At length, the trees fell and we lashed them into the harnesses. I took one rope and Hobbs took the other. It was harder than it looked, but the fields were still quiet when we returned. Some men had occupied themselves leveling the top of the hill in preparation for the construction. Others had laid out the supplies that would be needed, including hammer and nails.
It took many trips and half the day before we could start building. Longshot supervised the work, telling men who had little experience in such things how to put the tower together. By nightfall, we had a primitive structure in place, made of raw cut logs, and the first sentry went up to stand watch on the platform.
“Tomorrow,” the outpost commander called, “we’ll start collecting stones. I want fortifications around this encampment in the next two weeks.”
After the evening meal, I sought Longshot. He was savoring a cup of herbal tea, which wafted a sweet, agreeable steam in the night air. Though it was warm during the day, it dropped off cool at night, and I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders as I sat down beside him. Maybe I should have waited for an invitation, I thought belatedly, but he wasn’t the sort of elder who inspired terror. Instead, I felt only a profound and abiding respect. If he ordered me to cut off my foot and feed it to the Freaks, I would obey him, trusting that it would forestall a worse fate.
“Something on your mind?” he asked without looking at me.
“It’s been quiet,” I said instead of what I wanted to talk about.
“You’re not gonna start whinin’, are you?”
“No, it’s smart to establish an outpost here. But I suspect the Freaks are biding their time or maybe rallying greater numbers.”
“You and me both.” He took a sip of his drink. “Now, why don’t you come on out with whatever you need to say?”
“If we’re overrun, these men need to know how to fight better, hand-to-hand.” He nodded, so thus encouraged, I went on, “They wouldn’t welcome lessons from me, but we should be training. You could do it … or Stalker and Fade. They’re both excellent with their blades.”
He allowed: “We do need discipline … and a regimen like that would cut down on the time and energy left for complaints. I’ll see what I can do in the morning.”
“Thanks.” I pushed to my feet, content that these guards wouldn’t always be so unskilled. That affected me because they were watching my back, and if they couldn’t do it properly, then it increased my chance of an untimely death.
“You and Hobbs have second watch,” he told me.
Disappointment curled through me, because I did wish it could be Fade, but I understood and respected the decision. With Hobbs, there was absolutely no chance either of us would get distracted and neglect our duty. Plus, he was practical and polite, not making a big stink about working with me. Hobbs had my respect.
Mealtime offered no surprises. Everyone was sick of the soup, but it was still edible. As we finished the pot, I realized someone had to come up with an alternative, but since Fade and I had already taken a turn cooking, it wasn’t our problem again for another two weeks or so. By that time, the shoots should be coming up, proving our presence had been worthwhile.
I didn’t mind eating the same thing over and over, though. Down below, we did so on a daily basis and called ourselves lucky to have meat … and on the road, we’d eaten rabbit and fish without much variation. So I had an advantage over those who were used to sheep and venison and the occasional roast bird; I hadn’t been in Salvation long enough to forget that such bounty was a blessing, not a right.
Though I tried, desperately, to sleep, I couldn’t, for fear I would miss my watch. It wasn’t a reasonable worry, but it cast me back in time to the night before my first Huntress patrol with Fade. Tonight, my nerves held the same ragged edge, as if I were on the verge of something exciting and new. Rationally, I understood that wouldn’t be the case. I’d stood watch before. So instead I listened to the guards on duty whispering; they didn’t seem to care if they bothered the others.
Hobbs tapped me on the shoulder when our shift began. I scrambled out of my bedroll with a nod of thanks while the other two guards made their report in low tones. “Nothing moved, not even a jackrabbit.”
“Good news,” Hobbs said. “We’ll take it from here.”
I sat by the fire with Hobbs across from me; we stared in different directions, time passing like it had frozen solid. Hobbs and I didn’t talk because the others were asleep. Most of them snored. Stalker lay nearby, almost as if watching over me, and he kept one hand on his knife. He was right, I suspected; I had more in common with him than Fade, but that was the problem. We were too much alike.
At last our shift ended. Hobbs gave the report—same as the one before, all quiet—and two new guards took over. Afterward, I rolled up in my blanket, lying there while sleep eluded me. I’d just managed to drift off when something roused me. A sound, a smell? I drifted, half wakeful, eyes blurring the dark sky with their slow blinking. Movement nearby reassured me. It should be the guards on watch shifting positions to stay alert, but instead, I had the impression of a dark figure. Shining eyes flickered past, sunken in the ravaged face. It was a visage from nightmares, a Freak seen too close up, only if there had been one in camp, it would surely be dead … or we would be. I must be dreaming.
