25
Selah screamed, then her knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor. The force of the blast that had propelled her out the front shield had sheared off the remaining command chairs about halfway up.
There was no question that Taraji and Mojica, still strapped in their seats, were dead.
Selah stared at Taraji’s lifeless hand slumped over the side of the chair. Mari moved up beside her and helped her to her feet.
“They never knew what hit them,” Mari said.
Tears streamed down Selah’s face. “I don’t know how to deal with this. Both of them at the same time.” She waved a hand. “They don’t have—” She slid back to the floor. Her stomach heaved and rolled in waves. She bent over and retched.
Mari held Selah’s hair away from her face and rubbed her back as Selah emptied everything. Her heart ached for the mentor and friend she had lost.
“How do I tell the rest? I can’t let them see this.” Selah glanced around at the chaos. “They need to be covered.”
“There’s nothing here that we can use,” Mari said. “This place isn’t stable. We shouldn’t stay here.” She tried to help Selah to her feet.
“I can’t leave them.” Selah pulled herself from Mari’s grasp.
Mari swung around. “Where’s Bodhi’s chair?” An explosion punctuated her question. The hull shuddered, and loose material fell from above.
Selah jumped to her feet. She searched the wreckage where his command chair should have been. “He’s not here. What happened? One chair doesn’t vaporize.”
Another explosion and they had to grab onto debris to stay upright. Mari took a quick assessment. “Two chairs are gone. The blast came from behind your chair and out Bodhi’s side of the front shield.” Another explosion and the smoke turned jet black. “He’s outside.”
“You sure?” Selah panicked. Choosing wrong meant his death if he was still in here. There’d be no coming back in.
“Yes.” They both dashed out the hull tear as the last explosion propelled flames thirty feet into the air.
Selah and Mari dove for safety, rolling away in the melting snow. Selah clawed to get her footing as she screamed, “Bodhi!”
She ran for the tracks leading to her abandoned seat. Mari caught up. They both looked for anything recently disturbed. Nothing.
The field had overgrown with tall, heavy bushes during the summer, and now winter’s weight and deep pockets of snow made the areas of dried weeds look like sentries watching the landscape.
Mari methodically searched where Bodhi’s chair would have traveled. Still nothing.
Selah ran in haphazard circles but forced her mind to calm and move in the logical search pattern sequences Mari had taught her. Ten . . . fifteen minutes passed. She grew anxious again.
Mari continued to search her grid pattern, ignoring Selah’s jabbering. But Selah knew her sister was wrong. She had convinced Selah to leave the command deck, and now Bodhi was dead. Didn’t matter that the girl was blood. Why had Selah trusted in Mari’s skills instead of her own intuition?
Selah ran over to Mari and snatched her tactical uniform, turning her around. “Why did you make me leave the command deck? Bodhi is still in there. You killed him.”
Mari stared in her eyes. “If you had stayed there you would be dead.”
“You disregarded Bodhi’s life.” Selah shook her. “Did you do it to save me?”
Mari paused. She stared at Selah, then over Selah’s shoulder. She grinned.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me at a time like this. After all I’ve lost today, how can you be so callous?” Selah’s lip quivered. She wanted to die.
Mari grabbed Selah by the shoulders and turned her around. Selah’s gaze drifted out across the open field. About twenty feet away, an arm wearing a tactical uniform waved above the snow.
Selah ran across the field and dropped in front of Bodhi. Her chest heaved from running, but she managed to talk between gasps. “Are you okay?”
She was afraid to touch him in case he was injured. He mumbled something. She took that to be a yes, he was okay. She disconnected his harness and helped him out of the chair.
“I remember being hit in the back of the head and that was it.”
“I think that was me. The transport’s gone,” Selah said.
Bodhi glanced at her. “Your face says a lot more.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “We lost Mojica and Taraji.”
Bodhi moaned. “How?”
“The blast that blew us from the command deck cut—killed them,” Selah said.
“Are you sure? Both of them?” Bodhi struggled to see where the transport burned.
Mari nodded. “I think we had two separate events going on—equipment failure because of bad parts and Blood Hunters firing a missile.”
Selah and Mari helped Bodhi to his feet. He wobbled at first. “The parts failure I can believe, but what evidence do you have of a missile? How would they even know where Selah was in the transport?”
