SIXTY-ONE

They waited, through that day and into the next. With just a single squad remaining to man the walls, the camp felt strange, empty and alone. Amy and Sara were now free to move through the garrison as they wished, but there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait. Amy had lapsed into a silence so profound that Peter had begun to wonder if he had dreamed her voice in the first place; all day long she sat on her bunk in her tent, her eyes drawn into an intense look of concentration. When Peter could stand it no longer, he asked her if she knew what was happening out there.

Her voice when she answered was vague; she seemed to be looking at him and also not. “They’re lost. Lost in the woods.”

“Who is, Amy? Who’s lost?”

She seemed to discover him only then, to enter into the present moment and its circumstances. “Will we be leaving soon, Peter?” she asked again. “Because I would like to leave soon.” An airy smile. “To make the snow angels.”

It was more than puzzling; it was maddening. For the first time, Peter actually felt anger at her. Never had he felt so helpless, pinned in place by his own hesitancy and the delay it had created. They should have departed days ago; now they were trapped. To leave without knowing if Alicia was safe was simply impossible for him. He stormed from the women’s tent and resumed his haunted walks around the compound, filling the useless hours. He made no effort even to speak with the others, keeping his distance. The sky was clear, but to the east, the peaks of the mountains glinted with ice. It had begun to seem possible they would never leave the garrison at all.

Then, on the morning of the third day, they heard it: the sound of engines. Peter raced to the ladder and ascended to the catwalk, where the squad commander, whose name was Eustace, was looking south through a pair of binoculars. Eustace alone had deigned to talk to any of them, though he kept such exchanges brief and to the point.

“It’s them,” Eustace said. “Some of them, anyway.”

“How many?” Peter asked.

“Looks like two squads.”

The men who moved through the gate were filthy, exhausted; everything about them spoke of defeat. Alicia was nowhere among them. At the rear of the line, still on horseback, was Major Greer. Hollis and Michael had come running from their tent. Greer dismounted, looking dazed, and took a long drink of water before speaking.

“Are we the first?” he asked Peter. He seemed to not quite know where he was.

“Where’s Alicia?” Peter demanded.

“Christ, what a mess. The whole fucking hillside caved in. They came at us from everywhere. We were totally flanked.”

Peter could contain himself no longer. He grabbed Greer roughly by the shoulders, forcing the major to look him in the eye·· “Goddamnit, tell me where she is!”

Greer made no resistance. “I don’t know, Peter. I’m sorry. Everybody got split up in the dark. She was with Vorhees. We waited a day at the fallback point, but they never showed.”

More waiting; it was unbearable, infuriating. Peter had never felt so powerless. A short time later, a cry went up from the wall.

“Two more squads!”

Peter was sitting in the mess hall in a haze of worry. He dashed outside, arriving at the gate as the first truck pulled into the compound. It was the one that had carried the explosives; the winch was still attached to the bed, the empty hook swinging. Twenty-four men, three squads reconstituted as two. Peter searched for Alicia among their benumbed faces.

“Private Donadio! Does anyone know what happened to Private Donadio!”

No one did. Everyone told the same story: the bomb exploding, the ground tearing open beneath them, the virals pouring forth, everyone scattering, lost in the dark.

Someone claimed they’d seen Vorhees die, others that he was with Blue Squad. But no one had seen Alicia.

The day dragged on. Peter paced the parade ground, talking to no one. As senior officer, Greer was now in charge. He spoke briefly to Peter, telling him not to abandon hope. The general knew what he was doing; if anyone could bring his unit back alive, it was Curtis Vorhees. But Peter could see in Greer’s face that he, too, had begun to believe that no one else was coming back.

His hopes ended with the fall of darkness. He returned to the tent, where Hollis and Michael were playing hands of go-to. Both glanced up as he entered.

“Just keeping busy,” Hollis said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Peter lay down on his bunk and drew a blanket over himself, not even bothering to remove his muddy boots. He was filthy, wrung out with fatigue; the last, unreal hours seemed to have transpired in a kind of trance. He had barely eaten for days, but the thought of food was impossible. A cold wind—a winter wind—was shaking the walls of the tent. His last thoughts before he slept were of Alicia’s final words to him: Get the hell out of here.