I sat up cautiously, expecting to find I was suffering from a lingering nightmare, but the camp was still. Too still. The two men who were supposed to stand third watch had fallen asleep. In the distance, running away, I saw that same tattered form, clad in rags. The stink was less than I expected from Freaks, just a trace of rot, but the fact that a Freak had slipped like a shadow into our camp? That wasn’t what concerned me most.
No, big trouble came in the form of the flaming brand the creature carried.
“Wake up!” I shouted, kicking the guard who should have been our sentry.
He jolted away with a curse, and he came up swinging, but he was doltish and clumsy. I dodged.
“Take a look out there. What do you see?” I demanded.
He squinted into the distance. “Naught but a will o’ the wisp, you stupid—” Fade’s hand clamped on his throat, silencing him, and he didn’t let go until the other man’s face went purple. I tried to get him to stand down, but he had no tolerance for men messing with me or calling me names.
Seeing the situation going from bad to worse, I roused Longshot. He came awake fully alert and scanned the terrain behind me. “What’s wrong?”
I summarized what had happened and he frowned at me. “You expect me to believe a single Freak sneaked up on us … and stole fire?”
His skepticism didn’t insult me. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t credit the story either. With one hand, I indicated the guard I’d woken. “He saw the light receding in the distance, going away into the trees. Ask him.”
The man hunched his shoulders. Belatedly, I realized it was the same one who had made the joke about what else I was good for, besides cooking. He hadn’t done himself any favors by failing his duties on watch.
“It was just a will o’ the wisp.”
“Would you swear to that?” Longshot asked, shoving upright.
There was a long silence. “No.”
“You’re digging the latrine in the morning, Miles, you and your partner. That thing—if it was a Freak—could have cut all our throats as we slept.”
It could have. It hadn’t. Though it was still the middle of the night, I paced, worry eating me from the inside out. Who the devil knew what they’d do with that lit branch? Maybe it would go out. Maybe nothing bad would happen.
How I wished I believed that.
As their attacks had shown, they grew more dangerous all the time. Hunger no longer predicted their movements. These Freaks had enough to eat with all the game in the woods. Big game, like deer and moose, offered plenty of raw meat. I’d sampled both at Momma Oaks’s table. For them, this was no longer about food.
It was something else. Something scarier.
Recon
For the next week—as we built fortifications and put up tents—the others treated me with a combination of anger and distrust. The bulk of the ill feeling came from Gary Miles, who felt I’d gotten him in trouble over nothing. Half the squad agreed with him, as we’d seen nothing the following nights. They thought I was a hysterical female who’d had a bad dream due to sleeping outdoors. I couldn’t swear to what I’d witnessed, of course, but however unlikely, my version of events was more probable than what Miles claimed—that we’d seen some magical ball of light, believed to be spirits who came out at night to lure people to their doom.
More alarming, the Freaks had been ominously silent since that sighting. I turned the event over and over in my head, wondering if I’d gotten it wrong. During the daylight, it seemed so implausible. Freaks didn’t sneak, but then, until recently, they hadn’t posted warnings, and they hadn’t used camouflage either. Their cunning made their behavior more difficult to predict—and it made them harder to fight.
No, I was right. It happened. The only question came in terms of their intentions … what they would do with the flame they’d stolen.
“This is duller than I expected,” Stalker said, dropping down beside me, where I sat sharpening my blades. I was glad he seemed to have put the awkward personal stuff behind him. I wanted to be his friend.
“It’s waiting,” I answered. “Which is, by definition, boring.”
“We should go looking for them. Root them out.”
Stalker had suggested it before, and Longshot always rejected the notion. He’d say, “We have orders to guard these fields, and by the devil, that’s what we’ll do. I don’t care if that forest has a Mutie in every tree. We’ll leave them alone as long as they return the courtesy.”
The men were getting antsy, driven by Stalker’s impatience. There was only so much you could do while walking around patches of ground without losing your mind. The other guards didn’t necessarily want to go after the Freaks, but they were tired of doing nothing. Longshot said we were lucky we hadn’t been annihilated as we built the watchtower. In my opinion, that would’ve been too easy. The Freaks had something worse in mind, something to cripple us and destroy our will to keep watch over these fields. I couldn’t imagine what it might be.
At least Longshot kept his promise and had Stalker and Fade teaching hand-to-hand. Frank showed potential; he had good reflexes and reach. But most men were old enough to resent being taught by boys half their age. That was pure pride, a mistake in our circumstances. They should grasp any advantage for the coming fight.
Stalker drew out his weapons and set to with the whetstone, looking pensive. “If Longshot can’t officially send us, we should see for ourselves.”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission?” It was the only saying I recalled from my history lessons, but I couldn’t recall who said it or why. I had an idea it was a famous female warrior, though, which made me like the quote more.