

Copyright 2019

Brandy Hill Publishing

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher except for purposes of review.

This is a work of fiction. All of the character renderings and names as well as the place names of physical spaces are all fictional.

ISBN: 978-0-9973419-8-0

Brandy Hill Publishing

P.O. Box 1202

Morgan Hill, CA 95038

brandyhillpublish@gmail.com

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Cover design by Sandy Laue

For Sandy, my

beautiful muse
Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight
CHAPTER ONE

The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening and he drank from the brook —Kings 17:6

Calvin Michaels was shaving when he heard the voice for the first time. It seemed as if it traveled the breadth of his skull, entering one ear and moving through to the other, and though it sounded the same as if he was speaking to himself, it possessed a strange reverberation and produced an echo effect that lasted for several seconds after the words themselves had faded away.

You could have said something, you could have made a difference.

He heard the same phrase three more times during the day, and when he returned to his small first floor apartment just after six, he felt strangely calm and unaffected from the rigors of the day. He opened the short squat refrigerator and mentally ticked off his options for dinner, the last one being a trip to his favorite bistro three blocks away. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small blue booklet. Only two ration tickets left until the first of the month. He pulled the lone can of beer from the bottom shelf, crossed the room and slid the glass door open, strolling out onto the round brick patio and standing in front of a short row of neglected rose bushes untrimmed in the cool setting of the January sun. He did not see the shadow as it moved over the patio behind him. He pulled one of the black wrought iron chairs out from under a round metal table and sat down, crossing his legs and shuffling the chair around to let the last sun rays fall on his face before they disappeared behind the stucco wall.

She was there again today. You could have taken some of the pain from her.

Calvin sat bolt upright in the chair and looked around the small area. It was several seconds before his gaze fell upon the large raven perched on a small, bare fruit tree in the corner, half hidden by the shadows.

*

Damon stretched his wings straight out from his powerful body, his shiny blue-back pin feathers catching the early morning light as the sun peeked over the snow covered ridge behind him. The morning breeze ruffled the soft hackle feathers at his neck as he gazed into the distance at the tiny black specks that wheeled through the frigid morning air. They were closer than they were yesterday and as Damon watched, three of them peeled away from the main group and gaining altitude, began carving a path toward his perch. Damon swept his wings down swiftly to his side and launched into the cold air, streamlining his body through the wind and closing the distance by half in just a few seconds. The three smaller crows panicked and diving as one toward the ground sliced back through the bewildered flock and were half a mile away when Damon flew over what was left of the scattered gathering. He slowed as he saw the three drop down into the upper branches of a tall spruce tree that was one of several in a small stand on the snow covered northern slope of Hangmans' Mountain.

Damon flew by pretending not to see the three interlopers huddled quietly together midway down the conifer. The city dump gang out for a free meal at the expense of the Ravens of the Valley. He circled quickly around the mountain and dropped down silently from the sky, alighting on a large branch just above the trio. One of the interlopers was facing his direction and stopped chattering, falling silent. A few seconds later the other two noticed and turned their heads completely around, one of them hopping backwards on the branch from fright. Damon gazed impassively at the smaller crows.

"Carbini. You are far from your garbage mounds. What happened? Did the seagulls run you off again?" The biggest of the three, but still half the size of Damon pushed the frigid air into his breast and stood as tall as he could.

"It's a free country. Just taking the birds of the year out to see the sights." Carbini lifted his beak as if he saw something of interest high up on the mountain and assumed an unconcerned pose. Damon moved several inches closer on the branch as the other two crows retreated the same distance.

"And the elk carcass. That was not on the itinerary?" Carbini gave up on his pose and joined his companions near the trunk of the tree. He attempted to regain his pride by flaring his wings as he spoke.

"Everyone knows that the Ravens of the Valley share their food, especially when the snow lies thick on the ground." Damon's deep brown eyes closed for a second as he rose to his tallest height.

"The Valley Colony shares with those who are neighbors and who share their meat in return. The garbage trucks come each day, the snow lies thin on your filthy mounds."

"Your father thought differently and were he still alive we could roam as we will." Damon cocked his head to one side, the slick stiff feathers on the back of his neck standing up slightly at the mention of his father.

"You left of your own accord when you gave up your territory to the Hooded Ones. Now you are disagreeable about the past and demean yourselves fighting over scraps of food under the arches that are gold." Damon looked out over the white wasteland. "Your friends have gone. If you leave now you will be rejoined before they reach the landfill." Damon took several small steps backward on the thick branch. The two smaller crows seized the opening and dropped straight down toward the ground swooping along the freshly fallen snow, their pointed wing-tips sending up small white puffs as they glided quickly out of view around the side of the mountain. Damon watched them go and then turned back to the lone crow.

"Do not fly over the yellow river again." Carbini gazed once more at an imagined object on the hillside and feigned deafness. He ducked his head down quickly and pecked roughly at a small pine cone near his clawed foot. When he had it firmly in his sharp beak he cawed loudly and leapt into the air. He circled over the tree and then followed his companions into the unbroken whiteness beyond the mountain.

Damon watched him disappear over the crest and then left the tree, flying in lazy circles as he gained altitude on every circuit. The sun was beginning to warm the air and the first thermals of the day rode under his wings that worked almost effortlessly as he rose far above the frozen terrain. Damon rolled lazily onto his back and flew several hundred yards upside down before he folded his wings for a few seconds and tumbled toward the ground in a freefall. A half mile above the mountainside he righted himself and glided toward the edge of Four Mile Forest and the frozen elk carcass where the colony would already be eating the morning meal.

*

Damon dropped softly from the brittle branches to the edge of a snow-filled fountain in the center of the round patio. He turned his head slowly in both directions before he stared straight ahead at the man sitting at the table five feet away.

The woman who lost her son in Tunisia has worked beside you for four years. She deserves your comfort.

Calvin stared at the two foot high bird for several minutes as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing. He had seen ravens before and even tossed food to one at a campsite when he was a child, but the close proximity and the recurring thought that the bird was talking to him unnerved him. He looked away and took a large gulp of the beer, swallowing it in several installments. He turned his head slowly back and looked at the raven who hadn't moved and was still staring intently across the small space that separated them. Calvin slowly raised his left hand a few inches above the surface of the table.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Two.

"And now?"

Three. The can you are holding in your right hand says 'Old Pale Ale' on the side.

Calvin stood up quickly from the table, the small chair clattering to the bricks. He crossed the patio in three steps and pulled the door closed behind him as he crossed the threshold. He leaned against the refrigerator, his forehead pressed against the cool metal, his breathing coming in rapid gasps as he fought to compose himself and order his thoughts.

Why do you think it so strange that I can communicate with you? Haven't you spent most of your life studying the origins of language and haven't you written at least three articles on the possibility of inter-species communication?

Calvin turned and gazed blankly at the bird as big as a small toddler standing on the other side of the glass. He took a deep breath and walked to the door, tentatively placing his hand on the plastic pull. Damon backed up a few feet and hopped back up onto the rim of the terracotta fountain. The professor purposely avoided looking at the corvid as he crossed the patio and picked up the chair, sitting down in the same position as before. The sun dipped below the level of the wall and an even deeper coolness crossed over the patio as he looked into the brown eyes of his interlocutor.

"How could this possibly come to be?" He spread his hands in a gesture of resigned frustration. Damon's eye lids closed several times before he answered.

It is a remnant of a long ago past when ravens shepherded the souls of mortal men into the world beyond. By the middle ages, only my lineage was left with the lingual dexterity and by then all men could hear the voice and my clan were advisors and mystics to powerful kings and sorcerers.

Damon paused and let the information sink in as the man took another deep drink of the ale.

Now, it is almost gone. My father had me in the second to last spawn of his life. Before him, it was many generations back that the voice had been heard, and now only the ears of a few select men can receive it.

Calvin shivered in the winter air as a light just above the door was activated by the growing darkness. Damon gazed for several moments at the professor whose face had grown drawn and pale.

I think that it grows too dark and cold for you. We will talk more tomorrow. I will return at the same hour.

Damon stepped off the rim and before he touched the ground, moved upward in a graceful curve to the top of the wall. He looked down from twenty feet away at the man.

Do not think that this is a random meeting, Professor Michaels. I have chosen you carefully.

Damon dropped from view behind the wall and flew straight toward an oak tree on the corner of the street, buzzing a barred owl that shrunk back as the air from the large birds' wings buffeted him in his hide.

*

Damon set his wings and glided silently above the feed. The cadre of juveniles was taking their turn at the carcass as the older paired ravens stood in small groups in the snow a few yards away preening and enjoying the first warming rays of the sun. Damon banked low over the shadows of the pines, dropping down on a snow covered branch. He looked over at the raven who occupied the other side of the perch. He bent down and cooed quietly, rubbing his thick black beak on the rough bark. The female raven turned away from the feeding scene and bobbed her head up and down a few times.

"Hello, husband. Did you have a good flight?" Damon moved closer to her and pushed several inches of snow to the ground with three swipes of his beak.

"Yes, Lila, after I ran off Carbini and his rabble." She turned her head and made several high pitched keks toward a small group of juveniles who were squabbling over precedence at the food. When they stopped, she turned back to her husband.

"That is three times since the moon has cycled. They must be borne of some purpose." Damon spread his wings out to the side as the sun reached the upper branch upon which they sat.

"Yes. I will fly to the north and see what Hugin has to say. He is closer as the sparrow flies and has had more dealings. What does Magda say?"

"There have more incursions from the Hooded Ones, and she has seen them together on the wing with Carbini." Damon took in the information without comment.

"Did you follow Sasha as we agreed?" Lila moved a few steps closer to Damon until she was sharing the sun rays which fell on only half of the thick branch. Damon spread his left wing over her and pulled her close to his chest.

"Yes. They crossed Sutter's Butte, moved through the big snow and joined the Placer pack as they headed toward the Crags. They will wait for the herds in the big gap as always." Damon looked down at the juveniles who had finished feeding and were frolicking in the snow.

"Most of them have never seen the Crag roost. Never tasted the bitter cold that comes with the Crag winds. Let them feed on the last of it here and then lead them to the roost tonight." Lila looked up at her husband for several seconds before she moved her head back and forth in agreement. "You are staying here, my love?"

"Yes. I have some unfinished business. I will join you soon."

Later, Damon watched from his perch as the Valley colony left the feed in pairs and small groups. The sound of wings had died away and the white landscape lay under the heavy silence for several minutes before Damon stepped off the branch and began a slow flight eastward, zigzagging through the large conifers and the lodge pole pines.

Twenty minutes later he flew over a granite outcropping on a snowy ridge and dropped down toward the narrow valley below. The black forms of beef cows eating their winter hay ration passed underneath him almost unnoticed. He folded his wings and dropped down into a small grove of cottonwood trees that crowded up against the bank of a frozen creek. He let out a ragged caw that echoed sharply off a hillside to his right and watched for any sign of movement from the farm house fifty yards away. After several minutes he flew to a rusted swing set partially buried in the deep snow of the front yard. From his vantage point, he could see the half-opened kitchen window and the late morning rays of the sun as they played on the glass in the top half of the opening, bathing the area in pale warmth. He flew quickly to the eaves and walked on the edge of the metal gutter. He heard a muted clanking sound beyond the barn and cocked his head in that direction. The farmer was working on his old tractor. He dropped noiselessly down to the widow ledge and stared into the room.

The raven who was only slightly smaller than Damon gazed back at him through the thin gray spokes of the large birdcage. Damon tossed his head three times in succession as a greeting.

"How are you today, Melampus?" The other raven turned his body before hopping up onto the swing that hung down in the middle of the cage. The sun caught the dull sheen of his feathers, duller than the bright deep purple cast that Damon wore.

"Two days in a row, Damon. I am honored, or maybe I should be wary. You always need more than I can give." Damon hopped several inches until he was on the inside edge of the ledge. He turned his body in the direction of the barn and kept the front of the house inside his field of vision.

"Nonsense, my liege. You are the holder of the skirrum. That knowledge has always been at our call when our lineage is threatened. It is not that I ask too much, Melampus, it is more the case that you are not always approving of the uses to which the knowledge is put. But seeing as how you are the one from whom this curse has come to our attention, I don't see as we have any other choice." The caged raven was silent for several seconds and the only sound was the small squeak of the hinge as the swing rocked gently back and forth.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. I have not told him anything as of yet. He is wary. It has been too many generations since the ravens have talked directly to men. This will take some time."

"Do you think time grows on trees? Our hemisphere is in dark winter but in two months it will be the time of the wind and three months after that the fields will be heavy with the green growth. It is then that it will come." Damon waited patiently for the silence he knew was coming. Melampus hopped down from the swing and moved to the other side of the cage, his back to the window. Damon waited for several minutes before he spoke again, he kept his voice as soft and casual as he could manage.

"Much depends on what you and I can accomplish. We have always lived in the world of men and that will always be so. Without them, the time of the ice would have swallowed the world. The sound of wings will cease to sing in the winds forever on the day the last man takes his dying breath. That has always been the prophecy." Melampus spoke to the room.

"They cannot know everything at once. Their systems don't work as ours do. There will be many theories about what to do next. They have already set themselves to the task. But they will fail. They do not remember the last time it came into their world. Their skirrum is incomplete, forgotten like yesterday's news. And who are we to remind them, they will say. What could we possibly know of the scientific method or the way that the universe works?"

"We have to try."

"You have to try." Damon leaned over and raked his beak sharply across the thin wires.

"When was the last time you tasted fresh elk, brother?" He pecked violently at a small metal dish attached to the inside of the cage, bird seed spilling onto the newspaper below. "You are content to sit in there and spin your philosophies to yourself. Yet, the skirrum wasn't created and nurtured all those years for that purpose and you know that better than anyone. It is meant to be out in the land of birds where they can feast on it as they do the beasts and the young can be nurtured by it and fulfill their purpose." Melampus turned around and stared down at the thin layer of birdseed at his feet. He looked up at Damon, his black eyes unblinking.

"And who besides you, Damon, talks of the skirrum? The world you fly over each day is not even the one of your father. The ancient ways don't fill the craw or stop the harsh winds or give birth to new generations. They are invisible to the young and a rumor to everyone else." Damon took a step backward and scanned the front of the house quickly before he looked back at Melampus.

"We are wasting time. It won't be long before he needs to know, and I have to be prepared to tell him." Damon took another quick look by rotating his head toward the front yard. "So. Let us begin where we left off, shall we?"

Twenty minutes later, Damon dropped down on the wooden porch behind a chair covered by a canvas blanket. He waited until he heard the creak of the front gate before he moved silently around the corner of the small house and took to wing.

*

Sasha stood still in the shadow of the large conifer. The wind ruffled the brown and black fur around her face while the ice blue eyes probed the edge of the snow a hundred yards in front of her behind which lay the narrow gap in the granite slabs; the Crags, the steely gray monoliths which soared into the cold sky like the windy doors of heaven. The last of the birds had returned an hour ago, and now the flapping of wings grew silent among the snow laden branches. She moved her eyes quickly to her right where the other three members of the pack crouched below a ledge of rock. The pack had numbered six a year ago when the dark winter had set in, but now she was left alone to lead the hunts through the snowy forests.

The elk didn't spill into the open area, they didn't even move in single file, they just appeared as if they had conjured themselves from under the lifeless snow born of cocoons filled with fur, sinew and bone. They moved warily keeping to the edge of the timberline, small groups of twos and threes, young does with calves and immature bulls. Sasha waited, her warm breath turning to steam and mingling with the small snow crystals that the wind whipped back into her thick fur coat. She shifted her eyes to the far side of the open expanse and the edge of the forest. In the dark shadows, the Placer pack would be waiting, waiting for the attack to begin and Burian would be waiting there as well, his yellow eyes searching for the chance to reaffirm his domination of both packs.

Sasha gave a small yip out of the side of her mouth and the Valley pack sprang forward as one, their gray bodies elongated and their bellies scraping the snow as they sprinted toward their prey.

*

Lila drifted down through the branches of the tree nearest the kill. Sasha had delivered on her promise and the pack had brought down one of the animals just inside the tree line. The stiffened carcass was payment for locating the herd and alerting the wolves in enough time to lay ambush. Now she hopped onto a rock and scouted the area. She was just about to fly to the roost and bring the rest of the colony down to feed when she caught sight of a small movement behind her. She turned and flew twenty feet straight up into the air, her wings beating rhythmically just enough to hold her sleek body in a shallow hover. She gazed down on the muddy brown coat of the wolf. Foiled in his attempt at stealth, Burian sat casually on his haunches, his yellow eyes brimming with hate as the raven descended and sat on the antlers of the dead elk.

"You are not welcome here, Burian." She took three quick steps forward on the main branch of the rack and cawed loudly at the intruder.

"You are not the victor here today, raven, just as your kind never are." Lila turned her head and her dark brown eye stared maliciously at the canine.

"The bargain was stuck, Burian. The kill is ours." Burian let his long tongue droop from his mouth.

"There are not enough birds in this whole valley to stop us when we take this carcass."

"Your belly hangs full and low in the snow, Burian, you and your pack have had your fill. But be warned. If provoked, all three raven bands will flock together and strip every kill you make and scatter the bones. There are plenty of creatures in this valley that would happily watch you starve." Burian began to move through the deep snow around the carcass, staying just out of reach of the sharp black beak. He started a slow trot across the open expanse toward the trees on the other side where the rest of the Placer pack were sleeping in the snow well of a large pine tree.

Lila waited until Burians' backside disappeared into the deep afternoon shadows before she took flight toward the roost. She flew quickly around the large spruce and sounded several kek calls and gained sufficient altitude to watch carefully as the ranking pairs flew in order toward the kill. Just as she was preparing to follow them, a small group of juveniles sprinted from the tree and caught up with the last of the flock. Lila turned quickly in the bright sky, her aerodynamic body slicing through the cold air as she flew on a collision course toward the errant birds. The leader, Aachen, saw her as she made her plunge and quickly separated his gang of six birds from the tail end of the flock leading them in a steep sweep away toward the ground and curving around a rock outcropping, turned back toward the roost. Lila regained the heights and circled high above the spruce until all the juveniles were on the roost before making a rapid pass and scolding the miscreants with several sharp vocalizations as she headed back to the kill.

*

Professor Michaels peered through the sliding glass door after looking at his watch. He pulled the end of his blue woolen scarf across his throat and tucked it down into the collar of his coat. He stepped out slowly onto the patio and took several steps before he stopped and looked around. Seeing nothing, he walked to the middle of the space and sat down in the chair that was still pulled out away from the table, just the way he had left it the day before.

Good evening, Professor Michaels.

Calvin turned his head around and looked up into the large elm tree that grew just on the other side of his patio wall. He could see the large bird sitting near the trunk on the longest branch. As he watched, Damon made a small hop and setting his wings, glided gracefully down, his feet skimming lightly along the top of the wall. He perched on the edge of the fountain and cocked his head toward the man in front of him.

I am glad that you have come. I was worried that perhaps you would not return.

Calvin Michaels cleared his throat.

"I wasn't sure myself until just an hour ago." He gestured to the patio in general. "But here I am." Damon stared unblinkingly and didn't reply right away. After several seconds of silence, he bobbed his head up and down a few times.

You have questions, Professor. There must be no misunderstandings between us. Too much is at stake.

"I have done some research in the hours since we met. Though there are some very oblique references to ravens and men communicating in the distant past, it hardly amounts to the frequency that you described last night." Calvin stopped and waited. The bird fluffed his wing feathers and after settling down, turned a piercing gaze on the professor's face.

That is not surprising, Professor. Most references were destroyed long ago. Rival kings, despots, marauders, and then the church made sure that any diaries or old poems that mentioned the subject would not survive. There are tomes that still exist in the world, though they are the creation of necromancers and mystics and as such, must stay hidden away lest the same fates befall them. All that is left in the world that you inhabit are the oral traditions handed down from ancient peoples. They are folk and cosmological tales and are therefore relegated to the curiosity bin of the ethnologists.

Damon stopped and let the information sink in before he continued.

I am not opposed to satisfying your curiosity on the subject, professor, but the fact that we are communicating, renders it a rather moot point, wouldn't you say?

Calvin reached into the side pocket of his heavy canvas coat and withdrew a small briar pipe. He laid a packet of tobacco and a box of matches on the table and proceeded to fill the bowl; three separate layers of the dark tobacco each tamped down with his forefinger before the flame of the wooden match danced over the crown which was just slightly higher than the edge of the bowl. After several short preliminary puffs, he drew deeply on the pipe and released a long plume of gray smoke out into the frosty air. He looked back down at Damon.

"You spoke just now of 'too much being at stake'. What were you referring to?"

Damon took several steps forward on the terracotta rim until he was within two feet of the human. He turned his head and his deep brown eye fastened onto Calvin's eyes and he waited until the professor grew still.

Two years ago, three thousand people died in Asia Minorus. Last year, another twenty thousand perished in Africa, Australius and Skandia. This year will be the third year and when the seasons change they will usher in the year of the pestilence. Already this month, flights to Oceania have been cancelled and whole populations banned from travel to our hemisphere. This will be the fourth cycle of the pestilence and if prophesy holds true, the last one.

Calvin Michaels puffed on his pipe for several minutes before he spoke.

"These outbreaks are common and short-lived. Why would this time be any different?"

There is an order of monks that have resided in the Ardennes for sixteen hundred years. In one of their diaries you will find the answer. 'Common outbreaks' you call them. A few here and a few there. But the cycle is inexorable, Professor, as set in stone as any heavenly trajectory or ocean tide, any march of season, or any treachery of man. The last cycle, the third, swept through the huddled masses in the boroughs of Europe and died on the frozen steppes and the arid deserts devoid of people. This time the harvest will be full, the cycle will ring the earth again and again until the sun can cast no man-shaped shadows and the only sounds will be the screech of the winds and the moan of the beasts.

"But we are prepared this time. We have learned a lot since the last such plague."

Damon lifted his wings and fluffed his feathered pants in frustration.

Learned? What have you learned? Your kind does not even remember where the last plague sprang from. You think because your medical technology has advanced that you are safe from biblical pestilence. You are profoundly mistaken, Professor Michaels.

Damon stopped and waited. Four minutes passed, minutes when several puffs of smoke escaped into the cool air. Professor Michaels looked down at the large black hulk in front of him.

"What do they call you? Who do your own kind say you are?"

They say I am Damon, son of Thedes, and grandson of Marcus the Strong.

"And so, Damon, tell me where the last cycle of pestilence came from."

Damon turned and walked several inches around the rim of the fountain. He turned, his sharp nails making a faint scratching noise on the rough stone.

