Chapter Eleven

 

 

"You should be getting some sleep, Doc."

 

"I will in a minute, my dear Ryan. Right now I just want to look up at the heavens and see if I recognize the constellations."

 

Ryan had volunteered for first watch after the others had settled in. He'd brought a blanket to wrap up in, hoping to block some of the chill. It provided enough warmth to feel almost comfortable, but not enough to make him relaxed enough for sleep. He sat a dozen paces to the left of the cave mouth, where he could easily see along the way they'd come. He kept the Steyr across his knees.

 

Doc carried a blanket with him, as well. It was as thin as Ryan's, and folded compactly enough to fit in a shoe box.

 

Hunkering down, his knees poking up in the air on either side of him, Doc sat and gazed at the stars with his white hair blowing around him. He pulled the blanket up to his chin.

 

"Morning's going to come bastard early, Doc."

 

"I know," the old man said in a voice that was strangely gentle. "I am excited, I suppose." He looked at Ryan and smiled.

 

"With everything I have been throughpardon me, we have been throughI guess I had never really thought I would make it back here."

 

Ryan looked at Doc for a long minute. "We don't know you're back anywhere yet."

 

Doc nodded. "You may not be so certain, dear man, but I am. As you would know your home, so do I. This, whatever may remain of her, is Britain." He pointed into the sky. "See that group of stars by the Big Dipper? Those are Pollux and Castor, part of the group that make up the constellation Gemini. And there, that bright one? That's Regulus, a heavenly gem set in Leo's mane. It is always best seen in the spring. And there is Arcturus, part of Bootes, the Herdsman. And between him and Leo is fair Virgo. Her crown jewel is Spica. No, dear fellow, I am not imagining things."

 

"Even so," Ryan said, "things may not be as you remember them."

 

"And what, pray tell, in this land of horror upon horror, is?"

 

Having no answer, Ryan remained silent.

 

"If we are able," Doc went on, "I would like for us to find out if London still stands, if the hand of royalty still guides her destiny. To see if God saved the Queen."

 

"If we can, Doc. If we can."

 

 

 

"CONTE."

 

"Sir."

 

"What's your situation in there, mister?" Major Drake Burroughs stared into the collapsed tunnel. A trio of baby spotlights had been rigged up using alternate power sources. A dusty haze obscured much of the scene, but enough clarity remained that he could see the broken rock and buckled steel plating that blocked passage.

 

"The mat-trans unit's back on-line, Major," Conte replied. The radio link was tenuous through the piles of debris, interrupted periodically by white noise.

 

"You'll be able to make the jump, then?"

 

"Yes, sir. Turley believes so, sir."

 

"Your equipment, soldier?" Burroughs paced, keeping the anger in check so it wouldn't disturb his ability to command. He was still in a rage that no one had known about Walker's bolt hole, and worse, that no one had a clue about where it might lead.

 

When he'd first been given the security assignment over the White Sands Ramp;D complex, he'd thought the job was just a means of shelving him from the battlefield for a while. There'd been a certain zealous General McGuire, who had accused him of taking a few liberties with the rules of the Geneva Convention during the Bosnian action.

 

Then the general had dropped the charges. Before all else, Drake Burroughs had always put his country first. His father, a career military man, had done the same. Before he'd gone off to the battle that had claimed his life, the elder Burroughs had given his son a hug, then stood and saluted him, saying that he was leaving the future of their country in his hands until he returned.

 

Drake Burroughs had taken the assignment seriously. When the destruction had rained down in 2001, he'd shown no hesitation about taking over the complex, then using Project Calypso to ensure he'd be around with enough time to rebuild.

 

"Our equipment is in good shape, sir."

 

"All of you?"

 

"Yes, sir. We've got a few rations, but if there's a way to live off the land wherever we end up, we'll do that."

 

"Until you find Ryan Cawdor and his people," Burroughs said. "Then you get your asses back here however you can as fast as you can before I decide to declare you AWOL."

 

"Yes, sir. Turley says we're green at this end."

 

Burroughs knew he had the attention of the rest of his squad, some of whom thought he was sending Conte and the others off to die. The future that remained open to them, though they'd tried to prepare for the worst and had managed to see some of it on a local level when they'd been able to hook up video links with the outside world almost thirty years ago, had been far more disastrous than any of them could have imagined. The stories were still coming in from the scouts that reported in irregularly, journeying past the limits of the radio equipment.

 

"Then be about your mission, soldier," Burroughs said. "And do your unit proud."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

Burroughs snapped to full attention, his hand cocked sharply against his right eyebrow. Immediately the rest of the unit around him emulated the gesture.

 

The soft pop that drifted over the open radio channel let him know Conte and the others had gone.

 

Finishing the salute, Burroughs turned on his heel, shouting orders to shut down the area. He bellowed instructions to relevant officers for reports on the wounded, the dead and the material losses they'd incurred.

