Flight of the Wounded Falcon

by Trish Mercer

For the next however many days—Pere lost count and suspected he missed a few in another Fog—he scavenged for food behind houses and stores, and slept under the stars like a mangy dog. Every day he seemed to feel duller, less like himself, more like just a body walking with no purpose. He never could think too far. He couldn’t think of anything, really. The numbness of his mind seemed to turn all colors into shades of gray, and all emotion about the same hue.

  After two more Performance nights he was uninterested by the whole thing. The first Performance had been a dizzying mixture of noise, bodies, and sensations. It was exciting and new and rough.

  The second Performance had all the same elements, but made his head pound and his stomach churn. He thought briefly that may have been the effect of the dinner he shared with Lolo and her friends. He hadn’t asked where it came from, and they didn’t seem to want to talk about it. He left her quickly after he finished eating and avoided her the rest of the night.

  He did, however, encounter another girl whose face he’d never remember again, and inexplicably found himself later rolling in the dirt with her as he had with Lolo two nights before. The act still felt raw and empty and filthy. He couldn’t figure out what he was doing wrong, although he was sure he did it right. Maybe he needed to find yet another girl.

  By the third Performance, Pere found the music, torches, noise, and even the bodies monotonous. It was as if the same obnoxious note was played loudly over and over again. At first it was intriguing, then only interesting, then tediously dull.

  He had to get out of it.

  One evening he wandered toward Province 8 again and found himself walking past a burial field. That’s where he belonged, dead. He ambled among the headstones before stopping and dropping between two markers.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just stay here until I die,” he said out loud.

  Because you have a family that still loves you and needs you.

  That a voice came so clearly to his mind didn’t even intrigue him. He just answered it as if it were the first passer-by who bothered to speak to him. “They don’t want me. They could never want this.”

  What did your grandmother say, the last thing she said to you?

  “That I was a ridiculous boy.”

  That wasn’t the last thing she said. What did she say, as she hugged you?

  Pere didn’t answer.

  She said she loved you, didn’t she? That no matter what you did, she would love you.

  “She didn’t know I would do all of this.”

  She had an idea you would.

  “It was just words. No meaning.”

  That’s not true and you know it, Young Pere. Find your way to the First Resting Station. They will dress you, feed you, and guide you home. Just take the first steps to get there.

  “Why would they? I offer nothing in return. I do nothing for them. Nor will I ever.”

  Our family needs you. There’s an empty chair at the table. Your mother sets it every meal, just in case you suddenly appear. Do it tomorrow, walk through that door, and wipe away all her tears. Let her laugh again.

  “Shut up. You know nothing of my mother.”

  Who do you think I am?

  “In my head, you sound like Puggah. But he’s gone.”

  Young Pere, I am your Puggah, and I am right here.

  “Just shut up. Leave me alone.”

  I never want to leave you alone. All of your family needs you. Look around you, Young Pere. Look where you are.

  “I’m with death.”

  You’re with your family.

  Reluctantly, Pere looked at the stones next to him. On the right were the words Cephas Peto. On the left, the stone read Hycymum Peto. Pere scurried to his feet, breathing fast, and took a few steps back until he bumped into another stone. Hogal Densal. Tabbit Densal.

  He hugged himself nervously. “You can’t see me. You don’t know what I’ve done. It’s just a coincidence that I stopped here. This means nothing. Nothing.”

  It’s a sign, Young Pere, to go home to these names and many more who miss and love you.

  “Shut up. Just shut up!” he cried and darted out of the burial ground into the safety of trees. He sat down in the dirt and rocked.

  ---

  Hogal, I know he hears me.

  Oh, no doubt about it, my boy. He’s remarkably in tune with you.

  So why doesn’t he recognize me?

  He thinks he’s arguing with your memory, not you. He thinks it’s all in his mind.

  Perhaps, Hogal, if he thinks I’m only his mind, then maybe that’s where I’ll stay. He’s already let the other side in.

  ---

  “You can’t see me,” Pere repeated to himself in the trees. “You don’t know what I’ve done. None of you are there . . .”

