a runner – even an apprentice! – it is forbidden.”

My right foot flailed in the air for a moment as my body failed to recognise that it no longer needed to travel upwards. We had finally crested the rise of the main ascent. Heaving a breath, red-faced with sweat damp across my forehead, I faced Mistress Farrow. It struck me then that if I worked hard, if I trained and dedicated myself to this apprenticeship then some day I could be like her; skin as fresh as the dawn, powerful legs easily carrying me up a dark fell with even strides, my hair braided back like hers. I kind of liked the idea. But the sternness of her gaze grounded me in reality.

“Imagine this: you take a coin from an elderly man who says he wants you to take a letter to his daughter. You weigh it in your hand and it feels oddly heavy. He tells you its nothing, just a few trinkets for his granddaughter, so please don’t get it wet. You pocket the money and deliver the letter to a kindly faced middle-aged woman. Nobody stops you; nobody dares, because you have the winged tattoo of the runners. So nobody sees what is written in that letter. You leave and two days later the Piranese burn three houses to ashes, three families unable to escape because the doors have been nailed shut. All for the want of a trade advantage and a few coin for you.”

Jorram and Mirabella stood behind me, one by each shoulder, listening intently. The way she spoke, it didn’t feel like a warning fable. Her words had the horrible ring of truth.

“Remember apprentices: you serve the King now. You serve the crown, the land and her people. Never betray them.”

The solemnity of that moment stayed with me as we hiked on and on. As the ache in my legs grew, my mind became emptier until it seemed as though I had no thoughts at all. The sounds of the birds and the fresh smell of damp greenery that had so fascinated me that morning had long since failed to make an impression. Even the dramatic view of a sweeping vista that peeked through the thick pine trees every so often couldn’t get me to raise my head. Hours passed and the sun began to fall out of the sky. I concentrated only on not tripping, my eyes fixed on the ground and hypnotic movement of my feet, to such an extent that I crashed into Mirabella’s back.

She waved off my apology. “Look. We’re here.”

It was early evening. All I had done was walk, leaving the map reading and decision making to the other two. It wasn’t fair and I knew that I should attempt to pull my weight, but I couldn’t summon the energy to care. I stepped up next to Mirabella and, astonishingly, a small village unfurled itself below.

There were no tents. That was the first thing I noticed. Instead soft plumes of smoke rose from open campfires where a mixture of people gathered: young and old, male and female, all healthy looking. This open space was ringed with wooden benches, forming a rough circle. Stone paths led outwards in all directions forming twisting streets on which workshops of various kinds stood proud and tall; the sharp needles of spinning wheels shone in the dusky light, the final ringing sounds of something being hammered on an anvil rang out, and the overlapping smells of roasting meat and curing hide wafted up.

In short, Verity was a veritable hive of activity. It was a green place, surrounded by wildlife and long grass, sheltered and nestled within the trees such that from our vantage point not everything was visible to us. Farrow pointed further out and informed us that the training camp and the barracks where we would be housed were just over there, just out of view.

Standing there, gazing out onto what would be my home for the next few years, I did not see something to be feared but a challenge. I saw normal folks, laughing and eating and smoking freely, and something within me relaxed. Jorram and Mirabella would be my fellow apprentices and down there below were others. I could do this.

“Welcome to Verity,” Mistress Farrow smiled at us. Mirabella and I smiled tiredly back. Jorram stood stout and unwavering, but he gave off a pleased air. “Unfortunately, we have one final descent before you may join in the feasting.”

My legs and my stomach groaned at the thought of it.