The captain’s office smelled of smoke and blood. The lamplight had been turned down, but not out; it left the room in a low, yellow murk that made the maps on the walls look older than they were.

  Hargrove’s chair sat empty behind the desk.

  Lieutenant Prichard stood where the captain had stood, both hands braced on the scarred wood. He was younger than Hargrove by ten, maybe fifteen years—dark hair damp at the temples, jaw rough with a beard he hadn’t had time to shave, blue coat unbuttoned at the throat. His eyes were red?rimmed but clear.

  Sergeant Mallory leaned against one wall, arms crossed, stick tucked under one elbow like he didn’t trust himself not to start tapping it. The chaplain had wedged himself into a corner near a stack of crates, hat in his hands, Bible tucked under one arm like an afterthought. A Kiowa war chief sat on a borrowed chair—big man, braids tied with strips of red cloth, an eagle wing fan resting against his knee. Beside him, an older Lipan Apache in a blue army greatcoat over his own leggings, gray hair in a single braid down his back, face carved in lines like dry riverbeds.

  Peta Nocona had been carried in and given Hargrove’s own chair—back against the wall, splinted leg stretched out on another, smaller chair pressed into service as a stool. Narua stood behind him, one hand on the back of the chair, pale hair hanging in tired braids.

  A couple of other officers whose names the boy didn’t know hovered near the doorway. A scout he recognized from the yard leaned near the window, hat turned between his hands.

  They all glanced up when the boy came in. Some eyes went to the Colt at his hip, some to the eagle?feather necklace on his chest, some to the dried blood on his coat and hat brim.

  “Shut the door,” Prichard said.

  The sergeant who’d brought the boy did it. The sound of the latch catching made the room feel smaller.

  Prichard straightened.

  “All right,” he said. His voice was rough, but it held. “We’ve all had a hell of a night. The chaplain tells me God’s not takin’ questions. The surgeon’s still cuttin’. Captain Hargrove is… gone.”

  Prichard cleared his throat.

  “I am, by order of the Articles of War and lack of any better fool,” he went on, “acting commander of Fort Mason until someone with more braid shows up to relieve me. In that capacity, I have three problems, gentlemen.”

  He nodded toward the chiefs. “And chiefs.”

  He held up a hand, fingers ticking off one by one.

  “One: We have a broken gate and a wall cracked near through. The carpenters and slaves will do what they can, but it’s a hole all the same. Two: whatever voice that is in our skulls”—he tapped his temple—“saw fit to tell us monsters are going to be three times worse from now on, once this little ‘breathing room’ it promised runs out. Three: we just fought shoulder?to?shoulder with men my orders used to call hostiles, and I don’t know whether to write that down under ‘victories’, ‘sins’, or ‘miracles’.”

  A tired chuckle went around the room at that.

  The Kiowa chief said something in his own tongue, a roll of syllables like stones tumbling in a creek. Narua translated without looking away from Prichard.

  “He says: miracles and sins are often same,” she said.

  Prichard nodded once.

  “Point is,” he said, “what we do next matters. Not just for Fort Mason. For the line. For the folks behind it who don’t even know the world’s turned upside?down yet.”

  He reached for a stick of charcoal and tapped it against the map on the wall behind him—a rough sketch of Texas and the plains beyond, rivers and forts marked in faded ink.

  “Captain Hargrove got word from you, Chief Nocona,” he said. “You told him you’d sent for Kiowa and Apache. Cheyenne too.”

  Peta inclined his head, eyes dark and steady.

  “I sent word,” he said. His English was slower now, each word weighed. “Kiowa came. Apache came. Cheyenne did not. They were to meet Kiowa riders”—he nodded toward the Kiowa chief—“far to north and east, then ride down. They did not come.”

  The Kiowa chief spoke again, lower. His tone had an edge.

  Narua’s gaze flicked between them, then to Prichard.

  “He says,” she translated, “they were to meet at a crooked river with red banks. You call it… Canadian–the Canadian River.”

  The boy listened and watched.

