"There's no column of smoke," she said, low-voiced, sitting and scanning the western horizon, putting back her own plaid and smoothing down the fluff of hair escaping from her once-neat Dutch braids.

Colin considered. He pointed . . . "Right about there," he said. Robin followed his finger and nodded.

"There, where"-she choked and coughed, rubbing her wet cheeks-"where the eagles fly . . ." They slipped down from their perch back to the trail.

"And the buzzards and war-birds are homing in." Colin chewed his lip. They got them afore dawn, just like the last time. And nobody left to fire the beacon.

The midnight planning with his da, the sneaking about, trying to figure out who was the mole in the hold . . . it had been exciting last night as he talked his way past Sean, Stronghold's teacher and accountant, and bluffed him to the kitchen. Now it all felt like a bad spy movie.

We knew RoeDell was fingered as a probable target. But . . . they haven't finished stripping Rachel's Dell. Da didn't expect them to hit another so fast, not before we could warn them; they've niver before. Now what do I do? Or better yet-now what are they going to do nixt?

"It's going to be like Rachel's Dell, isn't it?"

Colin looked down at his companion grimly. "What do you think, lassie?"

"I'm more interested in what you think, Chief's Son!" she snapped back.

Colin shook his head.

"You were there, weren't you?"

"Well," Colin picked up another two stones and began to juggle the three, controlling his emotions by the intense focus needed to move the spinning wheel of stones along several planes. It was like the concentration required to not let his voice break during sword practice.

Robin made an exasperated sound and batted one of the stones out over the ravine. "Stop that, you fool!"

He snatched the other stones out of the air and laid them neatly on the trail, before another betraying rockfall sounded.

"I was," he said shortly, answering the original question. "If RoeDell has fallen, fallen like Rachel's Dell, to the last living creature there, then we don't want to go there . . . at least, I don't want to see it again, and I truly don't want you to see it either."

The serried ranks of heads hanging on poles dug into the ground haunted his sleep. His father had returned to Stronghold and taken down the skulls of his foes from the battles of Eight Dollar Mountain and Redwood Pass, and burned them. He'd made the taking of heads geasa forevermore on the McClintocks.

"Then there's the problem of where the damned Sherries are headed. To their hidey-hole, which we have yet to find, or to hit another dell? Like wasps they are. If I was alone, I'd try to shadow them. As it is, to get back to Stronghold, we'll have to shadow them all the way to Eight Dollar Mountain, and hope they don't set back scouts."

"Bravado," sniffed Robin, trying to recapture her 'tude. "It'd be too dangerous."

Slowly Colin shook his head, looking east, where the column had vanished. "They take no prisoners. If they wiped out RoeDell-that makes"-he thought for a bit-"close on to two-almost three-hundred people in less than a year's time. We can't sustain those kinds of losses.

"Dangerous to follow them, yes, but we've not . . ." he hesitated. Tell her or not? What she doesn't know she can't tell anyone. "We're not sure where they are holing up or why they aren't at least stealing the women and children for slaves. Mebee you should go back, alone . . . If only those men . . . If only I could be sure you wouldn't . . ."

"No fear," said Robin flatly. "I'll go, but I'll go careful, very careful."

Colin bent for a stone and then hesitated, looking up at Robin. They made an aborted movement and froze. Around the spur came a man in plain breeks and a shirt. Can't get off the trail fast enough . . . for sure he's seen us. Two smaller people against one medium-sized man . . . tricky . . .

"He's not dressed in camo or a kilt. Who is he?"

Colin felt the blood drain out of his face as he recognized the man's gait and short rusty hair and bent hurriedly for the stones he'd put down. He fended off a sudden exasperated push from Robin.

"Let be," he hissed, scowling. "Play along, do!"

He had the rocks up and whirling and began to dance along the narrow trail, sideways, chattering. ". . . So that was Ma's reaction to Da marrying LaTonya . . . but she and LaTonya got to be good friends, 'cause LaTonya's new husband, after she ditched Da, was this guy, Goah, and he came over to work in something called Sirk deh soly. He taught gym at the local school; taught me a lot of things, Goah did. Anyway, he did kid-care for all the kids. We were really a tribe . . . Goah had two plus the other with LaTonya, Mum had two before Da, and three w' Da, and LaTonya had t' one w' Da. He's always liked kids."