  The next night Pere was more deliberate in where he walked to avoid the Performance and girls and headstones. There was a curfew—someone at the grassy arena had to explain that to him—and he wasn’t allowed in certain places two hours after dark, but he still wasn’t sure why.

  He wandered in a roundabout way to the fort, walking through quiet neighborhoods and wondered which was his grandparents’. Why they had loved all of this, he couldn’t imagine. The houses just beyond the fort were overrun by weeds and vines, and smelled like old urine. Only stray meows of cats and the occasional sound of a breaking jug suggested that anyone lived there. Sporadic candle light flickered in some windows, but other than that, it had a deserted feel. He’d heard about the newer homes in carefully laid out segments with intricate gardens maintained by poorer people, with gates that kept people like himself out. But he didn’t bother to try to explore there.

  Suddenly he stopped walking, unsure of why, and stared at an empty lot. There’d been a house there, but by the damaged stone foundation that remained, it appeared it had been destroyed by fire. What was most unusual was the ground before him.

  Flowers. Wildflowers, the same kind that grew up by the glacial fort. But they didn’t have wildflowers here. He’s heard his grandmother mention that, many times. Yet here, in front of the shell of a burned out house, was a garden of wildflowers.

  The village had been aptly named. Pere was growing Edgy just being there.

  That night he’d intended only to see the fort walls, but he found himself drawn closer to it. He told himself he was merely interested in trying to find Uncle Deck’s house and farm, just to see if it was as unimpressive as everything else his family used to love.

  Before the gates of the fort he walked past several houses and buildings where soldiers stood around saying trivial things to women dressed in strips of fabric like Lolo. Some soldiers held mugs of mead, and others, by their dog-like positions on the ground, had already reached their limit.

  Pere passed a branding booth and paused long enough to watch a soldier be marked with a black X on his arm. His agonizing screams elicited laughter from his fellow soldiers as they patted him on the back. Pere felt a pang of loneliness as he walked past, and looked back again at the young man who was now holding a wet towel to his arm and sharing a strained smile of triumph with his friends whose arms and necks were scarred with different brands.

  Pere looked around, confused. The Briters’ farm should’ve been here, just outside the gates, but instead he saw a vast field before a hillside that didn’t look natural. On top of the hill was a large flat area which Pere assumed was for leaders to watch the activity below.

  But his attention was soon turned by a sign he saw on a building beside it. It read, “Come See How The Army Eats For Free!”

  That dragged him to the long, low building that stood at the very entrance of the fort. The tall iron gates which secured the fort were swung wide open tonight. Without another thought, Pere wandered into the hall, found the line for food, took a plate full of something he couldn’t quite identify, and dully sat down to eat. After his past week or so of living off of trash heaps, the food was absolutely . . . adequate.


  A body in a dark uniform sat down across the table from him to watch him eat. Pere noticed but didn’t care.

  “Well, son,” said a fatherly voice across from him. “Looks like you’ve needed that. Rough time out there?”

  Pere gave the uniform only a moment of his attention and responded with a quick, “Yes, sir,” before downing another mouthful of something gray with brown bits in it. There was something about the uniform . . . Pere gagged momentarily and glanced up just far enough to read the name patch as he choked down the food.

  YORDIN.

  Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was someone else with the same last name.

  “Excellent answer, young man!” The man slapped the table.

  Pere swallowed and looked up into his face. He was in his late thirties or early forties with dark brown hair. His rugged face was unfamiliar, but his hard, hazel eyes were just like his mother’s.

  “That’s the way to respond: ‘Yes, sir’! With respect like that, you’re already two weeks ahead of our newest recruits!”

  Pere looked down again at his plate and tried to find his appetite.

  Major Yordin folded his hands and placed them on the table where Pere could see them as he tried to take another bite.

  “You can eat like this three times a day if you wish. We give you a bed, a uniform, and a purpose. You get to stay away from your parents’ house—”

  Pere’s head shot up at that.

  Yordin nodded knowingly and shifted to the next speech. “We get strong men like you all of the time. Need to see the world, right? Need some space, right? Need to explore and taste some freedom? That’s what the army is all about, son! Freedom . . . and food!” He slapped the table again.