  He had no idea where the Canadian River was. The river on the map bore only a faded line and a name anyway. To him, it was all just more distance in a world that had too much of it.

  Prichard tapped the map again.

  “Whatever happened up there,” he said, “it matters. If the Cheyenne are dead, that’s one more people gone, one more patch of land the monsters can pour through. If they’re alive and just got waylaid, we might have allies sittin’ up there who don’t know anyone else is fightin’ the same damned war.”

  He looked around. “And, make no mistake, we are at war.”

  “I can’t spare men to march a company north,” he said. “We barely have enough to hold this hole in the wall. But I also can’t sit on my hands and hope the Cheyenne sort themselves out. So I propose this: we send a small party. Seven, maybe eight riders. Fast. Light. Men who know how to track and read signs on the soil. One from each of our… sides.”

  “They ride north and a little west,” he said. “See what’s become of your rendezvous point. See if there’s anything left of the Cheyenne war party. If they’re alive and in any kind of shape, they bring word back, maybe bring some of ‘em along. If they’re dead, the party will tell us what killed ‘em, and we make our plans with that in mind.”

  Mallory frowned.

  “Sir, beggin’ your pardon,” he said, “but that’s near two hundred miles. More, with the country the way it is now. You sure we want to be spendin’ good men on a ghost chase when the System itself says monsters are gonna be worse in two days?”

  “We have two left days where it’s promised not to kick us in the teeth while we’re sleepin’,” Prichard said. “I’d be a poor commander if I didn’t use that time to gain whatever information we can. We’re blind, Sergeant. I aim to poke a few candles into the dark, even if the wind’s comin’.”

  The chaplain spoke then, voice quiet.

  “And if your riders don’t return?” he asked.

  Prichard’s jaw tightened.

  “Then we’ll know that too,” he said.

  Peta shifted in Hargrove’s chair, the motion pulling at his bandaged leg. He winced, but didn’t make a sound beyond that.

  “Numunuu will send men,” he said. “My leg is… broken for now.”

  His mouth curled hot and bitter. “But I have warriors who can ride far and listen well. They know Cheyenne ways. They know the land and the wind.”

  The Kiowa chief thumped his fan lightly against his knee in assent, then said something short.

  Narua’s mouth tugged.

  “He says Kiowa will not let Numunuu ride alone to their death,” she translated. “He will send two. Maybe three. He says: if Cheyenne are gone, their horses and their stories should not be left for green demons to chew.”

  The Apache elder nodded once, slow.

  “Lipan too,” he said. “One of my young men has eyes like hawk. He will go. Maybe two. Bluecoats helped last night. We do not forget. We help now.”

  Prichard’s shoulders eased a hair. He looked almost surprised at how easy that had been.

  “All right then,” he said. “That gives us… what? Two Kiowa, two Lipan, two Comanche. That’s six. Add one man in blue. Maybe a tracker we can spare.”

  The boy heard himself speak before he’d had time to think whether he ought.

  “And me,” he said.

  Every head in the room turned.

  He stepped away from the wall, hands loose at his sides.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “You said seven or eight. I ain’t… much for readin’ maps, but I can ride. I can shoot. I’m strong. If what killed those Cheyenne is anything like what came here, you might want me there.”

  Prichard studied him.

  It was the same look Hargrove had given him at the firing range, the same look the ranger captain had worn when he’d realized his best shot was a half?starved kid.

  “You’re militia,” Prichard said. “I could order you to stay. You’re also… not Army. You volunteered. That gives me less paperwork and more sleepless nights.”

  Mallory made a low sound that might have been amusement.

  Peta spoke before Prichard could decide which way his mouth was going to bend.

  “He is a friend of the Numunuu now,” he said.

  His gaze flicked to the fan of eagle feathers on the boy’s chest. “He rides with us, it is right. His little gun killed many demons. If something big waits on the plains, better to have Runt?Who?Kills?Good near it than not.”

  The Kiowa chief grunted in agreement. The Apache elder nodded.

  Narua’s eyes were on the boy’s face, not his feathers.

