Stranger (31 page)

Jennie

“
DAD
WOULD LET ME GO!” RICO'S VOICE WAS SHRILL.
“I'm fifteen!”

Jennie didn't care that he was small for his age, but not only did he look twelve, now he was acting it.

His mother, Ms. Salazar, obviously thought the same thing. “Rico, fifteen is too young.”

“Same age as Yolanda Riley, and she's going! Just because I'm shorter—”

“Yolanda is very responsible—” Ms. Salazar began.

“I'm the only firestarter in town. They need me!”

His mother's aura began to flash in an agitated pattern. Jennie suspected that they were both thinking the same thing: Rico would be essential if Brisa was taken out. If Brisa was killed.

“If you let me take Rico, I promise to personally protect him,” Jennie said.

“Mom . . .” Rico whined.

Jennie briefly closed her eyes. Collecting him along with Yolanda and José had seemed such an obvious idea, but he was reminding her of the kids who'd gone berserk on the snake patrol.

Ms. Salazar's aura flared like a welding arc. “I hold you responsible, then, Jennifer Riley.” She began sorting weapons, her hands shaking, her profile grim.

“Yes!” Rico pumped his fist in the air.

Sera gave Jennie a sympathetic smile. “And that's command in a nutshell.”

After all the trouble she'd gone to in order to get Rico, Jennie now wished she could change her mind. But that would cause an even bigger stir—and she was out of time. She tried to ignore the sick sense that she'd made a huge mistake.

All the Rangers were poised to go. The sight of them geared up eased her tension, as if she had been traveling alone and had finally come home to her family.

“Armor off,” ordered Sera. She turned to Brisa, José, Yolanda, and Rico. “We have extra gear in that trunk. Change fast, or you stay behind.”

The Rangers swiftly removed their weapons and helped one another out of their armor, leaving them in black night-training pants and shirts. They needed to be fast and silent.

There was a shared rhythm of movement, almost of breathing, habitual from years of drill. Jennie had found her own place in that pattern. She didn't forget the danger of the mission, but there was comfort in the unity of purpose.

As Sera unstrapped her leg armor, she asked softly, “You see Paco? Or is he with Doc Lee?”

“Dr. Lee must have healed him. He's out with Yuki's team.”

Sera made a rueful face. Jennie knew she didn't like Paco's talking the doctor into shaving months off his life, but Sera silently straightened up and dusted down her black clothes.

“Ready,” everyone said. Rico hastily rolled up his pants; Brisa yanked out her ribbons and tossed them on top of her dancing clothes.

“Weapon up,” Sera said.

As the Rangers swiftly rearmed themselves, Jennie handed each of her charges a backpack loaded with Mia's explosive bottles, carefully wrapped in cloth.

José pulled on his pack. “Now you're one of the team,” he told Rico.

“Do I swear an oath now?” he asked hopefully.

“Ask again in three years, when you've finished Ranger training,” said Indra.

Jennie checked her weapons with damp hands. Her tension was mirrored in her companions' faces—except for Rico, who grinned happily.
He doesn't really realize that this isn't a drill,
she thought,
where people get up at the end, wash off the red dye, and go to Luc's to cool down. This is the real thing.

“Let's go,” Sera said.

They took off along the east wall. The sentries backed up against the shields to let them pass. Rico and Jennie fell in last.

Jennie put her hand on his shoulder. “Rico, this is not a game. One mistake, and Voske's soldiers will kill you. They don't care if you're fifteen, or five. Get it?”

“I got it, I got it,” he said impatiently.

Indra fell back, looming deliberately over Rico. “Forget Voske's soldiers. If you make one sound, or one move that wasn't ordered,
I
will kill you.” His hand dropped casually to the machete hanging from his belt.

Rico's eyes rounded.

Indra's voice dropped to a menacing whisper. “Understand?”

Rico nodded, clearly too intimidated to speak.

As Rico hurried to catch up with José, Indra fell in step beside Jennie. It was good to feel the heat of his body so close beside her. Nasreen must have felt that same heat at the dance. Jennie pushed aside a flash of jealousy. She had made her choice, and she wanted Indra to be happy.

His braid swung over his shoulder as he grinned. “Having fun?”

“Absolutely.”

