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  Nothing. If the man was still alive, the juice would have begun its regeneration immediately.

  An arrow slammed into his shoulder.

  He stood and faced the direction it had come from. The archers on the nearest cliff stared down at him, momentarily off guard.

  “He was once one of you!” he screamed. Without removing his eyes from them, Thomas grabbed the arrow in his shoulder, pulled it out, and threw it on the ground. He shoved the fruit against the wound.

  “Now he is dead, as you yourselves are. You hear me? Dead! All of you. You live in death!”

  One of them let an arrow fly. Thomas saw that the projectile was wide and let it hiss past without moving. It struck the sand.

  Then he moved. Faster than they had expected. Onto his horse and straight toward the eastern canyon.

  The first fire was already spewing thick black smoke skyward. William had lit the second on the opposite side of the canyon and was galloping toward the third pile of brush they’d prepared for precisely this eventuality.

  Thomas ignored the arrows flying by, leaned over his horse’s neck, and plunged into the thick smoke.

  Soren raised his hand to give the signal.

  “Wait,” Woref said.

  “The rest will break for the canyon,” his lieutenant said. “We should give chase now.”

  “I said wait.”

  Soren lowered his hand.

  The plan had been to box them in, wound as many as possible from a high angle of attack, and then sweep down to finish them off. Their cursed fruit was powerless against a sickle to the neck. It was a strategy that Martyn himself once would have approved.

  Now Martyn was down there among the albinos, trapped with the rest. But suddenly Woref wasn’t so sure of the strategy; he hadn’t expected the fires.

  “They think the smoke will cover them?” Soren said. “The poor fools don’t know that we have their escape already covered at the other end.”

  But this was Thomas they were up against. And Martyn. Neither would think that a bit of smoke would help them escape an enemy that had clearly known their position before the attack.

  So why the fires?

  “You’re certain there are no other routes from this canyon?”

  “Not that any of our scouts could find.”

  Yet there had to be. If he was leading this band of dissidents, which direction would he lead them? Into the desert, naturally. Away from the Horde. Out to the plains where they could simply outrun any pursuit.

  “Tell half of the sweep team to cut off the desert to the south,” Woref said.

  “The south?”

  “Do not make me repeat another order.”

  Soren stood in his stirrups and relayed the order through hand signals. Two mounted scouts, each confirming the message, wheeled their horses around and disappeared.

  “The whole tribe will break for the smoke momentarily,” Woref said. “I want every archer pouring arrows into the albinos.”

  “I’ve already passed the word.”

  “But why?” Woref muttered to himself. “The smoke will suffocate them if they don’t get out quickly.”

  A whistle echoed through the canyon and, precisely as he’d predicted, nearly fifty head of horses broke from under the ledge of a western canyon wall. Arrows rained down on them. Women clutched their children and rode for the smoke, kicking their mounts for as much speed as the animals could muster.

  Multiple hits. They were sitting ducks down there. But they had only fifty yards to run before the smoke swallowed them.

  Still, two fell. A horse stumbled and its rider ran on foot. A third clutched an arrow that had struck him in the chest. The one on foot tripped, and three arrows plowed into his back.

  Then the albinos were through the gauntlet and into their smoke. Woref ’s men killed only five. Six, counting the one that the spear had taken earlier. Many more had been shot, but they would survive with the help of their sorcery. This bitter fruit of theirs.

  The archers shot a dozen arrows into each of the fallen albinos, then the canyon fell eerily silent.

  Woref reined his mount around and trotted along the cliff, eastward, eyes searching for the slightest sign of life beneath the thick smoke. The silence angered him. Surely they wouldn’t double back into another onslaught of arrows. There had to be another exit!

  Behind him, the sweep team entered the valley, effectively cutting off any attempted retreat.

  Thomas had been with the ones who’d lit the fires. Woref ’s agreement with Qurong was for Thomas. If the parties had split . . .