  “You leave your sister,” she said quietly. “You sure you can do that?”

  The question landed harder than anything else.

  He thought of leaving them on the road, of sleeping with one ear open for every crack of twig and howl of beast, of watching them flinch at every shadow.

  The fort had walls. Guns. The road beyond the fort had none of that. They were safer here than with him.

  “I can leave ‘em easier from here than from a ditch somewhere,” he said at last. “If I go north now, find what’s comin’, maybe when it comes south there’ll be someone waitin’ who’s seen it before. That seems… better than waitin’ inside these walls and hopin’ it knocks nice.”

  Narua’s mouth quirked, though there was no humor in it.

  “Badger talk,” she said. “He sticks head down hole to see what’s bitin’, not wait for it to crawl up.”

  Prichard blew out a breath.

  “All right,” he said. “Seven riders, then. Two Kiowa, two Lipan, two Comanche, one boy who makes bad metaphors about doors and knocks.” He scrubbed his hand over his face again. “And one bluecoat to keep me from being accused of farming out all the dangerous work to everyone who isn’t on the Government’s payroll. Private Rojas!”

  The shout snapped toward the door. There was a shuffle outside, then the young private the boy had seen on the drill field stuck his head in.

  “Sir?” Rojas said.

  “Congratulations,” Prichard said dryly. “You’re now my official representative to anyone north of here who still cares what the United States Army thinks. You ride with this party. Clear?”

  Rojas’ mouth opened, closed, opened again.

  “Yes, sir,” he managed. “Thank you, sir. I think.”

  “Good.” Prichard turned back to the chiefs. “You pick your men. They leave as soon as possible. I’d prefer that to be within the next few hours.”

  He sighed, then went on.

  “And after that,” he said, quieter, “I’m going to have to talk to someone above my pay. The Government. Austin, Washington, whoever still has offices and pens and men to hold them. I don’t know what the big plan is. Hell, I don’t know if anybody’s got one. But I know this: we can’t keep doing this fort by fort, tribe by tribe, like every man’s just run up against his own private end of the world.”

  The chaplain made the sign of the cross at that.

  The Kiowa chief said something short and sharp. Narua translated, amusement tugging at her mouth.

  “He says: your Government should have thought of that before it brought all its people onto our land,” she said. “But he also says: if they are now willing to sit and talk about fighting the demons instead of false treaties, maybe he will listen. Once.”

  Prichard snorted softly.

  “I don’t speak for my government, sir, but I sure hope they got enough brains left to do that.”

  He lifted his gaze to the boy.

  “You be my eyes out there, son,” he said. “And take care of yourself.”

  The boy nodded.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  The council adjourned. Men shoved away from walls and chairs, joints cracking, whispers starting up. Plans already leapt ahead of them—who’d tend which wounded, who’d mind the wall, who’d see to the dead.

  Peta caught the boy’s eye as he turned to leave.

  “Come,” he said. “Before you ride, you talk to your little one. She will not like you go. Better you tell her than someone else.”

  Narua’s gaze softened.

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  “I will keep watch here,” she said. “Over Peta. Over your sister. Over fort too, when I can. Go.”

  He went.

  Lily’s eyes were already red when he found her.

  She sat on a bench near the barracks, coat wrapped tight around her despite the growing heat, hands bandaged in fresh cloth. Someone had finally forced her to stop burning men shut and sit down. Mary dozed leaning against her shoulder, head tipped over, Ember cradled in her lap like a burned infant.

  The boy crouched in front of them.

  Lily’s gaze snapped to his face, then dropped to the feathers on his chest, then to the dried blood on his cuffs.

  “You look awful,” she said hoarsely.

  “I’ve been worse,” he said.

  She tried to scowl. It came out crooked.

  “Doc says I did good,” she went on. “He says I kept five men from bleedin’ out before he could stitch. Says that’s five wives who ain’t widows now. I feel like I got kicked by a mule in the head, though.”

  “Probably more the System than the mule,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  She sniffed.

  “I don’t want to get used to screamin’,” she muttered. “Smell of burnin’ people.”

