“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.