 

Ryan Cawdor and his people may have escaped for the moment, but Burroughs knew it wouldn't be long before Conte and his men caught up with them. The special-ops team would kill them where they found themafter asking questions about the gateway, of courseand find a way to return to White Sands. Or not.

 

That was a soldier's duty.

 

In the meantime Burroughs had another item on the agenda, which Cawdor's arrival had interrupted. There was a ville in Texas that the major had his eye on.

 

Rebuilding a world, he knew, started with taking over the first objective, then following with the others. And he was going to find a way to do it. Project Calypso had given him all the time he needed.

 

 

 

TARRAGON CLAPPED a hand over his mouth and lay still. The ground was cold against him despite the warm clothing he wore, and he was finding it hard to mask the gray fog wisps of his breath because his lungs were still laboring from the run.

 

He heard the men behind him, beating through the brush with their swords and staffs. Their lanterns looked like burning, baleful eves as they swung from their handles. The men called down all kinds of curses on him and Bean.

 

At fifteen years of age, Tarragon believed in curses and dark gods and the fact that nature was stronger than anything man could create. What he didn't believe in was the Prince's decision to start the Time of the Great Uprooting.

 

He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth as his father had taught him. Foxglove had been one of thorpe's best druids, full of the fey gift, having only to put his hands upon a man, woman or child of the village to know what to give them for their sickness.

 

His father had also been one of the Prince's most ardent opposers. Two weeks ago Foxglove had been found dead in the nearby stream. It was supposed to look as if he'd slipped on a wet rock and smashed his head in.

 

Maybe he had. But when Tarragon had put his hands on his father and held him and cried, he'd known his father had been murdered. That was his gift the knowing. Only he couldn't control it enough to convince others that what be saw was always true.

 

He knew that at least one of his father's killers was among the men who hunted him. This night, with the help of Bean, the stable boy, he'd managed to know that.

 

But they'd been discovered. Cut off from returning to the thorpe, not even knowing for sure whom they could turn to, they'd fled into the forest. They hadn't counted on the men following.

 

Tarragon straightened and put his back to the tree. He was breathing more regularly now despite the way his heart thundered in his chest. He gazed wildly around the thick copse. Demons and witches were reputed to live within their boundaries. The Prince had tried to quiet such talk when he'd learned of it earlier, but it proved impossible. Children loved stories of terrors and monsters, and despite the fact that they grew up into adults, those tales continued to haunt them, turning into beliefs.

 

The bark was hard in his fingers, iced over from the cold and the frost. The hunters continued to close in, and he counted perhaps as many as a dozen of them. Maybe there were a few more or less. It didn't matter, because there were more than enough to kill him. And Bean.

 

He swallowed hard. He'd lost the other boy in the last break. Wildroot was a good three hours back the way he'd come. He'd felt certain the Prince's seed heralds would have given up before now. "Bean!" he whispered hoarsely. "Bean!" There was no response.

 

Steeling himself, fighting his fear, Tarragon moved into the open. The hunters were twenty yards away, following a path that led through the trees, only partially visible.

 

He muttered a quick prayer to Lugh Silverhand as he slipped through the trees. "Bean!"

 

"Here, Tarragon." The voice was listless and papery thin.

 

"Where?" Tarragon asked. "I can't see you."

 

"Ahead of you. Follow my voice."

 

"If you talk any louder, everyone in the forest is going to be able to find the way to you."

 

"I'm sorry." Bean's voice sounded very weak.

 

A glance over his shoulder showed Tarragon that the hunting party was still heading away from them. He almost stumbled over Bean when he turned back around.

 

The boy lay in the brush, breathing rapidly. He was three years younger than Tarragon, but had the same dark hair and pale, aquiline features that marked him as being from the same tree. He was dressed as Tarragon, in homespun breeches and a thick shirt, with a patchwork coat hanging down to midthigh. His deerskin boots still carried the smell of the stable on them, and it was a wonder the hunters couldn't track them by that alone.

 

The thing that jarred Tarragon was seeing the arrow that jutted out of Bean's belly.

 

"In the blessed name of Lugh the Life-Giver," Tarragon said hoarsely. He opened the fertility pouch at his throat, working the drawstrings until he could pour out a pinch of the seeds inside. His prayer was by rote. He couldn't depend on himself to try anything of his own. When he finished, he blew the seeds out, ending the prayer.

 

"I'm afraid," Bean said, "that Lugh will not be giving life tonight. Should he show up, I fear it will be only to take one." Perspiration beaded his forehead. He reached out a bloody hand and clasped Tarragon's forearm. "They've killed me, my friend." He coughed, and a ragged, bloody phlegm covered his lips.

 

Tarragon checked on the progress of the hunters, wondering if the sound of the cough had traveled far enough to reach them. However, the lantern lights didn't change directions, though they had come to a milling stop.

 

"Help me, Tarragon. I'm really frightened, and getting so chill."

 

"I'm here, Bean." Tarragon held the other boy's hand tightly. He thought he could already feel Bean's flesh growing colder, but it might have been his imagination.

