by Nora Roberts
“Where?” was all he asked.
“I have a map, and I’ll show you where you need to go. You’ll need horses, because too many of the roads won’t be passable in trucks and you can’t count on fuel. I’ve gone over all this with my father, so when you have your twelve, bring them to us. It’ll take weeks, Flynn, longer.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Once you’ve begun what needs to begin, you’ll come back.”
Something shifted inside her, lifted a weight as she looked at him. “You won’t come back alone.”
* * *
Before she sent men off on a mission, a journey of nearly three hundred miles, she wanted to refine her map and take another firsthand look at the location, the terrain, the positioning.
She rode Grace back home to gather what she needed. An hour, she thought as she packed the map and supplies to draw more. Two at the most if she scouted out the second location she’d already considered.
Fly there, she decided, then to the second. Flash back.
For this she’d take the owl, the wolf as well as Laoch. What she didn’t see, sense, hear, they would.
As she stepped outside to call them to her, Tonia flashed beside her.
“I had a feeling,” Tonia said.
“About?”
“I heard Flynn talking to Starr and a couple of others. You’re sending him out to build another base. I figured you’d probably take another run at it before you sent him.”
“You figured right.”
“I’ll go with you. Two pairs of eyes. Well,” she added when Taibhse landed on Fallon’s arm, the alicorn trotted up with the wolf at his side. “One more pair.”
“I’m going to two places, the one for Flynn and his team, and another I hope to use.”
“I’m up for it.” Tonia drew up the hat hanging from a strap down her back, set it, with its wide, flat brim, over her head. “And the thing is, after the memorial, I could use something.”
“All right. I could use your take anyway.”
Fallon signaled Faol Ban so the wolf leaped nimbly onto Laoch’s back before she mounted. Tonia swung on behind her.
As they rose up, Tonia lifted her face to the wind. “And this never gets old. So what’s the plan?”
Fallon released Taibhse so he could soar. “The first, where I want Flynn, was a small town. Smaller than New Hope. In the foothills, so the land’s hilly and rough. There’s a river, and the bridge over it is broken, impassable. Some of the land’s wooded, and some, though it’s rocky, is farmable. And when I passed over and marked it, I saw no signs of people. There are houses and buildings—some are beyond repair, but a lot of them are stone or brick. Narrow streets, and some burned-out or abandoned vehicles.”
“Raiders?”
“Probably. At this point it’s only accessible by horse or bike. Or crossing the river—small boat or swimming it.”
“So some defenses built in.”
“Yeah. And land to plant, woods to hunt, housing. It’s remote, but only about sixty miles from D.C.”
“Excellent. Where’s the second place?”
“East of D.C. It’s good land, a lot of it flat, some bogs. Waterways. Rivers, bays, inlets, some beaches. Cabins, old houses, and other buildings. I saw some pockets of people, but their defenses are limited. Nomads more than settlers, I think. Hiding.”
“Okay.” Tonia looked down as they flew. “So much space. All those roads—I can’t imagine what it was like when they were packed with people driving somewhere. Like them.”
“Military convoy.” Fallon studied the three trucks heading east. “Armored. Probably carrying troops into D.C.”
“Conscripted. That’s the way it’s going now. They sweep up the able-bodied when they find them, and hunt people like us. It doesn’t make any sense. If they merged forces with us instead of hunting us down, we could fight the DUs together.”
“All magickals, dark or light, are the same to them. We have power. They fear it, and they want it.”
“One of the new recruits got swept up last spring. He and the group he’d traveled with got caught in a flash flood, separated. He broke his ankle. A military squad found him, and gave him a choice. Sign up or die. A non-magickal, about sixteen. Who does that, Fallon?”
“They do.”
“Yeah, they do. And we’re hearing more about some of the ones they catch, sweep up, force to fight. They lock up their families, threaten them. Anyway, he signed up, they treated his ankle, put him into training. They make them watch those films, right? Films of DUs slaughtering people, and old footage of the Doom.”