“Because five minutes before, Selah was peering out that exact window waving goodbye to the kids from Chicago.” Mari led them back toward the burning hulk. “And because of this.” She pointed at the hull. They could clearly see the blown-in effect behind where Selah’s navigator station sat. The structure of her seat had protected her and forced the blast outward.
Rylla ran to Selah, grabbing her around the waist. “Pasha came to but Dane won’t wake up.”
They hurried to Pasha. She cradled Dane’s head and shoulders in her lap. A gash from his head had bloodied Pasha’s top. She looked up at Selah with tears filling her eyes. “He won’t wake up.”
“We have nothing, not even water to give him or a pot to put it in.” Selah searched the landscape.
“Maybe we should search by the lake. There might be other people.” Mari looked around. “Keep an eye out for signs of smoke or shelters.”
“Bodhi, if there are people around, they might be attracted to the fire. Would you stay here to protect Pasha and Dane?” Mari asked.
Selah was glad Mari asked him that way. He had been unconscious for quite a while. Pasha needed to watch him and he needed to watch her.
Bodhi nodded. Mari gave him the heavy stick she had discovered while walking the field.
Pasha rocked back and forth, holding Dane close while she pressed the tail of her tunic against his gash. She lifted her head. “Where’s Mojica and Taraji?”
Selah, Mari, and Bodhi exchanged glances. Pasha stopped rocking. “Where are they?”
Selah pursed her lips as she closed her eyes and shook her head. She didn’t know how to say it with Rylla watching her. “They’re gone,” she said in almost a whisper.
“What do you mean gone? Gone where? Why would they leave us at a time like this?” Pasha looked like she was getting angry.
Selah didn’t have any choice but to be honest. “They’re dead.”
Pasha’s mouth fell open. “Are you sure? Maybe you missed a life sign.”
Mari grimaced. “There’s no chance we made a mistake. They—”
“Now is not the time for details.” Selah nodded in Rylla’s direction.
Pasha pressed her lips together and buried her face in Dane’s chest to cry as she rocked him.
Rylla wrapped her arms around Selah’s waist. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to them.”
“Neither did I,” Selah said. She rubbed Rylla’s back as the child cried.
“You’d better get going before we attract unwanted attention,” Bodhi said.
Rylla tagged along with Selah and Mari to the lake. Selah found it hard to speak. Her emotions were drained but she had to keep going. She worried they wouldn’t find anything usable in the transport after the raging fire. Chicago said there was snow coming. They were out in the elements and close enough to be affected by the same weather.
Selah’s adrenaline rush from the crash had worn off after the first quarter mile. Her legs turned to weights, and Rylla complained her feet were cold. Selah refused to stop. She could see the frozen lake—maybe another half mile.
“What will we do if we can’t find anyone?” After Taraji’s and Mojica’s deaths, Selah doubted whether they could make it. How would she ever be able to get the group to safety?
“We keep moving north to Milwaukee until we can’t go anymore,” Mari said.
“But we need—”
“We need nothing. We will live from the land like my people do. Remember, I’m the big sister here,” Mari said. She smiled softly at Selah and put her arm around her shoulder.
That was the first time Selah understood the feeling of an older sister. It brought a measure of comfort that warmed her for the rest of the walk.
Rylla stood at the top of the hill, staring down at the sloping woods and open shore. Selah and Mari joined her and stared out over the frozen lake before looking up and down the shore. Off to the left about a half mile up the lake Selah spotted a short wooden dock in good shape. It didn’t look abandoned. That meant there were people close by, but she saw no homes or shacks. Her heart sank.
“We should move up or down the shore a half mile looking for help,” Selah said.
“I don’t think we have to go that far,” Mari said. “I’ve seen several familiar trail markings. I just won’t know where the people live until we go down to the shore.”
Selah looked at her like she was crazy, but she was too tired to muster much opposition. “Can you share your theory, please?”
Mari pointed to the lake and led them down the hill. “See those two perfectly round holes? Someone is ice fishing. I figure they have to live nearby because of how fast those holes would close in this weather . . . and because there are different addresses on the trees.”
“What are you talking about?” Selah asked.
The three of them reached the bottom of the hill, and Mari turned to look up it. “And there they are.”
Selah scanned the hill. At least six, maybe eight, homes were built into the hillside at different levels, with the natural curved contour of the land serving as a roof covered with grass. To passersby at the top, there was nothing but the lake. Her hopes were once again bolstered—there could be a whole community around this lake.