  Her fingers twitched in their bandages. “I kept seein’ that… that green thing you lit up on the road. Only it was men.”

  He didn’t have much to say to that either.

  Mary stirred, blinking awake. The skin under her eyes was smudged dark. She clutched Ember a little tighter when she saw him.

  “You’re leavin’,” she said.

  He blinked.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  She tipped her chin toward the yard.

  “Had a dream that you were gone.”

  He huffed.

  “Ridin’ out with Peta’s men,” he said. “Kiowa, Apache, some others. Lieutenant’s sendin’ us to see what happened to the Cheyenne that didn’t show up.”

  Lily’s hands balled.

  “When?” she demanded.

  “Soon as the horses can be saddled,” he said. “Less monsters for two days, the System said. We best use that.”

  “‘We’ ain’t supposed to be just you,” she snapped. Her voice wobbled. “You just got here. You just got a bed. Now you’re runnin’ off again with a bunch o’ strangers.”

  “I ain’t runnin’ off,” he said. “I’m… doin’ the job the captain set on me. He said put my gun where it hurts. Right now that hurt’s up north somewhere. If we leave it there, it’ll come down here sooner or later.”

  Mary’s mouth pressed thin.

  “You’ll come back,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It sounded like one anyway. “I lost you once already. You’ll come back, right?”

  He met her eyes.

  “I’ll try,” he said. He’d never promised anything more than that. Promises bigger than that had a way of getting folks killed.

  Lily made a choked sound.

  “Try harder!” she said, the words out before she could grab them. “Cuz we keep trying and it’s never enough!”

  He flinched as if she’d slapped him. She saw it and put a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

  “I didn’t…” she whispered. “I didn’t mean… I’m just—”

  He shook his head.

  “S’alright,” he said.. “You’re tired. So am I.”

  He reached out, hesitated, then tapped the feathers at his chest with one finger.

  “Peta says these mean I’m a friend now,” he said. “Means Numunuu warriors see me, they know I ain’t the enemy. You stay close to Narua and Mrs. Brant. Doc’ll keep you busy. That’s a job too. It ain’t just glamour goin’ out and gettin’ killed on long rides.”

  Lily sniffed again, but some of the wildness left her eyes.

  “You always get to do the stupid parts,” she muttered. “I always get to scrub.”

  “Someone’s gotta make sure the stupid parts have beds to come back to,” he said. “And beans.”

  She slugged him weakly in the shoulder with her bandaged fist.

  “You better bring me back a story,” she said. “Somethin’ good. Not just ‘we walked a long way and got rained on.’”

  He almost smiled.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  He stood. Mary caught his sleeve.

  “Be careful,” she said. Her voice was small but steady. “You’re… you’re all we got now.”

  He nodded once.

  “I will,” he said quietly.

  Then he turned and walked away before either of them could see whatever his face was doing.

  They rode out with the sun barely above the horizon.

  Seven riders, like Prichard had said.

  Two Kiowa on painted ponies, both younger than their chief but carrying themselves like men who’d counted coup more than once. One had a white handprint painted over his chest; the other wore a string of scalps at his belt, old and weathered.

  Two Lipan Apache, lean and hard, one with a rifle across his lap, the other with a bow and a quiver full of new?made arrows rattling at his back. They’d both taken blue army greatcoats and cut them shorter, fringes swinging over their leggings.

  One Comanche beside the boy—taller, narrower than Peta, braids tied back with bits of red cloth, eyes sharp. He had a lance and a glass?handled pistol tucked into his sash, and he rode as if he’d been born on his pony’s back.

  The boy and Rojas made up the rest.

  Narua rode with them just until the fort shrank to a square in the distance. She trotted at Peta’s side as far as the broken gate, lance butt resting in her stirrup again, bare feet snug in the worn holes of her saddle. She watched them form up, eyes moving over each face.

  “North and a little west,” she said.

  He tipped his hat.

  “Alright,” he said.

  “Stay safe,” she said back, and wheeled her pony around, riding back through the gate without looking over her shoulder.

