Fire

Finn was almost out of the tree line when she was grabbed. Pulled firmly back against her will, she thrashed against the arms that held her.

"Please, Finn, please," Riley whispered against her ear. "Wait. Look around." His voice was full of pain.

Finn stilled long enough to obey. Her eyes probed the woods around them. Through the trees she could see bright spots. More fires? Was the whole village set ablaze?

"This isn't an accident. None of the trees are on fire, only the houses." Riley logically laid out the information before her. "If you go running out, you may get caught by whoever did this. They may still be around. And they wouldn't have been able to set everything on fire if the villagers were able to fight them... I don't think there's anyone to save in there."

The fight left Finn's body and she collapsed. Riley caught her and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Shhh," He patted her back, "I'm here. If you can promise me you won't go bolting out again, we can look around. Maybe the arsonists were interested in prisoners, not victims. We don't know yet. Can you hold it all together until we figure it out?"

Finn's back stiffened. She let anger take the forefront of her emotions, tempered by the small hope that her family, and Riley's, were not harmed. She pulled away and nodded, hastily wiping tears from her face.

"If they're hurt or--"

"Then we can deal with it later." Riley interrupted. "We need to focus right now. Next steps only. One thing at a time. Feelings later." He hated seeming harsh in the face of what they'd just seen, but he needn't have worried. Finn took strength from what he said and moved forward a step, crouching for a better view of the house.

"How do we find out if anyone was inside?" She whispered.

"I think we go to the town square. If they wanted captives, it's likely they would bring them all to a centralized location. Since all the fires are burning now, it looks like there was a concerted effort to do this all at once, rather than one house at a time." He flinched as the front half of Finn's childhood home came crashing down with a great boom and a shower of sparks.

"Lead the way." Now that the adrenaline coursing through her was channeled into a plan, Finn was able to focus past the blind wall of panicked reaction.

They moved quickly through the brush. With the sounds of the cracking fires all around, it was unlikely they would be overheard; they just needed to stay out of sight.

The village square was up ahead, and to Finn's simultaneous relief and alarm, a crowd was gathered. Riley reached out with his hand to put pressure on her shoulder, and they both crouched lower into the bushes, resting on hands and knees. He squinted through the light of the nearest fire and torches carried by several of the people.

The hundred or so villagers were clustered in a tight group, with women and children toward the center and the men around the edges to the extent they were able. Surrounding them all were men with long, curved blades and torches. Their clothes seemed to match the people Roland had described, but there were dozens of them instead of a few. Most alarmingly, snarling wolves circled the villagers, ignoring the enemy soldiers.

One got too aggressive and snapped at a villager's shin. A shrill whistle sounded and it slunk backwards as if struck, then continued its slow circle around the tight group of innocents. Finn's eyes widened. A soldier on horseback was the source of the whistle, she realized, as he slowly lowered a device from his mouth.

"Stay where you are and they will not harm you, for now." The leader began. "Men of the village, we are the Rhone. You have no home now, just as my people have had no home for an age. Forced out into the desert hundreds of years ago, we have been wanderers. You are now like us. You may join us, or you will be driven out into the wilds to take our place. If you resist, you will perish.

"If you join us, there will be food, a home, and wealth for you at the end. All you have to do is fight alongside us. The choice is yours, and you have until morning to make it."

Riley tugged at Finn's shoulder, indicating they should withdraw. She spotted her father amongst the men, looking defiant, and Gabriel stood peeking out from behind him. She breathed a little easier and submitted to Riley's silent urging. He was right; better to regroup with Mayra than get caught and leave her unaware and undefended.

They retreated slowly, aware that the wolves had keener ears and noses than the people did. Hopefully they were so focused on their task of corralling the villagers that they would not notice Finn and Riley. The overwhelming smells and sounds of the burning fires should also help mask their retreat. Once they got a comfortable distance away, Finn covered her face in her hands. Riley put one arm around her in a comforting half-hug.