Mari led the way to a door and knocked. Almost immediately the door swung open to reveal a short, stout man, maybe four feet six or seven, with a mustache and a tight round cap on his head. He showed no fear of strangers, unlike many of the people Selah had met.
“Why are you knocking on my door?” the gruff little man asked.
“Sir, we’ve been attacked—”
“No, she’s mistaken. It was a propulsion problem. Bad refit parts caused a generator engine to blow,” Selah said.
The man looked back and forth between them like he was unimpressed by either explanation. “So which is it?”
Selah started to answer but Mari stepped in front of her. “The evidence shows we were attacked.”
The man still looked unimpressed. “Are you a Blood Hunter?”
Selah didn’t know which answer would get them help.
“We are not Blood Hunters,” Mari said. “We’ve got several injured people up in the field who we need care for, and we’d like to get them away from the burned transport before Blood Hunters do come by.”
“What kind of wagon do you folks have that travels the field instead of the road?” the man asked.
“We don’t have a wagon—ours is air travel.” Selah was getting nervous saying too much, but the transport wasn’t anyone’s secret machine anymore.
“Well, that’s fancy. You must be rich folks.” The man didn’t budge from his close hold on the doorknob.
“No, not rich, and with our ride still burning, we have nothing to offer you as compensation,” Mari said.
“And you’re not Blood Hunters?”
Selah shook her head. “No, we’re not.”
“Then good, come in. We will help you,” the man said. He lifted a hand piece from the wall and spoke into it, then returned to the group. “Men will bring your people here for rest.”
Selah sat on the floor against the wall. She could close her eyes right now. She was thankful just to have a wall to lean against and a warm fire. “Do you know Milwaukee, Wisconsin?”
“Yes, we know that place. What would your business be there? Not many people there do business with strangers,” the man said.
Selah looked at Mari. She didn’t know what to answer him, but finally said, “We’re on a quest. We have something we’re supposed to find.”
The man had an equally tiny wife, who brought out a tray of cookies and crackers along with a pot of tea.
Selah glanced at Rylla, who had been remarkably quiet since coming into the house.
The little wife scurried over to Rylla. “I saw you limp when you came in. Are your feet cold, dear?”
Rylla bobbed her head up and down. The little woman took her by the hand.
“No!” Selah reached for Rylla. “I’d rather she stay with me.” She was too tired to determine if it was safe for Rylla with these people.
The lady eyed Selah suspiciously and retreated to her kitchen.
Voices at the door preceded Bodhi carrying Dane, who was still unconscious. The little man directed Bodhi to lay him on a bed that Selah suspected was the man’s own, but it barely fit Dane.
The lady came in with a bowl and rags. She looked at Selah. “May I treat him?”
Selah blushed. She hadn’t meant to be rude before. “Yes. Please help my brother.”
The woman went to work with the contents of her first aid basket and stitched the deep gash on Dane’s head, then raised a bottle of vile-smelling liquid to his nose. He bolted upright and immediately began to cry and hold his head. But he was awake, and for that Selah was relieved.
Pasha and the woman took the children into another room while the man and the two who had retrieved the family gathered around the short, wide table. “We’ve got a proposition to offer you folks,” the man said.
Bodhi looked at Selah, who looked at Mari. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.
“We have a shipment that needs to go to Milwaukee. We’ve been having problems the last few months with shipments being hijacked. If your family will act as guards for this one, we will give you a ride to Milwaukee.”
“What kind of shipment is it?” Bodhi asked.
The three men talked among themselves, then turned as a group. “Let us see your right arms,” one of them said.
“Didn’t we just tell you we’re not Blood Hunters?” Mari said. “Why should we show you our arms?”
“It will prove once and for all that you aren’t Blood Hunters, and then we will tell you about the shipment,” the little man said.
Bodhi, Selah, and Mari bared an arm to prove their innocence. The men scrutinized each arm.
“Do you want to check my mother’s also?” Selah asked.
“No, no. If you three are fine, she would be also.” The little man looked excited. “We are the master craftsmen of Lake Michigan when it comes to barreled weapons fabrication. We are also a continual target for the Blood Hunters because we will not fabricate their weapons.”
Bodhi broke into a huge grin. “Do you mean ‘barreled’ as in using bullets?”
The little man nodded. “We are supplying the freedom fighters who battle the Blood Hunters trying to take over the northern part of the lake. We have more fighters than weapons because of the regular hijacking of our shipments.”
