“Young man, it’s time for ye to mount yer trusty mule and go back to Seafront. If there are riders coming after us, ye must turn em aside with a few well-chosen words. Will’ee do that?”

Sheemie looked stricken. “I don’t have any well-chosen words, sai Thorin, so I don’t. I hardly have any words at all.”

“Nonsense,” Olive said, and kissed Sheemie’s forehead. “Go back at a goodish trot. If’ee spy no one coming after us by the time the sun touches the hills, then turn north again and follow. We shall wait for ye by the signpost. Do ye know where I mean?”

Sheemie thought he did, although it marked the outmost northern boundary of his little patch of geography. “The red ’un? With the sombrero on it, and the arrow pointing back for town?”

“The very one. Ye won’t get that far until after dark, but there’ll be plenty of moonlight tonight. If ye don’t come right away, we’ll wait. But ye must go back, and shift any men that might be chasing us off our track. Do ye understand?”

Sheemie did. He slid off Olive’s horse, clucked Caprichoso forward, and climbed on board, wincing as the place the mule had bitten came down. “So it’ll be, Olive-sai.”

“Good, Sheemie. Good. Off’ee go, then.”

“Sheemie?” Susan said. “Come to me a moment, please.”

He did, holding his hat in front of him and looking up at her worshipfully. Susan bent and kissed him not on the forehead but firmly on the mouth. Sheemie came close to fainting.

“Thankee-sai,” Susan said. “For everything.”

Sheemie nodded. When he spoke, he could manage nothing above a whisper. “’Twas only ka,” he said. “I know that... but I love you, Susan-sai. Go well. I’ll see you soon.”

“I look forward to it.”

But there was no soon, and no later for them, either. Sheemie took one look back as he rode his mule south, and waved. Susan lifted her own hand in return. It was the last Sheemie ever saw of her, and in many ways, that was a blessing.

12

Latigo had set pickets a mile out from Hanging Rock, but the blond boy Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain encountered as they closed in on the tankers looked confused and unsure of himself, no danger to anyone. He had scurvy-blossoms around his mouth and nose, suggesting that the men Farson had sent on this duty had ridden hard and fast, with little in the way of fresh supplies.

When Cuthbert gave the Good Man’s sigul—hands clasped to the chest, left above right, then both held out to the person being greeted—the blond picket did the same, and with a grateful smile.

“What spin and raree back there?” he asked, speaking with a strong In-World accent—to Roland, the boy sounded like a Nordite.

“Three boys who killed a couple of big bugs and then hied for the hills,” Cuthbert replied. He was an eerily good mimic, and gave the boy back his own accent faultlessly. “There were a fight. It be over now, but they did fight fearful.”