  A cry came from the east. Thomas’s group had been sighted.

  Woref kicked his horse and galloped up the canyon. He saw them then, five horses raising dust beyond the smoke, speeding directly for his trap.

  Thomas led his contingent from the smoke, praying that every Scab eye was on him. He had surveyed every last inch of this canyon and knew where he would set a trap if he were the Horde commander. Their chances of breaking through that trap were small now. If they’d received warning, they would’ve had a better chance of sprinting past the mouth of the canyon before the trap had been set.

  Two brothers, Cain and Stephen, raced beside Suzan to his right. William brought up the rear.

  “Do we fight?” William demanded.

  “No.”

  “We’re too late! They’ll be waiting.”

  Yes, they would be.

  “We could go back,” William said.

  “No! We can’t endanger the others. Have your fruit ready!”

  As soon as he said it, he heard the cry ahead. Thirty mounted men rode into the open, cutting off the mouth of the canyon.

  Still they galloped, straight for the waiting Horde.

  “Justin, give us strength,” Thomas breathed.

  The Scabs weren’t attacking. No arrows, no cries, just these thirty men on horses, waiting to collect them. There was no way past them.

  Thomas reined his mount and held up a hand. “Hold up.”

  They stopped a hundred yards from the Scabs.

  “You’re going to let them take us?” William asked. “You know they’ll kill us.”

  “And our alternative is what?”

  “Mikil and Johan have had the time they need to get the rest through the gap. We can still make it!”

  “They’ll have men in the canyon by now,” Suzan said. She’d been a latecomer to the Circle, and there wasn’t a person Thomas had been so glad to have join them. As the leader of the Forest Guard’s scouts, she’d studied the Horde more than most and knew their strategies nearly as well as Johan himself.

  “And if we’re lucky, they won’t find the tunnel,” Thomas said.

  “Then we have to fight! We can beat them—”

  “No killing!” Thomas faced Cain and Stephen. “Are you ready for what this may mean?”

  “If you mean death, then I’m ready,” Cain said.

  “I’d rather die than be taken to their dungeons,” Stephen said. “I won’t be taken alive.”

  “And how do you propose to force their hands? If they take us alive, then we will go with them peacefully. No fight, are we clear?”

  “I helped them build the dungeons. I—”

  “Then you can help us escape from their dungeons.”

  “There is no escape!”

  The brothers had been latecomers as well, and their discovery of life on the other side of the drowning was still fresh in their minds. Both were dark-skinned and had shaved their heads as part of a vow they’d taken. They were adamant about showing as much of their disease-free flesh as was decently possible.

  “No fighting,” Thomas repeated.

  They held stares for a moment. Stephen nodded. “No fighting.”

  They sat five abreast, facing the Horde. Hooves sounded behind them and Thomas turned to see that the team Suzan had predicted was emerging from the thinning smoke.

  “We’re buying a whole lot of trouble here,” William said.
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  “No, we’re buying Mikil’s freedom. The freedom of the Circle.”

  “Mikil? Don’t tell me this has to do with these dreams of yours.”

  The thought had occurred to him. He wasn’t sure what they’d done by writing in the blank Book now in his belt, but either he or Kara had to get back. The lives of six billion people were at stake. Not to mention his own sister’s life. If Mikil died, Kara would die.

  “If I were concerned only with the histories, I would save myself, wouldn’t I? We’re doing here nothing less than what Justin himself would undoubtedly do.”

  There was nothing more to be said. Thomas withdrew the Book from his belt and shoved it into his tunic.

  Woref rode past his men and studied the standoff in the canyon.

  Five.

  The other fifty had disappeared.

  But among the five was Thomas. If he’d estimated correctly, the others would emerge from these canyons in the south, where his men would deal with them appropriately. His concern was now with these five.

  This one.

  “Send word: when they find the others, kill them all. I have Thomas of Hunter.”