“Blood Hunters have been a bane to my existence since the very beginning, so anything to thwart their cause is a good cause to me,” Selah said.
February 15
Selah slept with Rylla and Dane cuddled up beside her on the floor, flanked by Pasha and Mari. Bodhi sat up in the corner to keep guard over all. He and Selah had decided he could sleep in the wagon to Milwaukee and Selah would wake him if necessary.
The perk of being a bodyguard for a weapons shipment was that they got weapons. The little man gladly gave each of the four adults one of his handcrafted rifles. At first Mari declined because she was a bow and arrow person. But the man told her that in a city like Milwaukee she could trade the rifle for a high-tech bow.
At daybreak, they piled in the two sleigh wagons pulled by teams of six draft horses. They wound up the trail to the fields above. The little men drove the sleighs to the burned-out hull of the transport. Selah was saddened by just how little was left. Slender tendrils of black smoke seeped from three areas along the skeleton hull. Everyone stayed in the sleighs while Bodhi and Selah walked around it.
“I’m glad the command deck completely disintegrated in the heat,” Selah said as they walked down the side to the back.
“I thought about Taraji and Mojica. They’d like it this way,” Bodhi said.
“So there’s nothing left of them, but we also have nothing to salvage,” Selah said with a flip of her hand. “Not a data cube or file or anything we worked so hard to collect. What does this mean? Why did we spend so much time collecting everything just to lose it?”
Bodhi shrugged then wrapped an arm around Selah’s shoulders as they trudged back to the sleighs. “Maybe that means we don’t need that stuff anymore.”
“Maybe it just means I’m finished.” Selah smiled wryly and climbed into the sleigh.
In a couple minutes they were gliding across the hard-packed snow headed north. Selah and Bodhi had Rylla with them while Pasha, Mari, and Dane rode in the other sleigh.
Selah could barely keep her eyes open. It was Bodhi’s turn to sleep, but she kept nodding off. Rylla kept nudging her awake. Even the constant bumping and jostling wasn’t enough to keep her eyes open. The scenery just added to the monotony. Snow everywhere. The trees were mostly a form of gray except for the evergreens, which were the only splash of color on the boring landscape. Selah almost hoped for something exciting to keep her awake.
At lunchtime the men stopped for a meal and treated Selah and the family to fruit, crackers, and cheese. There hadn’t been any signs of bandits, and Selah wanted to know if that was unusual. “Do they consistently attack you at a specific place or time?”
“Their new base is centered in Milwaukee,” the little man said. “Blood Hunters don’t usually stray too far from there since we had them charged with raiding once when they strayed into the next county. They’ll attack in the last five miles. The old city of Milwaukee covered the whole area at one time, but now that it has shrunk, the area they attack us from is controlled by outlaws. I’d say it should be around dusk tonight, so when the sun starts to set, stay alert.”
Once lunch was finished and the sleighs started moving, the constant hissing sound of the runners put Selah to sleep again.
Rylla nudged her again and she jerked awake. “The driver says we’ve passed into the hijacking sector. Do you want to sleep more or wake up?”
“I better wake up. Nudge Bodhi.” Selah sat up and stretched her back and arms. She glanced at the empty winter landscape. Other than long shadows and the sun being in a downward slide toward night, the scenery looked the same as it had two hours ago.
Selah checked her weapon and the case of bullets next to her, then she watched Bodhi wake up. He had this thing he did to shake his hair into an organized mess. It normally made her laugh, but today all she could muster was a slight smile.
Bodhi looked up at her and grinned, then his smile faded. “How long has that wagon been behind us?”
The driver of the sleigh yelled back, “I don’t know. He wasn’t there fifteen minutes ago.”
“How close are we?” Bodhi straightened and checked his weapon.
“We have to stop long enough to raise the runners and let the wheels take over since the city area will be devoid of snow. We could travel on the runners if we had to, but they make a lot of noise on hard roads and slow us down,” the man said.
“You’d better signal the other sleigh, hide the kids in the vaults, and get those runners up now so we don’t have to stop again,” Bodhi said.
Rylla and Dane hadn’t been fond of the idea, but the impenetrable munitions vaults were the only safe place for the children if lead started flying. There was plenty of ventilation for a short time. Rylla reluctantly crawled in, and Selah saw Dane do the same.
Selah rose to the driver’s level of the wagon so she could see ahead. The driver’s seat sat several feet higher, giving a broad look at the approaching city of Milwaukee. She was confused about where to look. The Seeker hadn’t been any help. So Selah just kept repeating to herself, You’ll know it when you see it. She needed to will her mind to stay strong enough to find it, whatever it was.