“Brainwashing.”
“His wasn’t washed, but he was smart enough to play the good soldier. First chance he got, he escaped. One of our scouting parties found him, alone, half-starved, and brought him in. Kim was with them, said he was scared to death, thought they were going to take him back. Then we gave him a choice.”
“Stay, join the community,” Fallon said, “or we’ll give you the supplies you need to move on.”
“He stayed.”
“More will. And we need secure places for them. This’ll be one.”
CHAPTER NINE
Tonia looked down again as Fallon circled. She saw the river, wide and brown as tea, the rising land, the narrow streets and houses stepped up from it. Thick woods grew close with some leaves tinted with the first hints of fall. She saw the leggy form of a coyote slink back into the trees, and a small herd of deer cropping its way across rough, rocky ground.
“Farming’s going to be a challenge,” Tonia decided. “Then again I’m better at pretty much anything than farming. But yeah, some built-in defenses that could be well fortified.”
When they landed, the wolf leaped off, began to explore. The great owl swooped toward the trees.
“Did you see how the road winds and winds down? Switchbacking. From here, a sentry would see anyone advancing.” Fallon hopped off. “That building, an old church?” She gestured to the faded brick structure with its tall steeple, dingy gray from weather and neglect. “The highest point, and a perfect sentry post.”
“And a lot of the road’s eroded away in the low-lying areas.” As Fallon did, Tonia looked at the land for defense, offense. “Add a barricade. Access and cover for an advancing force through the woods, but that could be tightened up.”
“And the fields are wide open. You couldn’t cross without being seen.” Plant wheat, grains, Fallon thought, build a mill on the river.
She climbed up to the church. The doors, like the steeple, had been white once. Someone, long ago, had written DOOM over them. Now the despairing red paint faded into the gray.
Hinges protested with rusty shrieks when she opened the doors.
More gray, she thought. The air, the walls, the windows. Someone had tried without much success to set fire to the pews, so a few stood crackled and charred.
Above the altar hung desiccated remains.
“Not Raiders.” Tonia’s voice echoed in the musky air. “Not enough damage for Raiders.”
“No, not Raiders. He’s been there a very long time.”
She moved closer, opened herself.
“A nightmare, God’s punishment, some thought. But whose god? It took all, every soul, through the sickness or the madness that came with it. Crows circling, smoke rising. Oh, the screams, the terrible laughter that no prayer could overcome. Even here in this place of worship, Doom crept and clawed. Too many to bury, and the stench of burning flesh rises with the smoke, rises to the crows as they call me. It calls me, it promises, it lies. There is no salvation. Only death.”
“Don’t.” Tonia touched a hand to Fallon’s arm to bring her back. “Don’t look anymore. It doesn’t help.”
“He was one of us, and the power that woke inside him terrified him. What pulled at him terrified him because he wanted to answer. He tried to burn the church. Fire’s the first skill to come for most, but he was afraid, and he was the last, the only one who survived
. He hanged himself in fear and despair.”
“We’ll take him down. We’ll bury him.”
“Yeah. There’s no one here, and hasn’t been since he did this. Maybe whatever he did, or tried to do before he took his own life, kept the dark away.”
Tonia raised a hand, pushed power at a window so the sun struggled through. “We’ll bring back the light.”
They buried him in the stony ground behind the church, and when it was done, walked down to the river.
“I’m glad you came,” Fallon said.
“I’ve got your back. Not just because of what you are, or because we share a bloodline. Because we’re friends.”
“You and Hannah are the first friends—girls—I’ve had. I used to wish for a sister, kept getting brothers.” She found she could smile again. “There were some girls on other farms, or in the village, but…”
“Your parents had to be careful.”
“That, yes, that, and I never made a real connection with the other girls. Too used to boys, I guess.”
She watched a dragonfly, iridescent in the sun, swoop over the river’s surface, sending out ripples. From somewhere in the trees, a woodpecker hammered madly.