“I see you staged an invasion just to escape the schoolhouse and go out with us.”

“And it worked!”

Indra laughed. Jennie joined in, enjoying the excitement and satisfaction of doing an important job with a companion she could trust. Their feelings might not be completely resolved, but right now it was unimportant. They were living in the moment, running side by side.

At the easternmost point of the wall, the Rangers stopped. One dropped down a rope ladder.

Sera beckoned to them all. “We'll go covert as soon as we're down. Jennie's team, that means no talking. If you hear our signals, obey them, but don't try to do them yourself. Listen up:

“Tom and I invented these for the Rangers. This is ‘I'm here, where are you?'” She whistled the call of a nightjar. “This is ‘Get ready.'” She put her fingers in her mouth and made the rasp of a cicada. “This is ‘Retreat.'” She hooted like an owl. “And this is ‘Execute mission.'” She yodeled like a coyote on the run. “Hit the ground,” she said. And then, quietly, “Let's move.”

Rico had to show off by leaping from halfway down the ladder, but when everyone ignored him, he quietly fell in behind José. Sera brought up the rear.

Tom,
Jennie thought as the team ran in twos through the rows of corn, heads low. She had never understood the bond between domineering Tom Preston and deadpan Sera Diaz and the jolly man everyone had called Uncle Omar. Jennie remembered how Mr. Preston and Sera had looked at each other at the news of Omar's death in a bandit ambush.

Now Sera was leading a team against Voske, the man they had all once worked for. She and Preston never talked about those days, at least not to anyone born in Las Anclas—but she wondered what they said in private.

The smell of the air changed; they'd reached the soy fields. She'd been running on instinct, relying on the Rangers' lead, but now she began listening. The team barely made a rustle as they ran low.

When they passed the bridge southwest of the singing tree, Sera pointed three fingers toward the gullies. Three Rangers peeled off to catch the tarantulas they meant to use as a distraction, using baskets and dead chickens as bait. The rest shifted toward the road; they were entering the area of maximum danger, for they had to be directly east of the attackers.

A thrashing of bushes spiked Jennie's nerves. Her hand closed on her knife. Rico faltered, looking around.

There was a crunch, followed by a soft thud. Whatever had attacked the Ranger pair in front was no longer a threat. Jennie flipped her thumb up. Rico shakily returned it.

They ran on. Twigs rattled again. This time she saw the threat, a charging javelina, moonlight glinting on its tusks and bared teeth.

Indra was nearest. He whipped out his machete, sidestepped, and brought the steel down on the back of the javelina's neck.

The line skirted the fallen beast and ran on. Soon afterward Sera halted them, indicated Jennie, and pointed toward the enemy:
time to scout.

Jennie ran on, placing her feet carefully. She could hear voices. The danger was no longer from animals; it was from the humans themselves.

Twinkling lights—partly shaded lanterns—were visible a hundred feet ahead. She dropped and crawled over the crops that Voske's soldiers had trampled, her hands and knees sinking and sliding on pulped squash. About fifty feet away, she belly-crawled. Slimy pumpkin bits worked their way into her clothes and slid unpleasantly across her skin.

Glints and shadows resolved into a line of posted guards behind close-packed barrels and boxes: ammunition.

She fixed the scene in her mind, then began to inch backward. A roving guard, swinging lantern in hand, skirted a barrel less than twenty feet away. Jennie froze, not even breathing, as the footsteps crunched steadily by.

After they faded, she resumed her crawl, wriggling backward until she no longer could see individual barrels or guards. Then she got to her hands and knees, retreating . . . retreating . . . where were they? Had she missed the team? The thought of crawling alone into the desert, with its cougars and acid lichen and singing trees, was terrifying.

She licked her lips and whistled the nightjar call. Sera's nightjar whistled back. They were about thirty feet to her left. She reached them in a burst of speed.

Sera held up her hand. Jennie couldn't see her expression, but her attitude was one of expectation—and release. She could hear Sera's voice, after countless drills: “Over to you.”

Jennie pointed to her four, breathing steadily to keep her frantic heartbeat under control. Steady, steady. Smooth. Just like drill. Rico's eyes were wide, his mouth solemn.

She pointed at the barrels. She and her team crawled toward the enemy.

Y
UKI

YUKI'S HEAD ACHED, BUT AT LEAST HE COULD SEE
again.