They stopped, and the little men hopped down to raise the runner with hand cranks on each side of the sleigh. They worked perfectly in tune and the sleigh lowered evenly.
Selah turned toward the setting sun, and when she turned back to the east, she caught a bright glint in Milwaukee about three miles away. The few times she had spotted glints in the landscape they were reflections from domes, but that wasn’t the case this time. The next dome had been much farther west, and it hadn’t survived the beginning of the magnetic storms after the Sorrows.
The sleighs were now wagons with huge lumbering wheels and a decidedly bumpier ride. Rylla complained from inside the vault. Selah looked down at her. “The ride is almost over.” When she looked up, she saw the glint again. She pointed at it. “Bodhi—”
A shot rang out. Selah ducked. The driver whipped the horses into a gallop and Selah lurched to the back. Bodhi caught her and put her back on her feet. She reached for her weapon and returned fire to the building on the right side of the road. Bodhi took the left.
The little man peered from beneath his seat and pointed as he yelled, “There’s the city gates! We get inside and we’ve made it.” He reached out and slapped the whip to the horses’ backsides.
If they continued to go this fast they’d clear the gauntlet in another minute. A bullet ricocheted from the side of the munitions vault. Rylla yelped. It bit into the heavy wood side, chucking a splinter at Selah’s face. The wood sliced her cheek, and red dripped on the back of her hand. She wiped it away with her sleeve and pulled the trigger.
“The first wagon made it!” the little man yelled as he put the whip to the horses again.
Gunfire from both sides of the street sent a hail of bullets into the wagon. The whip cracked and the horses pulled faster. Suddenly the wagon dipped in the front as it slammed into a wide and deep depression. The back end came up at Selah as if in slow motion. The weapon lockers slid forward in the cargo channel and reached the munitions vault. They stood up on end as the wagon bed flipped free of the sleigh base and sling-shotted the weapons case and munitions vault into the street, with the wagon bed tumbling behind.
Selah and Bodhi dangled by the framework of the sleigh as it flipped and rolled. The horses ran out of control toward the city gate. The harness was still connected to the sleigh frame, where it tangled when the wagon bed flipped off. The frame bumped and zigzagged, hopping on end. Selah thought of jumping, but she wanted to be closer to the gate and didn’t want to leave Bodhi.
The frame disintegrated, releasing the horses and throwing Bodhi off to the left. Selah slid off to the right. She dug at the ground, getting her footing in the slippery dirt and snow mess. Shots grew closer from the dilapidated century-old buildings. The shooters were dialing in their aim so they didn’t have to move any closer. They probably hadn’t planned on chasing the wagon to the gate, but two people on foot must have looked like an easier target.
Bodhi lay near the final destination of a weapons crate that had rolled up the road and split. Selah scrambled to him, trying to find the munitions vault. She couldn’t see it. It had to be in the wagon debris. A shot came closer, kicking up a wad of frozen mud about ten feet in front of them. Selah hauled Bodhi behind the split crate. The metal bottom would at least give visual protection.
Bodhi shook his head to clear himself. “How far to the gates?”
“About a hundred feet. I’m going to get guns and see if I can find Rylla,” Selah said.
“Are you crazy? The guns are back where they’re shooting at us. If Rylla’s still in the vault, she’s safe. We’ll find her,” Bodhi said.
“They’re using a stationary gun and the person doesn’t know how to shoot. If I run down there, they won’t be able to dial in distance adjustments that fast. We learned tracking that way as kids,” Selah said. She knew she wouldn’t be able to do this kind of stuff much longer.
She didn’t wait for an answer but took off running. She grabbed the first two weapons that weren’t broken and glanced around for the vault. Where did it go?
The weapon fired at her three more times, but she ran back serpentine style so the shooter would have to work at tracking her. A bullet ripped into her right arm, spinning her around. White-hot pain bit into her arm as Selah slid feet first behind the crate.
Bodhi’s eyes were wide. He shouted, “Why did you do that?”
“Because I could. I still don’t see Rylla.” She grabbed at her arm. Was she being reckless to save Bodhi and Rylla, or reckless because she knew she was dying anyhow? She glanced at the burned, streaked furrow cut through her coat near her shoulder.
