Leering in the torchlight, the striped bird skull, hung on the Goblin fastness where Britton had saved Fitzy’s life and been punished for it, rose in his mind. The Master Suppressor’s voice rose in his mind.
“Go there, I take you safe place.” The Goblin smiled.
“Man, I really don’t want to go back there,” Britton said. He racked his brain for any image that he could recall well enough to gate to. But the landscape beneath the helicopter had blurred by too fast. The only thing he remembered well enough was FOB Frontier and the fortress. He could take them in some distance from it, but it would have to be in sight.
“Can’t I take us back somewhere else?”
Marty shook his head. “If not there, then not know where safe place. Go bird head. Then safe place.
“Safe place,” Marty repeated, giving his ear-wiggling shrug.
“This is your tribe? This is with your Mattab On Sorrah?”
Marty nodded.
Britton felt his emotions well up at the creature’s quickness to help strangers, but now was not the time to show it. He swallowed hard, hoping no one would notice how much the gesture affected him.
“Uskar,” Marty said, gently tapping his own eyelids, then Britton’s. “Okay. Okay. Always help. You important.” He smiled gently, then leaned forward and imitated the human gesture, hugging Britton about the waist as best he could. “Important. Everything okay.”
Britton patted the Goblin’s shoulders as he mastered himself. At last he turned to the remnants of the tribe and spoke, hoping his voice wouldn’t break.
“Marty knows of a place we can go. Someplace safe in the Source. We’re going to take fifteen minutes to get everyone patched up as best we can, then we’re out of here.”
“Back to the Source?” Pyre asked. “We just escaped from there!”
“This is only temporary,” Britton said. “Do you honestly think there’s a place in the entire US safe for us? Or in any bordering nation? Besides, I can only gate us places I’ve seen. Or did you propose we walk to wherever we’re going to hide out? I know this isn’t ideal. I’m not offering you an end to running, just another place to run to.”
“What the hell happened anyway?” one of the enrollees shouted. “How the hell did that Witch get free in the first place?”
Swift looked frankly at him, arms folded across his chest.
He shouted down the chorus of protests that welled as the group began to grasp the impact of his words. “That’s enough! I’ve been soldiering long enough to know that if we’re going to live through this, it’s going to take discipline and teamwork. You may have done things however the hell you wanted to when you were on the run, but that changed in the SASS, and it’s not going to change back just because you’re free of it. You want to judge me? Judge me later. After we are all safe, after this latest round of running is at an end. I can’t bring the dead back to life. All I can do is save the lives that are remaining. What we need is a safe place, someone to shelter us until we can figure out what you want to do next. Marty can provide that safe place, and I can take us there. It’s the only chance we’ve got, and for it to work, you’re going to have to trust me and let me help you. You may not like it, but it’s the only way.”
“What if we stand and fight?” Swift asked, but his eyes showed he already knew the answer to his own question.
“If you stand against the SOC, you will die, make no mistake,” Britton replied. “You have great heart, but you are too few and too poorly trained. The SOC are professional warriors. They make a study of killing with magic. I have trained with them far beyond the basic exercises you learned in the SASS. I’ve seen what they can do. Bravery isn’t enough. Skill beats will, every time. You’ve learned something of discipline and self-denial in your SASS training. That’ll give you a leg up over the average Selfer, but not nearly enough of a leg up.”
“Yes, Oscar.” Therese spoke from beside a SASS enrollee with a broken javelin shaft protruding from his thigh. “Get us out of here. Do whatever you have to do to make us safe.” But her eyes were hard.
“All right,” Britton said. “If we’re going to function as a unit, we need a commander. That’s me unless anyone else thinks they can do a better job.”
A quick glance around the ranks showed him that nobody thought they could, or if they did, didn’t have the gumption to challenge him. “First things first, many of you need healing and a chance to catch your breath. I’m going to have to gate us in outside a stronghold of creatures like Marty, but who are not friendly to us, and I can’t have wounds or exhaustion slowing us down. Fifteen minutes, then we go.”
Marty worked tirelessly alongside Therese, enduring his frozen feet in silence until Therese noticed his pained expression. Britton used his pocketknife to cut the bottom third of the parka away, wrapping the fabric around Marty’s feet after Therese used her magic to repair the worst of the frostnip beginning to form on the Goblin’s soles. That had the added advantage of making the parka fit correctly. No longer tripped up by the long coat, Marty was soon moving around more easily.
Fifteen minutes turned to twenty. Swift waved at the hot air emanating from the fire, sweeping his arms and circulating it through the small shelter of the bent boughs, warming the air to a comfortable temperature. Peapod bent to a small patch of wild onions and strawberries, gesturing until the fruits and vegetables responded to her magic. She gathered armloads of the swollen produce, distributing it among the group.
Therese leaned against a tree in exhaustion when the group’s wounds were healed, but Marty would not sit still. He scurried about the clearing, lifting his giant feet high to avoid catching the tied-on fabric on roots and rocks. He high-stepped off into the underbrush, his breath hitching in excitement.
“Marty! What the hell are you doing? Get back here!” Britton called.
The Goblin stopped suddenly, staring intently.
“What is he…” Therese asked, but was cut off by a furious squirrel perched on a pine branch directly above Marty’s head. It twitched its tail, chattering in rage at this strange creature invading its territory. Marty stared, wide-eyed and delighted, until Britton grabbed his hand and led him away.
“Come on, Marty,” Britton said. “I know it’s interesting, but there’s no time for this now. I promise we can go on a hike once we’ve got everything settled.”
Marty came along reluctantly, making petulant-sounding clucks deep in his throat and straining to look at the squirrel over his shoulder as they went.
While the rest of them rested, Marty examined the new world with absentminded curiosity. He nearly danced with delight, his ears quivering, pointing at cluster of juniper berries, before gathering them and pressing them into the pockets of his parka.
“Can eat!” Marty said, racing back to them with a handful of shriveled and frostbitten-looking mushrooms. Britton looked at the Goblin doubtfully.
“I don’t know, Marty…”
The Goblin cast a worried eye at Therese. “Must eat,” he said more urgently, then sniffed the mushrooms, wiggling his ears and smacking his lips. “Can eat!”
“Do you think they’re safe?” Therese asked, raising an eyebrow. “He does have a knack with plants.”
Britton frowned. “He has a knack for medicinal plants, but these are plants he’s never seen before. He’s in a totally different world. Being hungry is bad, but getting sick right now would be a lot worse. Better not to risk it.”
He looked at Marty and shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. I think you need to curb your enthusiasm here.”
The Goblin looked annoyed and began to gesture wildly.
Britton sighed. “Please, guy. You’re at a ten. We need you at around a four.”
Therese giggled, and Marty stuffed the mushrooms into his pocket with a resigned wave of his hand.
A few of the enrollees had sagged against tree trunks in the magically heated air. Britton looked at Therese,