He was awakened by a distant cry that sent him lurching upright. Hollis’s face ducked through the flap of the tent.

“Someone’s at the gate.”

He threw the blanket aside and tore outside, into the glare of the spotlights. His doubts turned to certainty, and by the time he was halfway across the parade ground he knew what was waiting for him.

Alicia. Alicia had come back.

She was standing at the gate. His first impression, as he moved toward her, was that she was alone. But as he pushed his way through the gathering men, he saw a second soldier, kneeling on the dirt. It was Muncey. His wrists were bound before him. Under the blaze of the spotlights, Peter could see that his face was glazed with sweat. He was shivering, but not from the cold; one of his hands was wrapped in a rag sodden with blood.

The two were surrounded by soldiers now, everyone keeping their distance. A reverential hush had descended. Greer stepped forward to Alicia.

“The general?”

She shook her head: no.

The private was holding his bloody hand away from his body, breathing rapidly. Greer crouched before him. “Corporal Muncey.” His voice was quiet, soothing.

“Yes, sir.” Muncey licked his lips with a slow tongue. “Sorry, sir.”

“It’s all right, son. You’ve done well.”

“Don’t know how I missed the one that did it. Chewed me like a dog before Donadio got him.” He raised his head toward Alicia. “You wouldn’t know she was a girl from the way she fights. Hope you don’t mind I asked her to truss me up and bring me home.”

“That’s your perfect right, Muncey. That’s your right as a soldier of the Expeditionary.”

Muncey’s body shook then, a series of three hard spasms. His lips curled away, showing the gaps in his teeth. Peter felt the soldiers tense; all around him, hands dropped to their blades, a quick, unconscious movement. But Greer, crouched before the ailing soldier, didn’t flinch.

“Well, I guess that’s it now,” Muncey said when the spasms had passed. Peter could find no fear anywhere in the soldier’s eyes, only a calm acceptance. All the color had seeped from his face, like water down a drain. He lifted his bound hands to wipe the sweat from his brow with the bloody rag. “It’s like they say, the way it comes on. If it’s no trouble, I’d like it on the blade, Major. I want to feel it coming out of me.”

Greer nodded his approval. “Good man, Muncey.”

“Donadio should be the one to do it, if that’s all right. My mama always said you should dance with the one who brung you, and she was kind enough to bring me back. She didn’t have to do that.” His eyes were blinking now, the sweat was pouring down. “I just wanted to say it’s been an honor, sir. The general, too. I wanted to come home to say that. But I think you better step to it, Major.”

Greer rose to his feet and backed away. Everyone snapped to attention. He raised his voice to all of them:

“This man is a soldier of the Expeditionary! It is time for him to take the trip! All hail, Corporal Muncey. Hip hip … ”

“Hooray!”

“Hip hip—”

“Hooray!”

“Hip hip—”

“Hooray!”

Greer drew his blade and passed it to Alicia. Her face was composed, lacking all emotion: a soldier’s face, a face of duty. She gripped the blade in her fist and knelt before Muncey, who had bowed his head now, waiting, his bound hands slack in his lap. Alicia bent her head toward Muncey’s until their foreheads were touching. Peter saw that her lips were moving, murmuring quiet words to him. He felt no horror, only a sense of astonishment. The moment seemed frozen, not part of a flow of events but something fixed and singular—a line that, once crossed, could never be uncrossed. That Muncey would die was only a part of its meaning.

The knife did its work almost before Peter realized what had happened; when Alicia dropped her hand, it was buried to the hilt in Muncey’s chest. His eyes were open, wide and damp, his lips parted. Alicia was holding his face now, tenderly, like a mother with her child. “Go easy now, Muncey,” she said. “Go easy.” A bit of blood had risen to his lips. He breathed once more, holding the air in his chest, as if it were not air but something far more—a sweet taste of freedom, of all cares lifted, everything over and done. Then his life left him and he slumped forward, Alicia receiving him in her arms to ease his body’s passage to the muddy ground of the garrison.

Peter did not see her all through the next day and then the day after. He thought of sending her a message through Greer, but he didn’t know what to say. In his heart he knew the truth: Alicia was gone. She had slipped into a life he had no part of.