Selah fished in her pockets for the extra magazine the little man had given her. Bodhi did the same. They barraged the stationary weapon location and it went silent. They ran toward the gate.
A new weapon started firing at them. One that fired a fast flurry of bullets. Selah and Bodhi worked their way down the street as a unit, hiding behind stationary objects and ducking in doorways, with one shooting and the other leading the way.
In front of them, another gun firing repeated bullets cut off their run to the gate.
Selah pulled back where Bodhi had stopped. “Why’d you stop?”
“I’m out of ammunition,” Bodhi said.
Gunfire came from both directions. Selah returned fire until she met with a click.
She looked at Bodhi. “I’m out too. Got any ideas?” A shot ricocheted off a stone building behind them. They both flinched and ducked. More shots. One struck the doorway.
Bodhi smiled. “I love—”
The gate to the city burst open, and an angry mob of little people charged out with guns blazing.
Two of the little men fired rockets, blowing a hole that exposed most of the building’s insides where the second set of repeating bullet guns had come from. Stone and brick rained down on the street, mixing with the gunfire smoke and rocket fire. One man was throwing hand bombs like they were baseballs. He easily took out the pocket of repeating bullet guns and caused several spot fires.
The gunfire aimed at Bodhi and Selah ceased. Bodhi started for the gate, but Selah still wanted to find Rylla.
Bodhi grabbed her by the arm. “You didn’t see the vault. We don’t know where to look.”
She couldn’t talk without shaking. She pushed him away and started down the street toward the fighting. Bodhi grabbed her around the waist and hauled her kicking and screaming to the gate.
He passed through the gate still holding her by the waist, and the opening closed behind him.
He put her down, and Selah stumbled to a plodding walk in a circle. “You stopped me from saving Rylla.”
“You didn’t know where she was. If you did, I’d have gone with you,” Bodhi said.
She fisted a hand to her side to ease the pain cramping her stomach. She breathed hard and continued to circle by the gate. Pasha, Mari, and Dane ran forward to hug them.
Dane looked between everyone. “Where’s Rylla?”
Selah chewed on her lip and pointed to the gate. “She’s out there somewhere. I couldn’t find her. I left her.” She dissolved into tears.
“It will be all right,” Dane said. He looked scared to see Selah crying, so she stemmed the tears.
The gates opened, and the cheering crowd welcomed the victorious little men, who carried the recovered weapons and an open munitions vault between them. Rylla rode in the center.
Selah ran to help her out of the vault and check her over.
“I’m okay, just a little bruised from rolling so many times,” Rylla said.
The little man who had driven the first wagon and given them a place to stay overnight walked to the front of the vault. “We found her under the liner from the sleigh, along with the driver. You were very brave to try to go back there.”
“I’m so grateful to you for saving my Rylla,” Selah said. She shook the man’s hand.
“We want to thank you for giving us a renewed sense of confidence. You are the first high people who have ever fought for us, and that is why my people were willing to fight for you.”
Selah hugged Rylla. “High people?”
A little woman with leather straps full of bullets crossing her chest strolled over. “That’s what we call the people who tower over us. They do their best to intimidate us with their stature and are always talking down to us as though we’re children.”
“Generations ago we had our own community on the lake in Chicago. When they built the dome they deemed us defective and unfit participants for the project, so they used eminent domain and forced us to sell our land to the corporation,” the first wagon driver said.
“I recognized your tree markings from the little wood people near my home,” Mari said.
“We had kinfolk everywhere before the Sorrows. Living on the lake hillsides like we do now was the easiest way to keep them from running us off our land. We built under it instead of on it.”
Selah turned to Mari. “If it weren’t for you seeing the tree markings, we’d never have found these people or this help. I wonder how many others missed the help?”
“We’ve never known strangers that weren’t the hated Blood Hunters, and that’s why we didn’t turn you away yesterday,” the man said. “Maybe now my people will understand that all high people aren’t like Blood Hunters.”
Two little men came forward with an armful of weapons. The little man at the front pointed to the cache. “We owe you combat pay that goes above and beyond what you signed up to do.”
Pasha started to tell him that it wasn’t necessary, but the little man cut her off. “You are in the city now. To go anywhere or do anything you need funds. All you have are the clothes you’re wearing. You may need others soon. Sell these at the market on Layton. It’s in the park, that way.” The little man pointed.
Selah’s group thanked him and started to walk away.
“And don’t sell to Red Crest. He will have you followed, beat up, and robbed to get his money back.”