China, Professor Michaels. A bacterium named Yersina Pestis. The spore blew into the noses of the oxen and cattle and was spread far and wide by the fleas and pests that feasted on the beasts.

"Then why come to me? I am a professor of linguistics not a microbiologist."

You are correct, Professor, but you know several imminent microbiologists and immunologists. You met the leading woman in the field last year in Oslo.

"How would you know that, and more importantly, why would you know that? If this is so important, go talk to her yourself." Damon took several deep breaths, his chest pushing out with each one. He let the last one out slowly and waited several seconds before he replied.

I think I have explained myself on that issue, Professor Michaels. There are very few humans to whom I can relay speech. My father estimated it was less than one tenth of one percent of your population. I have chosen you, and no other will do. You are preeminent in your field and your stature inside the deep academy guarantees that the right people will listen to you and heed what you say.

"Deep academy? What do you mean by that?"

You are a vital link in the chain. The chain that makes decisions about who is admitted to the academy, whose research will be funded, whose star will rise, who will go home with the coveted prizes. This is not a criticism, Professor, just a statement of fact. In the next few years, you will become the most important man on your planet, and if we are not timely in the completion of our tasks, there will be no histographers left to record your valiant deeds.

Damon watched as Calvin Michaels hunkered down inside his coat. The deep chill of the evening had settled on the small patio several minutes before.

You are cold Professor, I shall keep you only a few moments longer. The monks I spoke of belong to a splinter group of the Cistercian Trappists that founded their own heretical order in 1105. The library in your university contains the original diaries of Fr. Helatios. They have been mistaken as belonging to the larger order and have been overlooked by academics such as yourself for many centuries. I will return in three night's time. I pray you are diligent in your research.

Damon hopped down onto the patio and walked in a slight bobbing fashion for a few feet before he turned and gazed at the professor. He jumped explosively into the air, his large wings creating a wind and causing Calvin to reflexively hold his arms up in front of his face. He put them down just in time to see the black form disappear over the top of the elm.

*

Lila watched the small black dot in the darkening sky that was her husband growing closer to her hide beneath a pinecone laden bough. When he was within fifty yards she let out a series of knocking noises from deep within her throat. Damon curved upward abruptly and then turned on his back before diving straight for the tree. He braked sharply with his wings flared against the breeze and settled onto the bough just above his wife. He hopped to the end of hers and ducked his head under the silvery needles as he pushed his way into the larger space.

"You are late, the blackness is descending." Damon brushed her erect throat feathers gently with his beak.

"There is much to do. This will be a far larger task than the one I first imagined."

"Echo was looking for you today." Damon cocked his head to one side at the mention of his brother.

"Did he say where he has been since the last moon?" Lila shook her head.

"No. He was in one of his silent moods, but he has something strongly on his mind."

Damon swiveled his head around slowly as the sounds of the Valley flock settling into their roosts came to him through the gathering darkness.

"There are voices I do not recognize. Are there visitors among us tonight?"

"Yes, my liege, there is a small band from the northern rim. I think you should speak to them in the morning, they have news." Damon settled down on the branch lifting his wings up and nestling his head between them.

"Good or bad, Lila?" She didn't answer right away as she mimicked her husband's movements.

"Bad. But it can keep 'til the morning."

*

The eldest member of the Northern Rim Group glanced warily around the rocky Crag that Damon had chosen for their conversation.

"It is not safe here. An eagle or peregrine could ambush us easily." Damon strutted farther out onto the precipice before he turned and came back, stopping two feet away from the smaller, older raven.

"Do not fear, elder, the raptors in our valley do not molest us. Our eggs are safe from their talons and our young can tumble and fall beneath their nests without fear from above." The raven didn't reply right away but waited a few moments, the small tufted feathers on the top of his head ruffling in the wind.

"I have never heard of such a thing. Since when do raptors take orders from ravens?" Damon turned his head and looked behind him at the white cold expanse of rock and trees that stretched for a hundred miles. He turned back to his companion.

"It was set down a long time ago by my grandfather. Many battles were fought in the skies above your head and many died on both sides. Only the eagles remained after the carnage and they were allowed to live in peace. Any new raptor mating pairs are turned away from the valley and we are out of reach of the owls." Damon stared intently at the raven now a foot away before he continued. "But that is not what has brought us here this morning. Lila tells me that you have news." The visitor turned his head slowly in all directions before he gazed back at Damon.

"The land we inhabited is one wing day from the frozen sea. There is a weather station there that is jointly run by the Russians and the Americans. One of our scouts flew over it nine days ago and reported to me. When I went to investigate, I found crows at the bodies. Twenty-nine humans were dead. I do not know what killed them, but two days later, all the crows that had feasted were dead as well." Damon opened his beak to speak but stopped when the elder bent forward and tipped up his tail feathers.

"There is more. I sent three more scouts back to the scene when we heard that a Russian ship had anchored in the bay. Only one returned. He reported that small parties of men were roaming over the area killing every winged thing they found."

The raven stopped and waited. Damon turned and repeated his short walk to the edge of the granite spur. He gazed down at the talus slopes that covered the side of the Crag and watched as a small family of mountain goats made their way toward a ridge several hundred yards distant. He returned to the spot he had been standing on.

"What do you make of this?" The older bird demurred.

"It is a mystery in the wind and moreover, an affair of men. That is why we came to this valley and you. We will leave soon and fly to the other side of the artic shelf. There is a colony there that has traded many mates with ours. If our luck holds they will allow us sanctuary there." Damon made a small whistling noise before he replied.

"You are welcome here. Your group is small, the meat is plentiful, and the stories of your bravery are many."

"No, my brother, I am old, and I wish to see my young birds at peace and safe before I go. You are set upon by many enemies that covet your lands and you must fight hard and often. No, I will go east and then north and never see you again."

The last word was punctuated by the movement of air in front of Damon as the ravens' still strong wings lifted him into the slate gray sky. He turned toward the roost and Damon watched thoughtfully until he slid from view around the largest of the Crags.

*

Damon watched as the flock wheeled through the skies as one. One form, one being. Now a long thin column twisting through the sunlight, now a round ball rotating toward the ground, thinning out into the spokes of a wheel as the flock moved higher again, meeting up as several strands poured into one that arced over the Crags and reappeared as a black arrow heading down toward Damon. As they passed by his perch on the highest of the Crags he flew up and became the end of a long strand that cracked like a bullwhip just above the mountain, a long, silvery purple lanyard cleaving the wind. A few minutes later as the flock made a last turn toward the roost and the fresh kill below it, Damon spied the lone black form making wide lazy circles around the body of the flock but always flying in the opposite direction from the other birds. Damon broke from the black mass and followed the lone raven as it flew toward a solitary spruce tree whose trunk was twisted by the wind and leaned out over the edge of the granite like a wooden sentinel. Damon waited until the bird had found a safe perch before he flew several circuits of the area and made deep, raspy quork sounds announcing his intention to land and share the perch.

Echo watched his younger brother fall lightly from the sky and alight on the end of the branch he was sitting on. Both of their heads turned as the flock made its' noisy landing across the valley, out of sight in the heavy spruce of the Four Mile Forest. Damon turned in the new stillness and moved his beak rapidly from side to side in greeting before he spoke.

"Tis a brother's beak that harkens back so well."

"Tis a brother's beak that harkens back so well." Damon made a contented clucking sound as he remembered his habit of making his brother repeat insults about himself when they were young and out of earshot of their father. The repeating portion of the conversation out of the way, Damon waited until the brothers were looking at each other out of one eye turned directly toward the other.

"Thine shadow has passed over fields flung far?" The older of the two Ravens considered the question for several seconds.

"My shadow, for its' better part has not beheld as much as might be surmised."

"Thine black tongue that rises so readily to the loose cannot resist the spilling of the tale. What advantage flight if not to preen fancy on the roost?"

"And your pink one doth squeak mightily so. I have heard and seen much that is valuable, much that roars like a tempest and even more that whispers and stinks of conspiracy. Things you would do well to heed my brother, as your crown and life are beholden and their corruption be nigh."

"The crown as 'twere it real would fit as finely on thine head as it sits malignantly on mine. We need not plow a field so fallow as the deeds and the foibles of our father, the time be present for newer doings." Echo sat up straighter on the bough, his large head scraping the soft under-needles of the old spruce.

"An ease put to better use by you than for my tongue to say. The curse of the black egg is naught on this occasion and only ill it forebears."

"The heavens praise the confidence of a sibling, but the wick of the winter's day burns shortly into blackness. Am I to have your wisdom before I sup?"

"The rushed judgement of the impudent is a broad river in your breast younger one, but as your ear is but a ladle pining for its' fill I will tell you what I know."

*

The two ravens gamboled high in the cold air. Their wingtips brushing lightly together as their paths crisscrossed above the deep forest. Soft calls echoed back from the granite steeps as the pair descended into a small valley between the towering stone edifices. Lila perched on a sharp edge of the gray rock.

"I scouted it yesterday, it is as we left it, my love." Damon hopped quickly to her side and peered over the edge. The tangle of small twigs wrapped with thin vines and lined with bark strips and elk fur clung to the side of the ledge, invisible from below and protected by the overhang from above. Damon turned and looked deeply into the eyes of his wife.

"I saw the first elderberry leaves emerge from the snow yesterday. What say you, my only?"

"I say the ripening of the chokecherries is but five months away, and your spawn will be flying beside you when the flock feasts upon them."

Damon walked back to the edge of the precipice and once more gazed down into the nest. He turned his broad strong beak back toward his wife.

"I have been given some news that you must share with your sister." He waited for the warm brown eyes to turn his way. "You must go to her while you still can. Are you willing?" Lila took several steps to his side and looked down at the nest before she looked at her husband.

"Let us line the nest with new fur from the kill and you can tell me as we work."

*

Melampus swung back and forth on the wooden swing, his dark eyes sunken into his skull, the white flecked feathers that covered his head gleaming in the late afternoon sun. After a few silent minutes he looked down at Damon who was perched in his customary spot. Damon had caught a quick glimpse of a raptor shadow on his way from the cottonwoods and he was especially wary. He turned his head from the window only when the elder bird spoke.

"As usual you bring a lifetime of burden when you come. Let us talk first of the coming calamity and then perhaps we can deal with this new malady of your soul."

"I am sorry that I disturb your reverie. Perhaps if you soared the valley with me you would see things differently."

"And perhaps if you would leave one to one's fate my manner would be more gracious." Damon moved several inches further out on the ledge being careful to keep under the shelter of the half-opened window sash. He didn't reply but waited as he surveyed the stand of cottonwoods, the most likely hiding place for a bird of prey. Melampus spoke again. "Be that as it may, I don't think we should be too quick to think the plague has come this close in so short a time." Damon moved his beak from side to side.

"It is just as the prophecy foretold, the winged of the earth will spread the pestilence to all corners and their number will be persecuted unmercifully."

"But your precious prophecy also told of the ice age that would scrape the earth flat and obliterate all that dwelled on it. That did not come to be and so too shall this pass." Damon walked quickly back and forth on the ledge impatiently, stopping at a new spot as he began to survey the immediate area.

"The prophecy does not predict outcomes Melampus, you know that as well as I do. But I have begun the task with the professor. He is beginning his studies and I believe he will help us, especially if the danger is as close as we have been told."

"Perhaps, but we heard these same reports last year and the year before. Both times the pestilence was localized and died out when the snow fell."

"Each time the pestilence grew in strength, Melampus. If it is on the north shore, it will be here before the snow has left the southern passes. Even someone as cautious as you can see we must go forward with haste." There was several moments of silence, in which Damon studied the trees on the other side of the creek closely. After several minutes he saw a slight movement near the trunk of the biggest cottonwood. A peregrine wing was just visible beneath the sparse canopy. He turned back toward the captive raven.

"Tell me, Melampus, what does the skirrum direct us to do?" Melampus hopped to the bottom of the cage and pushed his short beak against the metal wires and stared directly into Damon's eye.

"The Trappist monk holds the key. Inside his journal is the old formula, the formula that has stood ready for over a thousand years to stop the 'plague of the fowl'. The science of men must convert the formula and synthesize it, then produce enough in time to stop the spreading."

"But that was meant for a small population and is likely a concoction of local herbs and plants. Who knows what the active ingredients are, let alone the proportions?" Melampus returned to his swing, his back toward Damon. Presently he replied in a low voice that was directed out toward the small kitchen where his cage was kept.

"The inhabitants of that order were alchemists and even more, they were curious men, a type now rare on the earth. They cataloged and studied all manner of disease and ailments. They saw the first few outbreaks of the bird-spawned pestilence and rightly predicted that it would be the progenitor of the fourth and final cycle. It is not much but it is all that there is. As you yourself have said, when mankind falls, we are but brittle wings flying toward doom." Damon walked quickly to the other side of the window and watched the peregrine shift on the trunk to keep him in view. He spoke to Melampus' back.

"Echo spoke to me of many things."

"I am sure of that, but since he only speaks in lingua anciennes when he's not playing the parrot, who knows what he meant." The small soft feathers on Damon's back stood up and he dipped his head slightly.

"You yourself once taught the noble language and fought to keep it alive. Are you willing to see it thrown in the dustbin for no other reason than it is old and difficult to master?" Melampus peered through the bars of his cage at a distant snow covered peak. He shook his beak back and forth slowly.

"I am a realist. Change is inevitable. The young care not for any language but the one they hear from their younger flock mates. Why wish for that which will never be again?" Damon watched the peregrine flit to a neighboring tree and attempt to conceal itself. He turned back toward the caged raven.

"Because it is worth fighting for. The lingua anciennes is what sets our lineage apart from all the others. Without scholars and thinkers, the whole species is doomed." Melampus shook his beak even more forcefully.

"Who do you speak of? Outside of myself, I know of no other that can recite the skirrum. If the lineage depends on that you are sore in trouble, brother."

"And whose responsibility is it to transmit the skirrum to the next generation? I have seen the cage door you huddle behind wide open and your freedom's flight but two wing beats away. Yet you hide yourself here, content to feast on pet scraps. Do not talk to me of shepherding the lineage, you know not of what you dare to speak."

"I dare speak. Show me a likely recipient for the knowledge you be so sure I possess. Is there one among the young ones that be the new transmitter? Before you and your father, how many ebony eggs have lain in all the valley nests?"

"The tongue of man is not a requirement." Melampus interrupted.

"It is for me. What use the skirrum today or tomorrow if you were not to be the facilitator between our world and theirs?" Damon waited in silence until enough time had passed for him to safely change the subject.

"Carbini has joined with the Hooded Ones and the Crows of the Sand Pits. They intend to take over the inland empire and banish all the raven colonies to the wastelands of the north."

"Echo has an active imagination." Damon ignored the insult and continued.

"There is an informer among our ranks. That explains their sudden appearances in our territory when we are in the Crags or scouting the caribou herds." Melampus jumped wearily from his swing and kicked a few kernels of cooked rice from the middle of the cage.

"There have always been incursions, that will never cease, and their timing holds no relevance, then or now."

"Perhaps so, but the wars my father and his father fought were against individual bands. They have never been able to quit their squabbling long enough to join together."

"And so will be their fate this time as well. They are greedy and envious of each other. They will fall to fighting among themselves before the mud time comes." Damon scouted the cottonwoods but could not locate the peregrine. He turned back to the cage.

"You can afford such easy affect, my liege. Trade but one day in the skies I soar, and thy ken would find itself of a looser hold. A crows' world is but a lean cadaver and all will suffer their scourge. Their number puts the leaves to shame." Damon dipped his head low to the ledge to peer under the sun setting behind the cottonwoods before he continued. "Thy judgement proud is but an empty skin of elk and a decaying cacophony raised to ears stuffed with insolence. I take my leave." Damon flew swiftly across the small porch and gaining several feet in altitude flew toward a small apple orchard fifty yards from the farmhouse. Safely under the cover of the bare trees, he dropped lightly to the ground and changed his direction, running swiftly through a plowed furrow until he reached a tangle of rocks and blackberry vines. From his hide he watched the peregrine soar high over the roof of the house and dive in a line that would have intersected Damon's if he had still been following it. Damon worked his way through the bramble and flew in a long circle back toward the roost of the Ravens of the Valley.
CHAPTER TWO

The Raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements —Macbeth, Act I, Scene V

Hugin watched from his roost as the small contingent of Valley ravens finished their turn at the fresh kill. Their leader made several sharp vocalizations into the cold air and the three other ravens moved off to the side as the rest of the Ravens of the North moved in to receive their portions of the bounty. Damon flew to the branch where Hugin sat, forty feet off the ground and twenty yards away from the yearling elk cow.

"You were not as hungry as one would expect for the distance you have flown today." Damon turned his head and looked behind him to make sure that the members of his guard were obeying his orders. He turned toward the lean form and the yellow-brown eyes of the leader of the Ravens of the North.

"The turn of the wind favored us mightily. We did not expect such a feast. Thank you."

"The Ravens of the Valley are always welcome here. But news of your purpose has flown even swifter and much of your breath can be harbored for the winging home."

"Who has stolen the march and what veiled actions lie beneath the feathers?" Hugin turned his beak to the west.

"Carbini. He came in the dark of the last northern lights. He bade us hello, goodbye and told of an emissary that would bring us the conditions of peace." Damon made a deep gurgling noise in his throat.

"Carbini the Careless? And what force so malevolent as to prop up this ragged pile of feathers? Such a reckless tongue knows no direction from within. His lookout is that of some other's ken. When does this emissary appear?"

"I do not know. But two nights after, your own brother shared a roost and more besides."

"It is that which has born this flight. Once again, three colonies must be as one and defend the realm. Do the dreams of the warrior still find warmth in your roost?" Hugin gazed over the forty or so ravens on the ground in front of him. He could hear but not see fifty more in the spruce trees surrounding them.

"Wary of doom, they be, and understandably so, but words from Damon, son of Thedes will go far to sharpen the claw. We will be ready when the wings beat in anger."

*

Professor Michaels rubbed his pale hands together and brought them to his mouth, blowing on each in turn. He looked up at the glass visage of the security camera suspended over his head and wished that he had worn warmer clothes. It had been many years since he had sat in the small room. He had been a graduate student then, and now as he glanced from shelf to shelf, he recognized several volumes that had stolen his attention and hours of his life. He reached for a pair of white cotton gloves that lay beside the darkened leather and reveled in the small ration of warmth they afforded as he slipped them over his fingers. He slowly swiped his forefinger over the electronic screen built into the surface of the table. His name and the date appeared in an italicized script. He spoke the word 'test' several times and watched as it scrolled across the dull blue screen. He resisted the urge to look at the camera again and carefully opened the small volume, using both hands to support the ancient binding. He leafed slowly through the parchment pages, pausing now and again to speak deliberately and sotto voce, his words recorded faithfully beside him. Forty-five minutes after he had begun, a low-pitched buzzer sounded and the screen beside his elbow went dark. He slipped off the gloves and laid them beside the book. He moved around the table and waited in front of the metal door that always reminded him of waiting for an elevator, except when the doors slid open another larger room appeared, one bathed in natural light that illuminated the surfaces of the long shiny wooden tables and the comforting confines of the carrels. He crossed to the far side of the space, stepped up to a low counter and waited. Several minutes later, a young man came from behind a partition and placed a small stack of paper on the counter in front of Professor Michaels. The young man bent down and slid a large journal bound in red leather from its' resting place and opening it, placed it front of the professor. Calvin Michaels retrieved a pen from his inside coat pocket and signed his name under the last entry. The young man held out the sheath of papers without looking up. Calvin slipped them into the same pocket where he had placed his pen and turned to go. Two minutes later he pushed through the heavy glass door of the university library and hastened down the icy granite steps.

*

Damon parted company with his guards and flew in a tangential direction from the route he had taken on his journey to the Ravens of the North. Just before he reached his home valley, he decreased his altitude, turned in the sky and flew through a narrow cleft in the granite mountains. He dropped even lower when the long white levelness of the plains opened before him. The tops of the stone walls that divided the fields were just visible above the snow heaps and he followed one that formed a straight line until he spotted the small ranch house nestled between two small hillocks.

Lansford Kenny looked up from the broken fence post that was stuck fast in the frozen topsoil. He grunted softly when he saw the large raven sitting on an upright fence pole twenty feet away. He straightened and rubbed his throat and his red beard. He pushed the soiled canvas cap farther back on his head and squinted as the midday sun flooded his eyes. He took three steps toward the bird and pulled off his leather gloves. He stuffed them in his pocket as he smiled.

"Damon. Long time no see." The bird lifted its' wings several times in a small fluttery greeting motion.

As long as needs must, Lanny.

The man gestured toward the faded red pick-up truck that sat in the freshly plowed track on the other side of the stone wall.

"Only got the 30-30, today. See any on your way in?"

There are two small herds just above and behind the Boysee Coulee. They settle for the night in the trees below the bluff and venture to the meadows by mid-morning. A long way to haul meat. Are your freezers empty?

The man shook his head.

"Always use more." Damon waited for a few moments as the man in front of him pulled a pouch from the opposite pocket from where he had stashed his gloves. He pulled a small blob of tobacco out and slipped into his mouth. Damon turned his beak toward the house. There was fresh laundry draped on the three long lines that took up most of the space between the house and the small barn.

Your daughter and her child should leave as soon as possible. Your wife should go with them as well.

He turned back toward Lanny to judge the effect of his words.

The husky man was staring at him, his mouth slightly agape from the tobacco. He shook his head and spit a brown spot onto the clean snow.

"Why should they leave now. Easier later in spring when mud season calms down."

Because they are in danger. I won't waste my breath on you, I know you will stay here no matter your fate, but they must flee to safety.

"Still haven't said why."

Because a plague is about to descend on the land. It is already on the north shore. A weather station there lost all the inhabitants in one day.

Lanny moved some snow around with the toe of his boot. He shook his head.

"That was just the generator gone ass up. Saw it on the news." Damon puffed his chest out and let out a raucous quork to signal that he wanted Lanny to pay attention.

They had at least two redundant power systems at the station. How could that be the cause? It is a plague. As we speak, the Russians are burning everything there to ash. You must get your family to safety before it arrives here.

Damon stopped to judge the weight of his words and their effect on the middle-aged farmer. He had known him since they were both very young and Lansford Kenny had never told another soul about his conversations with the large raven. Now as he waited, he hoped that Lanny would remember all the times that Damon had been right.

"You sure about all this?" Damon nodded his head three times in succession.

The scourge will cover the land before the winds shift and began the thaw. There will be no time when it starts. This whole region will be sealed off and left to its' grisly fate. Do not tarry.