Finn gasped. "Your mother and brothers! I was so intent on finding Father and Gabe that I didn't--"

"They were there," Riley hushed her. "I couldn't tell if every person in the village was there, but everyone I could think of, I saw."

"He controls the wolves." Finn said in horror.

"Yes. We need to get a message to The General as quickly as we can. Do you still have the pigeon?"

Finn took off running before Riley could finish speaking. The pigeon was in the cart with Mayra.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the cart unmoved, still in its hiding place in the brush, a tentative Mayra peeking out from behind the cover.

"Is everything ok?" The girl whispered.

"No, but everyone's alive. The entire village is burned to the ground and everyone is a prisoner. I need pen and paper, quickly." Finn's tone was dire, and Mayra scrambled to get the things and hand them to her. By the moonlight, for she dared not light a candle and bring attention to them, she hastily tried to remember all the questions Dr. Sherman had said the council asked Finn during his report. She quickly scribbled what she thought were the most important details.

"General,

At least 50 soldiers from the desert. Village burned to ground, everyone hostage. Soldiers control the wolves. Call themselves the Rhone. They are recruiting more men to fight. Send help please.

Serafina."

She wanted to write so much more, but was unsure how tightly she could roll the paper to fit into the little container on the pigeon's leg. She was able to get the slip of paper she used inside it, then opened the cage and held the bird in her hands.

"Please fly quickly, little one." Did carrier pigeons have names? She should have asked this one's name. Throwing the bird into the sky, she watched its wings spread as it turned like a compass needle toward Klain and soared out of view.

"What now?" Whispered Mayra. Finn blinked and looked at Riley. His brow furrowed.

"I don't know." He thought out loud for their benefit. "There's no way we can rescue them. We don't stand a chance against the wolves and the soldiers and might get people killed if we tried. If we stay here the most we could hope to accomplish is more surveillance and maybe helping if the leader makes good on his promise to drive them out into the wilderness if the men don't join him."

"I don't want to leave them behind." Finn's eyes were full of emotion. "It's not right."

"I'm not saying we should, I'm just trying to think of how we could be the most help to them. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's here. Come daylight, especially with the cart, we'll be easily spotted and taken captive." Riley continued to puzzle out the problem.

"I have a responsibility to your father, and my mother, to keep you and Mayra safe. I think I have to take you both back to Klain. With a roving army and dangerous animals, it's the safest place for you."

"You're not in charge of us." Finn protested, wanting an equal say in the decision.

"For now, I'm the one people are depending on to keep both of you safe. You know I'd have a hard time forcing you to do anything against your will. I just have no clue how we can be at all useful here while simultaneously avoiding capture. We'll just get in the way and make things worse. I won't be able to forgive myself if both of you get found because of me."

"I hate to say it, Finn, but I think Riley's right." Mayra said softly. "We're not trained for this. It's completely outside our ability to deal with. I'd love to say I thought of some clever plan to distract the wolves, disable the soldiers, and save the day, but I just don't think that's realistic. I think the way we save everyone is to run back towards Klain and hopefully meet up with an army coming to rescue our loved ones."

Finn nodded slowly. Sometimes getting help was the best way.

"We need to leave now. They said they'd give the village until morning to make their decision. That hopefully gives us time to put enough distance between us and them for a measure of safety. Peach will have to rest eventually, but she can get us a way before then."

He backed Peach out of the thicket and turned her around back toward the road. Mayra and Finn climbed into the back of the cart, each dealing with their own emotional turmoil. Finn pulled her knees up to her chest and sobbed into them.

Mayra scooted next to her and leaned against her as they bumped along the road.

The last time they'd left the village, Finn had been bumped along in annoyance, pain, and a small measure of fear. She reflected on how much she preferred fearing for her own health over the image of her brother's scared face lit up by the torches of enemies.

A howl in the distance sent a shiver down her spine and punctuated the dread in Finn's heart.