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Raine looked down on the rambling farm buildings of the Warren. Under the heavy cloud he and the black gelding were almost invisible in the forest shadows. As he descended he could see the crushed flowers and scarred trees outside, legacy of Burton’s brief invasion before their decoys had lured him back to the city.
The ranger scouting party had already reported the smashed furniture and general damage and disruption he knew he would find inside the farmhouse. It could be fixed, it would heal, but Raine would never understand why some people took delight in destroying things and making them ugly and useless.
He dismounted and led the horse across to the barn.
It’s good to be back, even with what’s happening.
He had already dispatched most of the accompanying rangers onto forest patrol, with only the small tech team here to carry out his orders to reinstate the water and hydro system.
Raine’s priority now was to reconnect the analogue cable in the Warren cellar. He took Evie with him and led the way down the twisting stone steps by the light on his handset, the smell of mildew and damp decay a pungent reminder that this underground cavern was seldom visited except when their transmission cables needed to be either cut off or reconnected.
He carefully removed the concealing stone and the cover plate over the hollow in the wall, brushing a bustling heap of woodlice out of the way before moving aside to let Evie take over. She always took on the next stage in this job because she was small and agile and could wriggle into awkward spaces where his shoulders would have no chance to fit. She lay flat on the cellar floor, wedging her head and upper body into the narrow alcove to splice the cables in the coms hub.
“Raine? Has it connected?” Her voice was muffled as she backed out of the cramped space.
He checked his handset. “Yes, it’s good.” He waited for her to worm her way out of the hole before kneeling on the damp concrete to replace the heavy cover plate. He smeared sealant around it, then lifted the stone back into its place at the base of the wall. When he had filled the cracks with mud and cleared away the scraps of debris the disguise looked as good as it had before. Good enough that the enforcers had failed to find their precious analogue connection when they had raided the place.
Evie walked back to the great hall with him, scrubbing dust and earwigs out of her cropped black hair. The long oak-beamed room was busy with the small maintenance crew working on repairs. Evie looked around at their progress.
“That’s the worst of it done, now the electric and coms are back on. General dirt and damage and the vandalism in the outbuildings should only take a few days.”
Raine smiled. “Take a rest day, get that leg fixed.”
Evie sighed. “I think I’d rather keep busy. I keep wishing it could all be the same as before. As if we had never had to run from here. Everything has changed so much. I know it can never be like before but...” Her words faded as she turned away to help the tech team.
Raine keyed in to the hive. He had been feeling impatient to catch up with events. Within seconds of reading Razz’s text message, he cut the connection and started hurriedly pushing his surgical kit and the last of their stock of phage cultures into his pack.
“Where are you going?” Evie’s eyes were wide with more questions.
“Luc is in a bad way. He and Karim are heading back to the Tarn and they don’t know we’re here. I’m going to find them.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Evie, are you sure?” He had been keeping an eye on her, and not only because he was worried about how unhappy she was. If the breakup with Luc had hurt her to the point of being unable to focus properly, she would put herself and everyone else in danger.
She held his gaze. “Yes. Sure.”
“Good. Fetch the horses. I’ll try to contact Karim.”
*
Karim was kneeling on a grassy bank at the side of the river track, helping Luc to sit up and drink some water. He had lasted for thirty minutes of riding before passing out again.
He’s burning with fever. At this rate it’s going to take us a week to get as far as the Tarn and he doesn’t have that long...
His handset buzzed and he rummaged for it with his free hand.
Raine’s voice, faint but unmistakable.
“Karim, where are you? We’re on our way to find you.”
Karim checked the surroundings, making his best estimate. “Riverside track, about half an hour downriver from the south bridge... You’re at the Warren?” Waves of relief swept over him. All the doubts and fears he had tried to bury and ignore...
He leaned down to make sure his friend could hear him through the fever. “Luc, just hang in there a bit longer. Raine is coming for us.”
They waited until Karim felt the familiar vibration in the earth that told of horses hard ridden and approaching fast. Then Raine was there, kneeling beside Luc, peeling back sodden bandages, checking the damage.
“The burn is infected. That’s why he’s getting sick.” He started pulling out meds and surgical kit. Luc opened his eyes, squinting against the dull light, laying a fevered hand on Raine’s arm.
“Raine. Did I do okay?”
“You did fine. More than anyone could have asked.”
“If I don’t make it back, will you tell Evie I––”
“Tell her yourself. She’s here.”
Evie moved into place at his side, ready to assist with the surgery, her dark eyes looking down coolly at Luc.
“If you don’t make it back I swear I’ll kill you.”
Luc almost managed to laugh.
It was more than an hour later when Raine peeled off the surgical gloves and packed his instruments.
“That’s the bleeding and I hope the infection fixed, but there’s no way Luc can spend another night in the open. We take him back now.”
Karim and Evie lifted Luc to ride in front of Raine and the big gelding carried them both as they headed north. Karim lead Luc’s horse and regaled Raine and Evie with stories of the time he had spent in the white-tiled underground station and in the company of the homeless man under the bridge with the smell of paint stripper oozing from his wine bottle.
Then Raine listened while Evie filled in a few gaps for Karim on how their separate stories had played out. She seemed to be handling the reunion with Luc with a remarkable level of calm, but he couldn’t be sure how it would work out once the initial emergency was over. Right now she was absorbed in describing how Burton’s military crew had fired the forest with phosphorous and how Bel had kidnapped Parry.
“And there was too much dope on the arrowhead and the colonel passed out completely! So Bel had to hang onto him to get him across the river, even more than Raine is having to hang on to Luc.”
Karim glanced at the churning floodwater beside the trail. “Oh. I’d forgotten the south bridge was out. How bad is the crossing after all these storms?”
“Deep and fast again. We didn’t come that way. We came along the ridge past the herder’s hut. That’s how we’ll go back, easier for Luc than fording the river while it’s like this.”
The Warren was quiet now with the tech crew catching up on messages and almost everyone else out on patrol. With barely half a dozen rangers using the place there was space for Luc in one of the downstairs rooms at the back of the big farmhouse. He seemed to be responding well to the phage cultures and his fever was easing.
Raine helped Evie to get him covered in blankets, becoming very aware of the private barrier she was holding around herself.
Luc noticed it too. “Evie? I feel I should try again to say I’m sorry for all the lies, now you’re not actually throwing things at me.”
She handed him a mug of hot soup, her eyes full of regret for what might have been.
“I know you mean it. But it’s not really about the past. It’s about being able to trust you in the future. Let’s just get you through this. Then maybe we can think about starting over.”
He squeezed her hand. “Better than I expected. I know you want more than words. I’ll be working on it.”
Raine left Luc and Evie to sort themselves out and went to finish moving his gear back into his old office, wondering why an apparently straightforward objective like overthrowing a corrupt regime always seemed to get complicated by relationships and personal disasters.