Damon turned and flew low over the narrow field, gaining altitude as he neared a rock wall. He turned back and flew over Lanny's head directing a series of loud caws at the farmer. When he turned back and just as a thermal lifted him toward the highlands, he could see Lanny still watching him. The gray mists closed behind him as he rose into the icy air over the mountain.

*

Carbini strutted up the side of a low hillock. He bent over and pulled a bit of paper free from the half-frozen ground. He scratched around underneath the soil for a few seconds and finding nothing of interest, continued on until he reached the top of the mound and had just started tearing at a plastic yogurt cup when he heard the soft rustle of wings behind him. He recognized one of the outer sentries.

"Why are you not at your post?" The young crow lowered his head in submission as he spoke.

"Damon, son of Thedes, is heading this way. I thought you should be told." Carbini ignored the sentry and instead flew quickly to the top of a rusted construction crane lying on its' side on one of the nearby mounds. He scanned the eastern sky and after a few seconds spied the lone black speck as it flew under the gray shape of the east bridge. He turned and cawed several times in the direction of the sentry. The sentry flew off toward the southern section of the garbage mounds. Carbini waited as the speck slowly took the form of a large raven that swung in ever-tightening circles around the mounds. After several circuits the large corvid settled on the other end of the crane without the normal quorks and caws that were customary when one wished to land in another colony's territory. Damon flared his long wings over his head and stood tall in the wind. Carbini advanced a few feet until the birds were only five feet apart.

"Your behavior is presumptuous, even for a craven raven." Damon took a few seconds to puff out his chest as he fixed one eye on the smaller bird.

"It is not an occasion for manners. My message is to be made clear, above all." He shifted his attention for a few seconds toward a quartet of crows that had flown low over an adjacent mound and taken up positions a few feet away surrounding Damon on all sides. He moved his beak rapidly up and down in a gesture of mockery.

"You panic and call out the praetorian guard for one lone bird? Your creeping senility is carrying paranoia on its' back." Carbini ignored the insult but moved his head in several directions as if to call attention to the menacing crowd.

"You have a message? Let's hear it." Damon took three deliberate steps toward Carbini setting off a series of nervous vocalizations from the guard.

"I would rather hear from you, Carbini. The wind has been bending your feathers lately. That many miles must mean something of importance. Suppose you tell me here and now and save yourself the sojourn." Carbini took several sly steps backwards out of range of the sharp black claws.

"The Ravens of the Valley have seven times the territory of any other flock. It is time that the abundance of the valley is shared equally." He paused and looked at his entourage as he made small chittering noises in his throat. He turned back to Damon. "Consider it a type of land reform." The statement was met with the same chittering noises from the guard crows. Damon's imperious glare quieted each one in turn as he pivoted his head. He pinned Carbini with the same expression for several seconds before he spoke.

"Perhaps we should find out if your little Greek chorus can do something other than giggle at your insolence." Damon extended his wings and turned slowly around, his head raised, and his breast exposed. When he was again facing Carbini he imitated the groups' chittering. "My father always told me that a rabble of crows had to number nine before they would dare attack even a raven child. You have made threats to allies of my colony. You fly uninvited into my territories and seem to have forgotten your history and the not so distant unpleasantness. Speak now or look the coward." Carbini turned his beak away from a sudden gust of wind that flattened the small tufted feathers on his throat before he spoke in a husky tone conjured to attract attention.

"You have until the cycle of the moon moves into darkness to meet our demands. Do not reply hastily. Those you think your allies may be blown by more winds than one." Damon took several deliberate steps forward on the rusted metal until he was only a few inches from Carbini. The only sound was the wind whistling through the fallen derrick.

"On the dark side of the moon, my enemies lie in black, feathered clumps." Damon launched himself explosively into the air and was a hundred yards away in a few seconds.

He flew in a straight line over the gray city, gaining altitude until the streets below became thin silver ribbons and though choked with cars and buses looked like so many strands of a geometric river system. He turned southeastward and felt the clean cold air that moved toward the coast from over the mountains. He was fifteen miles from his valley when he descended to cross the peaks through a narrow pass his father had shown him when he was very young. The deep gorge was still covered in snow though the last storm had been weeks ago. Damon's powerful wing strokes carried him upward as the topography rose toward the highest peak.

The sharp whistling sound reached his ears and in almost the same instant Damon rolled over into a dive toward the spruce trees a hundred yards below. The impact came a second later and Damon only saw a glimpse of gold barred feathers and the extended talons before he tumbled from the sky. He feigned unconsciousness but clung with one claw as he fell onto a large snow-covered branch halfway down a large spruce. He hung underneath the sheltering wood and inched his way slowly toward the trunk. Once there he cautiously moved around the tree until the thickness hid him from the threat. He flexed his left wing and felt the warmth of blood along with a spasm of pain. The nearby whoosh of wings made him cease any more movements.

From his perch he could see the two peregrines as they searched the area for him by flying overlapping circles around and through the small stand of trees on the highest point of the gorge. The frequent vocalizations suggested to Damon that they were a mating pair and probably had a nest on the cliffs nearby. When they widened their search area, and moved out of sight, Damon moved rapidly up the opposite side of the trunk, reaching the top branches and secreting himself under two that were almost as long as he was tall.

A few minutes later, it was the falcon's turn to feel the sharp claw and the concussion as the heavier bird hit him from below. Damon had flown straight up as the male flew over the top of his tree. Now he forced his claws deeper into the light-brown feathered breast and rolled on his back using the strong strokes of his wings to keep the pair floating slowly down toward the icy rocks below.

Damon sat astride the broken body of his foe. His quick eyes scanning the canyon walls and the skies above for more danger. After a few moments he let out a raucous cry that echoed back to him in the stony silence. He lifted slowly into the cold air and made several wide circles between the cliff walls as he gained altitude. A small movement along the rim caught his eye and put him on the trail of the second attacker as he concealed his pursuit by flying back and forth between the stunted pinions that grew in the rocky soil on the highest part of the gorge.

Damon peered down into the large oblong opening of the nest. It clung to a narrow scrape in the ledge just below the gray rock of the rim and swayed slightly in the strong wind. The female peregrine perched on the far edge of the nest, six light brown speckled eggs resting just below her talons. Damon waited a few seconds as the deadly foes gazed at one another, the yellow eyes of the falcon cold with menace.

"The nest is newly built. You are strangers to these mountains." The peregrine looked down toward the orbs at her feet.

"Do as you shall, knave, I will not abandon my young." Damon braced against a sudden gust of wind that swept up from the canyon below.

"I have done as I will, and more besides if I was so inclined. The walls grow thin on your eggs. Soon hungry mouths will give you no peace." He waited while the bird of prey contemplated his words before he continued. "You will turn ragged and worn keeping them warm and fed by yourself. A fit punishment, I say." Damon turned his beak to the east. "My valley lies half a wing day in that direction. Your brood will be fit for flight by the time the aspens turn again to gold. Be gone by then." He did not look at the peregrine as he swept into the air and dropped over the edge of another canyon, letting the late afternoon thermals aid his injured wing to keep him airborne.

*

Damon watched as the ravens settled down to roost in the early twilight. He flexed his left wing and felt no more of the painful twinges. Two weeks had passed since his visit to Carbini's garbage mounds and the moon was heading into a new phase. The mating pairs had all departed for their nests and the rest of the colony was left largely to fend on their own. Soon, Damon himself would be called to his husbandly duties and be forced to neglect his daily supervision. He had appointed the senior un-mated male and the oldest female to share leadership responsibilities, but the last two days had been unsettling. He sensed an undercurrent of insubordination and though the flock responded to his commands, there was sometimes a slight lag in the timing of the compliance, especially among the juveniles. Now he waited on the periphery of the roost and watched as one of the sentries winged toward him.

"Good evening, Signar, thank you for coming so promptly. Your duties are done for today?" The slightly smaller raven nodded.

"Yes, my liege, I have been relieved. There is no activity anywhere to the west."

"No sign of the Hooded Ones?" The raven shook his beak in the negative. Damon looked to the west.

"As good as can be hoped upon for now. Rest, and in the morning, I have an errand for you. Fly to the Ravens of the Corn and return with Echo, my brother. He is visiting Magda and knows not his welcome's end. Tell him I have an important task for him and that he must return with you. Otherwise he will tarry for weeks. Understand?"

"Yes, my liege." The young bird flew into the darkness and Damon was left alone in his solitary roost. He made several circuits of the Four Mile Forest, stopping now and then to listen for owls before he flew over the Crags to Lila.

*

You have no doubt heard of the incident at the weather station in the north. It is the harbinger of the pestilence to come. Time's wellspring is but a dry shallow hole and short odds are now our daily fare.

Professor Michaels shifted in the metal chair. He had heard the summons several times in his head since mid-morning and had left the campus after his noon class. On his way home he purchased a thin pad for the patio chair and now he sat comfortably in the unseasonably warm ambience of the walled enclosure

"If that is true, they are keeping it well under wraps. It would very hard to prevent that type of information from being disseminated."

On the contrary, professor, that is one thing in which all hierarchies excel. Underlings are always ready to believe the tale that gives them the most comfort even as they quietly ask themselves why they are being forced to perform irrational acts. It is the way of all species. The weather station is now but a thin layer of ash under ten feet of snow. But even in the cold heart of the system, there is the naïve hope that it is dead and buried. Their folly be but a rue coming due in the unfolding of time. But we linger too long over yesterday's cold rations. Have you been busy?

"I have studied the text as you requested. A further search turned up a footnote in a doctoral dissertation from twenty years ago. That led to another text written fifty years after the first by a member of the same order, a young novitiate who conducted several empirical experiments using the protocols outlined by Fr. Helatios. I am afraid his conclusions point in the opposite direction. There is grave doubt that the formulas would be even mildly effective against an avian plague such as the one that Helatios predicted." Professor Michaels stopped for a few seconds and contemplated the raven perched just on the other side of the table, only his ebony head visible above the white surface. "It is an avian, airborne strain we are talking about here, am I correct?" Damon gazed impassively at the man in front of him for several moments before he spoke.

I will answer by telling you of the skirrum, professor. Are you familiar with that word? I thought not. The skirrum is the sum of all that has transpired since time and space split into two and revealed the cosmos. A thick sinuous thread of knowledge that weaves through the history of all living things and informs upon the way things transpire and more importantly for our present purposes, how things will transpire in the future. There are keepers of the skirrum within my species, though their lookout be terrible and burdensome. There is now only one that is known since the passage of the only other twenty years ago in Europa. Before that and long ago, their number were forty or more, but most were rubbed out two hundred years ago in the second great war of Europa. Bear with me, professor, for the ground before you must be level for the viewing.

Damon stopped as Calvin Michaels raised his hand in an impatient gesture.

"How can the breadth of knowledge you describe be accessible for a species that has no written word or means of preserving what was said last year or even three seconds ago?"

Your consternation is understandable, professor. It is a talent, so to speak. A gift that is bestowed in a genealogical game of chance. In your world, you would know it as the shamanic experience. In mine, it is a terrible affliction that twists and tears the psyche and must be endured during long bouts of hallucinogenic torture. Most that survive the 'filling' as it is known are not fit for the company of others but instead seek out lonely and uncomfortable encampment. But the whys and wherefores of the process are less auspicious on this front than are the outcomes. The skirrum is very clear and while not infallible, there is but naught chance it is wrong in this case. The fourth plague, the final pestilence will be borne aloft on avian wings and carried to all corners of creation. That is so and cannot be assailed. Fr. Helatios understood and breathed the principle the skirrum teaches us all, though he knew it not. Nature will always return to the original cleavage, the original duality. It will offer with a hand the salvation it tears away with the other. It is our duty, yours and mine to make it so again.

"You mentioned there is one still among you, one that knows of this skirrum. Perhaps I should speak with him."

If that were advisable in this realm or any, it would already have been done. No, Professor, you are quite stuck with me, Damon, your humble translator. But your point does not suffer from a total absence of wisdom. A time may come when his corporeal form may breathe your same air, but that is dust in a future wind. Your brief is clear. Eva Lisson is in New York this week and part of next. You must take what you have learned to her. You must convince her of the gravity of what we are about and enlist her into the battle. Can you do that, professor?

*

The air that moved up from the white earth held more warmth than normal for the early hour as Damon banked high above the Crags and searched for his mate in the unbroken grayness below. He found her tugging at a twist of root near the edge of a precipice. He touched down lightly, bouncing forward a few steps before coming to a complete stop.

"Here, let me handle that for you." He pulled the long strand from the ground and laid it aside.

"You have been gone two days my love. The feathers go begging for the solace of some warmth and a rubbing." Damon moved to her side and pressed his flanks against her smooth feathers.

"The soul is but a wraith left behind when the sky beside me is empty, my only." She turned her beak toward the rim of gray rock and the mist beyond which rose like the breath of a god from the valley.

"It is a propitious day, my liege." Damon followed as she traversed the short distance to the edge. He stopped and looked over the precipice when she did so. Below he saw the nest, and in its' brown comforting bowels, five perfectly formed eggs. They were all a delicately hued piece of sky blue except the one in the center. Its' shell was like black graphite, though it glowed dully from overtones of a burnished gold. Damon raised his eyes toward the heavens and watched the mists boil through the air curling into ragged rainbow circles as the sun glinted through every watery crystal.

*

Rothschold, leader of the hooded crows, stood on top of the mountain sheep's ribcage, its' slender arcs half buried in the thin soil, their sides gleaming a pearly whiteness polished by wind and grit. His thick black head feathers turned to soft gray and to then white as they lay smooth in stark contrast to the coal black of his wings as he watched the raven duo fly over the valley two hundred yards away. He turned a fierce look backwards toward his companions.

"They will be beyond the long lake in a few minutes. We go now." A sharp chirp from one of the smaller hooded crows drew a disdainful stare.

"We are but six. Six against two ravens and one be the brother of Damon, son of Thedes." Rothschold moved aggressively toward the small bird.

"And Damon himself will feel the jagged points of our claws soon enough." He flew straight up in the air before he finished speaking. The other five crows followed close behind as the small group struggled to gain the heights above the ravens.

Signar took two quick half beats inside the steady rhythm of his wings and pulled alongside the strong black body.

"Echo, my liege, we are not alone." Echo turned an eye toward the younger bird.

"Heavens' air falls not apart for a timid squadron so composed. Tis but Rothschold, and his kingdoms lay more at the foul base of his skull than may be seen on any fair lands below." Echo pulled ahead, veered right and downward toward the white folds of a long thin cloud. As soon as they entered the cold puffy mist, Echo flew in a shallow circle until they were flying in the opposite direction from the one in which they had come. For several minutes he slowed the wing beats until they matched the pace of the cloud itself as the crosswinds carried it sideways across the narrow valley. The leading edge of the cloud moved over the tall stands of aspens that covered the top of a low mountain near the lake. Echo led the duo as they weaved their way down among the bare branches and through a narrow gap between two steep hills. A small creek wound its' beacon trail through the arboreal slopes and onward to the white plains beyond.

*

Sasha led her small Valley pack through the closely spaced trees in the alpine forest. She made several zigzagging detours whenever she saw long stretches of snow beneath the trees. She stopped at one that lay in the lee of a rock outcropping and was a hundred yards long and thirty yards wide. She felt the presence of Lupo, the ranking male and the only one in the pack at her flank.

"What is it, what is so interesting about a snowfield, Sasha?" She did not answer right away but quickly loped back and forth until she had seen most of the terrain. She sat on her haunches and looked at the young male, her dead sister's son.

"We have run for two days on the trails of men." She turned her long powerful snout toward the pristine whiteness beside her. "What do you not see, Lupo, what should be there?" She waited patiently for the answer that she knew was unlikely to come. Lupo, left to his own devices was a cunning and ruthless hunter, but when faced with something more abstract that did not require blood lust, he became a follower. "Footprints, Lupo, tracks in the mud and snow. Yet, the trails are bare, and their traps have no bait. For two days now, we should have smelled smoke in the mornings, yet nothing in our nostrils but the wind." She made a small yipping sound that brought the other two pack members to her side.

"There are three more paws of light left in this day. We are going to Miners' Camp. If we go straight over the mountain and the snow is little, we will be there by dusk." Rumba, the second ranking female objected.

"The last six miles is across their cattle's graze. Certain death even in darkness." Sasha looked back at the snowfield.

"Anyone that does not wish to go, can stay, but Burian is always close by. Did you not hear his loathsome howl in the night?" She waited for a few seconds longer, before she turned and trotted onto the snowfield toward the top of the mountain. The other three members of the pack followed in a small bunch ten yards behind her.

*

Melampus watched the widowed farmer closely as he slid the kitchen window open in its' frame. The breeze held the perfume of crocus shoots as it rolled gently into the small farmhouse. Melampus gripped the wooden dowel of the swing and gazed over the front yard and the slope down to the creek. The patches of yellow-brown grass were larger than they were the day before and the creek itself ran wider in the first of the spring thaw. It was a false spring, of course and the early spring storms were not far off, but still, he thought, springs' small pleasures were eternal, even the short-lived ones. His mind turned to the series of dreams that had recurred several times in the long night. They were as they had been when he was young, still in his teens and in the deepest throes of the 'filling'. Dark and violent, they featured a desperate flight from an unspeakable evil force and though he was moving through the air, his wings failed to obey his commands until he was tumbling downward through a rotating black vortex, his interior altimeter screaming of the approaching earth. Just as he had given up his soul to a certain death he stopped falling and realized he was being cradled by another raven. As the pair drifted like two leaves entwined toward the welcoming green of a meadow, he turned his head and stared into the kind brown eyes. It was Damon, but not as Damon appeared normally and as Melampus thought back on the dream, he realized that something in the bird's manner had reminded him of his friend, but it was some other bird. Familiar, yes, but definitely not one he had ever met. He was still musing on his recollections when the strident caw sounded across the sweep from the cottonwoods. He had long ago given up the answering call and instead waited in silence for his inevitable visitor. He watched as Damon swung in a long, shallow parabola from the top of the tallest cottonwood to the ledge, flying just inches under the top bar of the swing set.

"Greetings, my liege. It is a fine day and though winters' grasp is only just loosened, we should rejoice in the respite." Melampus nodded.

"I was musing in much the same way just before your herald. But there is something in your manner that sends a current through the thin spines of my confine. Perhaps it is just the promise of spring, nothing more." Damon walked backwards into the far corner of the window so that the open barn doors were in his purview. He raised his body up until he was the same height as Melampus.

"There is but the news, though not ordained, most certainly it is an omen." He waited until the older bird turned his head curiously and stared at Damon. He was going to continue but something in the eyes of the older bird made him stop and wait. After a few long seconds, Melampus spoke.

"My dreams corrupt my soul in darkness but in the light of such a fine day as this, their shards are like a crystal piercing my heart with the laser of base knowledge. In the nest of a Valley raven a black egg lies, is it not so?"

"Yes, my liege, and the spawn be mine. It was the last of five from Lila, a good omen unto itself."

"The long benevolence of the gift continues, Damon."

"There is more. The sides be burnished with the dull rose of gold." Melampus cocked his head queerly to one side and moved his beak up and down several times.

"I know not what to make of such a luminous detail. It is not dull and dark like the normal?"

"No, my liege." Melampus hopped down from the swing and began to pace slowly around the metal circle that was his home. After a few circuits he stopped in front of Damon.

"In my dreams there is a bird and his feathers shine not with violet like yours, but glow of a yellow glint and he fills me. He is my father in all things and in his ken, everything I am is his and more."

"I know not of that, Melampus, the dreams of dreamers are not any heavens through which I fly, though it portends of something, no doubt. The wearer of the black birth mantle will be born into war and suffering, and his lookout will be one not aspired to by any we know. That is as it should be and has always been. If he follows true, his birth will be a long and painful one and Lila will need much care in the enterprise." Melampus was quiet for a long spell before he spoke again.

"I must muse upon this notice. I am in a state of agitation and I know not the source. Did some other purpose put you to wing?"

*

Sasha lowered her long face close to the frozen ground and sniffed the air. The same pungent smell that first came to her in the fields two miles back was stronger here. She peered between the two buildings in front of her at the small section of the main street that was visible in the twilight. She crept forward cautiously. At this time of evening there would be men about, yet, there was not a whisper of sound. She kept to the shadow of the building on her left and lowered her body until she was almost prone on the ground and just inches from the wooden boardwalk that ran the length of both sides of the main street in the small farming community of Miners' Camp. A slight breeze brought the vile smell swirling through her nostrils. She pushed the front of her nose into the dirt and closed her smarting eyes. The breeze shifted, and the stink abated. She peered cautiously around the corner.

*

The dark-haired woman sat stiffly in the hard, plastic chair. Eva Lisson was thirty-six years old and was not amused by the turn the conversation had just taken. The seconds dragged by as her interlocuter waited for an answer.

"Why choose me, Calvin? There are many others you can approach. Others more experienced in the type of virus you describe." Professor Michaels glanced around the Manhattan restaurant. They were the last diners of the evening and soon the staff would begin to clear and reset the tables in the area in which they were sitting. He motioned with his head toward a wide door across the room.

"Perhaps we would be more comfortable in the lounge." He sensed her reluctance. "One drink Ev, and I will tell you why it has to be you."

When they were ensconced in a comfortable booth at the back of the lounge, Calvin smiled to himself. He felt more at ease. The low-level noise from the bar thirty feet away gave their conversation the right amount of privacy. She looked at him coolly over her small glass of port.

"We both have our drinks. Now why am I the one that has to be involved?" Calvin sat back and sighed.

"Everybody will be involved before this is over, Ev, but..." She interrupted him.

"I wasn't sure I was ready when I took your call earlier. I'm still not. You seem to be over it, but I guess that is how men are, right?" Calvin sighed again, but a little quieter this time.

"This isn't about the two of us, Ev." She cut him off again.

"Really, Calvin? I'm here, you're here, we have a history and yet you act like it is just two academics comparing notes." Professor Michaels tossed his hands a short way into the air.

"I thought you wanted to know, why you?" She took a small sip of the port and set the glass down carefully.

"I do." She lifted her eyes from her glass. Calvin thought they looked a little moister than a few seconds before. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

"You were chosen, Ev. You were chosen by him." His voice trailed off a little at the end of the sentence.

"By whom, Calvin?" Her voice had a small edge in it that he remembered well. He leaned forward, and his voice found its' usual huskiness.

"Who he is doesn't matter, Ev. Its' what he is, what he represents and what he knows." He sat back in the warm leather and watched her mull his answer over. Presently she took another sip of the drink and tapped the top of the table gently with a red fingernail.

