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  “We counted at least two dozen fires up there,” said Pari. “Perhaps as many again on the other side, out of sight. Four or six men per fire. There could be two hundred men up there.”

  Ara scanned the ravine cutting up the side of the mountain – a black slash in the twilight. It would cover their approach should they choose to go forth. But it also provided ample opportunities to be ambushed. “Makes no sense. This is a relay station, not a fortress. I only suggested this raid because it was so lightly defended last time I scouted.”

  “Maybe someone told them we’re coming,” said Vul.

  “That’s not possible, Vul, said Pari. “We didn’t know, ourselves, till yesterday.”

  Bushes rustled. Canu and Feril emerged, chatting like old friends, Canu’s hand resting on Feril’s shoulder. Again, Canu left Ara flummoxed.

  “Feril says we’re being followed,” said Canu.

  “My rear guard spotted them,” said Feril. “A mounted force, apparently.”

  “Cuasars?” said Ara.

  “They’re Giep’o,” said Feril. “Nalkies, if we’re lucky. Though, they could be Polus. They’re hanging back, not showing themselves.”

  “Why so shy, if they’re Nalkies?” said Vul.

  “Maybe they’ve mistaken us for Crasacs,” said Pari.

  “Wonderful,” said Ara. “Enemies on two sides now.”

  “Or allies to back us,” said Feril. “Shall we approach them?”

  “I’m … not sure that’s wise,” said Ara. “Let me think about it.”

  Canu stared up at the Mercomar, hands on hips.

  “So are we attacking or not?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ara, looking to Feril, his form faintly brushed by the meager glow of a crescent moon. “It’s much more daunting than I expected. And now we have this band of riders on our tail.”

  “The fires could be a bluff,” said Feril.

  “Or a signal,” said Pari.

  “I bet they’re roasting elk … or mutton,” said Canu.

  “You would have us raid just for the food,” said Pari, huffing.

  “Maybe so,” said Canu.

  “I wish Seor were here to help sort this out,” said Vul.

  “Seor’s not coming through that portal,” said Ara. “You’re stuck with me.”

  Ara regretted the chill in her tone the instant the words breached her lips. She felt eyes upon her from the darkness.

  “Seor never did anything without a close scouting,” said Canu.

  “Seems prudent,” said Feril. “I’ll send a party forward.”

  “I’ll go,” said Canu.

  Ara touched Canu’s wrist. “Let Feril handle this,” she said, softly.

  ***

  The fires around the Mercomar had mostly blinked out, save for a few, feeble orange glows. Ara sat, shoulder braced against Canu’s back among a group of sleeping, snuffling soldiers. She and Canu had dozed off and on in the hours since the scouting party had left. The crescent moon had since sailed a wide arc of the sky. Vul’s siren of a snore threatened to break their cover.

  “You awake?” Ara said softly, so as not to awaken Canu if he wasn’t.

  “Yes,” said Canu, his voice muffled by the crook of his elbow.

  “Nudge Vul for me, will you?”

  Canu’s leg sprang out and kicked Vul hard in the rump. Vul flinched and rolled onto his side. His snoring ceased.

  “Do you suppose Feril suspects us?” said Ara.

  “Suspects what?” said Canu.

  “That we’ve gone rogue” said Ara. “That we’re not actually executing orders from Baren.”

  “He’s a greenhorn,” said Canu. “Fresh out of training. He’ll jump off a ledge if you ask him.”

  “But even so … I get the sense that he knows.”

  “Doubt that,” said Canu. “He seems eager enough to fight.”

  Ara felt a void open up where Canu’s shoulder had been. The night air stole the warmth of his touch.

  Ara reached out to him, unseeing in the dark. Her fingernails scraped his ear.

  “Ow! Why did you scratch me?”

  “I was seeing where you had gone.”

  “Use your voice next time. It’s not nearly as sharp.”

  “Sorry,” said Ara, she sidled back against him until their sides touched. “Do you suppose Seor would have retreated in this situation?”

  “Hah. Seor never would have gotten us in such a spot in the first place,” said Canu. “Not out of cowardice, mind you.”

