Flight of the Wounded Falcon

“I said, we leave at dawn! This is not dawn. This is clearly later than that!”

  Perrin stood on the front porch, holding the almost-three-year-old son of Lek and Salema in his arms. Not an early riser, Fennic gripped his blankie and leaned his sleepy head against his Puggah’s shoulder.

  “Now,” Perrin announced loudly, as if anyone was listening to him as the families swirled around the wagons, figuring out seating arrangements, and throwing in last-minute items. “Fennic and I are loading up and heading out. If anyone wants to join us, you best get in now!”

  With that, Perrin strode off the porch and headed to the first wagon. He climbed up to the driver’s seat, balancing his great-grandson who clung to him, and stood on the bench looking at his family expectantly.

  The family noticed, and mothers and wives began to give hugs, kisses, and a threat or two about behaving to their sons, husbands, and brothers who began to make their ways to their wagons. The younger sisters of the three families cheerfully pushed their brothers toward the wagons, then went back to the Shins’ front porch to wave goodbye.

  Peto nodded to his father and started to climb into the Shin wagon, but he saw something that stopped him. Shaking his head in apology at Perrin, he got off the wagon and walked over to a stand of trees.

  It was a good thing Guarder blood didn’t run too deeply in his daughter’s veins. Had Hycy been dressed in dark clothing like her fiancé, and if she had the deep brown skin like his that matched the shadows in which they were hiding, Peto might never have noticed.

  He pulled his future son-in-law out of the firm clutches of his daughter, abruptly ending their goodbye kiss.

  “It’s good for a young man to leave his beloved for a time before his wedding,” Peto assured Wes as he dragged away the normally reticent twenty-year-old. “Ask the guide. He can tell you better than anyone.”

  He steered Wes, still waving goodbye to his weepy fiancé, to the family’s wagon. Wes reluctantly climbed into the wagon between Young Pere and Barnos.

  “Keep a hand on him, Barn,” his father told him. “And you have my permission to push Hycy off if she tries to sneak over here.”

  Barnos grinned and wrapped a strong, brotherly arm around Wes as his own wife Ivy jumped up on the side of the wagon for one last kiss.

  Lilla, standing near the front porch, caught Hycy by the arm before she had any ideas of copying her sister-in-law.

  Peto hugged his nine-year-old Centia and eleven-year-old Sakal one last time, then climbed into the wagon with the rest of the Shin men and boys who were taking their seats.

  Perrin shook his head good-naturedly at the farewells at his wagon and looked over at the Briters’. They had the most men and the most worried women. His eye caught Jaytsy’s, who was patting ten-year-old Atlee’s head since she couldn’t reach over to kiss him.

  Perrin nodded at her as if to say, Trust me, all right?

  Jaytsy nodded back, kissed her husband one last time, and got off the wagon, pulling her three daughters-in-law after her.

  Bubba carefully dropped his little twin girls Raishel and Reikel off the side of the wagon and waved to them as they toddled over to their aunts on the front porch.

  Holling’s wife Eraliz took their baby girl Jaysie from Banu and waved at him with her little fist.

  Deck took one last hug from his eight-year-old daughter Yenali, did a quick head count of the bodies finally taking their seats in his wagon, and lazily saluted Perrin that his load was ready to leave.

  Perrin next evaluated the Zenos wagon’s readiness.

  Lek was supporting Salema’s large belly as she leaned awkwardly over the bench to kiss Briter. She looked up and waved at Perrin holding her second son, but Fennic didn’t notice. His eyes were closing as he snuggled into his great-grandfather who patted his back in the best Hifadhi beating tradition.

  Calla, along with Boskos’s wife Noria, were saying goodbye to their husbands while Boskos’s little boy Utolian waved cheerfully to his baby sister Callia, cradled in Noria’s arms.

  Perrin cleared his throat loudly, and Shem broke off his kiss with Calla, who then gently tugged Noria and little Callia away. They joined the rest of the women and girls already on the front porch.

  Perrin nodded in satisfaction. “Finally. And now, gentlemen, we get to leave!” He turned around in the front bench and was about to sit down when he saw something that stopped him.

  Mahrree stood in front of his team of horses with her hands on her waist. “I think you’re forgetting something, General,” she said as she tapped her foot.

  Confused, Perrin glanced at Fennic in his arms, then looked at the wagons. “Head count?”