  They set off.

  The land rolled out in front of them, scrub and low trees giving way to more open grass as they put miles between themselves and Fort Mason. The morning air still had a bite. The boy pulled his coat a little tighter around him and settled into the rhythm of the horse’s gait. The Kiowa took the lead at first, ponies moving at an easy lope, eyes always scanning the horizon. The Lipan ranged a little out to either side, watching the edges as if expecting trouble from there. The Comanche warrior rode a little ahead and to the right of the boy, Rojas just behind his left shoulder.

  No one talked much for the first hour. Hooves thudded. Grass swished. The sun climbed, pushing the shadows in under their horses.

  After awhile, one of the Kiowa angled his pony back toward the boy and Rojas.

  He was the one with the white handprint; up close, the paint had soaked into his skin so deep it looked almost like a scar. His hair was bound in two thick braids, bits of bone clinking in them when he moved. His face was younger than the boy had first thought—no more than twenty, maybe—but his eyes were older.

  He reined in alongside the boy’s sorrel.

  “You say your long name,” he said in English. “The one Peta gave.”

  The boy’s fingers twitched on the reins.

  “Haa’e…” he started, cleared his throat. “Haa’e?sootsu… puhi.”

  He got all the pieces out. They bumped into each other, but they were there.

  The Kiowa’s mouth split in a grin that showed a chipped front tooth.

  “Good,” he said. “You say better than bluecoats. They make it sound like they spit and choke.”

  He spat lightly to illustrate.

  “I am Tsen,” he added, hand thumping his chest. “Means Gray Hawk. This”—he jerked his chin toward the other Kiowa—“is Doyat. Means Two Knives. He does not talk much. He smiles less. Do not think he hates you. He hates everyone same.”

  Doyat glanced back at them, catching his name. His face stayed blank. He gave the boy a small, almost invisible nod.

  The Lipan rider with the rifle guided his horse closer on the other side.

  “I am Nantan,” he said. “Means… speaker.”

  “My brother there is Kanii. Means no one knows what he is thinking.” He shrugged.

  The Comanche warrior snorted and looked at the boy.

  “I am Tavo,” he said. “Peta sent me so I would not sit and chew my anger while my uncle lies with his leg in a stupid white sling. He says if I ride with Haa’e?sootsu?puhi I will come back with stories or not at all. Both good.”

  Rojas let out a low whistle.

  “Y’all got prettier names than me,” he said. “Miguel Rojas. Means ‘Miguel Rojas’.”

  He grinned, quick and tired. “My mama wanted a priest. Got a private instead.”

  “Rojas,” Tavo repeated, tasting it. “Means… red?”

  “Yeah,” Rojas said. “On a good day.”

  He scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “Where I’m from, we got all kinds. Tejano, Comanche raiders, bluecoats, Mexicans still sore from los gringos takin’ half their country. Thought that was messy.”

  The boy listened more than he spoke.

  He listened as Tsen talked about the way the Kiowa moved with the seasons—north to the Platte, south to the Red, following buffalo and grass. He listened as Nantan spoke about Lipan bands pushed and squeezed between Comanche raids and white settlements, always losing ground, always slipping sideways like a fish between rocks.

  He listened as Tavo admitted, without shame, that Comanche had raided as far as the Mexican towns, taking horses, cattle, women.

  “Texans took land,” Tavo said. “We took horses. We called that even. They did not. They built more forts instead.”

  He shrugged. “Now green demons come. Forts help. So maybe we call that even too, for a while.”

  Rojas snorted. “Maybe.”

  He had grown up with the picture of Indians as the thing that came screaming out of the dark, hair flying, rifles cracking, fire behind them. He’d seen it himself when the Comanche raiders had hit their town. He’d watched men and women die with their throats cut, watched houses burn.

  Sitting a horse next to Tsen and Nantan and Tavo, watching the way their eyes tracked the horizon, he saw something else layered over the raiders. Men worried about sons. Men with grandmothers who said the same kind of fatal things his own had once said. Men whose enemies had had pale skin long before green ones showed up.

