of armed Twingites. Everything had been battened down in thirty seconds flat, and all of Twingo was ready to face whatever emerged from those trees, despite the sleep dust fresh in their eyes.
Young Radley Tibble came tearing out of the forest a moment later, sprinting on his gangly legs across to the chain-link fence and scrambling under it. His voice had become ragged and broken, but now everyone could make out what he was saying. “THEY’RE HERE! THEY’RE COMING! THEY’RE COMING!”
He was on his feet and running again, all the way down the thoroughfare until Max caught him in his arms, where he sagged like a sack of wet grain. “They’re coming!” he screeched, straining against Max’s grip, his eyes wide.
“Hush, now,” Max said. His voice was among the quietest in town, but people always listened. And even in the grip of stupefied terror, Radley heard him, and a last scream died in his throat. “How many? What direction?”
Radley only stared up at him.
“Speak!”
The eyes of a wounded fawn met his iron-hard gaze. He looked at Bill, who shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Go to your mother. Lock up tight.”
Radley scrambled away towards one of the store sheds, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
“What are you smiling about?” Max said.
Bill turned to him. He was grinning with a nostalgic glaze to his eyes. “The dust. Like Roadrunner. Remember, in Looney Tunes? Meep, meep!”
“I remember a lot of things, Bill.”
A moment passed, then Max let a smile blossom on his own lips. “We had a good run.”
“The best.”
They didn’t need any more. Long, hard years of tribulation had forged a link deeper than words. All it took was a flick of the eyes, and Max knew Bill would be there next to him to the end. He flicked the safety of his rifle. “Alright, let’s go see what these bastards want.”
They advanced along the thoroughfare until they stood a short distance from the spot where Radley had crawled beneath the fence. There they waited in silence, and waited. Long minutes passed as they all scanned the treeline, trigger fingers at the ready. The air-raid siren cut out and wound down in a long, unspooling drone. Then there was only the wind, kicking up the usual dust devils in the dirt around the edge of town, obscuring what lay beyond.
Max squinted into the haze. Dawn broke, and fingers of sunlight clawed over the tops of the trees, further impeding his vision. But he didn’t move, didn’t give any sign of weakness. He just waited for whatever might come. Eventually, something did.
Two figures materialised from the dust and walked down the thoroughfare toward them. The air was filled with the sound of cocking rifles and footsteps as the entire town’s guard readjusted their stance to aim down at the emissaries. One was young, thin and gangly, almost like Radley except for a heavy limp and a face that looked like it had seen things nobody that young should see. The other was older, squat, and immediately set Max’s heart aflutter. There was something dangerous about him, something primal, unhinged. An enormous, curved hunter’s knife hung from a sheath at his belt.
The two of them stopped twenty feet away from Max and Bill and looked around at the town for a good while, their faces untroubled, as though the place were empty and they had stumbled across a curious relic. They didn’t acknowledge anyone besides each other.
Max knew he had to keep quiet to avoid appearing weak. He also knew Bill’s patience wouldn’t hold out that long. But he didn’t try to stop him; doing that would have looked even weaker.
“This is private land!” Bill said. “We’re not trading today.”
The younger, gangly man looked at them for the first time. “We’re not looking to trade, friend.”
“Then you’ll kindly get off our property before we shoot you both for trespassing.”
It was the squat man’s turn to lock their gaze. “Well, now, that would be a big mistake.” His voice was level and calm, but Bill caught something veiled behind his eyes, something that couldn’t be hidden. It frightened him. He tightened his grip on his rifle.
“State your business,” Bill said.
Max wished he’d shut up. He was acting as though he could talk their way out of this.
“No business, just an offer,” the young man said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Charlie. And this”—he gestured to his lupine companion—“is—”
“Not an offer, a choice,” his elder companion interrupted. “A real simple choice.”