Hawk, walking point with Bear, had never seen anything like it. He wasn’t sure if it was a quirk in the weather pattern or a reaction to all the pollution, poisonings, and chemical warfare. Or if it was generated by a deeper, more pervasive climatic change that had been building for much longer than he had been alive. What he did know was that it made him uneasy. It made him want to gather up everyone whom he was supposed to lead to safety and get to where they were supposed to go.
When the earth rumbled later in the day, a violent shake that sent those walking to their knees and caused the AV to skid sideways so far it almost went off the road, he thought maybe this was a prelude to something much bigger. He glanced at Bear, down on his knees beside him, and shook his head.
“Smell the air,” the other boy said quietly.
Hawk did, taking a deep sniff. “Sulfur,” he said quietly.
Bear nodded. “Bad stuff, sulfur. We had a pool of it back on the farm, down by the south pasture. The smell was so bad that no one went near it. It could knock you out, make you real sick.”
Hawk glanced at the sky. “Maybe it will blow away by dark.”
It did, but the haze remained, thick and clingy, a visceral feeling to it. The Ghosts hunkered down in their coats and tried to breathe through parts of their clothing. The twilight was raw with its presence, the sky colored metallic and the surrounding countryside flat black and gray, as if there were no depth to anything.
They were passing through the hill country below the peaks, expectations of reaching their destination beginning to crowd in on their discomfort, when they saw what appeared at first as a soft glow against the horizon. But as the little company drew closer, the light became a glare, one that all of them instantly recognized.
“Watch fires.” Bear said it first. “All across the roadway ahead.”
Hawk nodded. “Someone’s blocking the way.”
“Militia,” Catalya declared, coming up beside him. “Wait here while I have a look.”
Without waiting for his permission, she bounded off into the darkness. Panther was slow coming up or he would have gone with her, Hawk thought, hearing the other boy mumble a low curse as he realized what had happened.
“You should’ve stopped her,” he snapped.
Hawk glanced over. “Don’t think that was possible.”
“Shut up, Panther Puss,” Sparrow muttered, shoving him aside as she shouldered her Parkhan Spray and stood braced and ready, facing out toward the fires. “Save it for those who need it.”
They waited impatiently, silently, a clutch of dark figures slowly disappearing into the deepening night’s shroud. Time slipped away on wings that flew swift and sure, and Catalya did not return. Hawk began to grow uneasy. The girl was smart and experienced, but one mistake among adults with weapons would undo all that in a moment’s time. If she had been seen, they would have already seized her and made her their prisoner. In that case, he would have to go in after her. Not Panther, who couldn’t be trusted with that sort of task. Not the way he felt about this girl. No, Hawk knew that he would have to do it.
Then all of a sudden she was back, appearing out of the night as if born of it, her slight figure materializing right in front of them.
“Frickin’ hell!” Panther snapped at her. “You shouldn’t of done that, going off by your own self! Who do you think you are, girl? You couldn’t wait for me?”
She gave him a glance. Then her eyes were back on Hawk. “It’s a militia of some sort, several hundred, maybe more. Planted right across the roadway and for some ways to either side. I couldn’t be sure. They almost had me. They’ve got some good ears and eyes in that bunch. I don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re set on holding this road. You can tell.”
Hawk nodded. “Then we have to go around.” He glanced at the others. “I don’t like trying this at night, but we have a better chance of not being seen if we do it now. What do you think?”
“I think we do it like you say,” Bear answered for the others, who just nodded. Except for Panther, who spit and walked away in disgust. With Panther, you never knew.
Hawk split them into two groups. He put Fixit at the wheel and Chalk beside him in the AV, with Owl, Candle, River, and Tessa in back. He put Sparrow on the AV’s roof with her Parkhan Spray. He took Panther, Bear, and Cheney with him, and put Catalya on point, her sharp senses their best defense against hidden dangers now that Candle no longer seemed reliable. He was sorry about that loss–sorry for Candle and for them. He had talked with Owl about it, tried to come up with a reason for it, but neither of them could solve the puzzle of the little girl’s problem. In any case, they could not rely on her.
They would have to do the best they could with the new girl.
He glanced down at Cheney, and the big dog’s head lifted slightly, the dangerous eyes meeting his own. Cheney would help them if he could.
Catalya deposited Rabbit in Owl’s lap, and they set out. They moved off the highway and into a long rolling stretch of hills that were lightly wooded. Catalya took them northward on a course parallel to the fires, staying well back from where the militia would be keeping watch on the countryside. The AV rolled like a big, sluggish beast over the rough terrain, the engine a soft growl, but still audible from some distance away. Hawk wished they could muffle the sound further, but there was nothing he could do about it. A wind was blowing down out of the mountains, and sudden gusts cut into the low rumble and might fool anyone who didn’t know better. But Hawk didn’t think they could depend on that.
It took an hour before Catalya turned them east again, down a ravine and then up again along the windward side of a high berm. Suddenly they were moving through a blackness sheltered from the distant firelight, a landscape illuminated solely by moon and stars. The sky remained overcast, so there was little light by which to navigate, only enough so that the Ghosts were able to make their way. The north wind had died away, leaving the night still and empty–feeling about them.
They emerged from behind the berm into rolling grasslands. A heavy mist had moved in, settling in pools in the low places, in the ravines and depressions, like standing water concealing hidden depths. Hawk didn’t like it. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see anything or to judge accurately the nature of the terrain they were trying to cross. He caught up with Catalya and warned her in a hushed voice to be careful of sinkholes and rifts. She nodded without speaking, her eyes intense as she scanned the landscape ahead.
They continued, and the fog increased, growing heavier and thicker about them, rising slowly until they were wading through it. Catalya signaled for a halt and came back to huddle with Hawk.
“Can’t see anything now,” she admitted. “I don’t like it.”
Hawk glanced toward the watch fires south. They were almost clear of them now, some distance off, but still too close. “It can’t be any better for them,” he told her. “Maybe we should just wait this out, give it time to thin. Wait here. I’ll talk it over with the others.”
He was starting back, his mind made up, when he heard Cheney’s low growl. He looked left and then right, just in time to see a scattering of figures appear through the gloom, still far off, but coming closer.
He heard shouts and saw several of the figures pointing, and then the mist rose in a sudden swell and swallowed everything.