  They were still dangerous. They still carried lances and rode like wolves. But they were dangerous the way any men were now, caught under the same new sky.

  They were just… people.

  The System’s cold note slid across the back of his skull sometime around midday, as the land flattened into a broad sweep of grass and the fort had vanished behind them.

  Minor bonus gained!

  +1 Vitality.

  Reason: Repeated Action (Endurance Riding).

  They made camp on a low rise just before sunset.

  The ground there swelled up from the surrounding flat like a knuckle. A little creek cut around its base, water clear and cold, banks trampled with old hoofprints. It wasn’t much cover if trouble came, but it gave them a little height and a place to see before they were seen.

  They watered the horses first. The animals stood with lowered heads, sides heaving and steaming in the cooling air, while men filled canteens and cupped hands.

  Then they picketed them in a loose circle below the rise, ropes looped over half?buried rocks, reins tied to scrub.

  By the time the boy had helped Rojas hobble his gelding and check the sorrel’s legs for any swelling, Nantan had already scraped a shallow fire pit, and Tsen had gathered dry grass and sticks.

  Tsen knelt by the pile with flint and steel instead, patient. Sparks showered onto the tinder, caught after a few strikes. Flames licked up, small and steady.

  The smell of smoke rose.

  They sat around the fire as the sun bled down in the west, the sky going from gold to orange to a bruised purple. Shadows stretched long across the grass.

  Food came out in pieces.

  Nantan had a strip of dried meat as long as his arm, hard as wood. He broke it with his teeth, then passed chunks around. Tavo produced a small bag of parched corn and tossed a handful into a dented tin cup with water to boil into something like mush. Rojas had a heel of hard bread gone stale and a small paper twist of salt.

  The boy reached into [Inventory] and brought out some of what he had—a little sack of beans left from the fort’s stores, a twist of coffee grounds, two biscuits. He had more, but the pemmican and the other dried meats and canned vegetables were emergency rations.

  They shared what they had without much talk. The beans and corn and meat made a thin stew. It tasted like too many different things at once and not enough of any of them, but it was warm.

  Above them, stars winked on, one by one, thin in the last of the light. The boy tilted his head back and hunted for the one that didn’t move, out of habit.

  He found it after a while.

  North.

  He felt better knowing it was still there, even with everything else gone sideways.

  “Tell a story,” Kanii said suddenly.

  He’d been silent most of the day, communicating with Nantan in little glances and short words in their own tongue. Now he looked around the fire, eyes catching on each face.

  “In my clan,” he said, English thick as syrup, “we tell stories when fire burns and meat is in belly. Makes night less… long.”

  Tsen grunted.

  “You start,” he said. “You asked.”

  Kanii shrugged.

  He launched into something in Lipan first, hands drawing shapes in the air. The words rose and fell, cadence like a song. There were crows in it, and a coyote, from the way he mimed them, and a man who was probably not as clever as he thought.

  Nantan chuckled in the right places. Tavo smirked without understanding the words, but catching the flavor. Rojas grinned, wiped his mouth, and asked for the quick version.

  Kanii obliged.

  “Coyote wants to fly,” he said. “He sees crows, says ‘teach me, I am smart, I am strong.’ Crows say no. Coyote says, ‘I am smart. I can do anything.’” He rolled his eyes. “So crows say fine, they grab him with claws, take him up and up. He looks down, thinks he is king of sky. Crows let go. He falls. Breaks his stupid neck.”

  He held up his hands.

  “Moral,” he said solemnly. “Just because smart doesn’t mean not stupid.”

  They all laughed, even the boy.

  He felt the truth of it settle somewhere under his ribs.

  Tavo told a Comanche story next, about a woman who married a star and came back down pregnant with lightning. Tsen followed with a Kiowa tale about how the first horse climbed out of the ground, shaking dirt from its mane like seeds.

  When it came around to the boy, eyes turned his way.

  He chewed a mouthful of corn mush, swallowed.

  “I ain’t got stories,” he said. “Not like that. Just… things that happened.”