"If he knows so much, then I fail to see why you need me."

"His knowledge is archaic. Archaic in the truest sense of the word. He knows how the plague is borne. He knows it's properties. He knows the formulas for the cure, he just doesn't..." His voice trailed off again.

"Doesn't know what, Calvin?" Calvin tried to make his voice husky again but was less successful this time.

"He doesn't know modern pharmaceutical properties, Ev. His formulas for compounds rely on ingredients from the dark ages." She frowned and sat up straighter.

"What dark ages? The nineteen nineties?" Professor Michaels groaned a little in the back of his throat. He shook his head.

"Nine twenty-four." The silence that followed was punctuated only by the light drumming of feminine fingers on the table. When she spoke, her voice was low, and her words had more spaces between them than usual.

"Let me see if I have this right so far, Calvin. Someone you know thinks there is a plague ready to descend on the world and he knows the cure, but he doesn't really know it because it is from the dark ages, the real dark ages. Am I right, so far?" Calvin nodded wearily. He held up a hand before she could speak again.

"You have a level two security clearance, right?" Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded her assent. "Which means that you probably know somebody or a few somebodies in the upper echelons of the Skandia government who have a level one, correct."

"So what if I do, Cal..." He interrupted her for the second time.

"Just listen to me for one minute, Ev. Go to this person, someone you trust, and ask them about the Grnosk weather station on the North Slope. When you find out what happened there, you will know that what I say is true and that you need to help us." Eva kept her eyes on Calvin as she pulled her purse onto the table and began rummaging through it, finally pulling out a small hankerchief.

"This person have a name?" Professor Michaels sighed.

"Damon." His voice was small again.

"Damon, what, Calvin? Where did he get his doctorate?" Calvin shook his head. "If what you say turns out to be true, Calvin, I will have to consult with him myself." The small groan in the back of his throat was louder this time as the image of Damon sitting in his lap like some vaudeville ventriloquist act rose before him.

*

The form that lay on the rough planks of the boardwalk was barely recognizable as human. The arms reached toward the skies locked in an anguished pose, the body was bloated several times the normal size and the skin was crusted and blackened as if consumed by fire. Sasha stepped into the street and moved around the corpse keeping a wary eye on the fronts of the buildings. Several of the doors were open and more bodies could be seen in groups of twos and threes. After a few minutes, Sasha did not have to look, the smell was enough to alert her to the presence of the cadavers. She traversed the entire town twice and seeing no living humans she trotted toward the dirt alleyway that would take her back through the fields to where she had hidden the rest of her pack. As she turned the last corner, she stopped and stared at the new form blocking her way.

"Burian. Why are you about?" The larger wolf smiled through his long snout filled with yellow teeth.

"Might ask the same of you. Come to claim this town for your own?" Sasha's eyes narrowed, and she crept closer, glancing right and left to see if the rest of the Placer pack was close by.

"Curious is more like it. Haven't seen human sign for several days." Burian sniffed the air.

"Plenty for everybody." Sasha made a small growl in her throat.

"You're not the smartest in the pack, Burian, but even you are not that dumb. The smallest mouthful means death." Burian gazed idly around the area.

"The end of the reign of men can only mean good things ahead for us."

"Is that so, Burian? And when the black death finishes off every man, do you not think it will find a way to come for us? Did you not learn anything from our ancestors? This is the fourth ring, the fourth cycle. The black death has perfected its' grisly métier. The birds will carry it far and wide and nothing will escape the cauldron."

Burian started to reply, but Sasha was already trotting past him toward the last house before the fields began.

Twenty minutes later, she cut across a narrow field and dropped down into a dry irrigation ditch. Fifty yards on, she rejoined her pack. She relayed the somber news and waited for the inevitable questions. Lupo was first.

"Where do we go from here?"

"Back to the Crags."

"But we only winter there. The time of the green growth is always spent near the streams and brooks where the deer are plentiful." Sasha glanced at each of the pack in turn.

"The plague will spread. Men will go hungry and spill into the countryside looking for food. We will be hunted as we have always been, except this time they will spring from the ground wherever we step. The Crags are the only refuge." A low growl from the back of the pack turned everyone's head toward the source. Greiva, the youngest female spoke when all the long ears turned in her direction.

"That is six nights behind us, and what then? Eat ground squirrels? Not me. The noble race does not stoop so low." The two females gazed into each other's eyes for several seconds. Sasha spoke first.

"Go to him. That has always been your fate. But when you find it not to your liking, this will still be your home and your family." The young yellow wolf turned and disappeared into the darkness. Sasha lifted her nose high and pulled in the clean night air. There was now only a slight trace of the vile smell in her nostrils.

*

The tops of the spruce trees swayed in the early evening breeze and while the air was cool, it lacked the bitter cutting edge that deep winter always held in the wind. Echo looked out over the roost from his perch across a small clearing. He had been watching the flock for most of the hours since he had arrived safely back with Signar and now their bellies full, most of the ravens were vying among themselves for the choice spots. Sharp sounds reached his ears as a small squabble broke out in the tree nearest him. He watched calmly as the matter was put to rest. He hunkered down into his wings and prepared for the night.

*

The helicopter swooped in a slow arc toward the large black painted circle on top of the building which stood forty floors high, its' silvery sides reflecting the last orange rays of the sunset back into the dark gray river that ran beside it. The aircraft flared its' nose upward for a brief moment before it settled onto the pad, its' violent wash sweeping small waves of dirt and grit toward the three souls waiting by the railing, their backs turned to the gale.

The long drooping blades slowed their circuits and the whining engine noise died away as one of the onlookers ignored the still spinning props and walked to the near side of the craft. His lined, grim face watched from under his fur hat as the lone occupant moved in a slight crouch toward the door. When the gray panel in the side of the helicopter slid open, both men gazed evenly at the other for several seconds. The disembarking man stepped down onto the concrete and took three more steps, his blue eyes taking in the other two men still huddled by the railing. He smiled slightly to himself and turned slowly until he was staring at the profile of the man nearest him.

"It must be bad, Gregor, if they had to wade through every dive bar in St. Petersburg to dredge you up." A small puff of frosty air escaped from the Russian's lips.

"I don't imagine so, Colonel. Just you Americans wetting yourselves again." Everett Sackett indicated the railing with a slight toss of his head.

"Who are your playmates?" Gregor snorted.

"One for you, one for me." Everett turned back to the helicopter and accepted his large leather valise from one of the crew. He straightened his husky, fifty-two year old frame and motioned toward the steps.

"Shall we?"

*

Damon hopped to the edge of the rim rock and moved the three pieces of elk meat to a more comfortable position in his beak before he dropped them down onto the polished stone beside the nest. He peered over the edge. Lila was already looking up at him from her place over the eggs.

"There is no need, husband. I am quite full." He flared his wings and lowered himself down to the ledge and walked over to the nest.

"The past always informs us, Lila. The hunger will come, and thou must eat while there is abundance. Soon enough, it will all go into other mouths." He tore the pieces each in half and then passed them down to Lila, waiting until she swallowed before proffering her another.

"I have heard from Signar, that my sister, Magda is barren this year as last. She has offered to come help me." She ate the last small strip of the sinewy meat and waited.

"Perhaps so, Lila, but more's the chance that she will join the war wings."

"Carbini is the fool, and I think not likely to mount an effective campaign, my liege." Damon hopped up onto the rim of the nest and gazed down the narrow valley toward the roost five miles away before he looked his wife in the eye.

"I don't think it is Carbini that we have to worry about. He has been too badly battered in battle and his flock is cowed and demoralized by their defeats. His only chance is to fall in with some other rogue."

"There is only one other that springs to mind. An unholy confederacy?" Damon was about to reply when the sound of a raven on the wing made them both look high above the edge of the cliff. Damon saw the familiar profile of his brother.

"Perhaps now we shall hear the other tail of the tale." The customary quorks were exchanged as the large raven settled down on the ledge a few feet from the nest. Damon puffed up a little and moved his beak up and down several times.

"From the blue of the sky, black carrion falls."

"From the blue of the sky, black carrion falls." Echo walked in a formal waddling fashion to the edge of the nest and peered down inside. "Fair sister-bird, the lilies of the valley droop and fade at the sound of thy name." Lila shifted her body on top of the eggs.

"I am glad to see you again Echo. I trust you found my sister well?"

"Naughts' well as past, but in springs' gloaming she is but hopeful." Echo turned toward his brother when he heard the small croaking from his throat. Damon waited until he had his brother's attention.

"The ground rumbles with portentous news and speculations raw. Thine own ken is but awaited with half a breath." Echo puffed and settled down into a more comfortable position on the ledge.

"Times' mist is an arrow pinned on this sweet spot solely. The universe of the winged ones hangs by an elks' sinew on the dark orb that lies in the nest's womb before us and a kingdoms' breath is a line taut and singing for the anticipation. The news and doings of other matters portentous or nay must wait their unfolding." Damon glanced down at the part of the black egg he could see just underneath Lila.

"An orb of peculiar cast and habit, I accede, and truths' providence be known, Melampus himself is fevered high and accords the occasion auspicious parts. But shelter not the clouds of war and fail not their intent, for they will be hells' first visit." Echo was silent for several minutes before he spoke again.

"The high bird of war sits this day on the long lake of the green linnet. Haughty and cruel though his visage be, his visions' cloak is a garment thin and breezy." Damon moved his beak in a motion that indicated his understanding.

"Ah, Rothschold, his crown aspired, his cauldron of fiery hate long simmered and tempered on acts cruel but forgotten by all winged of common decent bent. Time's parched well is nigh done for his fortune."

"No despot risen to kingdoms' height be feared, my liege, but numbers teem among the eastern forests and their staffels fly fierce and be primed boldly for blood." When Damon fell silent and thoughtful, Echo waited for several minutes before he broached another subject.

"A kings' eye well met with vision behind would be of use as much among thine own fold as without." He stopped speaking and waited to see the effect his words had on his brother.

"Treachery's treacle scent ripens as a fruit that is borne of bitterness and envy. A knave's name is cast windward and matters not but as one faceless place in a coward's line." Echo straightened from his relaxed position and stretched his wings, letting them fold back against his sides before he looked again at his brother.

"The flock's turn is called and bent 'neath the will of one naught of a tongue dark with wisdom earned. The fragments of a shell thick with insolence choke in the craw still." Damon turned a sideways look toward his brother.

"Aachen's flight fancy will not forebear his dreams of roost. The worm turned falsely feels first the heavy heel of usurped power and harbinges the bloody spilled intestines of faded glory."

Damon paced around on the ledge for several minutes after the departure of his brother. He flew three more times to the elk carcass half hidden in a snow mound five hundred yards away, tearing the frozen meat into small shreds on his return to the nest and to Lila. He watched as she dutifully ate all that he brought to her.

"I never had the chance to ask your mother how the birth of the black egg goes, my liege, she was dead many years when I met you." Damon looked down with affection on his lifelong mate.

"Perhaps it is the better for it, my love. But I daren't mislead you. It is a mighty task. We have to sit the nest twice as long as is customary. You must keep the orb warm at all times and at all costs, though there be hungry voices always at your side. I will keep you and the other nestlings supplied with meat, but the spring rains and the cold will be a god's punishment true." He stopped, but he could tell by his wife's expression that she knew he was thinking more on the subject that was unsaid. Presently he spoke again.

"Word has no doubt spread among the owls and the peregrines. They will take to a furious wing in desperate straits to eliminate the threat." He paused and gazed down at Lila's warm brown eyes. "Echo was the only sibling survivor and was badly mauled, his life's sparing a close thing." Lila moved subtly and spread out her wings covering all the eggs. She lifted her proud beak to her husband and the heavens.

"We shall keep them all, my liege, and they will be the fitter for it."

*

Colonel Sackett closed the thin file folder and slid it away to the center of the cold metal table. He gazed at it for a few more minutes before he turned and looked toward the opaque window that covered a scant three square feet of wall space in the darkened narrow room. He heard the heavy door open and close behind him but didn't move, even when the man in the gray wool uniform sat down across from him. It was only when the man cleared his throat that the colonel turned his head wearily and looked in his direction. He already knew what he would see, which is partly why he didn't bother to stir when the man had first opened the door. Government party men were all alike and not by chance. They worked at it, perfected it and moved up through the ranks of the party by dint of their dedication to refining their cruel and treacherous traits. This one looked puffy and out of shape, but as Everett gazed deeply into the man's black eyes, he recognized the look of the ruthless killer. He continued to stare with no expression and waited.

The man across the table met the steel of the colonel's gaze and spoke, his mouth moving downward into an amused expression.

"The famous Colonel Sackett. How honored we are in this small inconsequential outpost to have such a luminary among us." Sackett said nothing and when it was obvious that there would be no rising to the bait, the man's face dissolved into the mask of the bureaucrat. He reached out and tapped the file folder with a manicured nail that sat on the end of a long, thin, white finger.

"You have read the brief. Tell me what you think." Everett Sackett picked up the folder and flipped idly through the fifteen pages it contained before he tossed it back onto the table between the two men. When he spoke, he exaggerated his slight southern drawl. It was always guaranteed to irritate the party men. The higher up the party apparatus they were, the more the irritation, and though an attempt was made to hide it, the bristling from across the table would have moved him to a smile on most other occasions.

"I think you have a problem. A problem that doesn't appear to have an easy solution at hand, unless you decide to annihilate the entire population of North America before this thing does." He gestured toward the file without looking at it. The hard eyes bored through him from four feet away.

"That is not helpful, Colonel. How we choose to deal with the disease is not your concern. You are here because you are a leader of men in combat and one of your ultimate tasks will be to control a scared and sick population."

"And what is my task until then?" The party man smiled without warmth and placed his neatly folded hands on the table in front of him.

"Why, contain the truth about the crisis, what else? Make sure that anyone that suspects the truth and scale of the epidemic is not allowed to share what they know or think they know." It was the Colonel's turn to return a frosty smile.

"Why not put all that energy into fighting this thing?" The man across the table hesitated for a few seconds before he replied.

"Because there is not much confidence that it can be fought. There is an even chance that an effective vaccine could be produced in time, but not in the quantity that would be needed." The Colonel snorted.

"I suppose it would be foolish at this stage to ask who will be the fortunate few to receive such a vaccine, correct?"

The government official stood up and paced slowly behind the table, looking down at his brown half boots that were worn by all in his position and that was the genesis of their moniker rendered with a smirk among the resistance: 'booties'. He stopped in front of the Colonel.

"You would do well to change that stubborn attitude you are famous for and began to come up with some solutions to our problems." He bent over his empty chair and stared down into the blue eyes of the Colonel. "You won't leave this province until this thing is eradicated or you are the last man standing."

*

The four ravens from the Corn Colony crossed the broad snow covered plain following a railroad track one hundred yards below. The air that lifted their wings was warm but still smelled of winter as they passed through a small bottleneck that lay between two heavily wooded hills. The last bird in line was the first to see the long dark legions of crows that began to stream out of the bare trees on both sides. The ravens instinctively flew higher and rolling over, dove down as one toward the nearest swarm. Before they reached their attackers, they were slammed into by an even larger group that had been circling at a higher altitude, the sun at their backs. All three groups of crows converged on the four ravens who lashed out mightily with their claws, using the bodies of impaled attackers as shields against the onslaught. The crows vocalized in unison and inside of three minutes the sky was empty. Small feathers drifted down in the breeze to join the scattered piles on the dirty snow.

Carbini flew over the carnage. He shook his beak. There were seventeen dead crows amid the four raven bodies. He landed on a rock nearby and waited for one of his lieutenants to join him.

"These losses are unacceptable." The smaller crow bent low and waited. "When they are forewarned and appear in numbers the kill ratio will be even worse." He shook his beak violently and looked toward the killing ground. "One of them is Magda's brother. Bring me his head."

*
CHAPTER THREE

The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.   
—Hamlet Act III Scene II

Damon watched as the small particles of snow fell from the spruce tree. He was only two hundred yards from the nest where Lila waited and from where he had just flown. He had seen the tufts of fur that were all that was left of the tit mouse and had followed the tiny drops of blood in the snow to the spruce at the edge of the forest. Now he could see the owl's hide, cleverly concealed where one of the lower branches met the trunk. He walked behind a large rock and took to the air when he was sure that the occupant of the small tree burrow could not see him. Damon flew a shallow circle through the adjoining trees and landed lightly on a branch that jutted out from the backside of the tree.

The gray owl stopped preening his feathers and listened. Something had just moved nearby, but from deep inside his burrow he could see only a small circle of his surroundings. Perhaps it is nothing but the wind, he tried to convince himself, and resumed his cleaning job. A few minutes later, he heard a faint scraping noise that came from within the tree itself or was very near it. He moved cautiously to the opening but kept well within its' warm confines as he carefully scanned the territory he knew by heart. Seeing nothing and hearing nothing further, he pushed his head out through the opening.

Lila looked down upon the fresh meat. She lifted her head and gazed up at Damon whose eyes glowed in the gathering darkness. He let out a soft caw before he spoke.

"The owls' song will not grace this night, Lila."

"You have done well, husband. But he has a mate. I see where she goes to gather moss for the nest. She will be bent for revenge and will brook no delay." Damon tore a strip from the bloody breast and lowered it down into the dark interior of the nest.

"She will get three days' time to leave the valley. I think she will be trouble no more." Lila ignored the morsel of fresh meat and waited for her husband to look up from his grisly task.

"Matan, my brother is overdue, my liege. He should have arrived by midday and would have paid his respects by now." Damon stopped what he was doing and pushed the bloody carcass to one side.

"I will summon Signar and he will scout for him. Are you sure he was to leave the Corn Colony this morning?"

"He informed Echo thusly. It has been nearly two years since I have seen my brother and the news of the black orb has moved him to the task."

*

Gregor Valich held the glass up to the flickering orange light that came from the electric fireplace. He smiled to himself and tipped his head back, letting the smooth Tennessee whiskey slide down his throat, a fiery tongue of flame following it down to his stomach. He smacked his lips slightly and lowered the glass noisily to the table. He smiled outwardly now at the man across from him. He swung the glass in the air and used it to point.

"The only good thing about seeing you again, Colonel, is this." Colonel Sackett snorted and reached for the bottle, filling the Russian's glass before he splashed a small amount into his.

"Enjoy it, but go easy. This is the only bottle I have. If we're caught with this one, all our medals won't get us out." He took a small sip and grinned over the glass. "So, Gregor, I know why I am here, but why you?" Gregor looked down at his glass and shook his head slowly.

"There are forty thousand Russian emigres in this province." He looked up at Sackett, his three-day old beard glistening gray in the low light. "My job? To make sure they stay here, no matter what." Colonel Sackett grunted and pulled the small piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

"Miners Camp. What do you think we find there, Colonel Valich?" The Russian took another healthy drink before he looked up.

"The beginning of the end of the world, Colonel Sackett."

*

The pale green buds on the fruit trees were just visible on the smooth brown branches as Calvin Michaels sat in the small chair and waited. He was tired from the flight home and now sank into his reverie which turned into light dozing in the afternoon sun.

I trust you were successful, Professor Michaels.

Calvin sat upright with a start. The large raven stood on the table in front of him. Damon turned and walked the few small steps to the edge and hopped nimbly to the rim of the fountain. He swung around and faced the professor.

"I don't know...not entirely... I'm not sure." Damon stared unblinkingly.

Do you know of the Turner building, Professor Michaels?

Damon waited until Calvin slowly nodded his assent.

The government has taken over the top six floors and set up a command center. They have called in elements of the special forces who along with a contingent of Russian counterparts are making plans for martial law. This morning, those same elements will enter Miners Camp. Do you know what they will find, Professor?

Damon didn't wait for a gesture before he continued.

They will find nothing living. So, you see, professor, that which has been foreseen and that which has been described to you, is here, now, barely one hundred miles from where you sit. Now, let me ask again. Were you successful?

Calvin Michaels shook the lethargy from his head and stood up. He walked the ten feet to the far wall and paced slowly back to the table. He gazed at Damon with his hands in the pocket of his dark blue cardigan sweater.

"I wasn't successful in enlisting her, not yet, at least." He paused, but seeing that Damon wasn't going to comment, he continued. "She didn't say no, and she is inquiring of some Skandia government officials who might know what occurred at Grnosk." Calvin stopped, and the two beings stared at each other for a full ten seconds. Damon broke the silence.

I feel there is something left unsaid, something that you are not imparting to me, Professor. Eva Lisson is the only immunologist that will do. She has the background and the experience from other outbreaks that will allow her to direct a research team successfully. You are a ranking member of the Academy. You are the head of the committee that decides whether her projects get funded or not. She has been preparing her whole career for a moment such as this one, a moment where she can make history and rise to the pinnacle of her discipline.

Damon stopped and puffed up his chest, rising a full three inches taller. He locked his eyes onto Calvin's and waited. Calvin broke the gaze and moved his eyes to the ground in front of him.

"She and I were involved romantically. I broke it off six months ago. I knew it would ruin both our careers if others found out."

I confess that much of what passes for human affairs is of little interest to me, but I am aware of your mating habits, and as it stands, such relationships that you describe are entered into rather frequently and lightly, am I correct?

"Yes, but this one was of a different variety, feelings ran deeper and turned to bitterness in the end. I am sure that she will agree, it will just be a little longer, be patient."

It is not I whose time's pace quickens. Soon, very soon, perhaps as soon as next week or the next, you will be unable to leave the province. What then? She must start her research tomorrow or the next day. Do you have some paper and a writing implement?

Calvin frowned. "I do, but what good is that...."

Any digital renderings will be too easily confiscated. You must conceal what I reveal to you in the body of a letter. A letter that Eva has sent to you, preferably a romantic letter. You have retained those I trust?

"I think I still have..."

Replicate the type of paper and the size. The formulas will be on the reverse of the second to last page. People normally are loath to read another's intimate communications, but they cannot resist quickly riffling through the sheets to gaze upon the signature. Please fetch what we require, and we will start before darkness closes its' inky vault.

*

Hugin resisted the urge to spring from his hiding place among the spruce trees. Instead, he watched as the small flock of hooded crows settled down into a raspberry thicket that had only recently come free from the snow which covered it most of the winter. He made eye contact with his two companions in their tree ten yards away. On his signal they slipped silently from their roosts and flew over a ridge, reconvening out of the wind on the other side of the thin edge of rock. Hugin spoke first.

"How many?" The two scouts looked at each other before the oldest replied.

"Besides the four you have just seen, there are twenty more roosting five hundred yards to the east."

"And Rothschold, he is among them?"