  “All here!” came back the call.

  He turned to his wife. “What, then?”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Me!”

  Some of the granddaughters began to giggle.

  “You’re not coming!” Perrin told her.

  The grandsons chortled in agreement.

  “Of course not, Perrin. I’m talking about my goodbye kiss.”

  His family laughed as Perrin’s mouth twisted in embarrassment. “We may have to skip it this year. Fennic’s almost asleep, and I don’t want to disturb him.”

  “Oh, PERRIN!” Shem called out in disappointment. “You can do better than that!” He turned in his seat to face the Shin descendants. “Let me tell all of you about a few times back in Edge when Perrin and I were about to leave for—”

  “All right, Shem,” Perrin called to cut him off before he could relate any one of a variety of stories when a younger Mahrree and Perrin tormented Shem with their long goodbyes while he sat lonely on his horse.

  Peto held out his arms for his grand-nephew. “Better go, Father. It’s long past dawn, after all.”

  Perrin gave him a playful glare as he passed down Fennic, hopped off the wagon, and sauntered over to his wife.

  “You always could stop all forward progress, couldn’t you?” he teased as he neared her. “You know,” he whispered, making sure no one on the porch could read his lips, “we argued this morning.”

  “Oh, I remember,” she whispered back, blushing slightly. “But I still want a goodbye kiss. And you better make this good, Perrin. Everyone’s watching.”

  “I always loved an audience.” He wrapped his arms around her.

  “No, you don’t! And don’t try to dip me, or your back will seize.”

  “You just never hush up, do you?” he said, and he kissed her.

  Several of their grandchildren clapped and cheered.

  Several others groaned loudly.

  “All right already!”

  “Enough!”

  “I just ate breakfast, come on.”

  “Puggah, it very, very late now.”

  “That’s longer than Papa let me kiss Wes!”

  Deck, over in his wagon, cleared his throat as the kiss continued. “Shem, I seem to remember something you used to whistle back in Edge when they kept you waiting . . .”

  Everyone laughed as Perrin and Mahrree released each other.

  “Perrin, please be careful,” his wife whispered.

  “I always am,” he said, a bit insulted.

  “Of course you are. I’m going to be lonely, you know.”

  “With all of those women all week?”

  “Yes, especially with all the reminders of you around me.”

  He grinned, gave her another quick hug, and said, “I’ll miss you too, my darling wife. Now everyone will blame me for being late.”

  She chuckled and pushed him away. “Then you best be off, General.”

  He winked at her, climbed back up into the wagon, took Fennic from Peto, and pointed ahead. “We’re off!”

  The ride to Norden was pleasantly uneventful. Only Atlee Briter threw up, but that was expected. He did it every time he was in a wagon for longer than half an hour, and his brother Cephas held him over the side when his time came. After that, he could ride for hours with no mo
re problems.

  Nor did Young Pere fall off the wagon this year, which was usually a tradition. But in the past few days, Perrin had noticed that Young Pere seemed to be more sober, more distracted. Perhaps his dive off the schoolhouse had done him some good. Either that or falling off the wagon was anticlimactic in comparison.

  Young Pere didn’t even participate in the wagon-jumping contest he started as an eight-year-old. As the wagons drove side by side on the wider roads, the boys would stand on the edge of one wagon and leap to a neighboring one. Perrin always pretended to not see what they were doing, and their fathers never told their mothers precisely how the boys became hurt. Usually, most of the injuries from the marking trips were acquired well before they reached the routes. It was just another reason no women were ever allowed to come.

  Perrin glanced back a few times at Young Pere, but his grandson didn’t notice. He just stared off at the mountains with a faraway look, never realizing there was bruising occurring all around him, and for once, he wasn’t involved.

  Keeping to his schedules was always important to Perrin, but especially so on the Norden route. It was the furthest from their house and, because of its winding nature, nearly the longest one to traverse, taking a full five days of hiking to mark the entire route, up and back.

  Each of the four main routes from Salem to the ancient temple site was different, because of the varying topography. Testing each route on alternating years was crucial to make sure no rock slides or avalanches had rendered any sections impassable, or that any marked trees had been felled.

  None of the routes were especially difficult, except for the backup route labeled the Back Door. It was in the middle of the routes and started from the temple land expanse that remained untouched and undeveloped. Lately, people had been calling the miles’ long pristine meadows of the temple The Quiet Lands. No one lived near the Back Door route, so no one was really expected to take it, except in an emergency. They checked on it only sporadically when time permitted.

