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The Ouachita Forest, Arkansas, Decehth year of the Kurian Order: The pines stand, colorless spindles under a winter overcast The low mountains of the Ouachitas huddle dark all around, just touching the cloud sea Water beads linger on bough, trunk, leaf and stone as though freshly dropped; the earth beneath the fallen leaves smells like decay Birds overturn dead leaves and poke about the roots in silence, walking the earth as if too dispirited to fly Brown ferns lie flat along the strea off the rocks like old scabs Even the wind is listless, seeping rather than blowing through the pines
Naked outcroppings of stone, etched with lightning strikes of quartz crystal, project every which way froround like the work of titans who tried to pull out the mountain by its roots The strata of the Ouachita slopes are jumbled, pushed up and twisted froo Thanks to the blind runs, box canyons andcrest lines of these elderly mountains, the landscape doesn't lend itself to habitation These hills have been hideouts of liberty-loving Indians, diehard Confederates, and law-evading brigands -the notorious Younger gang used to hole up here with the James brothers Between the stands of rock, the ferns' squashed-spider shapes lie in boot tracks and hoofprints forht from authority
The boot tracks have a source, noisily crunching over the hilltop's still-frozen ground Six ures ith the oddly stiffout in front of and behind a lone horse pulling an A-fra an unconscious man with blood-matted hair Two dreadlocked men in blue-black unifor to each other in the patois of the sunny island of Jaroup, a meaty-faced ray and a boxer's shovel jaw His clothing, indeed his whole body, has the look of having just e machine An improvised poncho is fixed about his waist with a wide brown belt Dried blood stains the parts that dirt hasn't touched; bits of rag are knotted around wounds in his left leg and right arh the occasional lash does nothingforward a quick pace and into theit
The lead shape, seeether, is of another species So forbidding that oneArkansas pines as a prank, he th arun rides his shoulders, tied there by a bit of leather like an ox's yoke He has bandages wrapped about the waist, a tight corset of brown-stained cloth that accentuates the width of the olden-furred shoulders above The creature's eyes shift, widen, and even go a little wet as he spies a figure far away in the trees, jogging toward the file from ahead
The young man the apish humanoid sees places his feet deliberately as he trots, for a trail in wet leaves on the hillside could be spotted by experienced eyes as easily as a line of signal flares He favors his left leg, leading with the right up difficult patches of the hill His shining black hair and bronze skin e who once hunted these hills; hefrom spot to spot with the speed of a summer stream: sometimes fast, sometimes slow, soround He wears a sie bandolier of snakeskin with oversized loops, as if the sash had been designed to carry hand grenades, and carries a rugged subazine
His right cheek is scarred froe of his eye down The wound, like a Prussian dueling scar, traces its pale way along the edge of his face,an otherwise handsoaze of a wild animal patiently reads the woods behind when he pauses to rest and lets the column come to a stop at its own pace
Have to turn againThe first zig left had been nine hours ago, to avoid a long string of soldiers walking at ten-foot intervals like beaters driving game Then there'd been another left turn to avoid a watchtower looking over a length of old highway Now he'd spotted tea the banks of an ice-choked stream
They were boxed in, no doubt about it Every step the survivors of his Texas coluht them closer to the area around Bern Woods, where they'd been ao Since then no one in his party of survivors had slept or eaten hot food, and there wasn't s
His head ached Fatigue or dehydration He took a drink from his canteen
"What passes, s and one long arm The Golden One doesn't look at David Valentine; he keeps his eyes on the forest-cutting road below
"We're cut off A picket line Maybe dropped off from trucks"
The Jae, dropped to their knees, unconscious atop each other within seconds of the colu the horse spat a white bubble onto the forest floor Williaether on the old Kurian gunboat Thunderbolt, dropped his bloody switch and joined David and Ahn-Kha The drooping horse blew a mouthful of foam out from either side of its bit
"How's Tayland?" Valentine asked
Post glanced back at the woundedpulse still The horse'll be dead before him"
"We've got maybe twenty minutes, and then a picket line will be on top of us"