"No, my liege, but they are from his personal command." Hugin turned his head into the wind and lifted his wings, letting the cold flow lift him slightly from the ground. He turned back to his scouts.

"Rothschold could be near or wing days away. We attack this group and leave one alive to raise the alarm. We will lead the pursuers to the bluffs."

*

Colonel Sackett's leather boots squeaked with each step on the thin crust of newly fallen snow. He stopped and listened to the raspy sound of his own breathing as it cycled through the square white box on his chest. He turned his head slowly inside the head piece which covered his head and shoulders and squinted through the plexiglass toward the rising sun. The field beside him was dotted with dozens of white mounds, lumps he knew would become the carcasses of cattle in the midday warmth. He moved his arm inside the thick plastic material and felt for the leather bag that lay on his bare chest and hung from a thong around his neck. He took two shuffling, circling steps and moved his upper body stiffly behind them. He stared at the glassed-in visage of Colonel Valich. He held up his weapon and moved his helmet in a small motion toward the village of Miners Camp.

*

The large spruce tree that Damon was perched upon grew from the southern flank of Hangman's mountain and swayed in the early morning breeze. He gazed out on the forest that fell gently away from him and covered the broad slope until it gave way to a wide band of aspens and eventually to the white trackless prairie. Halfway down, though he could not see them from his vantage point, forty ravens were restless in their overnight roost. He turned to Signar who sat quietly on the branch just below him.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, my liege, I would know him anywhere, though his head be elsewhere." Damon's deep brown eyes hardened at the words.

"Pray young Signar, leave that morsel of detail out of a tales' future renderings."

"Yes, my liege."

"Let us go see how the troop has fared in the night."

A few minutes later, Damon paced on the thin snow pack next to a half-eaten mound of fresh kill. In the five trees surrounding the small clearing, forty pairs of avian eyes followed his every move. He hopped onto the highest tine of the dead deer's antlers and puffed his chest sweeping his head slowly as his eyes met every other in the roost.

"It has begun. Carbini's rabble has drawn first blood and snow tracks tell the tale of one hundred crows or more. There are at least four colonies of crow cowards aligned against us, though our bands be but a brace plus we few. But do not fear, my father had far fewer and prevailed through the five-years war. We have stayed on a war-footing ever since and we are more prepared than they were and more so than our present foe. Hugin is, even now, destroying the royal command that guards Rothschold. The crow confederacy will feel the talon's bite and Matan and the others will be avenged."

Damon flew toward the Crags with a chevron of four volunteers behind him. They circled the towering cliff and Damon fluttered lightly down beside the nest as his escorts landed a discrete distance away. He hopped up onto the rim and nodded his beak several times at his wife.

"Hail, Lila, your vigil lonely becomes you even in this nest's dark mire." She lifted herself momentarily from her position and moved her body so that she could see her husband clearly. Damon glanced toward the spire of the highest Crag before he spoke again.

"I have a communique bare of even forlorn hope, my love, one I deign has no regal place in your ken or mine." Lila lifted her head and gazed strongly at her husband.

"A voice's whisper to keep beneath your tongue, my love, for my brother's head is this day but a battle's bauble hanging from Carbini's war roost." Husband and wife looked into each other's eyes for several seconds before Lila swept her beak toward the cliff top.

"And your butcher birds of four? Do they seek the air that surrounds the black orb?" Damon turned his head and glanced at the four war birds each scouting a different direction.

"No, my lovely, they are of a permanent firmament and will not leave the Crag for naught an excuse. The life blood of colonies three will swarm round this redoubt if danger's flame licks at the black egg."

*

The four surviving crows broke rank and swooped down into the deep forest, weaving desperately through the tangled branches of cedar boughs. A group of four ravens entered the copse from the far end and the three crows who had stayed together saw the feint several seconds too late. Hugin dipped a wing and the group of ravens nearest him fell like feathered missiles through the upper branches of the trees and onto the trio. A hundred yards away the fourth crow turned toward the west and skimmed over the tops of the trees toward the setting sun.

Hugin quickly reassembled his flight of fifteen over the cedar forest. He arched his back, his powerful wings gaining altitude with every stroke. A few minutes later he saw the brown sides of the bluffs below him. He made a wide circle and with a caw signaled the troop behind him. One by one they dropped out of the formation and took up positions until there was a semicircle ambush arrayed in front of the dark slopes.

Twenty minutes later the lone scout pointed all eyes toward the group of crows that flew in a single line that would intersect the bluffs and the war band in hiding. Hugin nodded to his lieutenant when the gaggle was overhead. The shrill war caws echoed through the pine forest as the ravens swept up to meet their foes.

*

Colonel Sackett walked twenty yards in front of Gregor. They had been ordered to leave the other members of the convoy a mile outside the small town along with the vehicles. Crackling static erupted in his ear followed by Gregor's heavily accented voice.

"What's that up ahead?" Sackett turned slightly toward his companion but continued walking.

"A dead body." Sackett peered down at the corpse while he waited for the Russian colonel to catch up.

"Looks burned to a crisp. Wolf tracks everywhere." Sackett scanned the immediate area that was in the middle of the main street.

"Two. A large male and a female, but not together. Just curious I guess."

"What the hell would do that to a human being?" Sackett gazed down at the twisted form.

"Something that completely changes the chemistry, is my guess."

"Never seen anything like it." Sackett knelt down and studied the corpse from a different angle.

"I have." He straightened and peered into the plexiglass and Gregor's face behind it. "Tunisia, after one of your chemical sweeps." Gregor stared for a few seconds before he turned away and moved off. Colonel Sackett took several pictures and then moved to the opposite side of the street, the two men working their way slowly down through all the buildings on the main street, cataloguing and documenting each body they found.

Two hours later, they stood on a small promontory on the far side of town and outside the small burg. Gregor had just radioed the convoy to circle around and pick them up, when Sackett pointed toward a long line of trees a hundred yards away.

"What is over there?" Gregor turned and glanced before he resumed his task of looking through his binoculars at the approaching convoy.

"A farm, most likely." Sacket tapped the Russian's shoulder and reached for the glasses. There were several small white farmhouses in a neat line just behind the trees. He handed the binoculars back without looking at Gregor.

"I'm going to check it out." He was five steps away before he heard Gregor's voice protesting in his ear.

"We got what we came for, Colonel. More bodies to catalogue won't add to the data." Sackett ignored the Russian and picked up his pace as he moved over the frozen ground. He was careful to keep in the small spaces between the rows as just below the surface of the snow, the previous year's dried cornstalks waited to trip him up. As he got closer to the small settlement he realized that only two of the buildings were farmhouses and that the rest, including three that weren't visible from his former vantage point were part of a sizeable dairy farm. He climbed the three steps to the first farmhouse and tried the door as he hit his boots together to dislodge the snow. He pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. The first thing that registered was the neatness as well as the sparseness of the furnishings. There was a long wooden table and six chairs alongside a wood burning stove in the large front room. The cedar floor was shiny and looked freshly varnished. A bible lay open on its' own wooden podium. He looked toward the kitchen but turned instead toward the door he knew would lead to the bedroom. This is where seventy percent of the bodies had been found, though there were plenty more in the town's only bar and some in the truck stop convenience store as well. Most of the farmers and ranchers were found in the outbuildings with their animals. He closed the door softly after clicking the counter on his wrist two times. He moved quietly across the floor and locked the front door behind him.

Sackett stood in the road and glanced up at the sun that was nearly overhead. A sharp blast from an airhorn made him turn in the direction from which he had come several minutes before and he snorted softly to himself as he saw Gregor standing on the top of one of the trucks and waving. He looked to his left and contemplated the other farmhouse which sat fifty yards from the first. Gregor's voice came again into his ear.

"Everyone's waiting, let's go. We can make it back before dark, then you and I can finish that bottle." Colonel Sackett shook his head and started toward the door of the farmhouse. The front door had swollen in its' frame and Everett had to push his shoulder against it before it opened. The same room with the same furnishings presented itself as he stepped into the spacious front room. There was only one body in the bedroom when he checked, the other one he found earlier in the barn was likely the farmer who belonged to the house. He was crossing back to the front door when something made him stop. He turned slowly and looked into the kitchen which was another long room that was open to the one in which he was standing. It took a few seconds for him to realize what had made him hesitate. He took four more steps and stopped again. Heat waves were shimmering off a tea kettle that sat atop the wood burning stove. He stepped into the room and held his hand near the kettle. As he turned and walked back into the front room he made a mental checklist of all the buildings in the compound, including the two outdoor privies. He had searched them all. He stood still and listened for several minutes. He was just about to leave when his eyes fell upon a small door that was built into the wall beside the stove. He crossed back into the kitchen, almost tiptoeing as he approached the area. His heavily gloved hand fumbled with the small round knob and the hinges creaked as he pulled it open. He bent over and peering into the dark space, gazed down into the vacant blue eyes of a small girl. Her expression was not one of fright or even alarm but one that might be seen on a slightly curious cow. For several seconds they stared at one another. Sackett didn't know if she could see his face behind the glass shield, though he smiled anyway. He reached his hand out slowly and waited for a few seconds until she tentatively raised hers and put it into the large white glove.

*

A long line of identically clothed officials greeted Calvin when he entered the transport ministry. He put down his valise and blinked in the dry warmth that swept through the long metal building from several heaters mounted in the ceiling twenty feet above his head. The official closest to him held out his hand, a disinterested look on his face. Calvin reached inside his coat and handed over the small carnet. Another official approached from behind and lifted the brown leather valise from the floor as the first official pointed toward a room ten feet away where a harsh light poured from an open door. Calvin resisted the urge to watch his valise being carried away and instead cocked his head back and walked into the room.

The official picked up the red book from the table and began to leaf through the pages without looking up at Calvin. He passed it to another man seated next to him before staring up wearily at Professor Michaels.

"Two trips to New York in four days. What could be so enticing there, eh?" Calvin gazed benevolently as he could at the official and was just about to answer when a man in a dark gray suit opened a door that Calvin had not seen when he first walked in. The second official held the booklet up over his head. The new official took it from the outstretched hand while staring at Calvin. He motioned with his head that Calvin was to follow him into the next room. When Calvin was seated, the man closed the door and circled the desk, sitting down gingerly on the pale blue fabric of the desk chair. He ignored the carnet which he had placed on the corner of the green ink blotter as he reached for a black file folder near his elbow. He carefully placed it squarely in the middle of the desk and smiled at Calvin.

"Professor Michaels. I have been waiting for you ever since you requested a transport visa two days ago." Calvin kept his face as blank as he could manage as he replied.

"I don't understand all this extra protocol. I merely asked to fly to New York."

"But you just returned from there three days ago. You didn't have time to unpack before you applied to go there again. Why is that?" Calvin added a bored expression to the blank look that was becoming stale and raised a hand in a casual gesture.

"My work with the academy requires my presence there. It is an unpredictable business. Things come up without warning." The official's face held its' own look of tedium as he tapped the folder with a finger that wore a signet ring with the eagles and crossed arrows that were the emblem of the state.

"Perhaps it is connected to the research you undertook recently in the Haberstram Library." Calvin waited two counts before he spoke.

"No, actually it isn't and since when does a Linguistics and Classics professor have to endure questioning from the government about what research he chooses to pursue?" The tedious expression was replaced by a hard stare as the man leaned forward and hissed his reply.

"When it suits us, Professor Michaels." The man stood up and moved to a large map that depicted the northern hemisphere. He turned quickly back to Calvin. "You haven't been in that particular section of the library for ten years, we checked. Yet, suddenly you are interested in an ancient text that hasn't been requested for fifty years." He pointed at Calvin. "We checked that also." Calvin shrugged.

"I am revising a book I wrote many years ago and I needed to check something for the new edition." The door behind Calvin opened and the man in front of him nodded at someone. He held his hand out and indicated that Calvin should lead the way out of the office. When he was standing in the outer room again, he was handed his carnet and the same official pointed to his valise which was on the table. The man in the gray suit watched as Calvin quickly repacked the searched bag and slipped his carnet back into his pocket. He cleared his throat as Calvin swung the valise to the floor.

"Enjoy your trip, Professor Michaels, it may be a while before you take another." Calvin turned away without comment and left through a door that had a bright red sign above it. 'Departures'.

*

The sky glowed dully, and the ground was wrapped in gray foggy folds as Damon and Signar flew into the small valley. They alighted atop the tallest cottonwood and waited until the farmhouse window slid upward in its' track. Damon spent a few minutes surveying all that he could see from his perch.

"Signal me if anyone approaches. Be on the lookout for peregrines, they are especially territorial in these parts." Without waiting for a reply, Damon left the tree and flying high in a wide circle he spiraled down toward the farmhouse.

Melampus was in a reasonable mood when Damon settled down on the familiar window ledge.

"Have you good tidings that would be the equal of our recent toil?" Damon turned and glanced at the lone raven across the creek before he turned back to the room and replied.

"Tidings, yes, but a bag mixed equally with hope and rue."

"Tell me."

"The formulas are enroute to New York, but their welcome is still in doubt." Melampus opened his wings and shook them firmly.

"My understanding was that all was in hand and accounted for."

"Perhaps, my liege, but when relying on the course of human affairs, there are vagaries unforeseen. Professor Michaels and Eva Lisson were once mated but are no more." Melampus moved closer to the edge of his cage.

"But the brief and the way forward are clear and usurp any other circumstance, is this not true?"

"In our world, yes, my liege, it would be so. But men are not so predictable and affairs between the sexes can bear unforeseen and sometimes malevolent results." Melampus turned and began to pace around the small circle.

"I see. What is to be our course of action?" Damon shifted his position in the window so that the sunlight off the lifting fog did not impair his view of the cottonwoods.

"We have to content ourselves with the waiting until the professor returns. Meanwhile we have more pressing concerns. The plague has reached beyond the northern shore." Melampus moved his beak up sharply.

"Yes, I have been informed. The military has also become a sinister presence in the province. There are casualties among our number and the confederacy of crows is daily growing more menacing."

"Hugin is leading a series of raids. With some luck it may discourage the less worthy."

"Perhaps, but Rothschold and Carbini care not the cost. It was the same in your fathers' day and ere that. It appears we must be engaged on two fronts at once." Melampus paused and waited. Damon turned his attention from the view outside and looked at his friend as the older raven began again to speak. "But you know that and more, so what other tidings do you bear?"

"The military took a lone survivor from the village of Miners Camp this morning. A female child."

"A Mennonite child?"

"Perhaps, I was not informed other than what I have said." Melampus began again his slow pacing in the confined space and began to talk mostly to himself.

"A chink in the armor? Perhaps, or just an accident unlikely to be repeated." He turned toward Damon.

"Miners Camp is too centrally located. They will have no choice other than to seal off the entire region, probably in a matter of days, a week at the most." He made one more circuit of his cage before he stooped and cocked his head toward the window. "Where might a laboratory be set up that could conduct such research as would be needed in secrecy?"

*

Colonel Sackett was always amazed how the black hole at the end of a gun barrel appeared so much bigger when it was pointed at your belly. He decided to concentrate on the grim features behind the bronze reflective plexiglass instead.

"Gregor. Stop this nonsense." He shifted the small girl's hand into his other and gently steered her behind his right leg. Gregor tightened his grip on his assault rifle.

"Think about what you are asking us to do, Colonel. Taking an infected child into a population center? She will die no matter what, let her stay here with her people." Everett took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice low and with little affectation.

"Perhaps, Gregor, or perhaps she lives because she has something the disease cannot defeat. The best chance for the rest of us is to find out one way or another." Gregor snorted softly in derision.

"And what do we get for our sacrifice, Colonel Sackett? Will the vaccines be issued to us? The only good thing about this filthy plague is that it will take them too, no matter how many dachas or mistresses they have." Sackett edged closer to the large van that had been included in the convoy in case any of its' members accidentally became contaminated.

"I'm going to put her in the back of that van, Gregor, unless you kill me." He paused and let the Russian think it over. After ten seconds, he turned toward the van, lifting the small child into his arms. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gregor's rifle fall to his side.

He climbed into the back of the large Soviet truck and pulled several blankets from a shelf and quickly made a warm nest of them in the corner of the bench seat which ran the length of the cabin. He placed her gently on the cushiony surface and covered her with two more blankets, leaving only her head visible. He walked to the back of the van and kicked open the door.

"Let's go, but go easy on the corners." He returned and sat down across from the child. For the next three hours and eighty miles, she said nothing and did nothing except stare straight ahead.

*

A cold spring wind blew through the open turrets of the bell chamber on the tallest church in the city. The large crow gazed at the smaller raven who had just arrived, a coal black harbinger above the rush hour as he floated over vistas never imagined. Now he steeled himself as the master of the Hooded Ones spoke to him inside the ancient limestone walls.

"Quite impressive, wouldn't you say, Aachen? The world of men has done very well for itself, all things considered."

"I wouldn't know, it is not my ken or those of my lineage. I see no advantage for us if that is what you are driving at." Rothschold moved closer to the other bird on the parapet.

"Nothing quite so prosaic as that. I chose this meeting place more as a reminder to you that there are more things then you can know and more than any who have ever roosted in that valley of yours could know. A reminder also of the price to be paid for treachery."

"I have given no call for your suspicion, my liege." The bigger crow moved in a semicircle around Aachen until the last spot of the afternoon sun fell on his bi-colored body.

"Ah, but you have, my boy. Given it up, claw over feather. Who but a fool would trust one who betrays his own blood and lineage? I trust you not, and there is the end of it, it only remains to be seen whether you will keep your shiny black head or not." Rothschold fluttered his wings suddenly and laughed when Aachen took two involuntary steps backward.

"Do not worry, young one, I would not kill you here and now, you will still prove valuable to me, if only as a warning to others." He waited until Aachen had regained his composure before he spoke in a more friendly tone.

"What do you know of the black egg?" Rothschold leaned forward, his silvery dark eyes boring into those of the junior bird. Aachen willed his features and his eyes to betray no emotion.

"Nothing, your liege. A rumor likely, I have heard such before."

"Really? The lake of the Hooded Ones is over two wing days away from your roost and yet I have heard of nothing else for over a week. How can that be?" Aachen straightened in an attempt to appear larger than he was.

"If such were true, I would know it, not first, but truly. I come bearing news of Hugin and Damon's plans for war." Rothschold took a few steps backwards and lifted his beak toward the sky before shaking it three times in quick succession.

"Mother of Crows, save me from the birds of the year. They glide on the thermals of ignorance each day, forgetting that most of what they have seen and heard since breakfast, they have seen and heard for the first time." He took three quick steps toward Aachen, the smaller bird backing up against the cold stone, his brave expression a memory.

"You listen to me, maggot eater. The war has started. The element of surprise is long gone, our scouts are everywhere, and your currency has fallen like a lump of defecation on a statue." He paused just long enough to judge the effect of his words on the impressionable youngster. "The black egg is the prize, and the location of Damon's nest and lair is what will escape from thy beak next or the last breath you pull is already in your breast."

*

Professor Michaels stared down at the two large suitcases just inside the door. He looked up when Eva Lisson walked into the foyer from the kitchen.

"Going somewhere, Ev?" She looked up at him with narrowed eyes and held out her hand.

"I forgot to ask for my key back the other day." He pulled it from the doorknob and held it out to her.

"You didn't answer my question, Ev." She pointed toward the small living room.

"I opened a bottle of wine, Calvin. We need to talk." He followed her into the well furnished room and gazed for a few seconds out the large window and the lights of the Manhattan skyline. He turned and accepted a glass of red wine that Eva was holding out to him.

"I forgot how nice this place is. In my pod, you have to be a department head to get an extra bedroom and even then, an assistant dean can put a claim in on it, if he wishes."

"That is why I fought so hard for this posting five years ago. With the World Council here, the restaurants and nightclubs are too busy to control completely. One can live well here, if you know the right people." Calvin grimaced and took a large sip of the wine. He indicated the foyer where the suitcases sat.

"You said we need to talk, so let's talk." She reached into her purse that sat beside her and brought out a notebook and pen. She scribbled on it as she spoke.

"I thought maybe dinner at Scarcis, then a little window shopping." She held out the pad so he could read it.

Rikers Island Transport Terminal. Two hours from now. Flight 2391. He stared up at her and nodded as he spoke. She took back the pad and continued to scribble.

"That sounds good, Ev, but perhaps the food is better at Chasens. I have a friend here who owes me a favor and he is always going on about how he can get a reservation anywhere."

Grnosk just the beginning. Plague now spreading on northern slope. Need a facility. Myself and one colleague. Calvin took the pad and pen from her hand.

"I had my heart set on Scarcis, besides you always told me their drinks were the best."

Will do my best to secure one.

Two hours later, Professor Michaels shuffled along in the long winding queue toward the departure gate. He glanced at his watch. Eva would just be taking off. As he handed his ticket and his carnet to the official who stared at him with suspicion, he began to have doubts that this plan would work.

*

The contamination truck rumbled away in the darkening twilight. Colonel Sackett could still see the small head bathed in the light from the lamp in the ceiling and the heavily clothed medical personnel moving around awkwardly in the small confines of the van. The truck turned the corner a half block away and was gone. He turned and stared grimly at the Russian.

"Let's get out of these clothes, Gregor, they must weigh fifty pounds."

An hour later, they sat in a quonset hut at the rear of the Russian section of the compound. A fire burned warmly in a fifty gallon drum which had the top quarter removed and provided a handy fireplace. Both men sat on wooden benches facing each other and there was no one else in the small building except the dark shadows that danced on the wall when the fire flared up.

"So, Gregor, this time, I thought you might actually shoot me." The Russian accepted his second drink from the bottle of American whiskey.

"No, Colonel, if that was ever to happen it would have been done long ago in Tunisia, or perhaps even before that in the first China war." Colonel Sacket grinned in the half light.

"Yes, Gregor, we have known each other a long time. Sometimes on the same side, sometimes..." Sackett held up the empty bottle and turned it upside down to emphasize the point. Colonel Valich grinned and pulled a camouflaged rucksack from the floor beside his feet. He smiled mischievously as he held up a clear bottle filled with a colorless liquid. Sackett grunted.

"I thought you said you were dry. Would've saved mine for later if I knew you were holding out." Gregor laughed heartily as he poured both of their glasses full.

"I just got paid an old debt that was owed me. Tonight, we will fall asleep with warm bellies, eh?" The two glasses clinked together and for a few seconds there was silence as both men drank in the new liquor. Gregor finished first and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he spoke.