They’d lost a total of forty-six men, including General Vorhees. It stood to reason that some were not dead but had been taken up; the talk among the men was of sending out search parties. But Greer said no. The window for their departure was closing, if they were going to make their rendezvous with Third Battalion. Seventy-two hours, he announced, and that would be the end of it.

By the end of the second day, the camp was nearly buttoned up. Food, weapons, gear, most of the larger tents except the mess—all were packed and ready to go. The lights would remain, as would the large fuel tankers, now mostly empty, and a single Humvee. The battalion would be traveling south in two groups: a small scouting party on horseback, led by Alicia, with the rest following in the trucks and on foot. Alicia was now an officer; with so many men lost, including all but two squad leaders, the ranks had thinned, and Greer had given her a battlefield commission. She was now Lieutenant Donadio.

Greer had lifted the order to keep Sara and Amy segregated; a body was a body, he said, no reason at this point to split hairs. A lot of men had been injured in the raid; mostly small things, cuts and scratches and sprains, but one soldier had a broken collarbone, and two more, Sancho and Withers, had been badly burned in the detonation. The battalion’s two medical corpsmen had been killed, so with Amy helping her, Sara had taken over caring for the wounded, preparing them as best she could for the trip south. Peter and Hollis had been assigned to the packing crews, whose job was to sort through the contents of two large supply tents, culling what would travel with them and moving the rest to storage in a series of dugouts spread through the compound. Michael had more or less disappeared into the motor pool; he slept in the barracks, took his meals elbow to elbow with the other oilers. Even his name was gone, replaced by Lugnut.

Over everything, the question of the evacuation hung like a blade. Peter had yet to give Greer his answer, because the truth was, he didn’t know. The others—Sara and Hollis and Michael and even Amy, in her quiet, inward way—were all waiting, giving him the space to decide. That they said nothing on the subject made this fact all the more obvious. Or maybe they were simply avoiding him, for all he knew. Either way, leaving the safety of the garrison now seemed more perilous than ever. Greer had cautioned him that with the mine disturbed, the woods would be crawling; perhaps, he suggested, it would be best to wait until they returned next summer. He’d talk to Division, persuade them to mount a proper expedition. Whatever’s up that mountain, Greer said, it’s been there a long time. Surely it can wait another year.

The evening of the second day after Alicia’s return, Peter came into his tent to find Hollis alone, sitting on his cot. A winter parka was draped over his shoulders; he was holding a guitar in his lap.

“Where’d you find that?”

Hollis was idly plucking notes, his face drawn in concentration. He looked up and gave a smile through his heavy beard, which by now climbed halfway up his cheeks. “One of the oilers had it. Friend of Michael’s.” He blew on his hands and plucked a few more notes, nibbling around the edges of a melody that Peter couldn’t quite discern. “It’s been so long I thought I’d forgotten how to play.”

“I didn’t know you could.”

“I can’t, not really. Arlo was always the one.”

Peter sat on the bunk across from him. “Go on. Play something.”

“I don’t remember much. Just a song or two.”

“Then play that. Play anything.”

Hollis shrugged; but Peter could tell he was happy to be asked. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Hollis did something with the strings, tightening and testing, then began. It took Peter a moment to realize what he was hearing: one of Arlo’s funny, made-up songs, the ones he used to play for the Littles in the Sanctuary, yet different somehow. The same but not the same. Under Hollis’s fingers, it was deeper and richer, full of an aching sadness. Peter lay back on his cot and let the notes wash over him. Even when the song had ended, he could still feel it inside him, like an echo of longing in his chest.

“It’s all right,” he said. He took a deep breath, fixing his eyes on the tent’s sagging ceiling. “You and Sara should take that convoy. Michael, too. I doubt she’ll go without him.” When Hollis said nothing, Peter rose on his elbows and faced his friend. “It’s okay, Hollis. I mean it. That’s what I want you to do.”

“It’s what Vorhees said, when we first got here. About his men, the oath they take. He was right. I’m no good for this anymore, if I ever was. I really love her, Peter.”

“You don’t have to explain. I’m glad for you both. I’m glad you have this chance.”

“What will you do?” Hollis asked.

The answer was obvious. Still, it needed to be said. “What we came to do.”