  “Oh? You think we should retreat?” said Ara.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “We can,” said Ara. “It’s not too late.”

  A stone clattered over the ridge top.

  “I’m with you, Ara,” said Canu. “Whatever you decide to do. I just want to be included.”

  “Quiet,” said Ara.

  “It’s true!” said Canu. “This is how I feel!” Canu took her hand. Ara shook it off.

  “Canu, shush! Someone’s coming!”

  Ara rose up and stared down into the dark col. Where were the sentries? Should she sound a warning? What if this was an attack?

  A whistle hailed them from the slope below – Feril’s unit identifier.

  Three came up the ridge, including Captain Feril.

  “Feril?” said Ara. “I didn’t realize you went along.”

  “We did it,” said Feril, breathing hard. “We reached their perimeter. We heard men … speaking Giep’o.”

  “You’re sure?” said Ara.

  “What does that mean?” said Canu.

  “I think they’re slaves,” said Feril. “We saw trenches and stonework. They’re building fortifications.”

  “Hah! So there’s no reason to abort our plan,” said Canu. “The slaves might even join our fight, take revenge against their overseers.”

  “I’m just grateful they’re not all Crasacs,” said Feril.

  Ara let a small patch optimism sprout in her blighted heart. She looked to the pale horizon. “The sun will be up in a few hours. We need to move fast. Roust your fighters, Feril.”

  He rushed off down the track, scouts in tow.

  “You still aim for Pari and I to hang behind and twiddle our thumbs?” said Canu.

  “There will be no twiddling of thumbs,” said Ara. “You two protect our back side, and help address any contingencies that arise. I’ll need you to stay alert and react quickly as things develop.”

  Canu looked down, and scuffed his toe against the pebbles.

  “Are you with me, Canu?”

  ***

  Ara trudged behind a vanguard of Feril’s best fighters. Vul’s detachment had veered off around a spur to circle around to the backside of the mountain, where they were to cut off any relief attempts from the garrison in the valley. Pari’s group brought up the rear. As for Canu – no one knew what had happened to Canu. He was simply gone.

  Light seeped slowly into the boulder-studded ravine, though the sun had yet to break over the hills. A heavy blanket of mist probed its upper reaches.

  But they couldn’t count on its cover for long. Ara had watched this mountain many a morning. The fog would burn off once the sun rose.

  Ara’s stomach felt like it had imploded. Canu had vanished without a word to anyone. While the news had stunned Ara, Pari and Vul had expressed little surprise or concern. It was simply Canu being Canu, they told her. They didn’t think he had deserted them. Their sentiments offered Ara little consolation.

  She wondered where Canu had gone. Had he gone off to pout, or was he ranging alone? What if he had deserted? Cadre protocol punished desertion with death. Would he turn native, perhaps, and join with the Nalkies. Would she ever see him again? Alive?

  Ara kept silent, hoping to disguise her fluster as they passed through the progressively thinning trees. She was capable enough with bow and sword, but as a Traveler, recruited late into the militia, she had never actually fought against a Venep’o force, unlike Feri
l and Vul and Pari.

  Most in Feril’s company were even less experienced than Ara in battle. How would they do against a fortified objective with a disadvantage in terrain? Who knew how long Vul could hold off the garrison? Ara had instructed him not to linger—to flee before the odds of escape became nil.

  Perhaps she worried too much. The slaves would rise up to aid them, even if they only had digging implements to wield. The operation had all the makings of a disaster, yet Ara felt powerless to stop it.

  A runner came bounding up the stones. Feril halted the column. The runner doubled over, hands on her knees, coughing.

  “Report,” he said.

  The runner, still breathless, could barely speak.

  “Riders,” she said. “Still following.”

  “But … who are they?” said Ara.

  “Comrade Pari says … they’re not … Cuasars.”

  “That’s good,” said Feril. “That’s all I need to know.”

  “But who?” said Ara. The runner could only shrug.

  They continued on. The trees grew smaller until canopy became even with the tops of their heads. It was slow plodding, made even slower by the need for stealth. It was impossible to prevent every snap and crunch of twig and leaf underfoot. Blasts of wind, hopefully, covered their crepitations.

  When they reached the tree line they paused below the heath to reconnoiter their target.