  “Things that happened are stories,” Nantan said. “Tell one.”

  “Once,” he said slowly, “before all this, there was a man in our town who had a pig. Big one. Mean. Used to bite anyone who came near, ‘less he brought scraps. Man liked to laugh when it chased kids. Thought that was funny.”

  Tavo grunted something rude about men like that. Rojas smirked; they’d had one in his town too.

  “One day,” the boy went on, “pig got out. Man wasn’t lookin’. It went runnin’ down the street, straight for Lily. She froze. Didn’t even scream. Just stood. I had a rock in my hand from… somethin’ I probably shouldn’t have been throwin’ at.”

  His mouth twitched. “I threw it at the pig’s head. Hard as I could. Hit just right. Pig went down.”

  He frowned, remembering.

  “Man was mad,” he said. “Said I hurt his property. Said my sister oughta learn the world ain’t kind. Sheriff told him if he let that pig loose again he’d shoot it and him both.”

  He shrugged. “Pig never came near us again.”

  “That your moral?” Rojas asked, amused. “‘Carry a rock’?”

  The boy considered.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe it’s just: act first when you need to.”

  The others nodded, in their own ways.

  They drifted quiet after that.

  The fire burned down to coals. Crickets and night things started up in the grass. The horses shifted and blew, tired but not uneasy.

  They set watches. Kanii took first, sitting cross?legged near the edge of the rise, eyes fixed on the dark. Tavo and Tsen would wake in turn. The boy volunteered for the last watch before dawn, when sleep was heaviest and trouble liked to creep.

  For a while, though, they all sat together still, not yet ready to peel away into separate corners of the night.

  And then, the air suddenly seemed to thin, like the moment before lightning struck, except there was no cloud. The hairs on his arms prickled. The coals in the fire brightened, as if someone had breathed on them.

  Then a shape stood just beyond the edge of the firelight.

  For a heartbeat he thought it was a tall woman from some tribe he didn’t know—someone who’d painted herself pale and taken to wearing odd clothes. Then his eyes adjusted.

  She was too tall.

  She stood a full head higher than Tavo, who was not small. Her hair hung loose down her back, a fall of silvery?white that caught the last smear of sunset and the first light of the stars both, making it glow faintly. Her skin was pale—not the washed?out pallor of a sick white woman, but something that seemed to hold its own light underneath, warm and cool by turns as the fire flickered.

  Her ears were wrong.

  They were long and tapered to points that peeked through her hair, adorned with little chains of metal and leaves. Her face was narrow, bones fine, mouth full, eyes large and set a little wider than he was used to, irises a green so bright it seemed almost a color the world hadn’t had yesterday.

  She wore clothes that looked half like a dress and half like something grown—layers of soft fabric in greens and browns and deep reds, embroidered with vines and tiny berries and curling branches. Bits of actual twig and leaf had been braided through, but they were fresh, not dried, as if they’d refused to wilt.

  Around her shoulders rested something like a cloak, but when the breeze touched it, it rustled like leaves on a living tree.

  Her feet were bare. The grass under them seemed to curl up toward her toes.

  She stepped forward, into full firelight.

  The boy’s skin crawled and settled and crawled again.

  The System whispered in the back of his head, cold and precise.

  New race identified.

  [High Elf]

  He swallowed.

  The Kiowa and Lipan and Comanche all went still, hands drifting toward weapons without quite touching them. Rojas’ fingers closed around his rifle stock.

  The woman—no, the elf—lifted one hand, palm outward. It was slim, fingers long, nails like tiny polished shells.

  “I mean you no harm,” she said.

  Her voice was clear, carrying, with an accent that wasn’t any he’d heard—rolling a little on the vowels, clipping consonants like she was trimming them with shears. It held the coolness of creek water and the weight of someone used to being listened to.

  “I am Princess Imrahil of the Elven Kingdom of Athranuil,” she said, as if that should mean something to any of them.

  “And it seems,” she added dryly, looking from feather to rifle to lance to the boy’s too?big hat, “that we have some things to talk about.”