"It is a shame, Colonel Sackett, to see your country almost as bad off as mine." He stood up rather unsteadily and poked at the fire with a long piece of iron, turning in the firelight and using it to emphasize his points. "For us, no problem. The first revolution happened...what? Over two hundred years ago...?" He waved the iron widely to encompass the whole room. "Who can remember when there was hope? Better never to have the memory... but you." He pointed at Colonel Sackett. "You people have always had hope, and through you, those that needed it to survive, they had hope as well." He tossed the iron down near the drum and sat down in front of Everett and poured them both another glassful of the vodka. He pointed with the full glass.

"Why did your country have to follow mine down that rabbit hole, eh? Fifty years socialism, fifty years fascism, and now more socialism, and the difference?" He held up both arms as if he were beseeching heaven. "Nothing, all the same, always the same." He shook his head forlornly and stared for a few seconds into the fire before he sighed and reached once more into his rucksack.

"Look at this, Colonel." He held up the rectangle clothed in olive green protective plastic. The gray screen glowed dully with a soft blue light. "A child's toy." He held it up to his face and sneered. "Worse than that, Colonel, far worse. A hundred and fifty years ago, no child in your country would have tolerated such crap as this." He flung the computer disdainfully toward the rucksack and ignored the clatter when it hit the cold concrete floor instead. Sackett picked up the tablet from where it had come to rest near his feet. He smiled wryly as he placed it on the bench next to Gregor.

"Better be careful, Gregor, you will get us both sent to South America." He accepted another glass from the Russian. "But what you say is true, who could deny it, but what's the point? Men walked on the moon a hundred and fifty years ago, and now? Satellites fly overhead fifty years dark and dead and the communication pods are welded to the old cellphone towers instead of orbiting the earth, and the cellphones themselves? The property of the elite and woe unto your whole family and everyone you know if they find you with one." Gregor snorted.

"At least you remember a time when you had them, Colonel. Not in my country, not for any but a brief time over a hundred years ago. Not in my memory or my father's memory, or his father before him." He sneered again and took a long drink, gazing over the rim at Everett before repeating the pointing gesture with the empty glass. "No, like I said before, you are the worse off for knowing better."

*

Calvin Michaels sat quietly and waited for the verdict on his plan. He did not have to wait for long.

We have anticipated your needs, Professor. We have located such a place and though it is partially outfitted with the basic accoutrements, there is still much more that Ms. Lisson and her assistant will have to accomplish, with your help of course.

"How did you know what she requires?"

It was a logical assumption professor. Any research with a chance of succeeding must be done in situ as it were, so we took the initiative, though security issues will pose more of a problem in this province than they might elsewhere.

"What is this place, how far away is it?"

A half wing day's distance, or in your terms, fifty miles. As to what it is, that would fall under the rubric of needs must, I'm afraid, Professor. It was used by a now defunct group of ruffians to manufacture illicit drugs, but its' isolated nature is well suited to our project.

"A meth lab? You expect her to work in a meth lab?"

The exact nature of the manufacturing is unknown, Calvin and beside the point. It has been prepared as well as could be expected without Ms. Lisson's direction and only awaits her input.

The professor sat quietly in the darkness of the patio. Though he could hear Damon, he could not see him in the deep shadows where the moonlight couldn't reach. He sighed deeply.

"This is dangerous. I have been questioned and my colleagues have been questioned. I am pretty sure I am being followed most days."

I am sure you are, Professor. The government will do everything in its' power to control the response to the disease, including snuffing out the only research that may prove effective. They are the most powerful and the most dangerous when they feel threatened by something they can't understand. Let's be frank with each other, Professor Michaels, this is not for the faint of heart. Your life and that of Ms. Lisson are both in dire danger, but the alternative is equally final. Get out your pen and paper, please, and I will give you the coordinates of the laboratory. I trust that Ms. Lisson is nearby and safely hidden?

"Yes, I have her at a friends' apartment. He is away on sabbatical in France."

That is good, professor. When you see her tonight, tell her that a small female child has been found alive in Miners Camp. All the other two hundred sixty-eight souls perished. The authorities have her in quarantine. It may be possible to gain access to the child, or barring that, the results of their analysis. Be very careful. If they have tracked you or Ms. Lisson, they will strike soon. Now is the most dangerous time.

*

Damon circled the small forest just below the nest where Lila sat patiently on the five eggs. One of the guards had reported hearing the call of an owl in the distance and now he was making sweeps of the woods both mornings and evenings on his way to the feed. The elk carcass was dwindling, and other scavengers had discovered the cache of meat and were visiting it under the cloak of darkness. A small herd of elk made occasional forays into the small hidden valley and Damon knew he would have to find a new source of meat very soon. As he began his ascent from the forest toward the large granite face of the nearest Crag, he spied three wolves slipping through a narrow cleft in the rock outcroppings far below. He made a wide circle and intercepted them as they came into the clear and began to cross a wide snowfield. He landed in the middle of the white expanse, dropped several morsels of frozen meat he was carrying onto the snow and let out three loud caws. The small group of wolves stopped, and he waited as Sasha approached moving her front legs stiffly together in the deep snow.

"You are far from your spring hunting grounds, Sasha." The large female wolf stopped, her sides heaving and her tongue lolling out of one side of her mouth. She took three deep breaths before she spoke.

"Not far enough, Damon. The pestilence comes this way, and soon when the snow leaves there will be nowhere safe. Miners Camp is a cemetery, neither man nor beast breathes the fetid air." Damon moved his large beak up and down twice.

"Yet one lived and still does. Whether this is a bright omen or forlorn false hope will be revealed. You are welcome here as always. A herd of twelve moves over the ridge every three or four days just before day break. They are due tomorrow or the next day."

"Thank you, Damon, you will find your reward there soon as always. I must scout this area thoroughly and find a cave or deep burrow that can safely hide us." She turned and yipped at the two remaining members of her pack. They made their way to her side keeping in the trail that she had broken through the hard-crusted snow. When they were directly behind her, she turned back to Damon.

"If we survive until the snow flies again, we may yet live to be old." She put her head down and began again the odd shuffling gait that broke through the snow efficiently. Damon watched until all three wolves had cleared the snowfield and run up a small rocky slope and into the saplings that were sprouting up each year in an arboreal effort to reclaim the meadow. He lifted off into the cool air and rode a thermal toward the largest Crag. Just as he arrived at the base of the spire he turned his right wing tip toward the ground and flew on a perpendicular line through a small fissure in the rock which widened out almost immediately into a tall volcanic flume that had formed inside the basalt. He flew tight ascending circles toward the top of the monolith. Halfway up, the rush of air shifted in his favor, lifting him almost without effort to the patch of blue sky hovering at the edge of his vision. He shot straight upwards and was a hundred feet above the top of the Crag when he used his powerful wings to stabilize himself. He turned gracefully over in the suddenly still air and glided down toward the ground. All four guard birds had seen the display and now they watched quietly as Damon acknowledged each in turn before dropping the fifteen feet down to the rim of the nest. Damon moved carefully down the sides of the dark abode until he was perched right above Lila. He fed her each of the three strips of elk meat and waited until she was through.

"One of the guards saw Sasha's band this morning coming up the northern slope." Damon moved his beak in long sweeping stokes along the edge of the nest, dislodging bits of feathers and mud before pushing them out of the top of the nest. He stopped his housekeeping duties and looked down at Lila.

"I just spoke with her in the long meadow. She is looking for a redoubt in which to hunker down. She has been as far as Miners Camp and her affect is grim. Her presence will make our job easier. Two or three kills will sustain us all on this Crag through the travails ahead." Lila shifted her body on the eggs and looked up at Damon.

"Wither the long passing of time. I should be with you and my sister defending the Valley. The spacious airs of the Crags are most pleasing but suffer from their repetition. How goes it with the campaign?"

"It goes. The first skirmishes are behind us and the great battles remain to be joined. The next few days will see plans hammered and shaped, but now my love, I shall spell your efforts and you will take to the air while there is still light to see thy way. The great council of war will be upon us before we can apprehend it's domain."

*

The dark brown mud held a thin crust of ice on its' frozen ruts as Colonel Sackett waited at the back of a short line to take his turn on the plank walkway that stretched across the lake of dirty snow melt in the middle of the camp. He stamped his feet sharply on the ends of the boards in an effort to dislodge as much of the caked-on mud as he could before he began his hundred yard journey toward the black tents crowded up against the chain link fence that marked the outermost limits of the special forces base.

He entered the largest tent and waited in front of a makeshift desk as a young corporal finished speaking into a phone. The blond man replaced the heavy green receiver and looked up at Sackett, moving his hand toward his face and executing a half-formed salute.

"Good morning, Colonel. I trust you and your Russian friend slept well?" Sackett kept his expression blank and looked past the corporal.

"Is the Brig in?" He moved his eyes downward toward the subordinate and his expression was less than kindly. "He wanted to see me, first thing." The corporal avoided the glare from above and pushed down on a lever attached to a small box on his desk. Sacket could hear the static from where he stood.

"General?" A gruff voice came back instantly.

"What is it?"

"Colonel Sackett to see you sir." The corporal looked up as he released the small lever.

"Go on in, Colonel." Sackett spun on his heels and pulled off the dark blue beanie from his thinning scalp and ducked under a fold of canvas and into a short hallway lined with two-by-fours along with several wooden pallets as a floor. The flap in front of him was pulled back partially and he stepped through it into a room that was ten-by-ten and held a desk, two chairs, a stove, a smaller writing desk and Brigadier General Holms, who was sitting on the edge of the desk smoking a cigarette in an amber holder. The general waved toward one of the chairs.

"Sit down, Everett, don't mind the mud. Gives that goldbricker in the other room something useful to do." Colonel Sackett nodded toward the other room.

"Seen his bad attitude somewhere before." The General snorted and moved around the desk toward a chair that was exactly the same as the one that Sackett now sat down in.

"The Chief of Staff's nephew. My turn to babysit. Two more months and I can ship him on to the next victim." He sighed as he leaned back in his chair and placing his hands behind his bald head gazed at Colonel Sackett for several long seconds.

"What did we ever do that got us into this mess, Ev?" The General indicated the area and the world at large with a casual gesture of his hand. Sackett smiled.

"Don't think we did anything in particular, Ted, just got too old and too slow to do anything else but this." The general smiled, his long, thin nose between the two ruddy cheeks pointed directly at Sackett.

"I'm tempted to say this is the last round-up, but I've said that before and been wrong, so who knows?" He took a deep drag on the cigarette. "How's Gregor behaving?" Everett snorted.

"Pretty well, considering. Only pulled his weapon on me once so far, so I think we will get along on this trip." The General chortled, before his smile dissolved into a serious expression.

"Besides that particular 'Mission Impossible', we just got handed another task. Seems this province is on their radar screen as being a hotbed for the resistance. So, we're supposed to help the local NSS roust out these people when they are identified. Ain't that swell." Sackett shrugged.

"Par for the course, Ted, but I'm not worried much. Unless the NSS is more competent out here because of the air or something, I don't think they will need us that often. On another subject, how is the child?" The General shook his head.

"OK, as far as I know. Still alive, I know that. They've taken blood samples but if they've found out anything interesting, they aren't saying." Sackett nodded thoughtfully.

"Read my report on Miners Camp?" The General nodded in return.

"Yes, and it squares with all the briefings I've had. This is going to get, bad, Ev, and quickly. We saw what happened in China back in seventy-five and that was just a local food riot situation. This will be ten times worse."

"The men are concerned about how far we will have to go. They're not saying anything outright, but I know what's on their minds." The general sighed and sat forward in his chair and clasped his hands.

"I promise you, I will get you and your men out of here before anything like that happens." The two old friends gazed at each other for several seconds before the General broke the stalemate with a big smile as he reached under his desk and pulled up a small olive green knapsack. The colonel heard the sound of two bottles clinking together as the General pushed it to his side of the desk. "Kentucky's finest, Ev, and if you get caught, you found it under the corporal's bunk." He gestured toward the outer office and chuckled. Colonel Sackett stood up and threw a crisp salute across the desk.

"Thank you, General Holms, as always, a pleasure."

*

Hugin turned his thick black beak toward Damon and then looked at Magda before he spoke.

"I agree with Damon. Four large colonies of crows against the three of us? The tactics of the past will not suffice. What say you Magda?" The female crow who was larger than Hugin but thinner and whose feathers shone with a dark blue luster looked at her brother-in-law before she addressed the duo.

"It makes sense to use our best warriors to form a lightning strike force and use the others to constantly patrol the edge of our territories, but the area is vast, and incursions can come from any direction. How will we know the best place to position the shock troops?" Damon had turned as she spoke and looked out over the vast plains that he could see from their meeting place one mountain over from the Crags. From where he stood, Damon could see almost three quarters of the home territory of the Ravens of the Valley. He looked back at the expectant expressions in the two sets of eyes.

"With forward observers. There are only three approaches to our territory that offer even a small element of surprise. Even in the worst spot, intruders can be seen from three miles away. Plenty of warning to swing the force toward that quadrant and to marshal the reserves in case the tide of battle flows against us." Magda took a step forward, lowering her beak and raising her tail feathers.

"And Aachen, Damon, what shall be done with Aachen?"

"Nothing. He will be attached to the shock troops and one will be assigned to watch him at all times. He will not be allowed to leave the territory. If Rothschold wishes to consult him again, he can fight his way to him."

*

Eva Lisson swept the bright torch over the smoke blackened walls, the yellow light playing off the dull gray surfaces. She turned toward Calvin who was standing near a window peering intently down the frozen road they had traversed ten minutes ago.

"This place will never go sterile, Calvin, this is a waste of time." He turned briefly and faced the interior of the room. He sighed audibly and gestured toward the barn doors that covered all of the far wall in the large space.

"A CDOT will be brought through those doors. A cable will be run from the next farm over and be buried in the ground." She switched off the light and stared at Calvin, whose pale skin glowed in the small amount of moonlight that streamed through the window.

"A CDOT? Why didn't you say something earlier? How in the world are we supposed to get our hands on one of those?" Calvin turned from the window and moved toward Eva.

"We don't have to, one is already on its' way to us. It will be right where you are standing this time tomorrow. I couldn't tell you until we were out here, those were my instructions." She started to protest, but Professor Michaels held up his hand. "They found a derelict one and painted it to look like new. They stole one of the three new ones that are sitting in the depot beside the port and replaced it with the fake one. It will be months before they discover the theft, if they ever do." She shook her head.

"This is a preposterous plan, Calvin. How am I supposed to explain where I have been and what I have been doing?" Calvin shifted uneasily and stole a glance out the window toward the darkened road. He unconsciously took a small side step blocking Eva's access to the door.

"That's the thing, Ev, you're not going back. Not ever." He watched the flush rise in her cheeks and kept his gaze directly in her eyes.

"You can't be serious, Calvin, I'm leaving."

"No, ma'am, you're not." They both turned toward the sound of the laconic voice. It came from a husky man clad in hunting camo who was leaning on the door jamb. He turned and spit into the blackness before he stepped inside and slid the door closed behind him. He walked to a low table beside the window and switched on a small lantern. The weak light illuminated the wall behind him and his red beard. His freckled face looked calmly from one to the other.

"Sorry, Doc, but it's too late for that. They've already started the work in their labs and they wouldn't let you out at this point, anyway." He indicated the cavernous barn. "Better this way. Here you get to run the show and take it wherever your research leads you." He pulled off a green wool glove and reached inside his coat, extracting a small flask. He held it out expectantly and shrugged when it was declined. He took a small gulp and stared down at Eva. She held up her head as she spoke.

"And who are you?" He laughed into the small mouth of the flask as he tipped it back and took another drink. He took a deep breath behind the fiery swallow.

"I'm the guy who is bringing you something called a 'Communicative Disease Operations Trailer." He motioned toward her with the flask and then indicated the east. "And supplying you with the juice to run it from my farm. Other than that, you can just call me 'Red'." She looked at Calvin for a second before her gaze swept the large building.

"And where am I supposed to stay, Red?" He shoved the flask down into an outer pocket and tossed his head toward the other side of the barn.

"Over there. Bringing in another trailer tomorrow morning. Two bedrooms. One for you and one for your assistant. You're spending tonight with me and mine and with a little luck you can start work this time tomorrow." Calvin stepped forward and placed his hands on Eva's shoulders. He bent down slightly until her eyes looked up to his.

"This was the only way, Ev, the only way. This is the best chance and probably the only one we have." She nodded slowly and dropped her eyes to the hard-packed dirt floor. She looked over at Red.

"And just what am I supposed to work on." He spread his legs and put his hands in the front pockets of his thick coat.

"We'll get you all the data on the girl from Miner's Camp. You already have the formulas." Eva scoffed and looked at Calvin.

"Oh yes, the formulas. Formulas from a bird that talks? Who would believe that?" Red moved toward the door and slid it open two feet before he looked back at the couple.

"Oh, he talks alright, ma'am." He smiled and indicated the outside. "He talks up a storm."

*

The jagged v-shaped gaggle of crows flew over the edge of the forest that marked the westernmost boundary of the Valley of the Ravens. Damon watched from high above as he made large circles under the sun. He flew close to Magda.

"The Sand Pit Crows. No sign of Rothschold or Carbini." Magda wheeled closer.

"Either they are over-confident, or this is a feint."

"It is probably more a case of not getting their claws soiled unless they have to." Damon tipped his wings and flew lower until he was in the great circle of ravens that had gathered when the first alarm call had gone out. As agreed, half of the force swept down out of the sun to meet the invaders, while Damon led the other half toward the north from where any new incursion would likely emanate. From two miles away, he could see the tiny border guard enveloped by a force of crows twice the number of the first force. The shock troops circled high in the bright sky. When they saw Damon approaching, they began their steep dives down toward their beleaguered comrades.

Damon and his flock of thirty hand-picked warriors joined the melee two minutes later. The three lines of crows had broken and now a hundred individual battles spread across the late winter sky. Damon sped at top speed toward a large crow that he had seen in the lead of one of the columns. As he closed the short distance he tensed his neck muscles and a few seconds later his thick beak struck the upper breast of the intruder sending him spinning unconscious toward the snow below that was already splotched with blood and feathers. Damon pulled up into a steep ascent immediately rolling over and diving toward the center of the crow flock. Two of the crows saw him coming and rose to meet the challenge. Damon pulled his great wings back and braked hard just before he reached the attackers. The crow in the lead didn't see the maneuver in time and shot past on Damon's right hand side. Damon tipped his body on edge and snagged the wing of the second crow, twisting it as he spun through the sky and then releasing the crippled bird to spin helplessly to the snow.

For the next thirty minutes, the battle raged. Damon flew in tight circles coming up behind crows as they chased after wounded ravens or those preoccupied with their own private combats. When it became harder to find a foe, he flew in large sweeping circles gaining altitude until he could see what was left of the battle. After a few minutes he was joined by the rest of the troops and he began a head count. Three lost from the border section, three more from the first flight of shock troops and one from Damon's own company. One of the scouts reported seventeen crows escaping to the north, twenty-seven dead or dying on the ground below. Damon flew slowly down toward the trees and landed near one of the slain ravens. He walked slowly toward the corpse.

"Tis but Hannibal, my dead sister's sire and truer wings be unknown to any lineage." He turned as Signar fluttered to a stop beside him.

"We have checked all the bodies, sire and none are from the hooded ones, nor are any from Carbini's dump flock." He saw Hugin's shadow beside him. He turned toward the elder raven.

"Over two hundred crows still not committed to battle, Hugin. Even if their losses continue thusly, they will dangerously reduce our fighting effectiveness in two weeks." Hugin looked out over the snowfield and the clumps of black feathers blowing in the breeze.

"Even if the other half of your command killed all the intruders from the west, you are right. But the air sings with the promise of a plan in your next breath, my liege." Damon turned his head toward the west and moved his beak in affirmation.

"They have grown an affinity for this type of warfare. Let's give them another."

*

You have done well, Professor. You see now the value of quick action. Are the arrangements satisfactory? Does Ms. Lisson have all that she desires?

Professor Michaels looked around the dark alley. Large soft snowflakes fell onto his eyelashes in the growing darkness.

"The CDOT arrived this morning ahead of schedule. Her research assistant is there as well." He shrugged. "I haven't heard any complaints and there will not likely be any as she will lose herself in her work."

That is good news, Professor. We will have some more data for her to work on by tomorrow and soon, actual blood samples from the female child.

Professor Michaels jumped nervously as someone threw a heavy object in a metal dumpster near the street. "Why are we meeting here?" Damon moved along the top of a sagging wooden fence for several feet and stopped.

Walk down the steps behind the railing, look into the window and tell me if you see two men having dinner.

Damon waited patiently in the cold while Calvin Michaels trudged down the steps in the heavy moist snow and returned to the middle of the alley a few minutes later.

"Two men. Sitting near the window. One is having roasted chicken the other is eating some type of soup."

The man eating the soup is a Russian special forces colonel. The other is an American, also a colonel and also with special forces. Remember their faces. They don't know yours yet, but soon they will be tasked with locating you and the secret lab. We have the advantage for now because they don't know the area, but the ranks of the informers will grow as the plague spreads.

Calvin stamped his feet in the six inches of fluffy whiteness and looked up at the large raven three feet above his head.

"This man who calls himself, 'Red'. Are you sure he can be trusted? He doesn't seem quite suited to this type of work."

Are any of us, Professor Michaels? I have known him most of his life and mine. He is a leader in the resistance, which makes him valuable but also a source of much danger as well. The two men you have been shown tonight know of him and soon they will visit his farm, but we are prepared. Stay in the farmhouse at all times and venture to the location of the lab only in darkness. Stand watch every morning one hour before dawn, when they come, it will be then.

A few minutes later, Damon sat alone on the fence. He waited for several more minutes before he flew to the top of the nearest building, took his bearings and flew toward the Four Mile Forest.

*

Colonel Valich dropped his spoon noisily into his bowl. He pulled out a cigarette he had rolled himself earlier in the barracks and looked around the small restaurant. He appraised the other patrons and snorted as he turned back toward the American colonel.

"Peasants." He pointed down toward his soup bowl. "Nice enough, but not like it should be." He stretched and grinned as he did so. "What we wouldn't give for some vodka right about now, eh?" He leaned forward. "Or even a lousy beer, my friend." He was still grinning as he lit the short cigarette, pushing aside a spark that landed on the wooden table and indicating the room at large with a small gesture at the same time. "Why are we here, aside from the food is better than the slop on the base?" Everett Sackett sat back in the chair and pushed his plate into the middle of the table. He spoke in a quiet even tone.

"This is a meeting place for the resistance." He glanced around casually. "Not right at this moment, of course, but they make contact here, especially if something important is up." Gregor laughed.

