The sky was gray, as usual. Flakes fell but not in any great number. The top of a nearby tree shook, then stopped.
Soren moved to the side of the road, searching for tracks or any other sign of life. A strong wind buffeted him but he ignored it.
“I don’t like the looks of that,” Robert Montoya said.
To the west, the gray was acting strangely. Instead of its usual flat appearance there were swirls and eddies, as there would be in agitated water.
“Odd,” Soren remarked.
The strongest gust yet made the grass bend nearly in half.
“Into the Hunster,” Slayne directed. He didn’t like the looks of it, either. He climbed into the driver’s seat.
Soren reluctantly turned. He would have liked a few more minutes to walk around and stretch his cramped muscles.
He had taken another step when suddenly a wall of wind slammed into him and knocked him sideways. He lost his balance and nearly fell.
As quickly as it had struck, the wind died.
Montoya had been thrown against the Hunster so hard, he dropped the Jati-Matic. “Where did that come from?”
“Get in,” Slayne said.
Soren looked up. A peculiar keening filled the air, like the distant wail of banshees, growing louder by the second. “Do you hear that?”
“I said to get in. Now.”
The urgency in Slayne’s tone prompted Soren to move. “I thought I was driving.”
Slayne gestured toward the passenger seat. He turned the ignition and was in gear when Soren climbed in. Without delay he headed down the highway, glancing right and left. “I remember a scientist who theorized on the effects of an all-out nuclear war. One of them was what he called nuclear winds.”
“Never heard of it,” Montoya said.
“You should have read more science magazines and less science fiction, Ricco,” Slayne said, using Montoya’s code name instead of his teal name. He had been trying to get them to do the same. “Listen.” He lowered his window several inches.
The keening was now a screech.
Montoya covered his ears. “I don’t like the sound of that, Solo.” He emphasized Slayne’s own code name.
Soren liked it. The wind and the howling made him think of a thunderstorm.
Since he was a child he’d loved storms as other boys loved baseball or video games or cars. Maybe that was part of the reason he later took to Thor so avidly. The thunder god was lord of the storm and embodied all that Soren most admired in nature and in life.
Slayne slowed. He had spotted a field and what appeared to be a gully or a wash. Spinning the steering wheel, he floored it.
The screech had become a shriek. The whole sky seemed to be moving with incredible speed.
Slayne prayed they had enough time. The Hunster bounced over ruts and plowed through weeds, and then they were at the top of the gully. A glance told him it was wide enough and deep enough, and he plunged on down without braking.
For a few harrowing heartbeats the Hunster canted and threatened to roll, but it leveled at the bottom. He turned the engine off.
Above them, the very heavens screamed.
“What do you expect will happen?” Robert Montoya asked.
The answer came in the form of a windstorm to end all windstorms.
Its roar was fit to burst the eardrums. Dust rose in a thick cloud. The Hunster shook so violently, it was a wonder it wasn’t blown onto its side.
Montoya pressed his face to his window. “Madre de dios. How long will this last?”
“No telling.”
“If this were to hit the Home when people were outside …”
Montoya didn’t finish.
Soren settled back, Mjolnir in his lap. He ran his fingers over the new metal handle, admiring how well Richter had duplicated the runes on the original. Only now each rune was a stud that controlled a specific function. He couldn’t wait to put the hammer to the test in actual battle.
Soren turned to Montoya. Since they had nothing else to do until the wind stopped, he thought it time he learned more about his fellow Warrior. “Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I was born and raised in San Diego.” Montoya’s features clouded. “My Madre, my padre, my sisters, my brothers, they’re all gone.”
“You still have your wife.”
“Si. If not for Theresa, I don’t know what I would do. She’s my anchor and my life.”
For the first time since they met, Soren felt a fledgling bond.
Montoya was housed in E Block, and they had only been thrust together a week ago to prepare for the SEAL run, as Carpenter liked to refer to it. “What did you do berate the war? I was in construction.”
Montoya chuckled. “I was in the army. Stationed at Fort Riley. When the task force was destroyed, I phoned Theresa and had her fly to Denver. I met her there and we flew on to Minnesota.”
“They let you leave the base?” Soren recalled hearing on the radio that all military leaves had been canceled.
“I’m AWOL,” Montoya said quietly.
“You did what you had to do to get your wife to safety,”
Slayne interjected. “If you hadn’t left when you did, you’d have been stranded when all the aircraft were grounded.”
Soren discovered that Montoya had been in the First Infantry Division and was rated a marksman. “It will be great to work together.”
“Or die together.”
“Stow that kind of talk,” Slayne growled. “You’re a Warrior now, mister, and Warriors don’t die without my permission.”
Soren and Montoya both laughed, and were promptly sobered by a blast of wind that shook the Hunster down to its axles.
The minutes crawled. Half an hour became an hour and the hour became two. All around them, cyclonic winds raged.
At one point Slayne shifted in his seat to say, “Remember what I told you back at the Home. In the field, use your code names, not your real names. Robert, you should be used to stealth ops. Soren, you were a civilian, so it might help if you started using our code names all the time so it comes naturally in combat.”
“Wait.” Soren
