then into blindness, deafness, and pain, and then oblivion.
*
The sun was setting when they awoke, sprawled on the ground now, but once more facing the outcrop behind David Sullivan’s barn. All still wore the garments of Galunlati, and the boys still clutched their new weapons.Their mundane clothing was with them, too, down to Sandy’s watch and Alec’s earring.
Of the effigy of David that had strode from the rock face the only sign was a pile of pebbles mixed with sand.
“I’m…hungry,” Alec gasped nervously as he found his way to his feet. “I wonder if there’s anything left from the reception.”
“I wonder if Darrell’s sober yet,” a very pale David added.
“And I wonder how long we’ve been gone,” Liz inserted with a shiver.
“A couple of hours, looks like,” Sandy managed, glancing at the sun. “And me…well, I just wonder.”
Calvin was silent, but thoughtful, as he fingered his uktena scale.
They changed clothes in the barn.
They ate very well that night.
And a year passed marked by nothing stranger than growing up.
PART TWO
Shadowed Warrior
Chapter IV: Divination
(east of Whidden, Georgia—Thursday, June 14—11:35 P.M.)
Don Scott wondered which he was going to run out of first: endurance, nerve, or blood.
The latter, at present, seemed most likely, as he paused in the moonlit forest trail to slap his cheeks and forearms for the third time in as many minutes. He supposed he’d learn one day that the ’skeeters in his neck of the south Georgia woods considered his own special blend of O-positive the equivalent of an inch-thick sirloin from McDevitt’s Grille down in Whidden. Or, more accurately, like that grade-A ’shine old man Gilmore ran off in his still out in the swamp—the stuff his latest stepdad, Robert Richards, had let him sample exactly once, the day he’d turned fifteen.
But why in the world did they have to choose him? He was just a skinny burr-haired kid, shorter than most of the guys in the ninth grade at Whidden High, and nothing special any other way except that his little sister’s friends said he had great eyelashes.
Make that his late little sister, he amended, as a lump rose in his throat. She’d been dead four days shy of a year now, Allison had, and—
No! He couldn’t deal with that—not now, not here. Awful though his sister’s death had been, horrible as the ensuing week had become, a far worse thing had happened to him that night—something so terrible he refused to even think about it until he had no choice but to think about it, which he wouldn’t let himself do until time and place were perfect.
So terrible it had made him sneak out of his mom’s rural ranch house in the middle of the night to try to set it straight.
If nerves and fatigue didn’t get him first.
Actually, he wasn’t much worried about the latter. Or wouldn’t have been except that for the last month or so he’d been having trouble sleeping, and felt tired and yawny all the time. His mom had noticed it, of course, and had doubled his dose of vitamins and threatened to take him to the doctor if he didn’t perk up—which he hadn’t. It wasn’t that he felt bad, though, more that he simply didn’t feel. It was as if he was in a fog all the time, and more than once he’d found himself having to concentrate to answer even the simplest questions, as though speaking was no longer pure reflex. Anxiety, one of his mom’s friends had opined. Stress. Nerves. Yeah, sure.
Whatever it was, the effect was that a fairly short trek through the woods to Iodine Creek was making him as tired as an all-day Boy Scout hike. He was even panting, dammit! (Sweating went without saying, in south Georgia in the summer). And this route had never made him do that.
Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was the fact that if he relaxed control even a fraction he could easily scare himself silly.
God knew the woods were enough to accomplish that by themselves. Oh, sure he’d lived in them
*
The sun was setting when they awoke, sprawled on the ground now, but once more facing the outcrop behind David Sullivan’s barn. All still wore the garments of Galunlati, and the boys still clutched their new weapons.Their mundane clothing was with them, too, down to Sandy’s watch and Alec’s earring.
Of the effigy of David that had strode from the rock face the only sign was a pile of pebbles mixed with sand.
“I’m…hungry,” Alec gasped nervously as he found his way to his feet. “I wonder if there’s anything left from the reception.”
“I wonder if Darrell’s sober yet,” a very pale David added.
“And I wonder how long we’ve been gone,” Liz inserted with a shiver.
“A couple of hours, looks like,” Sandy managed, glancing at the sun. “And me…well, I just wonder.”
Calvin was silent, but thoughtful, as he fingered his uktena scale.
They changed clothes in the barn.
They ate very well that night.
And a year passed marked by nothing stranger than growing up.
PART TWO
Shadowed Warrior
Chapter IV: Divination
(east of Whidden, Georgia—Thursday, June 14—11:35 P.M.)
Don Scott wondered which he was going to run out of first: endurance, nerve, or blood.
The latter, at present, seemed most likely, as he paused in the moonlit forest trail to slap his cheeks and forearms for the third time in as many minutes. He supposed he’d learn one day that the ’skeeters in his neck of the south Georgia woods considered his own special blend of O-positive the equivalent of an inch-thick sirloin from McDevitt’s Grille down in Whidden. Or, more accurately, like that grade-A ’shine old man Gilmore ran off in his still out in the swamp—the stuff his latest stepdad, Robert Richards, had let him sample exactly once, the day he’d turned fifteen.
But why in the world did they have to choose him? He was just a skinny burr-haired kid, shorter than most of the guys in the ninth grade at Whidden High, and nothing special any other way except that his little sister’s friends said he had great eyelashes.
Make that his late little sister, he amended, as a lump rose in his throat. She’d been dead four days shy of a year now, Allison had, and—
No! He couldn’t deal with that—not now, not here. Awful though his sister’s death had been, horrible as the ensuing week had become, a far worse thing had happened to him that night—something so terrible he refused to even think about it until he had no choice but to think about it, which he wouldn’t let himself do until time and place were perfect.
So terrible it had made him sneak out of his mom’s rural ranch house in the middle of the night to try to set it straight.
If nerves and fatigue didn’t get him first.
Actually, he wasn’t much worried about the latter. Or wouldn’t have been except that for the last month or so he’d been having trouble sleeping, and felt tired and yawny all the time. His mom had noticed it, of course, and had doubled his dose of vitamins and threatened to take him to the doctor if he didn’t perk up—which he hadn’t. It wasn’t that he felt bad, though, more that he simply didn’t feel. It was as if he was in a fog all the time, and more than once he’d found himself having to concentrate to answer even the simplest questions, as though speaking was no longer pure reflex. Anxiety, one of his mom’s friends had opined. Stress. Nerves. Yeah, sure.
Whatever it was, the effect was that a fairly short trek through the woods to Iodine Creek was making him as tired as an all-day Boy Scout hike. He was even panting, dammit! (Sweating went without saying, in south Georgia in the summer). And this route had never made him do that.
Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was the fact that if he relaxed control even a fraction he could easily scare himself silly.
God knew the woods were enough to accomplish that by themselves. Oh, sure he’d lived in them
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