"Back to that again? I told you, I don't care about the resistance, and what is it anyway? People who don't like the government and the imbeciles who run it?" He pointed to the colonel and them to himself and then jabbed a finger at every one of the other six people in the room. "Who is left out of that group, my friend?" He shook his head and snickered. "No, they are going to have to do better than that. One of these 'resistors' is going to have to shoot up some of my men pretty good to get me going." Colonel Sackett grunted and gazed across the table at the swarthy Russian.

"Once this thing gets going, hot and heavy, Gregor, they will make doing your job a lot harder." The Russian had turned and was looking into the street and the small groups of people that were walking quickly by on the sidewalk in an attempt to get home before the snowfall worsened. He smoked quietly for a while before he sighed and turned again to the table.

"I have always heard that men like you can go home anytime you want, is that true?" Sackett nodded slightly. The Russian snorted. "You saw this assignment coming and yet you stayed?" The blue eyes turned toward the street for a few seconds before he looked back across the table, the far away expression still on his face.

"Sacketts have always been in the service going back four hundred years I know about, probably longer. All we know how to do...", he paused for a few seconds and then began again, his voice lower and weaker, "all we've ever wanted to do."
CHAPTER FOUR

Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? —Luke 12:24

Lila swallowed the last of the morsels that Damon had laid beside her in the nest. He hopped quickly to the rim and turned his head slowly in all directions, the breeze that ruffled the hackle feathers at his neck held a small breath of warmth as his recon complete, his eyes fastened on the nearest guard bird. The raven bowed his beak toward the soft layer of snow under his feet. Damon took several steps in his direction.

"Has one of you made the required patrol this morning?" The smaller bird remained in the submissive position.

"Yes, my liege, I made one at daybreak and Lignar made a second one an hour ago."

"When Signar comes with the evening relief, make sure he knows to come see me. My wife will go on her afternoon flight soon, please have Lignar accompany her." After the raven had answered in the affirmative, Damon moved down to a small ledge that he had built into the side of the nest a foot above Lila and the eggs.

"You must be weary my love. I have been gone from your side for too long. Today was a victory small, but evident. Thou has sat well and the days grow few. Soon the real work will begin."

"Yes, my only, though the chosen one will likely tarry in the shell if the skirrum holds true."

"Yes, ten past the normal twenty says Melampus. A burden sure to bite at the rest of the brood. A vigil's call to endure, my love." They both looked up at the sound of raven wings in the air above. A few seconds later the shiny eyes of Signar peered down into the dark interior of the nest.

"You wished to see me, my liege?" Damon jumped effortlessly to the rim and looked across the short space at his lieutenant.

"Add one more raven to each rota. I wish more patrols, but full strength must attend the nest at all times."

"As you wish, sire. Do you have someone in mind?" Damon looked casually around at the four guard birds before he replied.

"Ask Magda for a recommendation from among her battalion. She will put forward the best in defense of her sister." Damon returned to his position inside the nest and listened while the relived guard whooshed away into the late afternoon sky. Lila shifted on the eggs and looked up at her husband.

"Is thou expecting trouble, my liege?" Damon looked down and could only make out the bright sheen of her eyes in the darkness below.

"Trouble is sorely afoot through glen and hollow, the dark time grows nigh and the hour of the assassins' stroke lies among the days that are nearest us. Attend thyself for your daily gambit and tarry as you please, I will attend the nest."

A few minutes later, Damon watched from below as Lila launched herself from the rim of the nest, Lignar taking off just behind her as the sound of their wing beats dimmed rapidly in the light air. Damon settled down onto the five eggs, spreading his wings until they touched the sides of the nest forming a seal of warmth and solitude.

*

Aachen banked over a low cloud and descended toward the darkness of the forest below. He had been near this place only once before and as his body turned in flight from side to side in the dense trees, he fought back the panicky urge to fly to the sky and check his bearings. After a few minutes of flight in the near twilight of the canopy, he flew over a long ridge and a small bowl devoid of trees appeared in front of him. He circled once and dropped noiselessly and with no warning calls into the glen. He hopped to a short landing ten feet in front of the lone crow. He took several steps toward the bird, stopping just inside speaking range. The hooded crow cocked his head to one side and looked at the new arrival with one silver eye.

"I have come as instructed, my lord." Aachen pushed his beak toward the ground and held it there until the other bird spoke. Rothschold took a few small steps closer to the bowing raven.

"And a good thing you did, my boy. You have been a big disappointment so far, I must say. I count twenty-seven dead crow warriors down to you and your failure to hold up your end of the bargain. Be you so callow as to think that a ravens' crown is handed over for so little result?" Rothschold flared his wings and looked around the dreary clearing. "But today is a good day for redemption, eh, lad?" Aachen straightened from his bent over position and blinked nervously at the large crow only a foot away.

"The strategy was not relayed to us, my liege. By the time I knew of the war plans, I was deployed with the others and could not leave. I think I am being watched." Rothschold bent over a little and peered at the younger bird.

"Of course you are, you daft parrot. You have drawn attention to yourself with your presumptive antics. Damon is no fool, he kept you close to him. Do you think you are the first bird of the year to get big ideas? There is at least one of you in every brood year and now look at the mess you are in." Aachen took a small step backwards as the large shadow of the hooded crow mingled with his.

Signar flew over the dark forest that lay in the thin buffer zone between the Valley of the Raven territories and the rest of the mountain range. The sun was setting fast and he was determined to make one last pass over the low ridges before giving up for the night. As he flew up the spine of a rocky ridge he spied something in the meadow to his right. He wheeled in the air, gained some altitude and then skimmed the trees as he approached from a different direction. He glided over the spot and then began to pump his wings to gain altitude leaving Aachen's bloody corpse behind him in the snow.

A few minutes later he sat in the main roost among the off-duty shock troops. Damon, Hugin and Magda conferred in a nearby tree. Presently as the two other birds flew to their commands, Damon drifted down to the low branch that Signar sat upon.

"Gather your company, we have work to do."

*

The pale sun had moved above the edge of the horizon formed by the eastern mountains when Lila felt the first shift beneath her in the dark nest. Two hours later, the sun was high and Damon had already made three round trips to the freshly killed elk a half mile away, three hungry mouths clamoring for sustenance on every return. By mid-afternoon, only the black orb remained, its' four siblings ringing it around the perimeter of the nest. Lila made the last two trips of the day as the light-shuttered landscape lay in a purple glow and the new brood fell silent for the first time in their short lives, their bellies distended and firm.

Damon perched near the nest in the cool breeze of the early evening and waited for his turn on the remaining egg.

"Let me take your place, my love, and see the end of a fine day that we will remember forever." Damon hopped down into the nest as Lila emerged. She perched on the edge of the nest and watched the last of the sun disappear behind Hangman's Mountain as the purple light turned obsidian.

"You must take your place at the head of your command, my liege. Leave this to me, I will keep the brood and Darius warm." Damon looked up at the silhouette of his wife framed against the pale yellow basalt.

"The day has not been so long and tiring as to forget a name, especially one that has never been spoken in my presence. Could it be that the orb is anonymous no longer?"

"Yes, my love, it was whispered to me in the night, by whom or what I know not, just that the wind carried it to me thrice and a clearer command could not have been louder."

*

Lansford Kenny sat alone in the dark farmhouse. He had arisen two hours before and now his family pulled from their warm beds huddled fifty yards away in the bunker he had built two summers ago beneath the chicken coop. This was the third day in a row that he had shepherded them to the deep warm refuge and now as he sat there in the stillness of his kitchen, he wondered if the intelligence he received had been accurate. He was just giving in to the urge for a spot of chewing tobacco when his musings were answered by the flickering of a small blue light just above the door. At the same time he heard the rumbling of a heavy truck that also came through the floorboards as a low level vibration. He stood and three seconds later he was closing the back door behind him and moving through the early morning darkness in a crouch toward the weathered boards of the coop.

*

Everett Sackett motioned for the driver to stop. He signaled to Colonel Valich to drop off the side of the truck where he had ridden the last hundred yards until the farmhouse came into view. The two soldiers met in the darkness ten yards in front of the vehicle. Sackett gestured toward the farmhouse and handed his pair of binoculars to the Russian.

"Look over there, Gregor and tell me what you see." Gregor carelessly brought the glasses to his eyes pushing up the short bill of his fur covered cap. He handed them back a few seconds later with a shrug.

"A dark farmhouse." Colonel Sackett nodded and pulled the strap over his head and adjusted the binoculars back onto his chest.

"Exactly. Dark." He flicked his wrist and checked his watch. "At 5:30 in the morning. No farmer I ever knew is still in his bed." Gregor snickered.

"Maybe, Colonel, he has a wife he likes." Sackett ignored the remark.

"Leave the rest here, just you and me. This is a wild goose chase."

Ten minutes later they stood on the porch. Gregor used his rifle butt to deliver three sharp blows on the wooden door. Sackett stepped forward and turned the door knob, pushing the door inward when it opened under his hand. The two soldiers entered together, weapons mounted and ready, each sweeping opposite ends of the large front room. Gregor advanced toward the two bedrooms that were off a short hallway. Everett covered him and then Gregor did the same for him as he searched the kitchen and the small dining room. They met just in front of a bank of tall cabinets outside the kitchen. Gregor sniffed the air.

"Someone was just here, smell it?" Everett nodded and gestured toward the nearest cabinet door. They began to open them one by one, peering inside. Gregor closed one and casually opened another one.

"So how about you, Colonel?"

"How about me, what?"

"A wife you like, where is she?" Sacket smiled to himself as he gazed into a deep shelf stacked with glass jars of green beans and beets.

"Gone as soon as our son left home. Said she couldn't take the loneliness and the never knowing. How about you?" Gregor gave a muffled snort and pulled his head from a cupboard.

"Three. Two are still friendly and I spend time with both when I am on leave." Everett gave a glance toward the Russian colonel's back and shook his head. Gregor straightened up.

"Nothing here, Colonel Sackett. Where is he now?"

"Who?"

"Your son, who else?" Sackett slung the small 9mm carbine onto his shoulder.

"Tunisia."

"Ah, just like his old man."

"No, just a private in the regular battalion." Gregor's face held a mild look of surprise and amusement.

"You didn't get him reassigned or at least a commission?" Everett shook his head.

"Nope, not what he wanted and not the way the Sacketts do things. He starts at the bottom just like all his kin before him." The American colonel walked slowly to the back door and peered out at the small collection of outbuildings that sat in a semi-circle beyond the spacious farm yard. He turned back to Gregor.

"Cover me from the door." Gregor shrugged and unslung his weapon moving into the open doorway when Sackett descended the three wooden steps.

Everett stood still in the middle of the yard. He looked behind him and then down to the narrow boardwalk he was standing on that sat a few inches above the sticky mud. He squatted and squinted down the planks at the small smudges that occurred at regular intervals in the dew. He straightened and walked to the end of the boards where a gravel path moved off at a right angle toward a low barn. The barn door was open, and he could see the back end of a tractor and some hay bales. He swung his eyes to the left toward the chicken coop. He stared at the empty coop for several seconds and then turned toward the sound of several cocks crowing from behind the barn. He turned and motioned for Gregor to join him. When the Russian made the short jump over a puddle and landed beside him in the gravel, Sackett pointed toward the barn.

"Time you earned your rubles and potato soup." Gregor grinned and hitching his pants, pushed his rifle into the crook of his arm and a few seconds later disappeared into the barn. Everett waited until the sound of his footsteps faded and turned his head slowly back and forth several times listening intently. Everything was still, even the chickens had ceased their noise. He took three quiet steps toward the coop and stopped to listen again. He studied the ground and noted where the slope of the yard straightened out and became level right where the edge of the chicken coop began. He knelt down and placed his hand on the bare ground that did not feel frozen under his touch. Small wisps of steam rose from an area in the middle of the coop, but there was no chicken waste to be seen. He was still in that position when he heard the Russian's heavy footsteps coming toward him.

"Nothing in there except an old cow waiting to be milked, Colonel." Sackett turned and grinned at the Russian.

"So, no resistance fighters, Gregor, what do you think of that?" Gregor smiled and pulled a small white tin from one of his outer pockets, extracted a short black cigarette and after fitting it carefully between his lips he looked up at Sackett as he lit it with a gold lighter.

"I told you, Colonel Sackett, waste of time. What can the resistance do that the sickness won't do sooner or later and better in the bargain?" Sackett shrugged and then shivered slightly in the pre-dawn chill. The Russian peered through the perfumed smoke. "What do you think of the resistance, Colonel? Never heard your opinion on the subject." Sackett shrugged again and turned his head away from the Russian and the irritating smoke.

"Live and let live, Colonel. They stay out of my way, I stay out of theirs." He spoke louder than was necessary, before he took one long last look at the barnyard and then motioned that they should leave.

A few minutes later, Gregor had supervised the loading of the truck. He moved to Sacketts' side in the low dawn light.

"All packed up, eh, Colonel? We can get out of here now." Sackett nodded and continued gazing out toward the west. Gregor turned and followed his eyes across the wide open field.

"What do you see, Colonel?" Sackett didn't reply but grabbed a hold-bar on the side of the truck and hoisted himself up onto the wide running board. With one hand he brought the binoculars to his face for several long seconds before he jumped down.

"Let's go, Gregor, you have a report to write."

*

Calvin Michaels breathed shallowly as he held the binoculars just in front of his eyes. From where he stood he could just see the heads of the men as they milled around the green military truck a half mile away across the field that lay under six inches of new snow. It was over half an hour since two of the men had left the others and walked toward the farmhouse. Red's farmhouse. Now he held his breath to keep the lenses free of condensation and swept the glasses back and forth between the truck and the small section of lane he could see before it dipped down to the iron gate and the farmhouse. He was still watching when the two men returned alone from the farmhouse. He was just about to take the glasses away from his eyes when he saw one of the men step up onto the truck and look directly at him. He felt as if the gray lenses were looking right through him and he willed himself to not move and after what felt like an hour, the man took the binoculars from his face and Calvin's breath caught in his throat.

"The man from the restaurant." He whispered to the cold empty room.

*

Rothschold craned his neck backward toward the line of trees ten yards behind him. Though it was still more than an hour until dawn, he could see most of the elite attack force he had assembled from his flock and from Carbini's dump crows. Twelve from each group, enough to do the job properly, he thought to himself, but not too many to be detected when they crossed the two miles of barren terrain on the frontier. He watched as Carbini detached himself from his squadron and flew to Rothschold's side.

"Everything is ready, my lord. They grow restless to take wing." Rothschold let out a low, gruff caw.

"Perhaps your undisciplined rabble behaves so, Carbini. Make sure they know their role in this operation." Carbini moved his beak toward the ground and soundlessly took off circling back to his troops. Rothschold waited until Carbini was safely back in his tree and out of earshot before he turned to his lieutenant.

"Grindol, make sure that Carbini and his band of misfits are in the vanguard. He will take the brunt of the onslaught. You know what to do when he is engaged." Grindol bowed low.

"Yes, my liege, the squadron has been well trained for just this type of operation." Rothschold stared coldly with one eye.

"I hope you are right, Grindol, or you can keep on flying east if you survive and are not successful." Rothschold did not wait for a reply but exploded into the air and wheeled in a tight circle when he was twenty yards above the roost. He let out four war caws in quick succession and turned east when he heard the drum of forty-eight wings in the darkness below him.

The two squadrons flew east in staggered groups of three, Carbini's group was in the lead and Rothschold kept the Crows of the Garbage Mounds always in his sight against the pale purple dawn glowing beyond the mountains ahead. After almost an hour of flight, Rothschold gave a silent signal and the hooded ones began to slowly gain altitude and in a few minutes were a hundred yards above and behind Carbini's group. Rothschold looked ahead and saw the Crags rising up in the pink glow of the opening dawn. Though they had seen no ravens on their flight, Rothschold chalked it up to his superb plan and his decision to pare down the attacking force. Now he pulled his squadrons up even higher as Carbini turned into a shallow right-hand dive and bore down on the highest of the Crags. They were still fifty yards from the nest that hung from the side of a scrape in the basalt when the four guard ravens and Signar rose to meet them.

*

Damon watched a lone raven who was perched under a rock ledge three miles from the nest and the largest Crag. He and twelve others had been in the small bowl between two steep ridges for three hours and as the first glimmer of light showed in the east, the lone sentry sent a soft trill across the rocks. Thirty seconds later, the defenders watched as twenty-four crows crossed in the cold dark air high over their hiding place. Damon counted to twenty before he took two short hops and launched himself into the air. The twelve behind him swept into the sky and pumped their long wings, straining for altitude. As he cleared the trees and began to climb higher he could see the first group of crows preparing to make their run toward the nest, the last of the moonlight glinting silver from their wings.

Carbini let out a victory scream as he saw the small group of defender ravens rise to meet his downward assault. But instead of cleaving through the attackers, the five ravens split into different directions and flew at steep angles away from the Crag. Six of the crows left the main group to chase them as Carbini led the remainder on a direct line toward the nest. He was ten yards away when the dark cone erupted with six more ravens that had secreted themselves inside the deserted nest. The fight was joined just a few feet above the nest and four of Carbini's crows were dead or wounded ten seconds later. Carbini flew straight upwards leading the remaining two crows toward the guards who had reformed higher in the sky and were now heading back toward the nest. Carbini let out a small quork of surprise when he saw only one of the crows still fit and flying behind the ravens who were now so close they were blotting out the weak light from the edge of the orange rising sun that had just lit up the Crags.

Rothschold saw the attack unfolding and had just a few seconds to process the action before a cry of alarm from the back of the flock made him look behind him. He gave the call to attack and then pulled up letting the squadrons fly underneath him. As soon as they passed toward the attack he banked sharply and flew downward and quickly darted in a zig-zag pattern until he dropped into the mouth of a deep gorge. He flew just inches over a wide stream in the bottom of the canyon and then through a stand of cottonwoods and into a deep cave hidden in the solid rock cliff.

Damon saw the maneuver as his group closed in on the now twelve new attackers but ignored Rothschold as he pressed his group forward. They caught up with the hooded crows two hundred yards from the nest and for the next ten minutes tore through the pink sky in groups of twos and threes hunting down Rothscholds' raiders.

*

Gregor Valich flipped a small switch near the trigger guard and then braced himself against the truck as he sprayed all thirty cartridges in the magazine of his carbine into the gray walls of the building forty yards away. Puffs of concrete colored dust and small bits of rock showered down on an angry mob who were now flinging themselves to the ground and covering their heads with their arms. Colonel Valich ejected the empty magazine and pulling another one from a pouch on his belt jammed it forcefully home. He stepped out into the middle of the street, dropped the bolt on his weapon and moved the rifle menacingly back and forth.

"Stay down and no one gets hurt or worse. I will speak to one you choose to be leader. You have five minutes to decide." He held his hand over the short bill of his cap, shading his eyes from the glare of the early morning sun and obscuring the small red star above the brim. A few seconds later a young man in his early thirties, Gregor guessed, slowly got up from the front of the prostrate group and began to methodically dust off his clothes, his dark eyes staring malevolently over a surgical mask. He pushed it down away from his face revealing a short-cropped beard as he kept his eyes on Gregor. The man shook more dust from his shoulder length hair and took two steps away from the crowd. The Russian colonel dropped his muzzle toward the ground and waved for the man to come to his side of the street. He took two steps to his left and turned his body so that the man would have to stop between himself and the truck to look Gregor in the eye and the rising sun would be in his eyes as well. Gregor's eyes narrowed as the man approached and a small devious smile spread across the lower half of the colonel's face.

"Who do we have here, eh, comrade? A working class hero, or just another party scapegoat?" Gregor chuckled deep in his throat. The young man stopped in front of Gregor but looked at him with a blank expression from the side, refusing to square up in front of the sun. Gregor took three steps back and leaned against the truck, the gray end of the gun barrel swinging with him and stopping on the man's midsection. Gregor's smile grew wider.

"I am Colonel Valich. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" The man continued his stone-faced gaze and his lips moved very little when he spoke. When he did, he turned, and his heavy jacket swung open, revealing the soiled white collar beneath.

"I am Father Jovan." He turned again and now his expression changed as his arm swept along the road. "Most of these people are members of my congregation." Gregor pulled one of his boots up behind him and cocked it on the back tire of the truck.

"So, I have you to blame for pulling me from my breakfast at such an ungodly hour, eh?" He chuckled again, though louder and coarser this time. "And where do you think you and your flock are going?" The folds and wrinkles around the colonel's eyes tightened and his lips clamped down on an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The priest held out both arms from his sides, the blank expression returning.

"The scourge is coming, comrade, we are going west, westward to safety." He turned his face away from the sun and pointed with his left arm. Colonel Valich pulled his lighter from his jacket pocket and lit the cigarette, his eyes never leaving the man standing in front of him. His words escaped from behind the blue smoke of his first exhalation.

"No, priest, you are not. You go back to your dachas or you march behind the internment wire." He straightened up and indicated the priest with his gun. "And I must tell you, my friend, that my orders are to intern you, so you see, I am not without the grace of God myself." He took another deep drag on the cigarette and waited for several seconds before he let it out very slowly. "So, priest, what is it going to be?"

*

Carbini closed his eyes and held his breath. Signar bore down with his clawed foot when he saw Damon approaching.

"Come on, you silly songbird, let's hear you squeak again like some child's toy." Signar pressed harder, pushing the breath from the scarred beak.

"Enough, Signar, he isn't a threat anymore." Damon stopped and looked down at the crow, now feigning unconsciousness. "Get up, Carbini, you will live to see your garbage mounds again, I have plans for you." One of the eyes slowly opened as Damon tossed his beak at Signar. The large raven removed his sharp claws from the crow's neck and backed away several inches. Carbini turned his head and looked slowly around at the large group of ravens surrounding him. He rolled over and came slowly to his feet, ignoring the eyes of hatred focused on him as he casually cleaned a few bits of dirt from his breast feathers. When he was done, he looked up at Damon as if he had just become aware that he was there. Damon took a quick step forward and Carbini moved the wrong clawed foot first, toppling over in the dust. Several caws of delight accompanied his hurried rise to his feet. He fluffed his feathers calmly and stared at Damon.

"Do as you will, I will not be made sport of." Damon stood tall over the smaller crow.

"You do not call the wingbeats here, defeated one. You will do as you are told and save your mangy feathers." He turned toward one of the closest ravens. "Do we still retain the falconers tether?"

"Yes, my liege."

"Bring it out to me."

A few minutes later the small leather loop lay on the ground in front of Damon. He looked at Carbini only a foot away.