The sound echoed forever in the empty.
“Then I went with Mallick. Mick was the first real friend—outside my family. Looking back, I don’t know what I’d have done without him. Always outnumbered by boys.”
“Duncan likes to bitch about being outnumbered by girls. And we did—and do—enjoy tormenting him. You know you can count on me, right? Not just in battle.”
“I do. You and Hannah. Kick Balls Hannah.”
As she shoved her hat back, Tonia laughed. “She is so digging on that status right now. How about the three of us score a bottle of wine tonight, stake out a place without boys around, and hang out?”
Fallon bent down, plucked a tiny flower, yellow as butter, from the weedy verge. Dragonflies, woodpeckers, wildflowers, she thought. There was life and beauty even in the empty.
“Oh yeah. Let’s do that.”
They took the time to scout more of the town, to add to Fallon’s maps before heading north and east.
She skirted D.C., the smoke, the circling crows.
The time was coming, she thought, when she would meet the forces there, all of them. They’d come from the south, the west, the north, the east, ten thousand strong.
And when they freed those held in cages and labs and camps, the army would swell.
“Your mind’s busy,” Tonia commented. “It’s buzzing all over.”
“They fight for nothing there. They can’t stop. The city’s dead, a rubble on charred bones, but they won’t stop. Once we take it, all that’ll be left are ghosts and the hollow ring of false power.”
She left it behind, winged south. “See, a few camps scattered through the hills. Nothing permanent or structured.”
“Good hiding places,” Tonia said. “Bad roads, and the winters would be hard. A couple feet of snow, what roads there are would be rough going without a good horse or enough fuel to run a Humvee like Chuck’s, or a tank or snowplow.”
“Plenty of game, wood, water.” Fallon circled.
“Lots of water—lots of fish, probably mussels, crabs, clams. Get some boats seaworthy, and it’s seafood time.”
“Merpeople,” Fallon pointed out, and watched the jeweled tails flash as they dived. “Good warriors.”
They circled up, over a bluff. Good, high ground, to Fallon’s mind.
“No power,” she noted, “but those cabins look sturdy. There’s a clearing. I’m going down.”
The air sparkled, fresh, clean, and cooler than it had been. She smelled pine, and water from a stream, a hint of smoke from a camp a few miles west.
She walked toward a cabin that reminded her of the one she’d spent her first night in with Mallick on the way to his cottage.
“A hunting cabin most likely, or a vacation place. Log, well built. No power, but we can restore it.”
She saw the red flash of a fox, deer scat, tracks from bear.
“This is nice.” Tonia turned a circle. “I’m not especially a nature girl, but this is nice.”
Fallon flicked a hand at the door, opening it as she approached.
“Scavengers picked it clean,” she noted. “Nomads, probably, since they left the heavier furniture and there’s no sign anyone settled in for long. Ashes in the fireplace, old and cold.”
“The other cabins around here are likely the same. No supplies, but solid walls, roof, fireplace for heat. Tiny kitchen.” Tonia turned the rusted tap on a shallow sink. “No running water, but yeah, we can fix that, too.”
“One bath, toilet and shower. Serviceable, and more than I had for a year with Mallick.”
Tonia’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? A year?”
“Deadly. This is better than I thought,” she decided as she walked out, pushed her way along an overgrown track to another cabin. “Secluded but strategic. Get the basics up and running, add security, sentry posts, communications. Clear some of the land for a decent garden, a greenhouse, beehives, fortify the cabins, and use one as an armory. Get those boats on the waterways. Flash or fly in supplies. There’s plenty of wood to build more cabins, for fuel. Let’s see how many…” She trailed off, looked at Tonia.
I hear them, Tonia said in her mind. North and south.
About three dozen. Hold on.
Not wanting to frighten off, but ready to defend, Fallon spoke clearly. “We’re not here to harm, or take. You have nothing to fear from us unless you attack. Then you have everything to fear.”
