I skipped a rock across the lake. “He was just trying to protect his people,” I said.
Rhames laughed. “And that’s why the Pathless will lose,” he said. “They don’t think there’s anything worth dying for.”
After a short prayer, Rhames and Johnson pulled out their MRE rations and tore open the brown packaging. Johnson’s was spaghetti. Rhames had meat loaf. They offered me one, but I refused.
“You should eat,” Johnson said. “You’ll stunt your growth.”
“Too late for that,” Rhames said with a snort.
I watched Rhames’s reflection as he ate. He was a piggish-looking man with a blunt nose and deep-set eyes. A scar at his temple made a part in his trim salt-and-pepper hair and ran down one cheek. I looked away, remembering how I’d cringed as he towered over me. How he’d barely checked his swing when he’d shattered my arm with the bat. He said it had to look real if it was going to work.
“How much longer?” I asked.
As if in answer, a black spot appeared over the mountains and dropped soundlessly into the lake’s valley. As it drew closer, I saw it was the returning Fed Apache. It was about a mile out when the smoke trail of a Path Stinger missile streaked across the blue sky. The Apache tried to dodge, but the missile struck the helicopter broadside and it went up in a furious explosion.
Behind us came a gasp and then the sound of rushing bodies as the evacuees ran to their vehicles. But it would be too late for them too.
Rhames and Johnson said another prayer and then finished their meals. When they were done, they set about meticulously tidying up, putting the MRE wrappers back into their packs, brushing crumbs from their uniforms and checking for stains. One of the first things we learned after we were taken is that Path soldiers existed to set an example for the Pathless, so no detail was too small. So said Nathan Hill.
There was a firecracker chatter of gunfire from the direction of the parking lot, then two explosions that sent tremors through the ground.
“They’ll be given the Choice,” I said. “All of them. That was the deal.”
“You didn’t make a deal,” Rhames said as he stood. “You followed an order.”
Rhames strode away, but Johnson hung back.
“Want to go witness?”
I stared at the edge of the lake and shook my head.
“Arm okay?” Johnson asked, softening his voice now that Rhames was out of earshot. I drew the cast to my chest and said it was. “I hear Captain Monroe is going to make you and James citizens because of this.”
I nodded weakly.
Johnson knelt beside me. “Look, Rhames is just — he’s Rhames, right? You drew a tough assignment, Cal. We all know that. You just have to understand that some of the things we do… you have to put them behind you. Heck, a few years from now the whole country will be on Path, and people will barely remember that things like this happened. It’ll be a whole new world.”
I stared up at the sharp lines of his face until they shifted into a brotherly smile.
“You brought people to the Path, Cal. You should be proud.”
I forced myself to nod, even muscled up a paper-thin version of a smile that seemed to satisfy him. Johnson cuffed my shoulder.
“It’ll be over in about an hour,” he said as he started back to the parking lot. “Choppers will be leaving twenty minutes after that. We’ll be back at Cormorant before Lighthouse.”
The crunch of Johnson’s boots faded and I was alone again. Soon a beacon would be standing in front of the survivors, all smiles and pious concern, to administer the Choice. Unite with the Glorious Path or receive Nathan’s Blessing.
Seconds ticked away. The soldiers would be moving through the crowds now, separating the new converts from the rest and leading them away to their new lives as novices and companions of the Glorious Path. Once they were safely away, the ones who had opted to remain Pathless—
The roar of automatic weapons shattered the lakeside quiet. My body seized, folding in on itself. I tried to drive out the sound with thoughts of Mom and Dad and James, but the firing went on so long that it was useless. Everything in me and around me was wiped away by that one awful sound.
And then, all at once, the firing ceased. I sat in that tense after-action silence, staring into the dark of my closed eyes.
I lifted my head, blinking away the glare of the sunlight. The lake was a glassy calm, reflecting a pale blue sky and streaks of clouds. The shadow of a Path Black Hawk flew over me, its rotors kicking up a cloud of tan dust.
I stood by the lake until my legs steadied, and then I walked back to the lot.
3
We made it to Arizona just before dark. Beacon King was waiting at the landing pad when the Black Hawk touched down. Hunched over and mouth covered with a cloth to keep out the dust, he hustled us all through Cormorant’s operations center.
There was the usual rush of activity around us as uniformed men moved in and out of the plywood-and- corrugated-steel command buildings. Radios blared and vehicles roared. Electric lights shone everywhere.
The noise lessened when we reached the canvas tent that stood at the edge of the ops center. There, soldiers turned over their weapons and radios and any other bit of the modern world on their person. Once that was done, we followed Beacon King inside.
The tent was lit with candles and smelled faintly of sandalwood incense. We dropped to our knees before Beacon King and bowed our heads.
“I am a blade in the hand of God,” we intoned. “To walk the Path he has set for me, I must put my hand to worldly things. This is a sacrifice I make for my brothers and sisters. When his kingdom has come, I will forsake these things and be clean again.”
Blessing over, Rhames announced that they were going to squeeze in an after-action meeting before evening Lighthouse began. I saw him looking for me but managed to slip through a gap in the tent wall and disappear. A sentry at the gate that separated the ops center from the rest of the base nodded and let me pass.
My steps lightened as I moved into the residential district. It was quieter there. No coms buzzing, no grind of engines or turn of rotors. No glare of electric lights. I passed the soldiers’ and citizens’ barracks and made my way down the hill to the novices’ district.
A group of companions came up the road from their own barracks on the far side of Cormorant. There were ten of them, huddled close together, ghostly in their white robes and veils. I moved off the path and stood, eyes cast down, as the shepherd at the head of the flock hurried them along.
When I looked up again, one of the companions had paused on the road and was staring at me. Her eyes were wide shadows beneath her veil. She raised one hand gently to her cheek and I understood. The bruises. The cast. I must have looked as bad as I felt. I waved her away and she glided up the hill with the others.
Two oil lamps sat just inside the door to our barracks. I lit them both and was relieved to find the place empty. Our fifty or more barracks mates were either finishing up the day’s work or already wolfing down dinner in the mess before it was time to go to Lighthouse.
Standing in the doorway, I cast my eye down the two lines of steel bunk beds. I saw what I was looking for immediately. Top bunk. Last row. A single cardboard box. I grunted from the pain in my side and shoulder as I reached up and pulled the box off the bunk. A single folded piece of paper sat on top.
To Callum Roe:
Please report to Captain Monroe, Base Commander, at 0900 tomorrow morning. Kennel Master Quarles