Colin felt like he was going to pant and controlled his breath strictly and grabbed another rock and spun around, the pleats of his belted feileadh mor flaring and brushing against Sean's pants. Even expecting to find the man close, it was startling and his voice cracked embarrassingly when he let out a gobbled sound and lost his rhythm. Sean startled back, his arms up to shield himself as the egg-sized rocks thudded around them.

"Damn you, fool boy! What the hell are you doing here?"

Colin swallowed and cowered back just a little bit, only enough to convince Sean, without convincing himself. He was remembering an unexpected encounter in the dark passages of Stronghold just hours before. "Taking Robin home!" he said. He shot a quick look over his shoulder and then back to Sean. "I pushed Da to let me do it. I din want her to come alone this way."

"Why are you taking Robin home?"

Colin frowned. When did Sean leave the morning? Did he not see the kerfuffle at sword practice?

"Shhh," he said low. "She doesn't know all about Derek, yet." Louder he said, "Me da told me to take her back to talk with her mam and da 'bout Derek being hurt by tha' idjit Malcolm Robson."

What time did Sean leave Stronghold to get here? And what's he doing in the wake of those Sherries?

He turned to Robin and saw a deeply suspicious gleam in her eye. Panic wanted to grab hold of him, but even as he watched, her face went blank and then suddenly, bratty. When she spoke her voice was a perfect whine.

"What're you doing here, Sean? Did you go to warn me mam to go easy on me?" Her voice, petulant and sulky, mimicked an older voice: Sean's. "Ms. RoeDell, sorry ma'am, Ms. MacRoe, Meestair-Maire, Angus, I've come to warn you Roberta's being sent home . . ."

Sean scowled at her and said, low-voiced, "Sneck it, girl. I needed some missing harvest numbers. I never got to RoeDell-close, but close don't count. I hid up the trail when I heard them climbing up from the Dell."

"How close did you follow?" asked Colin eagerly, patting Robin on the shoulder. It looked like an absent pat-he pinched her good and hard. She grabbed his arm, clinging and whining under her breath. A second "sneck it" from Sean had no effect on her and Colin again patted her shoulder, turning her into his bony chest.

"Let's go back to that place where the overhang makes the trail a bit wider."

He pushed Robin in front and she suddenly ran. "Can't catch me!" she cried, her voice thin in the great open spaces. Colin took off after her, hearing Sean's low-voiced curse behind him. Two quick twists of the trail and she stopped at the wider spot, panting slightly.

"Quick, what am I supposed to do? And why is he coming along behind those Sherries?"

Colin nodded. Sean was coming up, fast. "And he's clean! No blood-dunno what that means, but nothing good. Go figure. We can't ditch him, too dangerous if we don't know where he is or what he's up to. Go home w' him-that'll spike whatever plan he has, having to escort you. I think I know where the Sherries are headed. If I'm right, they plan on wiping out two or three Dells at once and plunder them slowly.

"Da's gotta be warned; tell him the next one is in danger, mebee by dawn tomorrow, mebee the day after. He knows which one that'd be. I can't make the distances work otherwise. Only you can warn him . . . or, I only trust you to do that. When you get to Stronghold, run away from Sean. If he doesn't try to kill you, he'll want to send you up to Selmac and the weavers there. Don't let him touch you, or get in touching distance. Go to Esther or Aisha . . . either'll go right to Da. Keep smart; you missing is a lot less trouble than you sent to Selmac. I trust you, stay alive-get the message to Da."

Colin turned as Sean came up to them.

"You didn't get to RoeDell, you say?"

"Did not. Got within sight of the path, heard something very wrong, went past and hid until they'd gone. Was keeping far enough back they wouldn't see me. I don't think they've got a back scout."

"That was all of them?"

"Aye," said Sean. "Now, you two listen to me . . ."

"No," interrupted Colin. "Did they get to fire the beacon?"

"No, not that I ever saw."

"Did you go down to check?"

"No, I didn't even smell cooking, so I didn't bother."

Colin tried to think how to get the information he needed . . . "What time did you get there? Or, when did you leave, I mean?"

"How'm I to ken? Fine the lot of watches we have now the Change has happened. Now listen, boyo . . ."

Break his train of thought, break it, fast . . . Don't let him give you an order; don't make it a fight . . . Colin began to sway back and forth, bending back at the waist, his back horizontal with the ground. He tried to lift his left leg; just the right holding his whole body and fell in a puff of powdery earth.

"I said," Sean spoke in a low, but very intense voice, bending over him.