  Pere blinked at the motion that rattled his plate. From somewhere in the back of his mind, a flicker of hope lit up. Maybe, just maybe, it could all still work. He could still get into the army. They would give him a uniform. He could get transferred to Sands. He wouldn’t be an officer, but at least he’d still be there . . .

  He barely listened to Yordin extolling the virtues of army life while he finished his dinner. His mind was racing with new possibilities. He remembered to nod at appropriate times to let Eltana Yordin’s son believe he was still listening.

  “Well, young man, if you like what you’ve heard, we can sign you up in the morning. We’ll even give you a place to sleep tonight. Better than the trees, I can promise you that.”

  Pere must have looked alarmed because Major Yordin patted his hand. “We get many grassena boys here. We’ll get your head cleared out. And I know just the way to get you started: peach pie. Do you like peach pie? First harvest of the year, just been picked.”

  The news hit Pere strangely. He was missing it. Their orchard would have the first peaches coming ripe as well. Ever since he was little, he raced his father in the mornings to snatch the first ripe peaches—

  “Yes, I do,” he mumbled.

  “Good! I’ll be right back.” Major Yordin smiled and went to the kitchen.

  Pere was aware there were other soldiers around him eating, but he paid no attention to them. He just stared at the table.

  A moment later Yordin returned and put the slice of pie in front of Pere. He leaned forward and smiled mischievously. “Now, don’t tell the general, but I think this was supposed to be his slice. But I lifted it for our newest recruit. What’s that face for? Pie stolen from the general doesn’t bite—you bite it! Don’t just stare at it, boy, dig in!”

  It certainly looked like peach pie, but it had no flavor. He ate it all.

  He spent the night in a tent outside the walls of the fort, on a reasonably comfortable cot, with two other young men who would be signing up in the morning. Pere didn’t realize how exhausted he was until he lay down. He wanted to try to plan, but instead he fell quickly to sleep and dreamt of nothing.

  In the morning he went back into the large low hall and ate another nondescript meal that he didn’t have to dig out of a trash heap. That was all he needed, something to fill him.

  As the rest of the soldiers filed out for their duties, Pere was left with about twenty other men who finished gulping down their breakfast while waiting for the sergeant of recruits to arrive. Some of the young men walked around the building reading the signs on the walls and the descriptions of army life. Pere just studied the patterns in the wood of the table and waited to turn his life over to someone else for a time.

  The sergeant over recruiting strode in with two more soldiers—one, a fresh-faced, eager lieutenant, the other a tired looking sergeant. But the sergeant in charge, with numerous stripes and ribbons that Pere didn’t recognize but likely signified his rank, stopped and reviewed the new soldiers. He was maybe fifty, with mostly gray hair, a hardened brown face, and no ability to laugh, or so Pere assumed.

  “Well, let’s see what the cat has coughed up for us today. My, my,” he drawled as his gaze slid over the young men. He didn’t seem too enthusiastic about what was before him.

  Suddenly self-conscience about his raggedness and filth, Pere slumped behind another young man with torn clothing.

  “Major Yordin was right—such an excellent group of recruits.” He sighed almost in despair as several mistook his sarcastic tone as complimentary, and tried to stand at attention.

  The young lieutenant next to him beamed brightly, also apparently not understanding sarcasm.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” the sergeant grumbled. “Men, welcome to the army. I am a sergeant major, which means you don’t mess with me, but you do everything I tell you to. Now form a line—”

  But the lieutenant standing next to him was pulling on his jacket sleeve, and the sergeant major scowled at him. Still wearing an inane grin, the lieutenant leaned over and whispered something to the sergeant.

  “Oh, yes,” the sergeant major said dully. “The story.” He took a deep breath and put on the fakest smile Pere had ever seen. “Men!” he said in a sickly, cheery voice, “I’m to tell you my story about joining the army to motivate you and help you see just what you can accomplish, so here it is. I joined years before any of you were born because frankly, I had nothing better to do—”

  The lieutenant was tugging on his sleeve again.

