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"Somehow or other, we'll make it back with the real thing", Thunderbird said.
"What is that, a kite?" Gide said, pointing up.
Valentine followed her gaze. Four shapes, reminiscent of jellyfish, drifted, circling down on air currents.
"Creepy-looking things", a Bear commented.
"Depends which side they're on", another said.
"What's that coming down now?" Thunderbird asked.
It was Silas, camel-hair coat flapping in the wind. Gide screamed. Valentine turned away when he hit.
"What was that, a bonus?" a PeaBee asked.
The four Lifeweavers drifted to earth, too exhausted to mask their native form. They couldn't even speak. It didn't stop the Bears from cheering them, nonetheless.
But one figure did not rejoice.
Valentine couldn't say how he crossed the plaza without being noticed. Perhaps he crawled from body to body, hiding among those police killed in the organized riot. But nevertheless Silvers stood over the body of his master. Valentine saw tears wet his eyes, felt his own throat tighten. Even Ahn-Kha wasn't one for tears.
Except once.
The Grog went down on one knee, put a hand against Silas' crushed face, bent down, and listened to the chest. He came away with the side of his face wet with blood.
A deep growl started in his throat. He took a blade out of his kilt and checked the edge with his thumb. For one horrible moment Valentine thought he was going to plunge the blade into his hairy breast, but Silvers made a quick, shallow cut, crossing the angled scar straight up and down, an even longer cut than the old wound. He went down on all fours and hurried to the limo, extracted his twin-barreled cannon from the cupola, and snapped on the harness.
Then he gripped the blade between his teeth and turned for the tower.
As he passed Valentine, he pulled back his lips and one ear flicked up. Valentine, unable to imitate the gesture, thumped his chest three times with his left hand.
Silvers snorted and chambered a round in each barrel. He climbed up the scaffolding, and a loud report echoed as he blew a hole in the door-creature. He worked the bolt on his cannon; then he jumped inside.
"Let's get out of here", Valentine said.
"I'll go talk to the troops outside the plaza", Miss L. said.
"Tell them that anyone who wants to march out with us is welcome", Thunderbird said. "No reprisals. No trials. No more Action Groups. We'll choke Seattle the old-fashioned way, with our bare hands".
Union Rock, Wyoming, July, the fifty-fourth year of the Kurian Order: David Valentine headed east again on a road even older than Route 66, escorting two of the four Lifeweavers rescued - some might say negotiated, others swindled - out of Seattle. The Oregon Trail had its posts and stops rearranged, but the old path is still much the same as it was in the nineteenth century, right down to form of conveyance, for oxen and horses have no octane requirements.
Instead of bringing pioneers west, it sees refugees plodding east and smugglers traveling in both directions. Like their forefathers of two centuries ago, the parties travel in groups for safety, guided by experienced mountain men. They travel armed and wary with good cause, for bandits and grifters hover along its length, and Reapers cover a shocking amount of distance in seven hours of hard running. All are on the prowl for the vulnerable and the careless who might be threatened or cajoled out of valuables, from transport animals to hand-cranked radios, even if they manage to hang on to their auras.
There's a small Freehold or two along the trail, sometimes filling a mountain valley, or some good ground in a river basin. Valentine, listening to stories of other wayfarers along the route, heard talk of a big celebration that always took place in the Wyoming United Grange at Union Rock-People from as far away as Denver, the Nebraska Sandhills, and the Wind River Freehold attended. Picnic tables erupted during the day on land, and fireworks burst overhead at night. News was swapped for news, knitting and quilting for items from the trader stalls, and any number of young people met and married in a whirlwind of celebration. It sounded like
the old summer festival in the Boundary Waters, and Valentine delayed his journey a week or two to linger and attend. He could go south easily enough from there, and, he hoped, reach Denver, and Southern Command's liaison, by late July.
They joined up with a bigger train, made up of old automobile chassis pulled by trail oxen. There was already talk of what each party would add to the festivities, making it sound like a potluck dinner with attendance running into the thousands.
* * *
Valentine didn't have to get to the Ozarks. The Ozarks came to him. A party of Wolves was in attendance for the Independence Day festivities, recruiting out of a tent thick with tobacco smoke, pecan pies, and Texas chilies and barbecue.
Valentine had seen such displays before, like the welcoming feast on his arrival in Missouri fifteen years ago. Good God, was it that long ago? He watched a boy clear a pie tin with two fingers like a bear dipping honey. Enjoy it, kid. It'll be brown rice and chicken twice a week with the Labor Regiments.
"Another Sioux, you think?" a sunbaked female sergeant with her stripes inked on her suspenders said to a bronze-skinned youth with a ponytail that dwarfed Valentine's. "Be a good summer for us if he joins. I'm sick of teaching kids how to stretch their canteens".
"Ya hey there, friend", the Amerind said, approaching. He raised his hand and met Valentine's palm hard enough to loosen a feeding tick, let alone trail dust. "You look like you know how to keep a scope zeroed. Thinking about using it on something bigger than antelope or wild horse?"