It was strange. Peter felt sad, but something else as well. He felt at peace. The decision was behind him now; he was free of it. He wondered if this was how his father had felt the night before his final ride. Watching the ceiling of the tent shaking in the wintry wind, Peter recalled Theo’s words that night in the power station, all of them sitting around the table in the control room, drinking shine. Our father didn’t go out there to let it go. Whoever thinks so doesn’t understand the first thing about him. He went out there because he just couldn’t stand not knowing, not for one more minute of his life. It was the peace of truth that Peter felt, and he was glad for it, down to his bones.

Beyond the walls of the tent, Peter could hear the roar of the generators, the calls of Greer’s men on the pickets, standing the watch. One more night and all would be silent.

“There’s not any way I can talk you out of this, is there?” Hollis asked.

Peter shook his head. “Just do me a favor.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Don’t follow me.”

He found the major in the tent that once had been Vorhees’s. Peter and Greer had barely spoken since Alicia’s return; a heaviness seemed to have come over the major since the abortive raid, and Peter had kept his distance. It was more than the burden of command that was weighing on him, Peter knew. In those long hours he had spent with the two men, Peter had seen the depth of their bond. It was grief Greer was feeling now, grief for his lost friend.

A lamp was glowing in the tent.

“Major Greer?”

“Enter.”

Peter stepped through the flap. The room was blazing with warmth from the woodstove; the major, wearing his camo pants and an olive-drab T-shirt, was sitting at Vorhees’s desk, sorting through papers by lantern light. An open locker, half full of various belongings, rested on the floor at his feet.

“Jaxon. I was wondering when I’d hear from you.” Greer leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes wearily. “Come here and look at this.”

A pile of loose papers lay on the desk. On the top was a sheet bearing the image of three figures, a woman and two young girls. The image was so precisely rendered that Peter thought at first he was looking at a photograph, something from the Time Before. But then he realized that it was a drawing, rendered in charcoal. A portrait, done from the waist up; the bottom seemed to fade away, into nothing. The woman was holding the smaller girl, who couldn’t have been older than three, with a soft, baby-cheeked face, in her lap; the other, just a couple of years older than her sister, stood behind the two of them, over the woman’s left shoulder. Greer pulled more pages from the pile: the same three figures, in an identical pose.

“Vorhees did these?”

Greer nodded. “Curt wasn’t a lifer, like most of us. He had a whole life before the Expeditionary, a wife, two little girls. He was a farmer, if you can believe that.”

“What happened to them?”

Greer answered with a shrug. “What always happens, when it happens.”

Peter bent to examine the drawings again. He could feel the painstaking care of their creation, the force of concentration that lay behind each detail. The woman’s wry smile; the younger girl’s eyes, wide and refractive like her mother’s; the lift of the older one’s hair, caught on a sudden breeze. A bit of gray dust still floated on the surface of the paper, like ashes, pushed on this remembered wind.

“I guess he drew all these so he wouldn’t forget them,” Greer said.

Peter felt suddenly self-conscious—whatever these images had meant to the general, Peter knew they were private. “If you don’t mind my asking, Major, why are you showing these to me?”

Greer gathered them carefully together in a cardboard folder and placed them in the trunk at his feet. “Someone once told me that part of you lives on so long as somebody remembers you. Now you remember them, too.” He sealed the locker with a key he took from around his neck and leaned back in his chair. “But that’s not why you came to see me, is it? You’ve made your decision.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“Well.” A thoughtful nod, of something expected. “All five, or just you?”

“Hollis and Sara are going with the evac. Michael, too, though he may not know that yet.”

“So, the two of you, then. You and the mystery girl.”

“Amy.”

Greer nodded again. “Amy.” Peter waited for Greer to try to talk him out of it, but instead he said, “Take my mount. He’s a good horse, he won’t let you down. I’ll leave word at the gate to let you pass. You need weapons?”

“Whatever you can spare.”

“I’ll leave that too, then.”

“I appreciate that, sir. Thank you for everything.”

“Seems the least I can do.” Greer regarded his hands where they were folded in his lap. “You know it’s probably suicide, don’t you? Going up that mountain alone like that. I have to say it.”

“Maybe so. But it’s the best idea I’ve got.”

A moment of silent acknowledgment passed between them. Peter thought how he would miss Greer, his calm, steadfast presence.

“Well, this is goodbye then.” Greer rose and offered his hand to shake. “Look me up if you’re ever in Kerrville. I want to know how it ends.”

