Chapter 143: What comes after saving

When they got outside, Diego saw the others of his skin, sitting around in carts and eating. They had brought some provisions from the farms, and that was what they were having. The villagers whispered and frowned at them, hating that they were having food without sharing.

"I am sorry for their behavior," Alger looked back as he walked. "They don't trust outsiders like before."

They walked over dry grass and chaffed dirt, with the eyes of folks still following them across. Diego saw women carrying buckets with one hand and their children in the other. He saw two boys running around with their thin arms and in soiled clothes, but they were no young men, and he found the reason for that soon enough.

The fields were dry with dead plants poking their blades in brown and ash. They walked over a bridge, and when he looked under it, he saw the stream as a tiny vein. "The river has dried up considerably," Alger said sadly. "The people say it's some sort of curse," his eyes looked down.