  The longest route was the southern Idumean Trail. It was nearly ten miles, rising up quickly on a steep climb from the valley, then traversing easily along the tops of the mountains until it reached the peaks that overlooked the ancient temple site. While a healthy adult could do the route in a day, as all of the routes could be done—and much faster by a horse and rider who knew the ways as intimately as the Shin, Briter, and Zenos families—hiking the routes usually took about two days, sometimes more, depending on those traveling.

  One of the reasons for the slowness was that travelers had to decipher the markings, then forge their own ways through the forests, meadows, and rock. During the marking party trips, they removed felled trees that blocked too much of the route, but otherwise left it wild. While the deciphering process was a bit cumbersome, Perrin and Peto had tested it over and over with volunteers until they were confident that even the weakest and frailest Salemites would be able to reach safety in two days’ time, with help and with few exceptions, and with adequate warning.

  The warning system devised by Perrin years ago used a system of gray banners to alert Salemites when soldiers were spotted attempting to climb the boulder field above Edge. He’d been surprised to realize that Lieutenants Offra and Radan had made it into the canyon so many years ago, and now he wanted a notice if anyone should happen to even look at the boulders, in order to give all of Salem ample time to reach safety.

  So far, none of those banners had ever seen the light of day, still folded tightly on a little-used bottom shelf of every tower, waiting for the day to send Salemites to the routes.

  Even a route of only a few miles, such as the Lower Middle route which started near the Eztates behind Deck’s pastures and led through the gentle hills before reaching the mountains, could take a full day or more for those unfamiliar with the terrain, or not in the best of health or ability.

  In Weeding Season, some of the meadows grew grasses even taller than Perrin, which easily confused little children not paying attention. Other routes meandered through dense forests of leafy trees with undergrowth of logs and branches that required one to walk carefully, something difficult to do for the elderly who often only shuffled.

  Pack horses didn’t travel too well through those sections either, one of the reasons why Perrin, in his semi-annual lecture about the routes to the Salemites, emphasized that horses be taken only if absolutely necessary. There really wasn’t room on the tops of the mountains for thousands of horses to be stabled anyway.

  In fact, no horses could go to the ancient temple site; there was barely enough room for all the Salemites who would take refuge there. The horses that were necessary to ferry those in need to the top would be turned loose in the high mountain meadows to fend for themselves on the grasses and streams. That was one of the reasons Perrin prayed each year that Idumea wouldn’t come in the Snowing Season; he wouldn’t be able to bear watching the animals starve. But, he’d already privately decided, he’d make room and take feed for Clark.

  Other sections of the routes near the top were just bare rock, requiring careful navigation that slowed many people down, especially those weary from their climb. That’s why the Back Door route, while being the fastest and shortest at not quite three miles, was also not recommended for anyone to attempt, unless absolutely necessary. The last two hundred paces was a steep rocky face with loose stone and no discernible trail. Perrin and Peto had done it the first year they were in Salem, when it was covered by several feet of snow. That was the slope where Perrin took his tumble and slid down all the way to the horses tethered below, before being stopped by the freezing river.

  The route was Perrin’s least favorite, especially when they visited it a few years later to see the rock face the snow had covered. Although the boys loved climbing up it, and Young Pere had always wanted to try leaping off the edge and tumbling down the thick, impenetrable grasses on either side, Perrin had decided that route would be attended to only if they had time. Otherwise it was too risky, especially when four other routes, more accessible to Salemites anyway, existed.

  Next year they would do his favorite route, the Upper Middle route, which held breath-taking views as it went over the peaks, affording clear views of the Norden route to the north and the Back Door route at the south.

  But every Trail Marking week was a good week, Perrin decided years ago. Taking every male member of the Shin-Briter-Zenos families made the excursions adventurous and humorous, and camping for several days with the finest men he had even known reminded him just how perfect his life had become.

  And it would be even more perfect if they stayed on schedule.

  They reached Norden not quite as late as Perrin feared, and got back onto the road only half an hour later, after Mrs. Trovato hugged her two sons-in-law, grandsons, great-grandsons, and even all the other boys she wasn’t related to at least twice.

  Perrin got hugged three times. Shem wasn’t even trying.