  “Yes, yes—what I meant to say was, I had just returned to Edge, things weren’t going well for me, and I needed some meaning in my life. The army gave me that meaning. I served here, then in Grasses, then even in Idumea itself. Then,” he glanced at the lieutenant whose smile had gone rigid, “then things got really interesting in Idumea, and many of us marched away to the south leaving the last High General of the united world to be killed by sergeants like me, and then they killed the Administrators, while the cowardly chairman of the world was burned to death in his mansion.” All the while the sergeant major kept on his wooden smile, and a few of the new recruits tried to match it, although not sure why.

  “Then, I was serving in the furthermost forts in the south, until Sargon betrayed the men I most revered and trusted. So I did the only thing I could—I resigned.”

  Now the lieutenant’s smile had grown brittle, but the sergeant major’s became more genuine.

  “I bounced around for a few years, doing this, doing that, making my way north again, until General Lemuel Thorne sought me out himself.” The genuine quality of his smile took on a new fake sheen. “Seems that other forts tend to forget that Thorne is in charge, so he has to go to them and remind them, so he can’t spend as much time here as he desires. He wanted someone with roots in Edge—yes, yes, Province 8, I remember, Lieutenant—he needed someone steady and reliable to hold down the fort here, and thought I was the man to keep intact Fort Shin—Yes, yes,” he said irritably to the tugging lieutenant, “we call it the Fort at Edge, although some call it the Fort at Province 8—Really, Lieutenant, these boys can’t remember their own names, what does it matter? So, men, here I am again, back in the army for the past, oh, nearly two seasons again, bringing stead
iness and reliability to the northernmost reaches of the world. And this week, I’m helping recruit soldiers. Lucky me. Lieutenant, how was that?”

  The lieutenant beamed and grinned as if he’d written the speech himself. “We’re very lucky to have a sergeant major with so much experience as—”

  “Anyway,” the sergeant major cut him off before the young officer could launch into his own speech. “Form a line, tell me your name—as well as you can remember it,” he added in irritation, “then we’ll proceed to get you bathed and outfitted. What is that smell?”

  Several of the young men sniffed their armpits and frowned in apology.

  The sergeant major plopped into his chair as if this was the most detestable chore in the world, and put a few sheets of papers in front of him.

  Pere got in line at the end and remembered that sergeant major was the rank of Uncle Shem; the highest rank an enlisted man could attain. This seemed rather menial work for someone of that stature, or maybe they really thought new recruits were important.

  He listened as the men in front of him gave their names. The sergeant major frequently shook his head at their creativity, and occasionally gave a piercing glare when the young man in line hesitated for several moments trying to remember his name for the week.

  Pere almost smiled at some of the attempts.

  Tranga Dulbush.

  Third Shoe.

  Not My Sister If I Had One.

  Harold.

  “Is that your first or last name, soldier?” the sergeant major demanded.

  The young man paused. “Both?”

  “Harold Harold?”

  The young man nodded eagerly.

  “Next!”

  Suddenly Pere was in front of the sergeant major, and when he answered automatically with, “Pere Shin,” he nearly gasped in terror.

  Why did he say that? Why didn’t he remember the name he and Mrs. Yordin had come up with? Briter! It was supposed to be Lek Briter! There were dozens of Briters in Sands . . .

  But the bored sergeant major didn’t even look up at him. He merely sighed as he wrote it down. “Another one, huh? At least you showed a little restraint in your creativity, turning Perrin into Pere. That was his grandfather, you know. Of course you don’t know. No one knows that anymore,” he droned as he wrote. “Still, you must be at least the fifteenth Private Shin in the army this year.”

  Pere gulped and stared at the sergeant major who continued filling in the sheet before him.

  “Yes, you’re none too clever. You just look on the board,” he indicated one of the walls Pere had ignored, “choose a name of a commander and think, ‘If I take his name, I’ll be like him.’” The sergeant dipped his quill into the ink. “Not even sure why anyone chooses Shin. He didn’t have the happiest ending, you know. Died in the forest. You’ll be learning all about that history in training. Then you’ll probably want to change your name as well, just like everyone else. We don’t even bother issuing you name patches for your uniforms for the first few weeks because of that. So Private Quack-Quack,” he sent a severe look over to a man squatting on a chair, “you have a little time to come up with something more respectable.”

  He looked up at Pere, then did a double-take. His quill stopped moving.

  “Interesting,” he began slowly. “You know, you actually look like him. Like Shin.”

