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Northern Louisiana, March, the forty-third year of the Kurian Order: The green expanse once known as the KisatchieForest slowly digests the works of le of wet heat and dead air, a fetid overflowing of swamps, bayous, and backwaters The canopy of interwoven cypress branches shrouded in Spanish ht rules even athouses subside every which way as roadside stops decay in vine-choked isolation, waiting for traffic that will not return

A long file of people iscries of startled birds At the front and rear of the column are men and women in buckskin, their faces tanned to the saarments They carry sheathed rifles, and all are ready to use their weapons at the first hint of danger The guns are for the defense of five clusters of fa lemon-colored overalls at the center of the file Patches of brighter color under the arlowed a vivid optic yellow and are now faded fro of five pack e versions of the older warriors

At the head of the colu liness of youth, but his dark eyes hold a canny depth His shoulder-length black hair, tightly tied at the back of his head, shines like a raven's feathers even in the half-light With his dusky skin and buckskin garb, he could be mistaken for a native resident of this area three centuries before: perhaps the son of so-fingered hands wander across his heavy belt, fro the haft of his broad-bladed parang beforeon to the canteens at his waist A scratched and battered coles from a black nylon cord around his neck, and a stout leatherposition Unlike his ain to check the positions of his soldiers and to exa how much distance is left in their weary bodies But his restless eyes do not re

If they coht Lt David Valentine returned to that thought again as the sun vanished below the horizon He had hoped to get his charges farther north of the old interstate before nightfall, but progress had slowed on this, their fourth day out fro He and his Wolves shielded twenty-seven men, women, and children who had hazarded the run to freedoors of the trail, and followed orders well But they came from a world where disobedience meant death, so that trait was understandable

If they had been traveling by themselves, the detachment of Wolves would already be in the FreeTerritory But Valentine was responsible for seeing the Red River farroup had crossed the final barrier: the road and rail line connecting Dallas with the Mississippi at Vicksburg Then Valentine had driven theive

It was hard to quiet his mind, with so much to think about on his first independent co lifesign doas literally a question of life and death with night co a Wolf was as much a matter of mental as physical discipline, for the Reapers sensed the activity of human minds, especially when fearful and tense Every Wolf had aconsciousness into a simpler, almost feral forht sing the forest, Valentine struggled against the worries that shot up like poisonous weeds in his es were giving off enough to be read for miles even in the depths of the Kisatchie If his Wolves' minds were added to the total, the Reapers would home on it like moths drawn to a bonfire

A trilling call from ahead broke into his anxieties Valentine raised his arestured to him

"Water, sir, in that little holler," the scout reported as Valentine cah"

"Good We'll rest there for an hour," Valentine said, loudly enough for the column to hear "No more We're still too close to the road to camp"

The faces of the farht as they drank fro down the side of a shallow ravine So feet Valentine unscrewed the cap on his plastic canteen, waiting until the families and his men had a chance to drink

A faint yelping echoed from the south Wolves dived for cover behind trees and fallen logs The yellow-clad faether in alarm at the sudden movement

Sergeant Patel, Valentine's senior noncos? Very bad luck, sir Or"

Valentine, careering along in his runaway train of thought, only half heard Patel's words The families broke out in noisy consternation

"Silence," Valentine rasped at the civilians, his voice cracking with unaccustoeant, who knows this area best?"

Patel's eyes did not leave the woods to the south "Maybe Lugger, sir Or the scouts Lugger pulled a lot of patrols in this area; I think her people lived ays"