  By the time they reached the trailhead to the west, they were an hour behind schedule, because a couple of families near the edge of Norden saw the guide and didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to speak with him for a few minutes, and Shem never turned anyone away.

  But Perrin reminded himself that one year they were nearly two hours late, so this was a vast improvement. Never before did they have so many boys with them, so they were doing well. The more he reminded himself, the closer he came to believing it.

  It was nearly time for midday meal when the noisy group of men and boys, ages one year and nine moons all the way up to seventy-two, and their four pack horses—Clark 14 included, so he could start learning the routes—stood in front of the forest before embarking on the trail marked only by slashes on trees. The young men borrowed from the Trovatos were already driving the three teams back to Norden. They would come back in five days to return the horses and wagons.

  Before anyone stepped into the forest, they watched as Peto stood between the two trees designati
ng the trailhead, pulled out his sharp knife, and etched the slashes he had made four years earlier deeper into the bark of the white aspen trees. The black markings hadn’t healed over, nor had the trees suffered for his cuts. They never found one yet that showed signs of not handling the slashing.

  “Rector Shin, how look the trees?” Perrin called loudly.

  Peto smiled and turned back to him. “Very well, General Shin! Guide Zenos, shall we continue?”

  Shem grinned. “Of course! It’s a beautiful day to do the Creator’s work!”

  None of the three men knew how this little ritual began. Probably the second year when they dragged a reluctant Deck along. But each year before they entered the forest, no matter which of the four routes, they went through their routine as the teens rolled their eyes, the older sons smiled at the custom, and the younger boys looked at their fathers in confusion. The last bit of the speech had to be uttered by Deck before they could continue.

  They all now turned eagerly to him.

  Deck groaned. “Please tell me there’s not much more to this, because I’m already getting hungry. Let’s get moving.”

  “Let’s get moving!” chorused everyone, and Perrin and Shem started up into the trees.

  Deck and Peto glanced at each other to see who would bring up the end for the first leg of the hike as Perrin and Shem rapidly covered ground ahead, with boys trailing behind them. Deck raised his hand to volunteer and Peto nodded. Peto would position himself around the middle of the pack to watch their sons ahead and behind, while Deck herded the slowpokes at the rear.

  The young fathers put their sons on their backs or shoulders, or held their little hands and followed after their grandfathers. The teenage boys came together in a few knots to likely begin planning pranks on each other, and the younger sons scattered themselves among everyone else, picking up pinecones or holding smaller boys’ hands or trying to catch up to Perrin and Shem who set a fast pace.

  Deck looked around to see if he could start walking, but his son Young Shem was sitting on a rock picking at something on his boot, and fifteen-year-old Nool Shin was distracted by an oddly shaped tree branch.

  “Peto,” Deck called up ahead. “Tell Perrin I want Grandpa Boskos’s walking stick. I have a few boys to prod along here already.”

  Peto, talking with his nephew Cephas, chuckled as he saw his father already far ahead of them in the trees, nearly out of hollering range.

  “Sorry, Deck!” he called back.

  “Uncle Deck, look at this tree branch,” Nool said. “It’s got this little split part and a curve—”

  “—which looks perfect.” Deck yanked the branch off the tree and tried it out on his nephew.

  “Ouch! Hey!”

  “Now if you want to look at the branch you only need to lag behind. I have a poking stick, and you have motivation to get walking. Do so. Young Shem, your boots are supposed to get dirty. They’re going to look a lot worse when we come out of here in five days. Now up, or you’ll miss midday meal in two hours.”

  Young Shem jumped off the rock and began to rush through the trees . . . in the wrong direction.

  “Young Shem, stop!” Deck called, but it was already too late. His youngest son, the most directionless child he’d ever met, was already swallowed by the trees.

  “Holling!” Deck shouted at his third son who was well up the slope, “Young Shem’s yours today, right?”

  Holling, in the middle of a conversation with his cousins Barnos Shin and Zaddick Zenos, turned around. “What, already? Has he even started walking yet?”

  Deck pointed in the direction Young Shem now stood, unable to see his brother or father because of the young pine trees that obscured his view. “Gotta stay in view of him, Holl.”

  Rolling his eyes that his littlest brother could get lost barely five minutes into the hike, Holling, who stood much taller and could spy the seven-year-old’s head bouncing as he jumped while looking for a way out, strode into the thicket after him.