"I hierd ye," answered Colin, quietly, flat on his back. "But- Ah'm ordering you in the name o' t' Laird, Hamish McClintock himself, himself, Chief of the Dells and Clans and Stronghold, who sent me on a secret mission to RoeDell, to take Robin back to Stronghold and deliver her richt into the hands o' my aun sire.

"'Tis important, so 'tis, Sean . . . and you the only man I kin trust wit' t' charge of the light o' my life!"

Robin gave an almighty snort. "Like I'd have you to mate any time soon!" she exclaimed, but kept her voice down and quiet.

"I should hope not! We'aun micht too young . . . but it's hope I have for some future date!" Colin rocked, kicked, and forced a jump that landed him on his feet again. He busily patted down his great kilt, sending clouds of the fine dry earth right into Sean's face.

Sean snapped upright, coughing and waving his hands, frustration shouting in every tense muscle.

Wha' e'er yer up to, I hope I've spiked ye. It's hard to come the lordly elder over a boy flat on his back on the ground and joking. And I hope ye have a blessedly bad trip home with Robin. No flies on that girl! Whatever, whatever, I wish I knew what it was yer up to.

And Colin picked up three rocks, started to juggle them and danced down the trail, ignoring Sean's sudden low-voiced order.

He'd have rather let Sean and Robin go ahead. There was danger that Sean might see where he went off trail, but he couldn't trust the man to go fast enough. When they're no gud choices, son, pick a choice; much better than none or dithering.

He stopped juggling and started dogtrotting. Eventually he paused where he couldn't be seen from somebody on his back trail and took a sighting. For years he and his many siblings had come up every summer and winter and played tracking games through the entire range of mountains to the west of Cave Junction. After he came to live in Cave Junction a few years before the Change he'd come to know the land even better, winning the games for his gang during their vacations.

Since the Change, his ability to go "off trail" without getting lost and directioneering to any destination he wanted had saved the McClintocks' bacon several times. It wasn't easier or faster, but it did allow for sneak bypasses and spying.

He pulled out the ropes he never left at home, and some carabiner clips, a few pulleys and a pickax and crampons. With a final look down the trail and a heartfelt hope that Robin would arrive back to Stronghold safe, he put her out of mind and began to climb the ridge.

Hours later he rested on another ridge, watching the last wisps of light fade to the west. Overhead stars began to glow; sunset was close to nine.

Mickleson's Dell lay downslope and west.

It was hidden beyond a spur and he couldn't see any sign it existed . . . but the scent of the evening meal fires hung in the air. He waited for several hours, but he saw no movement at all along the slopes. All the evidence they'd managed to dig up from Rachel's Dell, which he'd happened upon just two days after the attack, and from the other two smaller hamlets months before led them to believe that the Sherries were arriving and hiding in a wide arc around the settlement the day before the attack and came out, very quietly, several hours before dawn and slaughtered as many as possible before the alarm was given.

Hamish had decided, from the traces left, that no more than ten or fifteen men were involved. But ten or fifteen men, awake and systematic and well led could easily slaughter a hamlet of ten or fifteen households . . . eighty or ninety people, most dead in their beds or at the very threshold of their homes, and from the state of the animals, just before or at dawn. Farmer folk often were up betimes, doing their routine chores, and none of the Dells lost had shown signs of the early chore work.

The moon rose in a blaze of glory, looking as wide as Stronghold, silhouetted against the rough terrain. Colin watched eastward, and was rewarded. There was a fire to the east, possibly several from the smoke trails across the face of the moon. They would have done better to camp cold, he thought. But, unless Sean is one of theirs and they expected him to join them; they've no idea they've been rumbled. Time to warn Mickleson's and trap the trappers.

He yanked his tousled hair back into a neater ponytail and slung his rope around a rock and began to descend by the tricksy moonlight to the trail down by the river. At least, when the dogs start barking I don't have to worry that they'll warn the Sherries I'm arriving, and I don't have to sneak through a line of heartless murderers-I hope. Colin was tired after a full half day of scaling up and down the mountain screes, so he took extra care with the descent. He finally reached the Illinois River Road, the NF-4103. The river brawled and leapt to his left as he set forward at a slow trot.

The moonlight made his path difficult; hard-edged black shadows making him hop and skip over obstacles that weren't there, and stub his toes on hidden ones. The road's pavement was deteriorating from years of neglect. A broken leg, or even a twisted ankle could kill him.