“How what ends?”

The major smiled, his big hand still wrapped around Peter’s. “The dream, Peter.”

A light was burning inside the barracks; Peter could hear murmuring behind the canvas walls. There was no proper door, no way to knock. But as he approached, a soldier appeared through the flap, drawing his parka around him. The one they called Wilco; he was one of the oilers.

“Jaxon.” He gave a startled look. “If you’re looking for Lugnut, he’s with some of the other guys, moving the last of the fuel off the tanker. I was just going over there.”

“I’m looking for Lish.” When Wilco met this request with an empty stare, Peter clarified. “Lieutenant Donadio.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Just tell her I’m here.”

Wilco shrugged and ducked back through the flap. Peter strained his ears to hear what, if anything, was being said inside. But all the voices had gone suddenly silent. He waited, long enough to wonder if Alicia would simply fail to appear. But then the flap drew aside and she stepped through.

It would not have been quite true, Peter thought, to say that she looked changed; she simply was changed. The woman who stood before him was both the same Alicia he had always known and someone entirely new. Her arms were crossed over her chest; on her upper body she was wearing nothing more than a T-shirt, despite the cold. A bit of her hair had grown back over the days, a ghostly scrim that clung to her scalp like a glowing cap under the lights. But it wasn’t any of these things that made the moment strange. It was the way she stood, holding herself apart from him.

“I heard about your promotion,” he said. “Congratulations.”

Alicia said nothing.

“Lish—”

“You shouldn’t be here, Peter. I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

“I just came to tell you that I understand. For a while I didn’t. But I do now.”

“Well.” She paused, hugging herself in the cold. “What changed your mind?”

He didn’t know quite what to say. Everything he’d meant to tell her seemed to have abruptly fled from his mind. Muncey’s death had something to do with it, and his father, and Amy. But the real reason wasn’t anything he possessed the words for.

He said the only thing he could think of. “Hollis’s guitar, actually.”

Alicia gave him a blank look. “Hollis has a guitar?”

“One of the soldiers gave it to him.” Peter stopped; there was no way to explain. “I’m sorry. I’m not making much sense.”

A space seemed to have opened in Peter’s chest, and he realized what it was; it was the pain of missing someone he had not yet left.

“Well, thank you for telling me. But I really have to get back inside.”

“Lish, wait.”

She turned to face him again, her eyebrows raised.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me? About the Colonel.”

“Is that why you came here? To ask me about the Colonel?” She sighed, looking away; it wasn’t anything she wanted to discuss. “Because he didn’t want anyone to know. About who he was.”

“But why wouldn’t he?”

“What would he have said, Peter? He was all alone. He’d lost all his men. As far as he was concerned, he should have died with them.” She paused to breathe. “As for the rest, I think he raised me the only way he knew how. For a long time, I thought it was fun, to tell you the truth. Stories about brave men crossing the Darklands to fight and die. Taking the oath, a bunch of mumbo jumbo that meant nothing to me, just words. Then I was angry. I was eight, Peter. Eight years old, and he took me outside the walls, underneath the power trunk, and left me there. At night, with nothing, not even a blade. You haven’t heard about that part.”

“Flyers, Lish. What happened?”

“Nothing. I’d be dead if it had. I just sat under a tree and cried all night. To this day I don’t know if he was testing my courage or my luck.”

Part of the story seemed missing. “He must have been out there with you. Watching you.”

“Maybe.” She angled her face to the wintry sky. “Sometimes I think he was, sometimes I don’t. You didn’t know him like I did. I hated him after that, for the longest time. Really and truly hated him. But you can only hate somebody for so long.” She breathed again—deeply, resignedly. “I hope that’s true for you, Peter. That someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “That’s all. I’ve said too much as it is. I’m just glad I had you as long as I did.”

He looked at her, her stricken face, and he knew.

The Colonel wasn’t the real secret. He was. He was the secret she had kept. That they had kept from each other, even from themselves.

He reached for her. “Alicia, listen—”

“Don’t do this. Don’t.” And yet she did not back away.

“Those three days, when I thought you’d die and I wouldn’t be there.” A fist-sized lump had formed in his throat. “I always thought I’d be there.”