“Big talk from little girls.”
The man who stepped into the clearing made John Little look spindly. He reached seven feet, with a burly, muscled body clad in a scarred leather vest and boots, and denim pants worn to holes at the knees.
He had a face like carved ebony, a black beard that hung to his chest, black hair in a grungy series of braids.
And an arrow nocked in his bow.
Some of the handful behind him held wooden spears or bows. One held a sword in a way that told Fallon he didn’t actually know how to use it.
“Anyone would be little measured against you,” Fallon said easily, and kept her hands at her sides. “Is this your land?”
“We’re standing on it.”
“And so are we. If it’s your land, you haven’t made much use of it. Still, you’ve got no need to defend it from us. We’re not here to fight you.”
He smiled wide, showed the gap of a missing tooth. “Why would you? You’re outnumbered. Skinny girl with a big sword, best go back the way you came before we have to hurt you.”
“You know what?” Tonia cocked a hip, set a hand on it in a gesture of defiance. “I don’t like being threatened for walking in the woods. You?” she said to Fallon.
“No.”
Faol Ban slipped out of the trees, growled low in his throat. As the big man pivoted, drew back on the bow, Taibhse swooped down, gripped the arrow in his talons.
“If any of you threaten what’s mine, you’ll regret it.” She spoke to her spirit animals quietly in Irish. The wolf slipped into the shadows; the owl perched on a high branch. “Is this how you treat strangers who cross your path?”
“Strangers who try to take what we have, sell us into slavery.”
“We don’t steal, and we free slaves.”
His lip curled over the missing tooth. “Skinny girls with a wolf and trained owl free slaves?”
“Are there magickals among you?”
His face hardened, and despite the owl, the wolf, he drew another arrow out of his quiver. “Go. While you can still walk.”
Fallon pushed out power, just a leading edge. As she did, as the big man and the people behind him stepped back, she heard a baby’s quick cry.
She pulled back quickly. “You have children with you.”
Face fierce, he grabbed a spear from the man beside him. “You’ll never take them.”
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“Oh, for the sake of all the gods. We don’t harm children, or take them. Wait.” She held up a hand, rippled the air between them, and drew her sword. She thrust it up, filled it with light so it gleamed silver.
“I am Fallon Swift. I am pledged to defend the light, to protect the innocent. I come to destroy the dark, to tear down all who seek to harm those who seek peace. With this sword, I will lead into battle those who choose to follow me. And we will cut down all who stand against us.”
“She’s damn good at it, too,” Tonia commented. “Come on, people. You’ve never heard of The One?”
“Just a story. A tale told to children around the campfire.”
“No.” A woman, a child gripping her hand, a baby in a sling at her breasts, pushed through.
“Liana, get back!”
“No.” She laid a hand on the big man’s arm. “I told you it wasn’t a story. Kilo, why won’t you listen? You’re The One.”
“Yes. And I see the light in you, your elfin blood.”
The woman had eyes as dark as night. Her dusky face bore a long scar down her left cheek.
“And in you.” Fallon crouched down to the level of the little boy with hair as dense and soft as a black cloud. “Do you see me? Do you see the light in me?”
The boy giggled, then pressed his face shyly to his mother’s leg, peeked out.
“He’s hungry.” She called Laoch. When the alicorn landed in the clearing, people gasped and murmured, drew closer together.
“We bring no harm, no threat. Tonia, there’s a peach in my saddlebag.”
Tonia brought it to her, kept her gaze, cool and even, on Kilo’s face.
“Is it all right?” Fallon asked Liana.
“Yes, yes, of course. Thank you. Say thank you, Eli.”
He whispered it, still shyly clinging to his mother. But he reached out to take the peach after Fallon mimed biting into it.
When he bit into it himself, his wide eyes and the long mmm as juice dripped down his chin made Fallon laugh.
“It’s all I have, but we can bring you more.”
“Why?” Kilo demanded.