  Pere immediately stood at a close approximation of ‘attention’—but not too perfectly as he had practiced with Mrs. Yordin—and stared off into the distance to avoid eye contact.

  The sergeant stood up for a closer inspection, and Pere hardly dared to breathe as he focused on a point beyond the sergeant’s head.

  “You know, boy, the more I look at you . . .”

  Pere was unsure if he should try to look differently. He offered an experimental scowl that stopped the sergeant major’s voice.

  He scoffed slightly and shook his head. “Well, if they had survived, you could’ve been their son. You look a bit like him, too, but I only saw him a couple of times when he was a teenager. Or I guess their grandson by now.”

  The strangest desire to speak overcame Pere, and before he knew it, the words, “Sir, did you know him?” bubbled out. Again he felt gripped by panic, but the sergeant major actually offered a real, albeit small, smile.

  “I did. He taught me how to hold a sword when I was young. Made me want to be a soldier.” His voice softened just a notch. “My friends and I would watch him run the troops through their paces. He was only a captain then, and there were only one hundred soldiers here. But he was a good man. Outstanding man, actually. Made me feel I was worth listening to. So did his wife,” his voice became softer.

  The other men who had already given their names stopped their quiet conversations and tried to hear the sergeant.

  The lieutenant blinked in surprise, probably wondering where this story was coming from, and the other sergeant, who had been napping most of the time, opened his eyes.

  “She was my teacher for a time,” the sergeant major continued in a faraway tone. “Later they gave me a chance when no one else would.” His voice was now just above a whisper. “He saved my life, more than once.”

  The lieutenant held out his hands. “Yes! Now that’s a story—”

  The sergeant major cleared his throat roughly enough to shut up the lieutenant, and he looked down at his paperwork. “Good people, no matter what they say. Tragic end. It was all Zenos’s fault.”

  He cleared his throat again. Still looking at his papers, he rambled in a loud and official voice, “Welcome to the army, Private Shin. I hope you have better luck with that name than the original. You and all the other recruits will report directly after midday meal to begin training. If any of you have any questions, you may ask for me until you are assigned to your duty sergeants. My name is Sergeant Major Qualipoe Hili. And no, you may not call me Poe. Only the general is allowed to do that.” He glanced up once more and regarded Private Shin who still looked straight ahead.

  Pere shifted ever so slightly, waiting. There was something vaguely familiar about the name of Poe Hili. Pere hadn’t bothered to look at his name patch before, but he had a feeling he should have recognized the name from Calla’s book.

  Sergeant Major Hili’s mouth moved as if he wanted to say something else. Finally, he whispered, “Remarkable.” In a louder voice he added, “You’re released, Private Shin. In the army that means, go get in another line.”

  ---

  Shem sat back in his chair and grinned, for the first time in over a week, as he sniffed the head of the black-haired newborn in his arms.

  “Salema, for the third time—perfect!”

  Salema, lounging on the sofa, beamed proudly. “I told all of you I could do it myself. But, if Mama and Muggah and Calla all wanted to sit by and watch, I suppose that’s fine with us, right Lek?”

  Lek, sitting next to her, still hadn’t quite regained his color, even though his son had arrived three hours earlier. “Yes, I did well as the catcher,” he said, a bit woodenly.

  “And a well done to you, too, son,” Shem winked at him.

  Salema leaned back and sighed in smug satisfaction.

  Jaytsy sent a sympathetic look to her son-in-law. For the past couple of hours she had been plying him with apple pie, trying to revive him. Salema had, indeed, delivered the baby herself, reaching down and pulling him out after a few hours of laboring, with her husband as coach and assistant catcher. She had insisted their two sons watch, so they could witness a birth other than cattle, and they did so between their fingers and with comments that consisted of, “Oh, gross. GROSS!”

  Salema had relented to let Calla and Jaytsy help take care of her boys, with Mahrree on call to fetch a midwife should they need one. But the grandmothers could only cheer and encourage from the sofas as they held their grandsons who watched in morbid fascination, but they never lent a hand; again, Salema’s orders.

  Fennic had readily kissed his new baby b
rother, but Briter wasn’t about to touch him until he had a second bath.