  “And this is why,” Deck muttered to himself as he made sure no one else was straying from the non-existent path, “Jaytsy, my love, you don’t get to come. You’d want to tie all of them together in a line, wouldn’t you? Why I didn’t bring my bullwhip this year, I’ll never know . . .”

  By the time Deck reached the sheltered plateau where they were to have midday meal, nearly everyone else was already finished. Only twice had the call come for “The Ropes!” That meant a large tree that had fallen needed to be dragged out of the way, usually by ropes tied to the ends and several men enlisted to pull it to the side.

  Deck had heard the calls, but by the time he and a slow Young Shem had arrived, trailing after a hungry Holling who kept encouraging Young Shem to walk faster, the logs were already repositioned and the rest of the family was well on the way.

  The other men and boys were now scattered around the area, finishing their sandwiches, picking up pinecones for the war later, or laying on the ground to rest for a few minutes. Perrin and Shem were threatening to pack up the food.

  “Don’t you dare!” Deck hollered as he marched over to them. “And I’m sitting down while I eat. No rushing me, either.”

  “All right, Deck,” Perrin said holding up his hands in surrender. “Bit of a slow hike so far?”

  Deck merely grunted as he helped himself to the sliced breads, cheeses, lettuces, and tomatoes laid out on a slab of stone. Perrin packed away the ham slices, knowing that Deck wouldn’t want it. It was rare that he touched meat, and hadn’t eaten beef for decades.

  Young Shem sat down next to his father and began to whine. “But I don’t like the barley bread. I wanted wheat!”

  Deck twisted his neck that was tight with tension and said, with strained calmness, “Then you may go get the wheat bread. Look—Uncle Shem is holding it out to you, if you’d just look up once in a while and see something!”

  Shem tried to hide his smile as he gave his namesake what he wanted. “So, Deck,” Shem ventured, “someone getting a little lost?”

  Deck took a big bite. With a mouth full of sandwich, he garbled, “He never looks up. He just wanders off, never seeing where anyone else is going. I think we should put him on a pack horse for the afternoon.”

  Perrin furrowed his eyebrows at his youngest grandson who munched his bread while trying to kick dirt off his boots. Young Shem much more preferred to sit in the house reading books with Mahrree, or try to learn the time's tables just for fun. He shunned the outside nearly as much as his grandmother used to.

  “But he won’t learn to pay attention if he’s on a horse, Deck. This is one of the problems we need to anticipate—inattentive youngsters on the trail. How do we keep them watching the route?”

  “Perrin, if there’s danger, I imagine the terrified children will be far more attentive,” Deck muttered, “clinging to their parents and not stopping to sit on rocks to scrape off the mud. Young Shem, enough already.”

  Perrin and Deck both looked to Guide Zenos for a decision.

  Shem shrugged. “I see merits to both your arguments. Young Shem, what do you want to do this afternoon—walk or ride on a horse?”

  Young Shem swallowed down his bread. “We’re not done yet? There’s more?”

  Shem smiled gently at the seven-year-old. “I’m afraid so. We walk the rest of today, all day tomorrow, then the next morning we’ll make it the temple ruin and explore it for a few hours. Then we turn around and come back.”

  Young Shem looked at his father, disheartened.

  “We’ve been talking about this for the past few weeks,” Deck nudged him. “Don’t you remember last year?”

  “Well, yeah, kind of. We’re doing this again? Why?”

  Deck groaned and took another bite. “Would one of you please explain this to him again? I’m not sure I’m in the best state of mind right now.” He much rather preferred to be at home tending to his cattle than trying to herd boys who were much more distractible.

  Shem gr
inned. “Of course. Young Shem, you like stories, right?”

  Young Shem nodded eagerly.

  Perrin exhaled. “This is going to take some time, isn’t it? I better go check on Peto. I think he’s still at the shelter.”

  “Take all the time you want,” Deck said as he took another bite and closed his eyes.

  Perrin picked his way through the boys and men, patting little heads, playfully pushing larger bodies out of his way, and hiding his smirk when Wes took a big step away from him. He made his way to the edge of the trees by a large rock outcropping and walked a couple of paces around the rock, following the carefully placed ‘beaver-chewed’ logs that no beavers chewed on, but which pointed to the narrow opening.

  “Still here, Peto?” he called in.