  A lacework of paths tacked through trampled heath to the Mercomar station with its massive stone foundation topped by a squat tower of squared-off logs. A man stood atop the tower, swabbing dew off the great mirrors. The baffles and shades used to encode the messages were fully retracted to each side.

  The first fortifications were a short dash upslope, well within crossbow range. Workers had already mustered and labored hard, cracking slabs with picks, prying boulders from trenches.

  There was something odd about these slaves. Clad only in under-sheathings, they seemed too well-fed. They were well-muscled, tall for Giep’o. Ara wished she had a spyglass to examine them more closely.

  Feril came up from the rear.

  “Our reserve is in place,” he said. “How long do we wait?”

  “We need to give Vul more time to get around the mountain,” said Ara.

  Feril gazed up through the sheets of mist sweeping across the slopes.

  “Looks like a go, eh?” said Feril. He squinted. Puzzlement crossed his mist-spattered face. “Odd, I see only slaves. No guards or overseers. No Crasacs, for that matter.”

  Ara studied the scene before her. “You’re … right,” she said. Tingles crept down her backbone. Her breathing quickened.

  One slave, a bit scrawnier than the rest, walked past a group scraping away at a trench. He climbed the slope obliquely, switching back, moving nearer and nearer to the tower.

  “What’s that one doing?” asked Feril.

  Ara blanched. Her mouth dropped open, but she struggled to speak.

  “What’s wrong?” said Feril.

  “That’s no slave,” she said. “That’s Canu.”

  Chapter 18: Misty’s Confession

  Miles awoke, head jiggling, temple knocking against a rock. He found himself in the bunker, sprawled over gravel and moss with Misty leaning over him, shaking him by both shoulders. Panic exploded from his core. He bolted upright and scrambled to retrieve Tom’s gun, which had slid into a crevice.

  “Easy buddy! Everything’s cool,” said Misty patting. “We ain’t bein’ invaded.”

  Miles panted. He peered through gaps in the slabs fronting the bunker and scanned the forest edge. Cold sweat trickled from his brow.

  “Don’t you worry. There’s no Crasacs anywhere near,” said Misty. “Some of the village folks just went down to the river road to see what’s up.”

  “Can’t believe I dozed off again.” Miles settled back. He still felt dazed. “How long have I been down here?”

  “All day long,” said Misty. “I saw you laying there and I thought you was dead.” Misty’s cheekbones were flushed above her veil. Miles was struck by how pretty her eyes were, not just their color—a soft, greenish, grey—but moreso the shape of them, almost Asian, like curvy almonds. Somehow she managed to look both earthy and exotic.

  “I brought you some soup,” said Misty. “No bread today. The refugees’ve just about cleaned out our stocks.” She handed him a cracked wooden spoon and a gourd hot with soup ladled fresh from the cauldron.

  “Thanks,” said Miles, taking it from her. He ate eagerly, though it was mostly weak broth with some bits of vegetable and mushroom. His eyes kept returning to the trailhead below.

  Misty’s eyes wandered. She opened her mouth and aborted an attempt to speak.

  “What’s wrong?” said Miles.

  “Nothin,’” said Misty. “I was just thinking about your cell phone.”

  “Oh?”

  “Did you really … actually … talk to your mom … from here?”

  “Sure did,” said Miles. “Told her I was going hiking with friends.”

  Misty’s eyes twinkled. Miles could tell she was smiling under her veil.

  “You tried it lately?”

  “Well, not since this morning. Why?”

  “Jus’ wonderin.’”

  Misty fished in her blouse and pulled out a roll of pale bark about the size of a cigarette. She unrolled it to reveal a phone number scratched through the whitish integument to the dark brown layer beneath.

  “If you ever get a signal again … can I ask you a favor?”

  “I guess,” said Miles.

  “Can you call my sister Sue for me? This is her number.” She shoved the slip of bark into Miles’ hand. “Let her know I’m okay. But … more important … tell her …. Tell her it was me who took Grandma’s cash. I know they probably blamed Donny, but it was me. But I was only borrowin’ it. I didn’t mean to take it for always. I mean … it wasn’t like I stole it. What kind of grand-daughter do they think I am? I was going to pay it back. But then I ended up here.”

