The boy gave a cry when he saw them waiting and tried to stop, wobbled, and went over.
"Canteen," Havel said; Pamela tossed him one, and he went over to where the slight body rested under the cycle. One wheel still spun.
Havel hooked the broken machine off with a toe, sending it clattering down the steepish slope to their left. He'd been right; it was a boy about ten, with a big shock of sun-streaked brown hair, skinny and filthy and smelling fairly high. He had a slash across one cheek, shallow but clean-edged as if done with a very sharp blade; that was just old enough for the blood to start clotting, and blackish red streaks crusted on his neck and chest on that side. He did a careful once-over to make sure the boy was unarmed- not easy to conceal a weapon when you were in shorts, a Marilyn Manson T-shirt and sneakers-and then went to one knee.
Christ, you have to learn a whole new way of moving in this stuff.
Pamela came up on the other side, evidently thinking the same thing from the cautious way she moved.
"Easy, kid," Havel said, as she put a hand under his head.
The adolescent wasn't really unconscious, just stunned. He sucked eagerly at the warm water, coughing and sputtering, then drinking more; his eyes widened at the sight of Havel 's gear, but he didn't seem frightened of them, just terrified in general.
"They hurt my mom," he said. "They-"
"Son, calm down," Havel said, his voice firm and strong, but not shouting. "Take it from the top. I need to know what's going on, and fast."
The boy closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. "We-my family and our neighbors- we were traveling east, out of Lewiston, to get away from the sickness."
Havel 's eyes narrowed; Pamela's hands moved with quick skill, checking for temperature and swollen glands.
"Nobody happened to mention that about Lewiston, did they?" she said angrily; then she shook her head, smiling a little in relief, and Havel blew out his cheeks with a whoosh. Medicines were getting scarce.
The boy went on:
"We don't have it! But a lot of people did. We got out a week ago, and we were traveling, going to my uncle's farm outside Kooskia. But we stopped, and they: they: " He started to shake again.
Havel gave him more water, and leaned closer to look into his eyes: "How many? Mounted, or on foot? What happened, and where did they go?"
"A lot-a dozen, maybe. I didn't see any horses. They were all around us, and I just-I saw one of them hit Mom with an ax, and I just got on my bike and went. Please, mister, you've got to help! I just ran away. I ran away from them all."
He started to cry.
"Running was the best thing you could do, kid," Havel said, giving him a quick squeeze on the shoulder. "Trying to fight out of your weight is stupid, not brave. Now how far was it, and what's the ground like?"
Havel looked up at Pamela when he had all the information they could muster; the ambush had taken place about two miles west, well uphill, and just where the road cut through the edge of the plateau. He closed his eyes for a second, calling up the terrain map of the area he'd studied.
"He's undernourished and dehydrated and he's got cooties, but otherwise fine, far as I can tell," Pamela said. "If his party had been on the road for a week, chances are they're clean."
He stood, thinking, weighing distances. "All right, this has fucked up Plan Number One to hell and gone. We've got to keep in contact or they'll get away again. Signe, light the signal and stay with the kid-that's an order!-until the rest of the A-list gets here. We'll leave sign; follow at speed. Keep an arrow on your string until the cavalry arrive and get ready to run if you have to."
He picked the boy up, laying him on the tarpaulin in the back of the wagon.
"Eric, Pam, equipment check. Then water the horses, all they'll drink. Double canteens, take nothing but water, armor and weapons."
Pam pulled out three bundled smocks. Havel groaned inwardly at the thought of putting on another layer, but the thin cotton surcoats were sewn with patches, camouflage-patterned in gray and brown and sage green, better disguise than even the most carefully browned metal. They pulled them on, buckled their sword belts over the cloth and swung into the saddle, giving each other's gear a quick once-over.
Signe already had the smudge pot out on the road and lit, and a column of black-orange smoke rose to the sky. That would tell Will and the rest of the mounted backup Come at speed.
Havel leaned down in the saddle on an impulse; Signe turned, startled, and her eyes flew wide when he gave her a brief hard kiss. He grinned and clamped his legs to his horse's barrel.
"Follow me!"
Hooves thundered, spitting gravel behind them; some of it hit the smudge pot with a sharp metallic tinking.
Havel leaned far over in the saddle to study the marks by the side of the road. Damn, but I'm better than I was, on horseback. Well, a month of continuous practice:
"Bikes and a cart with bicycle wheels," he said.
They'd seen that before, rigged up like an Asian pedicab. His eyes scanned.
"Went off upslope there. Blood trail-big splotch of blood by the side of the road, and then splashes of it; someone got cut badly."
He frowned. "Probably fatally. The splashes get smaller up the hill here, like a body bleeding out. You can track 'em by the way the ants and flies are swarming on it."
"Should we follow?" Eric said, reining his horse half around.
"Patience," Pamela said.
Havel noticed that her eyes went skyward, like his. She hadn't been a hunter until the Change, but she had spent a lot of time before that watching wildlife.
"Patience, my ass. Let's go kill something, as the vulture said," Eric began brashly, but fell silent as the others pointed upward.
"Oh. Shit."
The buzzards were circling, but as they watched one slanted downward.
"I think the killing's been taken care of," Havel said. "I also don't think the locals were looking very hard for the reason people were disappearing. Or maybe whoever did it was rushed this time. Slow and careful, people. If I was one of this bunch, I'd leave an ambush on my back trail. I don't expect them to, but it could happen."
He dropped the knotted reins on the saddle horn and slipped an arrow through the cutout in the riser of his bow-Waters's first really successful model. The horse picked its way obediently upslope with rocks clattering under its hooves; he kept balance without much thought, his gaze on the great bare slopes about them.
What they sought was in a narrow ravine that dead-ended not far ahead. The carrion birds hopped about, a flapping squawking carpet over flesh roughly covered with' piled rocks. The long skinny necks struck downward through the gaps, and there were shreds on their beaks as they came upright to look at the intruders. Then they exploded skyward in a storm of black wings as the humans came near.
Havel grimaced, and murmured words from an old song he'd heard once:
"Loud and cruel were the ravens' cries
As they feasted on the field."
If anyone was watching who really knew what they were doing, the buzzards and crows taking to the air would be a giveaway; he'd just have to hope they didn't know. The pedicab lay on its side, a wheel smashed into a bent tangle; getting it over these slopes had taken a lot of effort. A few meagre bundles of clothing and possessions lay opened and scattered about, looters' leavings.
Then: "There's things we'd better check. Let's get them uncovered."
The corpses hadn't had time to stink much, but the work was grim as they tumbled rocks aside. Eric made a retching sound; for real, this time.