The townspeople had always hated war maggots and now they were just more of the same. Displaced and on the move, hoping they’d find some solace or safety. And despite all the antipathy Mahlia had for them, she found herself wishing them luck, and an easy path under the eye of the Fates.

The people fled with rice and sacks of potatoes and anything that they could carry, and it was heartbreakingly little. She watched them rise from the fog, and disappear again, and she wondered at their future.

Would they ever have a chance of settling again, or would they all end up like her, cast off and wandering, without hope of shelter ever again? Would another village take them in, or would it fight them off?

And then Tool would tap her shoulder and they would climb from their hiding place and glide deeper into the thickening smoke.

The third time Tool motioned Mahlia off the trail, he didn’t make her hide, but instead he stopped short, sniffing, and then turned and guided her back the way they’d come. She wanted to ask what he was doing, but she took her cue from his absolute silence.

Ever since they had started toward the village, he had not used his voice, and even now, as he guided her off the trail and into the tangling kudzu, and then onto another path that she hadn’t even guessed was there, the half-man didn’t say anything.

“Why?” she whispered.

The half-man motioned her sharply to silence. He mimed with his hands, as if he were holding a rifle, then held up fingers, pointing back the way they had come. Pretended as if he were squatting. Held up six fingers again, looking at her significantly.

Six soldier boys. Sitting on the trail, waiting in ambush. Without Tool, she would have walked right into it.

They eased down the new path. Mahlia’s anxiety increased. The silence was terrifying.

Suddenly Tool grabbed her and pushed her down, hand over her mouth. She tried to fight him off, but then the guns opened up and she heard people crying and screaming, and soldiers laughing and shouting, and then more shooting, and all the while, Tool lay beside her, hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t cry out and give away their position.

They weren’t more than fifty feet away. That close. She could hear someone moaning in the smoke, sobbing. She heard footsteps. There was a quick scuffle and someone cried out. The sobbing stopped.

“Dumbass civvies,” someone said. Someone else laughed. The soldiers. Right there beside her. Not more than a couple yards away. Slowly their voices moved off. Another person cried out in pain.