  He nudged his horse and rode with his guard to meet the man who was responsible for the grief he’d suffered these past thirteen months. Thomas of Hunter’s name was still whispered with awe late at night around a thousand campfires. He was a legend who defied reason. Failing to defeat the Horde with his sword, he’d now taken up the weapon of peace. Qurong would prefer to face a sword any day over this heroic deceit they called the Circle. True, only a thousand had followed Thomas into his madness, but what was a thousand could easily become ten thousand. And then a hundred thousand.

  Today he would reduce their number to one.

  And today Woref would have his bride.

  He stopped ten yards from the albinos. They looked like salamanders with their sickly bare flesh. The breeze brought their scent to him, and he tried his best not to draw it too deep. They smelled of fruit. The same bitter fruit that they used for their sorcery—the variety that grew around the red pools. It was said that they drank the blood of Justin and that they forced their children to do the same. What kind of disease of the mind would push a man to such absurdities?

  Two of the prisoners were bald. They looked vaguely familiar. A third was a woman. The mere thought of any man breeding with such a sickly salamander was enough to make him nauseated.

  He nudged his horse abreast their leader, Thomas of Hunter. Similarly fashioned medallions hung from each of their necks. He reached down, grasped Thomas’s pendant, jerked it free, and held it in his palm. Then he spit on it.

  “You are now prisoners of Qurong, supreme leader of the Horde,” he said. Then he turned his horse away, overcome by their scent.

  “So it would appear,” Thomas said.

  “Douse them!”

  Two of his men rode around the captives and tossed ash on them. The ash contained sulfur and made their stench manageable.

  “Where are the others?” Woref asked.

  Thomas stared at him, eyes blank.

  “Kill the woman,” Woref said.

  One of the soldiers pulled a sword and approached the black female.

  “Killing any of us would be a mistake,” Thomas said. “We can’t tell you where the others are. We can only tell how they outwitted you, which we will gladly do. But by now they’ve fled in a direction only they know.”

  Woref felt a new dislike for this man run deep into his bones. He wondered how smart the rebel would look without lips. But then Qurong wouldn’t get the information he needed.

  “I know how they escaped,” he said. “My scouts missed a break in the cliffs that leads south, into the desert. Your band of rebels is headed into our hands at this very moment.”

  “Then why do you ask?”

  He’d expected a flinch, a pause, anything to indicate the man’s surprise at being discovered so easily. Instead, Thomas had delivered this unflinching reprimand.

  “You’ll pay for your disrespect. I give you my vow. Chain them.”

  Woref turned his horse around and headed out of the canyon.

  Mikil swept the scope across the desert that surrounded the canyon lands.

  “Others?” Johan asked.

  “No. Just the one group.”

  Behind them, fifty sets of round white eyes peered from the dark cavern that hid them. They wound their way through the gap and into an adjacent canyon that led them here, to the edge of the southern desert. But they wouldn’t break into the open until they were sure that the Horde was gone.

  “They’ll be in the cave by now,” Johan said. “We have to move soon.”

  “Unless they followed Thomas out of the canyon.”

  Johan frowned. “Assuming Thomas made it out of the canyon.”

  She lowered the glass. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  He glanced back and spoke in a low voice. “I could have sworn I saw Woref on the cliff. They came on us without warning, which means they had already scouted us out. They would have both escape routes covered. I don’t see how anyone, even Thomas, could possibly escape without a fight. And we both know that he won’t fight.”

  The revelation stunned her. Not only as Mikil, who feared for the Circle’s future without Thomas to lead them, but as Kara, who suddenly feared for her brother’s life.

  “Then we have to go back!”

  “We have the tribe to think about.” He took a deep breath. “First the tribe, then Thomas. Assuming he’s alive.”

  She was about to reprimand him for even suggesting such a thing, but then it occurred to her that, as Mikil, she agreed.

  She faced the desert. “Then we stay here,” she said.

  “They’ll follow our tracks.”