  “Uh, Misty, This is personal … I don’t feel comfortable—”

  “But if Sue’s husband answers, just hang up. Don’t say a word. Dale’s kind of the suspicious type. But if it’s Sue, tell her the money’s in Donny’s trailer, in a coffee can under the crawl space.”

  “Misty,” said Miles, engaging her wide and anguished eyes. “You should be the one making this call.”

  Misty stared into the void beyond the cliff. “I … I suppose you’re right, but ….”

  Miles pulled out his cell phone. “I’m going to check right now, okay? And I don’t know that there’ll be reception … but if there is, I’ll place the call … but you do the talking. Okay? Just keep it short. We gotta save the batteries.”

  “Um … alright.” Misty’s looked mortified. She pulled down her veil, revealing her fine-boned, child-like features.

  They waited for the phone to start up. Six tones chimed and his background photo of a Rickenbacker bass displayed, but no signal bars showed up in the upper left corner.

  Misty expelled a held breath through pursed lips.

  “Alrighty then,” she said. “If and when you do get coverage and I’m not around, you can make the call, right? I mean, you know what to day. Of course, only after you handle your stuff. I know you probably got your own calls to make.”

  Miles turned off the phone.

  “Misty, I’m not so sure I’ll ever get enough bars again – here. I mean, they only popped up once since I came to this farm, and that was for only a few seconds. But—”

  “Well, that’s unfortunate,” said Misty, deflating. “I was hopin’—”

  “But I do know a place where the coverage comes in real strong,” said Miles.

  “Oh?” said Misty, perking up. “Where’s that?”

  “Up in the hills,” said Miles. “By my car.”

  “Your … car?”

  “I told you all. That’s how I got here.”

  “I
’m sorry Miles, but this is just too weird. A car? Here?”

  “2009 Toyota Prius,” said Miles. “The last model year before they updated the body.”

  “O-kay.”

  “For whatever reason, I had three bars of coverage up there. And the radio reception … almost as good as I get in Greymore.”

  “But how do we get there with all them Cuerti maraudin’ around?”

  Miles locked his eyes with hers. “Don’t know.” He looked down at the forest edge, eyes panning across a line of trees that had become very familiar to him over the past two days. “Maybe … maybe if it stays quiet like this, maybe we can just sneak off. After all, I’ve got this to protect us.” He patted the rifle. “And once we get past the villages, it’s all wilderness. No one to bother us.”

  Misty blinked—a lot. Miles was unable to decipher her reaction.

  “So … you wanna come with?” he said.

  Her eyes flickered with agitation and uncertainty.

  “Aw, I dunno,” she said. “Liz would kill me if I took off in the middle of all this. “Let’s … let’s see how things go.”

  Chapter 19: Infiltrator

  Cloaked in mist so thick he could barely discern his feet, Canu slipped between the groups of toiling slaves. He used their voices to guide him away from their stone works, climbing climbed diagonally towards the blocky smudge that was the tower of the Mercomar, visible only for spells.

  Moisture-laden wind spattered his shivering chest with dew. He had removed his shirt to blend with the slaves, and the chill had reddened and tightened his skin.

  He knew he would catch hell from Ara for going rogue, but she should have known better than to stick him with the rear guard. He aimed to be the first to transmit the attack sign—the eight flashes of eight that would raise the militias from their assembly camps in the marsh lands. Doing so would send another message as well—to his comrades. Canuchariol was not to be underestimated.

  Seams appeared in the solid blocks of mist. The rising sun was beginning burn through. It wouldn’t be long before the mirrors of the heliograph would be free to flash.

  This particular Mercomar was a relay station, repeating messages received across lines of sight extending to Raacevo, Verden and over the mountains to the Maora plains.

  Ara had told him that sentries in the camps still watched the Mercomar every morning in hopes of seeing the attack sign, even after rumors from Sesei suggested that the counteroffensive—their reason, ostensibly, for infiltrating Gi—had been cancelled. Unofficially, their mission had shifted to simple deterrence, serving only to constrain Venep’o ambitions in Gi.