  Now Calla had gone to her home to make them dinner, Mahrree had left to check on the Briter household, while Jaytsy remained at Lek and Salema’s as baby tender.

  Shem cuddled his sleeping grandson. “Oh, did we need this today. Excellent timing, Salema.” His eyes were already dripping. “You know, I think he’s going to take after you. He already has the hair.”

  “It’s Puggah hair,” Salema smiled. Her other two sons had Lek and Shem’s light brown hair, but Perrin Zenos’s was black and slightly curled. “So we named him well.”

  Meiki, Shem’s eighteen-year-old daughter, burst through the door, crooning. “I knew it! I was sitting in tutoring and I thought, ‘I bet he’s arrived!’” She hurried over to pull the newborn from her father’s arms. “Come see Aunt Meiki!”

  “Hey, I was holding that—”

  “He’s so chubby already, Salema! Look at those cheeks.” Meiki squealed. “I could kiss them all day!”

  Shem frowned at her. “Wait—tutoring? What were you being tutored for?”

  “Math,” Meiki said blithely, sitting down with the baby and inspecting his tiny fingernails.

  “But you’ve never needed a tutor in math before. That’s one of your best subjects,” Shem pointed out.

  But Salema was smirking at her sister-in-law. “What’s his name, Meiki?”

  She glanced up, her cheeks flushed. “What? Who?”

  “The math tutor? The one you wanted to sit by this afternoon on a day when there are no classes?”

  Shem raised his eyebrows in expectation, and Lek looked concerned. Jaytsy handed him another slice of pie.

  “Oh, um,” Meiki hesitated. “I wasn’t really being tutored. Just watching, helping . . .” But, feeling her father’s steady gaze, she blurted, “His name’s Clyde.”

  “Clyde,” Shem stated carefully. Meiki was his oldest daughter, named after his mother who he lost when he was only a toddler. Now he realized he might be losing his daughter, too . . .

  No, no. Not losing. This was what she was supposed to do: find a good young man who she would be happy with, and continue the cycle of families . . .

  Still, he gritted his teeth as he watched her nuzzling the newborn as if she wanted one too. “Do I need to meet this Clyde?”

  Jaytsy, seeing how nervous Meiki was growing under her father’s unwavering watch, said in a teasing manner, “Shem, do you need help with calculus?”

  Shem cast her a withering look that made his children chuckle. To Meiki he said, “Is that what he tutors?”

  “He tutors everything in math!” Meiki gushed. “He’s brilliant! Give him any four digit figures and he can multiply them instantly!”

  “Well,” Shem began, “that’s handy—”

  “He’s in his last year,” Meiki plowed on, “and he’s going to be kept on as a professor next year—the youngest in mathematics they’ve ever had!”

  Shem slowly nodded. “Well, always good to have a mathematician around.”

  Jaytsy frowned, but with a playful glint in her eyes. “Is it? How many big numbers do you have to multiply each day?”

  Again Shem widened his eyes at Jaytsy, who chuckled at him as if to say, Relax. This is a good thing. This isn’t a boy from Edge, you know; he’s from Salem.

  Meiki rewrapped the baby in his blanket and gooed at him. “Hewwo, wittle Pewwin. Hewwo!”

  “Well,” Shem said slowly, remembering that she was eighteen, and this was the age most young women starting thinking seriously about young men.

  But it was . . . well, there was always something else, wasn’t there? He didn’t even get to relax and enjoy his newest grandson for ten minutes before a new concern popped up right before him. He sighed at his oldest daughter, beaming about a mathematician and probably calculating what their own baby may look like.

  “Bring him around the house sometime, Meiki. I may have some figures that need figuring—”

  “Oh!” Meiki suddenly exclaimed, looking up from the baby. “The house! Oh, Papa—I almost forgot. Woodson came by and—”

  Shem sprang to his feet. “Woodson?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Meiki blinked at him. “I just did—”

  But Shem was already bolting from the house, sprinting to his own. He glanced up at the tower, but there was no other banner except for the light blue dotted one signifying that a new baby boy had just been born in the area.

  “Why’s he here?” Shem murmured, rushing into the house and nearly crashing into Calla.

