“We can send a healer.” Troy folded her hands. “In that way, they’d have a witch as well. Mae, you have Benny.”
“Yeah. He’s hardly more than a kid, but he gets all that computer stuff and so on. He’d go.”
“Who would you put in charge, Thomas?”
“Mick.”
She started to object. In part of her mind he was still the goofy boy who’d flipped out of trees and run races through the woods. But he was more, she thought as she looked at him. Much more.
“Good. Mallick?”
“Forty. We have them, and the medicals, the technicians. We would need building supplies. There’s much disrepair.”
“We’ll work on it. Who will you put in charge?”
“Duncan. For the next six months, we estimate.”
She’d known it, already known. But she heard Katie’s quick sound of distress.
“It seems far.” Fallon went to her, took her hand as Hannah had taken the other. “But he can be with you just as quickly from there. Tonia can take you to see him, to see where he is. Both of you,” she added for Hannah.
“Is he ready, and willing?” Katie asked Mallick.
“He’s both. You can be proud of the son you made.”
“I am. I would—Hannah and I would like to go, see where he is, when we can.”
“We’ll make sure of it. We’ll need two hundred, minimum, for Arlington,” Fallon continued. “I’d like some from every base. Even green recruits, as we’ll have the training ground. Four medicals to begin, at least one of them a witch with healing experience and skills. Three techs.”
With the numbers satisfied, she turned back. Some still had doubts, she knew, but they’d fight. “Three a.m. for South Carolina and Arlington. One a.m. for Utah. We’ll take the dark to defeat the dark. What you need—troops, weapons, support—will be sent to you by nightfall. Thank you for what you’ve done, what you do, what you will do.”
Lana, who hadn’t spoken throughout, stood. “And please, come upstairs. There’s food and drink before you travel home again.”
Of course there is, Fallon thought, but touched Mallick’s arm. “A moment first?”
When he stepped outside, he took part of that moment to glance around. Smiled at the beehive.
He listened to the bees hum, smelled the green, the sweetness of flowers, herbs, the scents of food ripening in and above the ground, on branches.
He watched with easy amusement as a large woodpecker with its red crown pecked manically at a cake in a feeder.
“Suet,” Fallon told him. “Dad built the feeder, Mom makes the suet. The birds go nuts for it.”
“It’s not your farm, but still a strong place. And you’ve done well here.” He gestured toward the barracks. “I’d like to see your training grounds before I leave.”
“I’ll take you, and anyone who wants to see. We have strong, skilled soldiers. We’re ready for Arlington.”
“I have no doubt.”
“But you knew John Little had doubts.”
“Yes, as others would.” He turned back to her. “If you can’t alleviate doubts, or convince those who have them to follow you despite them, how can you lead?”
“Did I? Alleviate or convince? Enough for those who doubt to keep following me even when we bury our dead? Because we will bury dead after Arlington. And there are harder battles to come.”
“War is loss, girl.” He gripped her shoulder when she started to shake her head. “Not fighting this war means the loss of all. Lose sight of that, we’ve already lost. Lose faith in yourself, no one else will keep faith with you. You know this.”
“Knowing it at thirteen, fourteen when you trained me, when I picked up the sword and shield is almost a picture in a book, or words on a page. Using my sword, as I have, my powers, as I have, to spill blood, to take lives, is no small matter, Mallick.”
“War should never be a small matter.”
“I’ll use my sword, my powers, in this war. I’ll lead men to battle, and some to their deaths. And I will never, never consider a single death by my hand, a single death by my order, a tactic. If I don’t feel the weight of each life lost, what have we won? Who will we be at the end of it?”
The hand on her shoulder gentled. “You learned well. Accept the weight and fight on.”
“Why didn’t Duncan come?” She hadn’t meant to ask, but the words slipped out. “His mother misses him. And Hannah. Tonia, at least, sees him now and then.”
“He felt he’d better serve by staying behind, working with those we’ve