The Way of the Wolf

Northern Louisiana,March,the forty-third year of the Kurian Order: The green expanse once known as the Kisatchie Forest slowly digests the works of man. A forest in name only,it is a jungle of wet heat and dead air,a fetid overflowing of swamps,bayous,and backwaters. The canopy of interwoven cypress branches shrouded in Spanish moss creates a gloom so thick that twilight rules even at midday. In the muted light, collapsing houses subside every which way as roadside stops decay in vine-choked isolation, waiting for traffic that will not return.

A long file of people is moving among moss-covered trunks to the piping cries of startled birds. At the front and rear of the column are men and women in buckskin, faces tanned to the same weather-beaten color as their leather garments. They all 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 families clad in ill-fitting lemon-colored overalls at the center of the file. Patches of brighter color under the arms and along the inner thighs suggest the garments once glowed a vivid optic yellow and are now faded from heavy use. A string of five pack mules follows behind them under the guidance of teenage versions of the older warriors.

At the head of the column, well behind a pair of silent scouts, a young man scans the trail. He still has some of the awkward gangliness 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.

Between his dusky skin and buckskin garb, he could be mistaken for a native resident of this area three centuries before: perhaps the son of some wandering French trapper and a Choctaw maiden.His long-fingered hands wander across his heavy belt, from holstered pistol to binoculars, touching the haft of his broad-bladed parang before moving on to the canteens at his waist. A scratched and battered compass case dangles from a black nylon cord around his neck,and a stout leather map tube bumps his back from its slung position. Unlike his men,he is hatless. He turns now and again to check the positions of his soldiers and to examine the faces of his yellow-clad dependents as if gauging how much distance is left in their weary bodies. But his restless eyes do not remain off the trail for long,they always return to scouting ahead.

If they come,they'll come tonight. Lieutenant David Valentine returned to that thought again as the masked sun vanished below the horizon,turning the overcast into waves of color. He had hoped to get his charges further north of the old interstate before nightfall,but progress had slowed on this,their fourth day out from Red River Crossing. He and his Wolves shielded twenty-seven men,women,and children who had decided to make the dangerous run to freedom. The families were now adapted to the rigors of the trail,and followed orders well. But as they came from a world where disobedience meant death, that trait was understandable.

If they had been traveling by themselves, the detachment of Wolves would already be in the Free Territory. But Valentine was determined to see the escaping Red River farmhands brought safely north. The yellow-clad group had crossed the final barrier, the road and rail line connecting Dallas with the Mississipi at Vicksburg, four hours ago. Then Valentine had driven them another two miles. Now they had little left to give.

It was hard to quiet his mind, with so much to think about on his first independent command in the Kurian Zone. And quieting his mind, keeping lifesign down,was literally a question of life and death with night coming on. The Reapers read lifesign better at night,and he knew his charges were giving off enough to be read for miles even in the depths of the Kisatchie.

Being a Wolf was as much a matter of mental as physical discipline,for the Reapers sensed the activity of human minds, especially when the humans were fearful and tense. Every Wolf had a method of subsuming consciousness into a simpler, almost feral level. But burdened with new responsibilities and with night swallowing the forest,Valentine struggled against the worries that shot up like poisonous weeds in his mind.