“Peter, goddamnit.” She was trembling; he felt the weight of her struggle. “You can’t do this now. It’s too late, Peter. It’s too late.”

“I know.”

“Don’t say it. Please. You said you understood.”

He did; he understood. All that they were to each other seemed cradled within this simple fact. He felt no surprise or even regret but, rather, a deep and sudden gratitude and, with it, a force of clarity, filling him like a breath of winter air. He wondered what this feeling was and then he knew. He was giving her up.

She let him put his arms around her then, pulling her into the open flaps of his jacket. He held her, as she had held him, all those days ago in Vorhees’s tent. The same goodbye reversed. He felt her stiffen and then relax against him, becoming smaller in his embrace.

“You’re leaving,” she said.

“I need you to promise me something. Keep the others safe. Get them to Roswell.”

A faint but discernible nod against his chest. “What about you?”

How he loved her. And yet the words themselves could never be spoken. Holding her in his arms, he closed his eyes and tried to inscribe the feeling of her into his mind, into memory, so that he could take this with him.

“I think you’ve looked after me long enough, don’t you?” He pulled away to see her face a final time. “That’s all,” he said. “I just wanted to thank you.”

And then he turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the icy wind outside the silent barracks.

He did his best to sleep, turning restlessly through the night, and in the last hour before dawn, when he could wait no more, rose and quickly packed his gear. It was the cold he was thinking of; they would need blankets, extra socks, anything that could keep them warm and dry. Sleeping sacks and ponchos and a tarp with a good sturdy rope. The night before, on his way back from the barracks, he had ducked into the supply tent and pilfered an entrenching tool and a hand axe, and a pair of heavy parkas. Hollis was softly snoring on his cot, a bearded face buried in blankets, oblivious. When he awoke, Peter would be gone.

He hoisted the pack to his shoulder and stepped outside, into a cold so sharp it stunned him, sucking the air from his lungs. The garrison was quiet, just a few men moving about; the smells of wood smoke and warm food reached him from the mess, making his stomach rumble. But there was no time for that. In the women’s tent he found Amy sitting on her bunk, her small pack resting on her lap. He’d told her nothing. She was alone; Sara was still with Sancho and the others, in the infirmary.

“Is it time?” she asked him. Her eyes were very bright.

“Yes, it’s time.”

They crossed together to the paddock. Greer’s horse, a large black gelding, his coat heavy for winter, was grazing with the others, noses angled to the wind. Peter retrieved a bridle from the shed and led him to the fence. He wished he could use a saddle, but it wouldn’t work with two. He lashed their packs together, draping them over the animal’s withers. His fingers were already stiff with the cold. He lifted Amy up, then used the fence to climb aboard. They rode around the edge of the paddock to the shadows under the pickets, headed for the gate. Dawn was just breaking, a gray softening, as if the darkness were not lifting but dissolving; a pale, almost invisible snow had begun to fall, flakes that seemed to materialize in the air before their faces.

They were met at the gate by a single sentry: Eustace, the lieutenant who had first alerted Peter to the raiding party’s return.

“Major says to let you pass. He also asked me to give you this.” Eustace dragged a duffel bag from the sentry hut and lay it on the ground before the horse. “Says to take whatever you need.”

Peter swung down and knelt to open it. Rifles, magazines, a couple of pistols, a belt of grenades. Peter looked through all of it, thinking about what to do.

“Thanks anyway,” he said, drawing upright. He drew his blade from his belt and held it out for Eustace to take. “Here. A present for the major.”

Eustace frowned. “I don’t get it. You want to give me your blade?”

Peter pushed it toward him. “Take it,” he said.

Reluctantly, Eustace accepted the blade. For a moment he just looked at it, as if it were some strange artifact he’d found in the forest.

“Give it to Major Greer,” Peter said. “I think he’ll understand.”

He turned to address Amy, sitting high above him. She had tipped her chin upward to the falling snow.

“Ready?”

The girl nodded. A faint smile shone on her face; flakes had caught on her lashes, in her hair, like jeweled dust. Eustace gave Peter a leg up; he swung onto the horse’s back, taking the reins in his hand. The gate drew open before them. He allowed himself one last look toward the barracks, but all was quiet, unchanged. Goodbye, he thought, goodbye. Then he heeled his mount and they rode out, into the breaking day.

X

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 487