The moon shone clear and bright, flooding the desert with silver, as he followed Julio beyond the yellow nimbus of the wall lights.

The rest of the team caught up, panting. Paco was limping badly, his face drawn with pain. Yuki pulled him aside, and kept his voice low. “You should go back.”

Paco gave what passed for a reassuring smile. “It's fine. I'll hold this position.”

“Start counting paces from here,” Julio called. “Bow team captains, station a fighter every twenty-five paces. On my signal, lie flat. When you hear my next signal—when the enemy is within range—attack. Yuki, place your team first.”

Meredith poked Yuki as they began counting. “Don't forget to test-fire Mia's crossbow. Nothing worse than a completely new weapon in the middle of a fight.”

He held up six arrows: he hadn't forgotten. She watched as he loaded the crossbow, braced himself, aimed at a scrub oak, and fired.

The bow slammed into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. He scrambled up and dusted himself off. “Good thing I brought a regular one, just in case.”

“It tore up that oak,” Meredith said. “Too bad you can't use it.”

“I could if I was up against a wall.” He slung the bow across his back.

“I hope it doesn't come to that.” His sister adjusted her glasses with difficulty; the bandage kept getting in the way. “Can you see the enemy?”

He peered toward the tent of hazy light above the town, and shook his head. The stridulation of crickets drowned out any other sound. “Wonder how Mom's doing.”

“Oh, I'm sure she's fine. I think I scared her half to death, though.”

“You scared
me
half to death.”

“I was startled,” she protested. “It was wet. I slipped.”

“Twenty-five. Meredith, here's your position.”

He began counting again, moving until his entire team was placed. Then he took up his own position as Julio's people moved off into the darkness.

He stood gazing at the distant walls, outlined by tiny lights. Even after all the fighting, the whole battle felt unreal, as if he might wake up at any moment to the dull, peaceful routine of Las Anclas life.

A coyote yipped twice in quick succession, followed by a long howl. Julio's signal. Yuki dropped to the cold sand. Now everything felt real. He shivered.

Then Julio blew his horn. The enemy—already? Yuki leaped to his feet. As battle cries rose up all around him, he gave voice to his own, and charged.

Mia

ALL AROUND HER, PEOPLE SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF
their lungs.

What am I supposed to yell?
Mia thought.

Just like Ross had warned, she was thinking too much. He'd said not to think at all. How did you not think at all?

Flames glowed on faces, armor, upraised swords. Now that Voske's secret attack was ruined, his people had lit their torches. The mass of running soldiers resolved into individuals.

Clutching her crossbow, she calculated distance versus velocity. Ten steps more, and she could shoot . . .
five
 . . .
four
 . . .
three
 . . .
two.

She aimed and shot. The man stumbled to his knees, clutching his shoulder. He wasn't wearing armor. She slapped another arrow into the crossbow and cranked hard. There was someone, thirty degrees to the west.
Five
 . . .
four
 . . .
three
 . . .
two
 . . . She shot. The arrow hit the woman's chest and bounced off, not even slowing her. That one wore armor.

Load, calculate, shoot. Load, calculate, shoot. She shot too quickly, and the arrow flew over the next soldier's head. But Meredith dropped him when he was just ten feet away.
Teamwork!
Mia exulted. She could do this. It wasn't that hard: load, calculate,
aim
, shoot.

She grabbed another arrow, fingers sweaty; she nearly dropped it. Into the crossbow. Load, calculate, aim, shoot—

That arrow and two others hit a soldier. But the next woman over ran straight toward her—too close to shoot.

She flung down her bow and yanked out her short sword. Ross was right. It had come to hand-to-hand. Exactly what she wasn't good at! And thinking that she wasn't good at something was a thought, which was what she wasn't supposed to have. And thinking that thinking—

Something slammed into her, knocking her flat on her back. She stared up as a man loomed over her with a sword—

She flung herself to the side. The blade sank into the earth where her head had been.

From the ground, she saw the joint at his knee gape open. Using both hands, she drove her sword into it. The man screamed and fell.

Mia scrambled to her feet. It had worked! She'd fought without thinking. Of course, now she was thinking again. Looking around wildly, she saw that there was no one left to fight. The enemy had retreated.