the owl, the wolf as well as Laoch. What she didn’t see, sense, hear, they would.
As she stepped outside to call them to her, Tonia flashed beside her.
“I had a feeling,” Tonia said.
“About?”
“I heard Flynn talking to Starr and a couple of others. You’re sending him out to build another base. I figured you’d probably take another run at it before you sent him.”
“You figured right.”
“I’ll go with you. Two pairs of eyes. Well,” she added when Taibhse landed on Fallon’s arm, the alicorn trotted up with the wolf at his side. “One more pair.”
“I’m going to two places, the one for Flynn and his team, and another I hope to use.”
“I’m up for it.” Tonia drew up the hat hanging from a strap down her back, set it, with its wide, flat brim, over her head. “And the thing is, after the memorial, I could use something.”
“All right. I could use your take anyway.”
Fallon signaled Faol Ban so the wolf leaped nimbly onto Laoch’s back before she mounted. Tonia swung on behind her.
As they rose up, Tonia lifted her face to the wind. “And this never gets old. So what’s the plan?”
Fallon released Taibhse so he could soar. “The first, where I want Flynn, was a small town. Smaller than New Hope. In the foothills, so the land’s hilly and rough. There’s a river, and the bridge over it is broken, impassable. Some of the land’s wooded, and some, though it’s rocky, is farmable. And when I passed over and marked it, I saw no signs of people. There are houses and buildings—some are beyond repair, but a lot of them are stone or brick. Narrow streets, and some burned-out or abandoned vehicles.”
“Raiders?”
“Probably. At this point it’s only accessible by horse or bike. Or crossing the river—small boat or swimming it.”
“So some defenses built in.”
“Yeah. And land to plant, woods to hunt, housing. It’s remote, but only about sixty miles from D.C.”
“Excellent. Where’s the second place?”
“East of D.C. It’s good land, a lot of it flat, some bogs. Waterways. Rivers, bays, inlets, some beaches. Cabins, old houses, and other buildings. I saw some pockets of people, but their defenses are limited. Nomads more than settlers, I think. Hiding.”
“Okay.” Tonia looked down as they flew. “So much space. All those roads—I can’t imagine what it was like when they were packed with people driving somewhere. Like them.”
“Military convoy.” Fallon studied the three trucks heading east. “Armored. Probably carrying troops into D.C.”
“Conscripted. That’s the way it’s going now. They sweep up the able-bodied when they find them, and hunt people like us. It doesn’t make any sense. If they merged forces with us instead of hunting us down, we could fight the DUs together.”
“All magickals, dark or light, are the same to them. We have power. They fear it, and they want it.”
“One of the new recruits got swept up last spring. He and the group he’d traveled with got caught in a flash flood, separated. He broke his ankle. A military squad found him, and gave him a choice. Sign up or die. A non-magickal, about sixteen. Who does that, Fallon?”
“They do.”
“Yeah, they do. And we’re hearing more about some of the ones they catch, sweep up, force to fight. They lock up their families, threaten them. Anyway, he signed up, they treated his ankle, put him into training. They make them watch those films, right? Films of DUs slaughtering people, and old footage of the Doom.”
“Brainwashing.”
“His wasn’t washed, but he was smart enough to play the good soldier. First chance he got, he escaped. One of our scouting parties found him, alone, half-starved, and brought him in. Kim was with them, said he was scared to death, thought they were going to take him back. Then we gave him a choice.”
“Stay, join the community,” Fallon said, “or we’ll give you the supplies you need to move on.”
“He stayed.”
“More will. And we need secure places for them. This’ll be one.”
CHAPTER NINE
Tonia looked down again as Fallon circled. She saw the river, wide and brown as tea, the rising land, the narrow streets and houses stepped up from it. Thick woods grew close with some leaves tinted with the first hints of fall. She saw the leggy form of a coyote slink back into the trees, and a small herd of deer cropping its way across rough, rocky ground.
“Farming’s going to be a challenge,” Tonia decided. “Then again I’m better at pretty much anything than farming. But yeah, some built-in defenses