  “Not if we block the tunnel. Think about it. They’ll never expect us to stay in these canyons. Anywhere but here, right? And they’ll never find this cavern. There’s a red pool nearby, water, food. I don’t want to go deep if they have my brother.”

  The emotions mixing in Mikil’s chest were enough to make her want to scream. She was Mikil, but she was Kara, and as Kara she’d awakened into a firestorm. Surprisingly she’d felt only a little fear, even with the Horde’s arrows narrowly missing her head. Mikil had been up against the Scabs a thousand times, most often in hand-to-hand combat.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t the status quo for the civilians in her charge. They’d lost six in the attack, including Jeremiah. Her heart felt sick.

  But there was another emotion pulling at her. The desire to wake up in Dr. Myles Bancroft’s laboratory. Thomas had taken the Book—now she wished she’d taken it. There was no telling how many more opportunities they would have to write in it. The thought of those few words she’d written actually having power on Earth made her spine tingle. She had to get back to see if they had worked. Imagine . . .

  Johan scratched his chin and looked around. “If we block the tunnel, they’ll see that we blocked it.”

  “Let them. When they can’t find us, they’ll assume we went deep.”

  “They’ll still look for our trail.”

  “Then we’ll give them one that takes them away from here, further west and into the desert. With the night winds blowing our tracks, they will be lost by morning.”

  He was silent, thinking.

  “I refuse to go deep as long as Thomas’s fate is uncertain.”

  He nodded. “It could work. But we don’t block the tunnel at its entrance. It’s too late for that anyway.” He ran to his horse and swung into the saddle. “We have to hurry.”

  6

  Kara. Wake up.”

  She felt her shoulder being shaken.

  “That’s it, dear. Wake up. You’ve been sleeping for two good hours.”

  Kara stared at the frumpy figure at her side. Dr. Myles Bancroft wore a knowing grin. Dabbed a handkerchief on his brow.

  “Two hours and not one dream,” he said.

  The lights were still low
. Machines hummed quietly—a computer fan, air conditioning. The faint smell of human sweat mixed with a deodorant.

  “Did you dream?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She pushed herself up. He’d wiped the blood from her arm and applied a small white bandage. “Yes, I did.”

  “Not according to my instruments, you didn’t. And that, my dear, makes this not only a fascinating case, but one that is duplicable. First Thomas and now you. Something is happening with you two.”

  “It’s his blood. Don’t ask me how this all got started, but my brother is the gateway between these two realities.”

  “I doubt very much that there are two realities,” he said. “Something is happening in your minds that is certainly beyond ordinary dreams, but I can promise you that your body was here the whole time. You didn’t walk through any wardrobe to Narnia or take a trip to another galaxy.”

  “Semantics, Professor.” She slid off the bed. “We don’t have time for semantics. We have to find Monique.”

  Bancroft looked at her with a sheepish grin tempting his face, as if he were working up the courage to ask the delicious question: “So what happened?”

  “I woke as Mikil, lieutenant to Thomas of Hunter. She and I wrote in a book that has power to bring life from words, narrowly survived an attack by the Horde, and found safe haven in a cavern after blocking our escape route. I finally fell into an exhausted sleep and woke up here.”

  Hearing herself summarize, a buzz rode down her neck. She’d played both doubter and believer over the last two weeks with Thomas, and she wasn’t sure which was easier.

  “No wounds.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have any wounds or anything to prove your experiences like Thomas did.”

  True.

  “Have you heard news?” she asked.

  “Not particularly, no.” He blinked and looked away. “The world is going to hell, quite literally. The great equalizer that most of us knew would eventually get loose finally has. I just can’t believe how fast it’s all happening.”

  “The virus? Equalizing as in it’s no respecter of persons. The president is as vulnerable as the homeless bum in the alley. And why are you still so interested in dreams, Doctor? You said you were infected, right? You have ten days to live like the rest of us. Shouldn’t you be with your family?”