  She read his face. “No, nothing about Young Pere.”

  Shem almost sagged to the floor in disappointment. “Then why—”

  Calla was already gently steering him to his office. “Just talk to him.”

  Shem headed into his office to find Woodson rising from his chair. Shem shook his hand. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Meiki got distracted by her new nephew and some mathematician, and failed to tell me that I had a visitor.”

  Woodson nodded formally and sat down after Shem gestured to him that he should. He seemed uncomfortable. Then again, Woodson always looked uncomfortable indoors. He needed to be in the trees, dressed in brown and green camouflage, not the blue tunic and black trousers that looked overly stiff on him.

  He rubbed his palms nervously on his legs as Shem sat down behind his desk. “The news isn’t promising, is it?” Shem said, knowing that Woodson didn’t like beating around the bush, unless it was an actual bush in an actual forest.

  Woodson shook his head miserably. “Guide, I’m so sorry. We’ve checked everywhere we can think, had everyone searching, but we can’t find either of them. It’s as if they’ve vanished!”

  Shem smiled ruefully. “Rather like what we’ve been doing over the years. For once, the tables have been turned on us. Woodson, the evening they left, it was impressed upon me that neither Amory nor Young Pere would return soon. I appreciate your diligence, but we should call off the full-time searches. We’ve made our best efforts, but it’s done for now. The supply scouts can keep their eyes open for us.”

  “Yes, Guide,” Woodson said, sounding defeated. “I have come also to . . . to tender my resignation. I let my guard down and was gullible and allowed—” He stopped, because Shem was holding up his hand.

  “I won’t accept it, Woodson. I need you as the head of the scouting corps, and I simply won’t let you quit. When Jothan retired, he said the same thing I did: you were the best replacement for him. I still believe that.”

  Woodson’s face went wretched. “But, Guide, I failed! I took two unauthorized people into the world, and—”

  “It’s not your fault, Woodson.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Shem repeated, sharper. From a nearby shelf he pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s a list of whose fault it is. Peto and Lilla Shin. Mahrree Shin—”

  “Wait,” Woodson tried to interrupt. “It’s not their faults—”

  “—Relf Shin, Salema Briter Zenos, Morah Shin, age seven—”

  “Wait a minute, Guide,” Woodson tried again.

  Shem sighed. “And many, many more names of family who have come to me in the past week to confess that it’s all their fault. At the bottom of the list is Shem Zenos. Shall I add your name below mine?”

  Woodson smiled wanly. “I get it, Guide. But I feel—”

  “Betrayed,” Shem supplied simply. “We all do. It’s such an unfamiliar feeling, so we feel guilty instead, because that’s the closest emotion we know. But Woodson, there are actually two people at fault here: Amory Riling and Young Perrin Shin. No one else is responsible for their choices, only them.” He crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it dramatically into the cold fireplace.

  Woodson watched it land. “There was nothing written on that, was there, Guide?”

  Shem smiled wryly. “This is why I need you, Woodson. You see through everything. Now, see through this, and get back to work. Rector
Cox is improving, I’ve heard, but Honri’s going to stay in Edge until the first snows, looking. Surely there’s work for you to do on the other side of the mountain, and you seem itching to get back out there. You look terrible in blue and black, by the way.”

  Woodson smiled, looking immensely relieved. “Thank you, Guide.”

  “Sometimes I envy you, you know” Shem whispered. “Out there.”

  “I know,” Woodson whispered back. “You were a fixture in that forest for so many years. I keep telling you—if ever you want to spend the day with us, we’d love to have you. We’ll keep you safe, you know that.”

  “And I keep telling you,” Shem leaned closer, “that I can never go back there again, to be that close to the world again. I’m not worried about my safety, but everyone else’s.”

  Woodson nodded, knowing full well that the night he was born in that forest, Shem plunged his long knife into the heart of a Guarder to ensure his family could escape.

  “The offer still stands, always,” Woodson said, getting up. “Go kiss that new grandson of yours for me. There’s a training course for new scouts that’s been postponed, but since I’m back, I guess I should be getting ready to teach it again. But first, I need to change.”

  Chapter 25--“I’ve always been able to count on you.”