 

"Don't leave me." The boy held on with a grip that threatened circulation.

 

"I won't." Tarragon knew he was lying, though. If the hunters came for him before Bean died, he had to leave. Cardamom and the others who'd been loyal to his father needed to know what he now knew.

 

In the distance the hunters had taken on movement again. A single man led them back the way they'd come, holding a lantern aloft. "They're gone, Pepper," someone said. "Couldn't be. Two saplings like that, there isn't any way they could vanish."

 

"That boy Tarragon," another man mused, "now, he's got one seriously whacked version of the gift. What if there's more neither his father nor him bothered to mention to us about everything he could do?"

 

"A bolt between his eyes," Pepper said, "that would show you all you needed to know about him."

 

"Hey," one of the men said. A lantern stopped moving, then the owner made some adjustments to the aperture. "There's blood here."

 

In seconds a skirmish line had formed around the area where Bean's blood had been spotted. Tarragon turned back to the younger boy. "Bean," he in a frenzied whisper, "I've got to" sightless eyes stared up at the moon.

 

"Got one of the bastards," Pepper said proudly. "Told you I thought I did. Now, which way is the blood going?"

 

Wordlessly Tarragon released his friend's limp hand and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "Sleep well, friend Bean. I shall sow for three years in your honor, and my firstborn shall be named for you." He closed the dead boy's eyelids and pushed himself up. Ice from the branches fell around him, stirred by his movements and the wind.

 

"There!" someone shouted.

 

For a time Tarragon ran without direction, aware he was making plenty of noise for his pursuers to hear. He was counting on his speed to work against them, though, because if he picked up the pace they'd have to run to keep up with him. When they did, they'd hopefully make noise that would mask his own.

 

His breath burned in his chest as he lunged between trees. A quarrel hissed through the air near his head embedded itself in the bole of an oak less than two feet' from his face. He reversed, spinning across the frost-laden ground, then made for a thick patch of brush.

 

Pepper had forbidden pistols and rifles after the first barrage. They made too much noise, Tarragon knew, and the woods might have been filled with poachers encroaching on Celtic lands. Those men knew they took their lives into their own hands when they encroached in search of the tangler vines; they wouldn't hesitate to try to kill Pepper and the whole group of seed heralds.

 

Tarragon's foot caught on a dead branch as he crash through the brush into a clearing. He pushed himself up, hands sliding in the cold mud, his lower face smeared with it.

 

Three shadows hung before him. He recognized them between heartbeats. They were the raiders from New

 

London Pepper had caught trying to get sap from tangler vines almost two weeks earlier.

 

Tarragon had been spying on the seed herald then, and had watched the brutal executions of the men. He'd had nightmares about it for days afterward.

 

Moonlight pooled in a depression in the land before him. There, at its outermost corner, was a footprint. He knew the footprint was fresh. On his knees now, hypnotized by the promise the imprint held, he shoved his bare palm against the muddy footprint, seeking his gift.

 

There was a feeling, like the tumblers of a lock dropping into place, and he knew more. The print had been I made by a big man almost three hours earlier. Surely no more than five. He and his party had gone west, southwest. The man had seen the butchered bodies hanging from the ropes, and he hadn't approved.

 

For now, it was enough for Tarragon. He stood and broke into a full run as two quarrels from crossbows hit the ground near his feet. He pushed his way through the hanging bodies, hoping the movement would create more problems for the archers.

 

Tarragon ran, ignoring the pain in his side and pushing himself past it. Only when he'd put a hundred yards between himself and the clearing did he look back.

 

A circle of lanterns had formed around the pocket of melting water he'd seen. The men held their lights close, panning over the area. They'd seen the footprint, as well. Tarragon watched Pepper, knowing the other seed heralds would take their lead from him.

 

Bathed in the glow from the lanterns, standing with smaller men, Pepper looked like one of the old gods come to life. He was almost an ax handle broad at the shoulders, with a lean physique. His long blond hair hung down his back in a ponytail, and he wore a full beard and mustache.

 

There was no mistaking the way Pepper pointed in the direction he wanted to go. After only a little hesitation, the others followed, except for two men who stayed with Bean's body beyond the clearing.

 

Tarragon sincerely hoped they would take Bean back to the thorpe so his family could mourn for him properly, Marjoram would be deeply affected; Bean had been his only child, and the first of his generation to have been born of man.

 

With his face to the west, Tarragon felt the connection between himself and the man who left the footprint strengthen. It was so intense, he felt if he squinted his eyes just right, he might be able to see the line of power that ran between them.

 

He didn't know what he would do when he found the man. He'd only intended to try to use the raiding party he thought was from New London as a means of dissuading Pepper and the other seed heralds to break off pursuit.

 

Now he wasn't so sure. The man had a destiny that was going to intersect with the future of Wildroot at the Time of the Great Uprooting.

 

Tarragon just knew it.