  “Yes, Father. Should be only another minute,” called back the slightly muffled voice in the small cave.

  “Take your time,” Perrin said as he slipped into the crevice that led to the body of the cave. “Deck just arrived with Young Shem and he looks like he could use a few minutes of quiet.”

  Peto chuckled. “One of these years, Deck just might enjoy the hike.”

  “Only if we let him bring his entire herd.” Perrin squeezed himself into the cave, but to call it a cave was misleading. The rock formation was more reminiscent of the large boulder maze that served as a natural barrier between Edge and the mountains beyond it. Only Salemites knew how to find the path through the rock and knew the locations of the large caverns which served as a shelter for those coming from the world.

  When Peto had discovered this rock outcropping sixteen years ago, he had the idea that emergency supplies could be stored for those on the path, just as supplies were stored at the First Resting Station and the hidden fort in the glacial valley.

  During the following years, Peto and Perrin sought out other emergency reserves on their marking trips. Now each trail had two or three caverns supplied with food, bandages, and blankets, their locations marked by logs subtly pointing in the correct direction.

  In the past few years they’d experimented with keeping a supply of dried fruits, jerky, nuts, and hard breads in the emergency shelters, packaged tightly in crates soaked with other scents to keep out hungry bears or other curious animals. That was what Peto was checking now.

  “Still nothing disturbed,” he announced proudly to his father. “Doesn’t look like anything tried to touch the crates at all. Mrs. Appert’s idea for soaking the wood in that herbal mixture was excellent. Look, you can see mice have chewed into the crate holding the bandages, but nothing’s touched the food ones.”

  Perrin nodded in approval. “I hope she’s ready to mix up another large batch.”

  “We’ll get her some help. Mrs. Yordin needs a project, don’t you agree? I think we should convert all the crates in all the emergency storehouses to the herb-soaked ones.”

  “All of them?” Perrin asked. “This Harvest Season?”

  “Yes, no sense in putting it off.”

  Perrin shrugged. “True, but that means the families coming up to replace the stock will have to bring more pack horses than usual.”

  “Not a problem,” Peto said confidently. “We always have far more volunteering families than we can use. What if this year we allow everyone to go? Instead of ten families resupplying each trail, why not try thirty to forty? It will give more people practice in deciphering the slashes.”

  Perrin scratched his chin thoughtfully. “That’s a lot of people and horses at one time. Could really leave a trail.”

  “Is Idumea coming next year?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” Perrin said.

  “Any damage to the terrain will be healed in the next couple of years,” Peto told him. “Or just look like an impatient herd of elk plowed through there.”

  “Well, Rector Shin, sounds like you’ve already figured it all out.”

  “I have, General. Just need your permission to bear-proof everywhere else like we bear-proofed this cavern.”

  “Permission granted. But I think this particular cavern is too narrow for bears to get in.”

  “You got in well enough.”

  “Barely.” Perrin sucked in his gut.

  Another head poking into the narrow cavern cut off most of their light. “Cephas said you wanted me, Papa?”

  “Yes, Young Pere. On my list I want you to add that there’s enough room here for at least three more crates of food, and two more crates of emergency supplies. No sense in wasting this space.”

  Young Pere nodded once. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Make sure everyone’s had enough to eat—especially Uncle Deck—then ask Viddrow and Zaddick to start packing up the food. We should be going again soon.”

  “All right,” Young Pere said and ducked out without another word. They heard his footsteps leave around the rock.

  Peto watched after him. “He’s been terribly good for the past few days,” he said quietly. “I expected at least some complaining from him. He always thought these emergency storehouses were a waste of time, even when we started sending volunteers to restock them every Harvest instead of us doing it. And don’t get him started on the futility of the emergency stores for the valley.”

  Perrin wasn’t about to. More than ten years ago, Guide Hew Gleace had told Salem he’d been impressed upon by the Creator that they should have four years of supplies in reserves, “Just in case.” The valley had erupted in a flurry of activity to begin the project, growing extra crops, making new storage buildings, and devising strategies to preserve various foods. It had taken years to stock enough for 150,000 people for four years, but last year Guide Zenos declared that Guide Gleace’s admonition from the Creator was finally completed, and Salemites could be proud of their immense accomplishment. Now when the words from the Great Guide Hierum’s prophecy were to come to pass, about famine after Mt. Deceit’s “awakening,” or if any other disaster hit Salem, the valley would be ready. The storehouses, built sturdy enough to last one hundred years or more, would be resupplied and rotated every year to make sure that Salem’s ability to deal with any disaster, well into the next century, was secure.