He trotted up to Mickleson's, one of the largest of the Dells, amid a chorus of angry dog barks and shouts and torch lighting.

"Quiet, quiet!" he yelled, feeling ironic.

Mickleson waved a pine knot close to his face, furious. Colin thought that the reflected flame wasn't making the man's face redder and puffier than it really was.

"Put that damned boy in the lockup and Hamish can spring him when we've got the time to send and let him know where his stupid little Loki is!"

Colin grabbed at the torch and doused it on the ground. "Quiet, you dafties!" he said, keeping his voice down. "And less noise and flame!" He dodged a sudden heavy fist, jumping behind the man.

What do I do now? he wondered. The jokester's all well and good, but it's backfiring the now.

Two men grabbed him from behind and yanked him back, one covering his spluttering mouth.

"Rory, Rory, be calm!"

Colin started violently. Aisha? What's she doing here? Oh, damn! Aisha! Here!

She talked softly to Rory Mickleson. Colin relaxed himself and felt the hold on him loosen. He didn't pull free. After a few more seconds the Dell's commons were moonlit again, just a few horn lanterns, and the dogs under control. At a sign from Rory Mickleson, the men let go.

"Aisha, what are you doing here?" he blurted out.

His father's fourth . . . or second wife-depending on how you counted she could be his first since she was the only one living he'd married in a formal, official ceremony, five months after the Change-was barely visible in the darkness. She came to stand beside him. "I had to bring special supplies for Rory's wife. But she died and he's got some problems, so I stayed."

Colin looked over to the far side of the commons and spotted the llama pack team Aisha generally used when she was wandering about the Westmark, pastured with the Dell's sheep, alpacas, and llamas.

After a minute of trying to put too many pieces of data in order, he settled on the most important. "Rory, 'tis sorry I am to hear that Susan's deid, th' now. Tha's terrible news. But we'll all be deid by the second dawn, do we not work hard tonight and tomorrow. There's a mess o' Sherries camped back a matter of a league or two and they've just wiped out RoeDell. I've sent news to my faither, but it's a question if it'll get through. Problem wi' these narrow mountain trails is how easy 'tis to interdict communications."

Rory Mickleson scowled at him and then waved irritably. "Everybody, back to yer cots. Danuel, Robby, Maire, and Devra, wi' me in t' Hall. You too, Aisha." He grabbed Colin by the arm and hustled him up to the grandiosely named "Hall."

An hour later Colin scowled and gave it up. Mickleson would have his way, and in his Dell he ruled. Loyalty he owed to Hamish McClintock and the clan, but not obedience. Having wrung Colin dry of all the information and speculation he had, he had made his decisions and formulated his strategy.

"You and Aisha make tracks for Stronghold at dawn and tell t' laird," he instructed, reddened eyes glaring, bitten lips cracked and bleeding a tad more. "I'm not having you risk yersel's in my bragle. Yer no loss as warriors, neither, but as couriers . . . mebee you can get Hamish and the affinity out here and catch them, slaughter them, and we'll be done with their threat."

The lanky Dell chief turned away from them and gathered his seconds in a huddle over a relief map in the far corner.

Colin sighed. "But I told you, I already sent a courier . . ." he said to the man's back, and softly.

"Are you hungry, then, Colin?" asked Aisha.

"I'd take it kindly, if you'd feed me," he answered. She took him out to the refectory and found bread, cheese, and jerky, with some nuts and clean cold water. He ate watching Aisha fuss the kitchen back into order.

"Susan's going to be missed," she observed. "Rory's not a bad man, but he was always . . . a man to let women's work rest in women's hands. And Susan would have no second in her own home. And the girls were caring for their mother and not the house, not to mention, they're all young."

Colin nodded, enjoying her voice. She's the only person who isn't trying to sound like a second-rate BBC historical around here. I wish Da hadn't . . . well, but I don't either. He sighed and Aisha laughed suddenly.

"Dear Colin, you've been a good boy with the world turning upside down on you twice and three times. And a good friend to me. What's the sigh for?"

And in the gloom of the kitchen, with the friendly low glow from the banked hearth it was suddenly easy for Colin to say, "I wish Da'd nivir left you when Esther came back pregnant that winter. And you with child."

"Esther's Shona is as much your sister as Dhugal is your brother," said Aisha, a measure of reproof in her voice.

He struggled to express himself . . .