  Rector Shin had read that announcement from Guide Zenos in their congregational meeting, and while the congregation buzzed quietly and proudly, Young Pere, who was seated behind Perrin, had grumbled, “What, we’ll have to keep doing this waste of time?” Perrin always cringed when he remembered it, because Young Pere was loud enough that half the congregation heard him, and Rector Shin, still addressing the congregation, locked eyes briefly with his son, who merely glared back at him.

  Kindly, no one in the congregation had ever said a word to Peto about the incident, but for weeks afterward many sent him looks of commiseration.

  “I also noticed Young Pere’s been quieter,” Perrin said. “Maybe he’s slightly jealous of Cephas. He’s been walking and talking with you, and seems quite interested in the routes.”

  “Cephas wants to study geography,” Peto told him. “If ever I need an assistant, he’d be the man. He has a good eye for the ground. But I don’t get the impression Young Pere cares that Cephas and I are talking.”

  “Well then, Peto, maybe, just maybe, Young Pere’s starting to grow up a bit. Maybe he’s finally looking past himself and what he wants and is considering everyone else’s needs instead.”

  Peto sighed. “I hope so. I hope he’s sincere and not creating a situation.”

  Perrin squinted. “What do you mean?”

  Peto stared at the gap where his son used to be. “Setting us up. Acting the way we want him to, so he can get what he wants later.”

  “That’d be rather devious of him,” Perrin decided. “But also typical. Do you know what he might want?”

  “Hmm? What?”

  Immediately that set off Perrin. “Don’t give me that, ‘Hmm?’ Peto, you heard me. I haven’t heard him talk about a profession yet. But he has an idea, doesn’t he? So tell me, what does Perrin Shin the Younger want t
o do with his life?”

  “Nothing . . . yet.”

  Perrin was dubious. “Really.”

  Peto shrugged. “He had an idea a year or so ago, but I turned it down. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at his age, either, if you remember.”

  But Perrin knew when his son was evading an issue. “So what did he say a year ago?”

  “Doesn’t matter, Father.”

  “If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be dodging the question!” Perrin said impatiently. “So what did he want to do?”

  Peto finally looked his father in the eyes. “What did you do when you were eighteen?”

  “Went to Edge,” he said easily. “Why?” His face fell as he understood. “Ah, Peto—NO!”

  “Don’t worry—that’s what I said. And no one can become a scout to the world without the permission and blessing of the family and the guide.”

  “Does Shem know?”

  “Young Pere went to him first, hoping he’d talk me into letting him go.”

  Perrin rubbed his forehead. “That stupid, stupid boy.”

  “But it was a year ago, remember? I think he gave up the idea when he saw how adamantly Shem was against it. What he’s up to now, I have no idea.”

  Perrin groaned softly, still thinking about Young Pere in Edge. Province 8. Whatever.

  “Perhaps . . .” Peto started slowly, waiting for his father to look at him, “perhaps you could walk with Young Pere this afternoon? Maybe slow down the pace a bit? Keep to the middle of the pack? I’ll be bringing up the rear this afternoon. I wanted to spend some time with Wes, have a little future-father-in-law chat with him. Deck could lead with Shem. Maybe you could tell Young Pere you’re feeling a little tired, wanted to walk with someone else who’s been a bit slow today as well—”

  “But he hasn’t been slow. Neither have I.”

  Peto raised his eyebrows at his father. “You’re getting slower, General. If he’s accompanying you for several hours, maybe he’ll confide in you what he’s up to.”

  “Ah. Yes. Good plan. Maybe I am getting slow.” Perrin tapped his head. “You know, Peto, I still think you could’ve had a career in strategy planning.”

  “That’s what you said when you made me an honorary lieutenant when I was seventeen, but then you never promoted me,” Peto reminded him, and folded his arms. “Why not?”

  “Because when you were thirty-three you were promoted to rector. I realized that in many ways, you outranked me already.”

  Peto shrugged at that. “But in the years leading up to that?”

  Perrin was examining a crate closely. “Hmm? What?”

  His son chuckled.

  Chapter 8--“What are you hiding, Puggah?”