"Put your foot in the loop, Carbini." The defeated crow looked around for a few seconds before he took two steps, placing his right foot inside the loop. Instantly Signar pulled the other end that he held tightly in his beak. Carbini fell onto his back and cawed loudly as Signar and another raven pulled him through the dust, winding the end they held around a rock. When he was secure, Damon walked over and looked down.

"You made your choice, Carbini, your squadrons died while Rothschold fled and left you to your fate. What say you now? Ready to make a different choice?" Carbini struggled to his feet and held his head high as if he was looking at something only he could see. Damon scoffed.

"You live in the city, but you know nothing of what goes on, Carbini. You start this war for territory when the whole countryside is about to be devoured by a pestilence. A pestilence borne on wings and if man does anything, as sure as you stand here, he will destroy all that flies, come what may."

When Carbini didn't answer, Damon turned away and addressed Signar.

"Let him think on it a day or two. Give him a few maggots now and then and bring him the rank water from the rocks." Damon turned and walked slowly through the ranks, pleased that on this day at least, there were no raven casualties, only two of Rothschold's warriors escaped alive and the talus rocks beneath the Crags were littered with all of Carbini's flock. He spied his brother among the ravens resting beside the empty nest.

"A brother's sighting safe is a victory within a triumph." Echo turned his thick beak in Damon's direction and shook his head.

"A brother's sighting safe is a victory within a triumph." Damon waited until the other ravens moved away before he spoke again.

"If thy wings still bend to air, let's be off and done with battles' last order." Echo bowed toward the ground.

"My father's last born speaks and heavens' helpers leap toward a purpose fulfilled." Damon lifted off gently from the narrow rampart of basalt and smoothly pumped his wings to the top of the Crag, hesitating for a few seconds as he judged the strength of the strong current of air that was exiting the flume inside the monolith. When Echo arrived by his side, he turned on his back and dove down into the mouth of the cavern, slowing his descent when the rush of air began to diminish. A little more than halfway down, he spied the nest, secured to the side of the walls and built in twelve hours of feverish effort. He landed carefully on a small ledge next to the long cone-shaped refuge and peered over the rim.

"Tis I, Lila, victorious brothers come to call." An immediate chorus of cries rising from deep within the nest was the reply to their father's voice. Lila stretched her neck as high as she could in an effort to see her mate.

"And elk's meat, my love, is that a portion of victory's sideboard?"

"You are right, my love, in victory other duties escaped my notice." He moved over on the ledge as Echo folded his wings and came to a rest beside him. "My brother's visage will keep thee until I return."

Damon flew west to where the freshest elk carcass lay in the shade of a giant spruce. Just before he descended, he cast an eye toward the entrance of the gorge that concealed Rothscholds' cowardly hide.

*

Father Jovan moved through the shadows on the shady side of the street, stopping at every corner and peering casually around a building before moving down the next block. The mass exodus had failed, and now small groups were forming to steal away in the night and cross the wheat fields to the west and then on into the unknown terrors of the city. He hurried along on his mission. What about the elders? He thought. The ones who were leaving or already left were the young and hardy, able to travel in concealment, but what of the others? There were on his mind when he reached his destination and slowed his hurried gait down to a casual stroll. He walked slowly by a dimly lit café and after continuing for half a block and seeing nothing amiss, he returned and ducked quickly through the swinging doors.

The designated table sat back by the stairs and was empty when Jovan crossed the room, taking off his wool cap as he walked behind the ten or so patrons enjoying small glasses of wine, their ration cards neatly stacked on the corner of their tables. He sat down carefully, his back to the rough boards of the wall and removed his ration card from his front pocket and placed it on the table in front of him. After a few minutes, a waiter who also tended the small bar in the corner by the door approached the table wiping his hands on a grimy towel that was slung over his shoulder. He didn't offer a greeting but picked up the small blue book instead. He riffled quickly through the pages and then held out the book toward Father Jovan, a sour, questioning expression on his face. Jovan shrugged.

"My friends will be here shortly, and they will pay." The waiter tossed the ration book back onto the table with a sneer.

"And shortly after they pay, you will have drinks." He turned without waiting for a reply and returned to the small bar. Father Jovan ignored the curious looks that came from several nearby tables and instead leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, letting his arms fall wearily to his side.

He was still in that position when he heard two of the chairs at his table being pulled across the concrete floor. He opened his eyes and looked at both of his new tablemates in turn. The two new arrivals were a brother and sister. The woman pulled her burgundy beret from her head releasing a long cascade of coal black hair that fell onto her shoulders. She gazed for a few seconds at Father Jovan before she addressed her brother.

"We are always late, Nofel. I hate being late." She turned toward Jovan. "I am sorry we are late Father Jovan, please forgive us." Nofel snorted and grinned malevolently at his sister.

"Forgive us Father, for we have committed the sin of tardiness, is that what you are upset about?" He didn't pause to give her time to reply but turned the intense look on his face toward Father Jovan. His four day old beard was flecked with red hairs as he pointed.

"You should be glad we came at all, priest. The booties and the soldiers are everywhere, and everywhere they go, they round up people just going about their business." He made a gesture that indicated the small room. "One of their patrols could come by, see the light and decide to arrest everyone in this café." He leaned in closer to Jovan and hissed. "So, if I am a little later than you expect, we can overlook it this once, eh?" He chuckled to himself and looked up at the waiter who had reappeared at the table and now snapped his fingers at Nofel impatiently. Nofel glared back but reached into his pocket and handed over the book. The waiter glanced at the first page and turned toward the woman. She shook her head and pointed at the book in his hand. The waiter sighed and turned to Nofel.

"Enough for three drinks only and port is all I can give at these prices." Nofel shrugged and made a gesture as if to shoo off the waiter.

"Then be off and let it be done then." The waiter snorted and left the table stopping at another one nearby and tossing his head toward the trio as he said something to the four patrons sitting there.

Father Jovan leaned forward and gently grasped the woman's forearm.

"Arina, I am sorry about your husband. He was a brave man." Arina smiled thinly and patted the strong sunburned hand.

"Thank you, Father Jovan, I will miss him." She looked down at the middle of the table and crossed herself. Nofel slapped his hand down on the table.

"Yes, yes, brave, a very brave man he was, stupid and brave and now he is dead and now you, priest and all the others will waste your time and breath praying him into heaven." Father Jovan squeezed Arina's arm gently as he turned a poker face to Nofel.

"Do you not take comfort in the love of the Lord, Nofel?" Nofel grunted loudly and turned halfway toward the rest of the room.

"I tell you what I take comfort in, priest." He turned back and hissed across the table. "I take comfort in the fact that all those wretches out there will see you and your God for the frauds you are when no one comes to save them." The priest continued to stare coolly.

"The Lord will not deliver us from our predicament, Nofel, I am counting on you to do that for us." Nofel snickered softly and turned to make room for the waiter who had returned with a round metal tray and three very small crystal glasses filled with the dark brown liquid. He put them in the middle of the table and left without comment. Arina placed a glass in front of each of the two men and then raised hers.

"Salud!" She and Jovan clinked their glasses together, Nofel took half of the liquor into his mouth and made a face.

"It's turned." His two companions took small sips and placed the glasses on the table in front of them. Father Jovan reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small paper package. He pulled a white hankerchief from the other pocket and wrapped it carefully around the package before placing it in front of Nofel. The belligerent blood shot eyes looked up from the package.

"How much?"

"Three thousand American dollars." Nofel laughed harshly and sat back in the chair crossing his legs and gesturing toward the package.

"And where do you think that will take you priest?" Jovan looked at Arina.

"As agreed, a hundred people to the west and passage on a freighter to the Free State of Mexico." Nofel leaned toward the middle of the table.

"Look at me, priest, I make the deals." Father Jovan's eyes slid off Arina's and fastened onto Nofel. "And that isn't near good enough. If the plague gets here sooner than later, what good is three or even ten thousand going to do me, eh?"

"That is all I have." Nofel lifted the glass to his lips and took the last bit of the port into his mouth before he made a face, stood up and looked down at the priest.

"When you have twenty thousand, tell Arina and I will be in touch."

*

You have no progress reports, Professor Michaels? We have heard no mention of additional supplies that are required.

"They are in the early stages of testing some of the protocols, that is all I was told. Dr. Lisson is known for her methodical approach and her...

Her approach and her methods are not in question, Calvin, what is in question, is the time frame and the rate of her production. The disease is not under any constraints and haste in this case does not equal waste, but life. The data and the readouts from the child were delivered yesterday morning, is that correct?

Calvin nodded his head and waited for a few seconds before he spoke.

"The data is incomplete and contradictory. She is requesting three vials of the girl's blood." Damon walked slowly around the rim of the fountain stopping when he was again facing the professor.

Have you seen and heard the horrors that were discovered at Miners Camp, Professor? If you have, then you know that it is only by the sheerest fortune that the plague has not swept through here on its' way to the coast. The same phenomena occurred in the first and second cycles. It is as if the disease gathers itself before striking with full force. But that respite will not last long, indeed, if it is not already over. She will have the blood, but not today and not tomorrow.

"The army was in the lane yesterday morning. They searched Kenny's house and barn. Before they left they peered at our farmhouse from afar. I think they will return.

Undoubtedly. But as I told you before we will be ready when they do. They did not find anything at the Kenny place, am I correct? We are already searching for a new location, but you must have faith and keep your nerve, now is not the time to falter. The dying will start soon all around us. The next time we meet, it will be at the farmhouse. It is time I met Doctor Lisson in person.

A few minutes later, Damon was moving through the sky toward the west, the afternoon sun catching the dark purple highlights in his feathers. He turned slightly and caught a crosswind several hundred yards above the ground and added a few extra wingbeats. He was behind schedule and needed to make up for lost time.

*

The window was already open when Damon soared over the cottonwoods and dropped down toward the farmhouse. He could see the farmer on the other side of the barnyard, turning over shovelfuls of wet earth in his garden. He alighted gently on the ledge and peered into the cage. Melampus stared back sullenly.

"I expected you two days ago, mores afoot than can be gleaned from passersby. Have you been well and how is Lila holding up? Is the black egg protected?" Damon tossed his beak toward the ceiling twice before he answered.

"War's fiery skull has been visited upon us twice in almost as many days. It is only because of guile and raven readiness that our forces hold strong with little casualty. A loud brood surrounds Darius, who still shy, waits in his shiny black redoubt. Lila holds firm, her sister in constant attendance, but the plague grows in strength and the population is restless in their remit, for they lack faith in those that govern them." Melampus had turned away and was now pacing the bottom of the cage.

"Darius, is it? The greatest of all the Persian kings. Yes, yes, it is altogether fitting." He turned back toward Damon. "And the project?"

"Not as successful as we hoped. Delays in preparation have been followed by slow work on the part of Ms. Lisson. Hopefully our allies can procure blood samples in the next seventy-two hours. We have received reports of sickness and death in the settlements between here and Miners Camp."

"She has been given all the formulas that are mentioned in the skirrum and in the diaries?"

"Yes, my liege, but there is more. Special military units have been deployed against the resistance and they have come very near to the laboratory. The time has come sooner than expected for relocation. I have already put a new plan into motion."

"But that will take time and disrupt the process. How do you intend to avoid that, Damon?"

"Perhaps there will be a slight delay, as the soldiers in charge are cunning and experienced. The CDOT can be relocated swiftly and if the timing is right our timetable shall not suffer." Melampus received the news with equanimity and continued pacing for several minutes before he stopped. Damon waited patiently on the ledge for Melampus to speak.

"This raven's life grows the shorter from habits gone mossy and indigent. If in a moon's waxing I awake contemplative and fasten the door weakly against doubt, then the hope of Darius prolongs life's misery and readies one for a last task."

*

Colonel Sackett slipped beneath some low growing juniper bushes and moved slowly back along the trail in the snow he had made an hour earlier, taking pains to step into the same footprints he had left coming in. At several intervals, he stopped for a minute or longer and listened, only moving on when he was sure that he was not being followed or that there was not someone or something waiting for him up ahead. After forty-five minutes he reached the small copse of trees that lay in the lee of a steep hillside. He swung his pack from his back onto a patch of bare ground in front of him and pulled out a small silver flask and held it up in the pale moonlight. His fingers rubbed the worn etching on the side; an eagle carrying a bundle of arrows and the war banners of the Virginia Volunteers. It was too dark to see the bottom of the flask, but he knew the name that was inscribed there. 'Captain Bremus Sackett CSN'. He took a long slow drink of the rum inside and then replaced the container in the pack and retrieved a canteen that he drank from and then secured deep into the interior half-empty. He walked to the largest tree and knelt beside it, moving his hands carefully through the snow until he found the skis. A few moments later he skied down the ravine where the snow was the deepest and where the truck waited three miles away and where the farmhouse and the burned-out barn could be seen from a low hill.

*

"And where have you been until two in the morning, eh, Colonel?" Gregor Valich was standing in the shadows of the large metal building that housed the motor-pool for the special forces detachment on the base. He stepped out onto the hard-packed snow that formed most of the streets on the base, his boots squeaking a little as he did. He tossed the small butt of a cigarette into the icy road and looked at Everett. "Perhaps a pretty young crumpet that you have stashed away, eh? But I think not, you have been on some sort of foray, am I right, Colonel?" Colonel Sackett shrugged, and his face adopted a casual expression as he indicated the headquarters building a hundred yards away.

"The pact between our federations require cooperation and where useful, coordination, Gregor, but not everything is yours to know." It was the Russian's turn to shrug.

"Perhaps not, my friend, but to whom do we turn to and rely on in the end, eh? Is your friend the General even going to be in the same hemisphere when your tuchis is in a sling and poor humble Gregor is your only hope?" Sackett smiled into the darkness.

"You have a vivid imagination, Gregor, but the last time I remember being in the type of scrape you describe, it was you that needed the help. Help, I was glad to give and not for the first time I shouldn't need to remind you. I am tired and going to bed, if you have more to say, save it for breakfast." Sackett turned and began to walk toward his barracks a quarter mile away. Colonel Valich fell in beside him and pulled out his small tin of cigarettes as he walked. He offered one to his companion and then lit it when it was refused, peering at Everett in the short blaze of light.

"What you say is true enough, Colonel. We have known each other through many campaigns and you have always been a true soldier, even many times when I myself would have acted differently." He paused to see the effect of his words and when the man beside him kept his eyes forward, he continued. "But this is different. Different rules, different orders, different sides." The Russian stopped and waited until Sackett did as well. "Different enemy." Everett looked down at the shorter Russian.

"Yes, Gregor and what of it?" The Russian squinted through the smoke and took the cigarette from his mouth, waving it casually in front of his face.

"Just this, Colonel. A man like you, a man like me, we may find ourselves one day the same as all men and just as desperate. One's duty might not be so clear, then, eh?" Valich turned toward a small road that led to the Russian section of the base. Colonel Sackett watched him for several minutes until he disappeared around the corner of a building. He walked alone in the moonlight that cast a pale blue light on the snow until he came to the building that contained his small room. He turned on the light that sat on the writing desk in the corner and spent a half hour writing in a small green canvas notebook that he zipped into a small pouch and buttoned into his heavy field jacket when he was done.

*

Carbini blinked several times rapidly as he came to consciousness in the chill dawn. The sky had begun to lighten beyond the Crags and for a few seconds he struggled to remember where he was, and after that, why he was there. It then occurred to him that something had awoken him and with this thought he raised his head up a small way after testing that the leather tether was still tight around his right foot. A large raven loomed over him in the semi-darkness and it was not until the corvid spoke that Carbini realized that it was Damon.

"Three days of our hospitality you've enjoyed, Carbini. Time to earn your keep." Damon's eyes watched intently as Carbini struggled to his feet moving backwards a few inches to produce enough slack in the leather strap. Carbini slowly raised his wings and gently shook out his feathers, taking care to make no sudden moves that would incite violence on the part of the raven. His stretching done, Carbini raised his beak high and regarded Damon out of one eye.

"Hospitality, you call it? I would rather lay in the putrid nest of a vulture."

"You should be grateful to lie anywhere, Carbini. The bones of your best warriors rot in those vulture nests." Damon took a step forward and relished the quick disappearance of the bravado attitude. "I have come as I said I would to see if you have seen the folly of placing your trust and the lives of your flock in the hands of such as Rothschold?" Damon waited, the intense glare now only inches from the beak of the smaller crow. Carbini turned away and looked at the small sliver of pale light on the horizon before looking back at Damon.

"What price for my life, Damon?"

A few minutes later, Damon flew to the highest spine on the Crag and dropped down beside Signar. He indicated the captive crow several hundred feet below.

"Carbini has given up the location of Rothsholds' warriors. It is not far from our frontier. I have a plan and one that may prove dangerous to you." Damon turned his gaze toward the younger bird. Signar gazed back with an unblinking eye.

"Tell me my liege, and it shall be done."

*

Calvin Michaels walked along the busy sidewalk, his hands in his pockets and his eyes focused four feet in front of him as he dodged other pedestrians, most wearing the ubiquitous surgical masks as they bore down upon him. He had already passed several crowds that had gathered on the street corners and were listening to orators warning of the coming plague. He felt the piece of paper in his pocket and wondered how many stops he would have to make to procure all the items on the list that Eva Lisson had pressed into his hand two hours ago. He glanced at the sun and realized he had only a little more than an hour before darkness would spread across the slick lanes and byways and the last two miles to the farmhouse would become slippery and treacherous. He stopped and waited with two other people on a corner as the cars braked to a halt. He was just about to cross with the others when he realized he was being watched from across the street. The man pulled the cigarette from his mouth and Professor Michaels' extremities went cold. The man from the restaurant, the man who had been peering at the farmhouse in the early dawn. Calvin turned away quickly and began to retrace his steps but only made it a little way back down the sidewalk when his path was blocked by two burly soldiers in camo gear with carbines slung over their shoulders. One was smiling broadly and spoke in a flat American heartland accent.

"Whoa, whoa, there, buddy. Not so fast." He held out an arm and pushed lightly on Calvin's chest. "No trouble, now, just turn around and start walking." Calvin turned and slowly began to walk toward the corner between the two soldiers. When they reached the corner, the one in the lead stepped off the curb and waving his arms, brought the traffic to a halt. He stood guard while the soldier who had first spoken to him prodded him across the wide boulevard. When they reached the other side, the man from the restaurant leaned down and spoke to the soldier, indicating the café behind him. As soon as he was joined by the other man who had been policing traffic, all four entered the small café. The two soldiers busied themselves rousting the patrons already seated and in a few minutes the café was empty. Calvin stood quietly and gazed at the man who stood before him. Up this close, Calvin confirmed his original impression that the man was an American and beyond that, he took in the thoughtful eyes which watched everything at once and were now fastened onto Calvin. The two soldiers moved to the doorway and blocked any new patrons from entering. The American indicated a table behind him which sat in the middle of the café and waited until Calvin had pulled out a chair and sat down before he did the same making sure that he could see the two soldiers and the front door over Calvin's right shoulder. Calvin started to speak, but the man held up his hand as he turned and addressed the only other person still in the small room, a waiter that stood as far away as he could by the corner of the bar staring balefully at his empty restaurant.

"Two beers over here, please." When the waiter had nodded and circled behind the bar, the man turned back to Calvin. A small smile played around the edges of his mouth when he spoke.

"Professor Calvin Michaels, if I'm not mistaken." The soft southern accent was followed by a large calloused hand extending across the table. Calvin reached out slowly and grasped it, keeping his own expression as blank as he could manage. "Colonel Everett Sackett, U.S. Army Rangers." The colonel kept his light gaze on Calvin as he leaned back to give the waiter room to set the large steins on the table in front of the two men. When the man had retreated sullenly back to his corner, the Colonel leaned forward and spoke in low tones.

"Consider this like an informal, 'get to know each other', kind of meeting, Calvin." Sackett picked up the stein of beer and held it out expectantly. Calvin lifted his from the table and held it still while the American clinked against the glass. "To the future, whatever it may turn out to be." Calvin said nothing but followed the colonel in taking a deep draught of the dark yellow liquid. The colonel set the stein down sharply and half empty and made a small noise of satisfaction deep in his throat. His smile had disappeared.

"I believe in putting the cards on the table at the earliest opportunity, don't you, Professor?" He didn't wait for a reply but gestured toward the two soldiers by the door. "I'm taking a big chance here. Those boys get nosy or decide that I need to get taken down a peg or two, they are going to report the fact that I conducted an illegal interrogation in a public house." He paused and waited for a response from his tablemate and receiving none shrugged and continued. "So, before we start, I just wanted you to know that and my hope that we can get on the same page somewhere along the line." He picked up the stein and emptied the rest of the contents and stared at Calvin over the rim of the thick glass. Calvin shook his head and leaned back with his hands in his pockets.

"I don't know what you want with me, Colonel, I'm just a university professor, hardly anyone that should interest you." Colonel Sackett chuckled and indicated to the waiter that he should bring two more beers.

"That's very deprecating of you, Professor Michaels, but maybe it will help if I tell you why I have been assigned to your little corner of the world." Sackett leaned in before he continued in a loud stage whisper. "There is a group, we'll call them the resistance, for lack of a better term, who as the name implies, aren't happy with the status quo and want to change things in a violent way if all else fails. Now, my job is to keep tabs on them, make sure they don't become too effective and intern their leaders and the main rabble rousers if I can." The colonel stopped to gauge the effect of his words. Calvin took a small sip of his new beer and said nothing. Sackett tossed his hands in the air in a small gesture. "Your turn." Calvin looked up blankly from his beer and shrugged.

"I don't know what it is you want me to say, Colonel." Sackett pointed toward Calvin's coat.

"How 'bout we start with that laundry list you have there in your pocket. I saw you reading it several blocks back and it seemed rather important, so I thought I might ask."

"Is that an official request, Colonel?" Sackett chuckled again.

"Let's just say that anything you tell me will stay between us. Like I said, this is informal and largely for my own information," he looked hard at the younger man before he continued, "but don't think for a minute that I won't take it up a notch if I think you are about to give me a reason to." For several minutes there was silence before Calvin sighed and indicated the world at large.

"There is a plague on the loose out there, Colonel and it's coming this way, are you aware of that?" Colonel Sackett nodded solemnly as Calvin continued. "And if you are, I wonder how you justify spending your time this way when you could be doing something about the coming calamity?" The Colonel smiled and looked around the depressing room before he gazed evenly back at Calvin.

"And you, professor, are you doing something about it?"

*

Signar flew by the light of the three-quarter moon, his belly brushing lightly on the tips of the tall spruce trees that marched up the side of Connor Mountain and were eight miles as the sparrow flies from the point where Damon and all the warriors he could muster waited anxiously for the hour just before the dawn. Signar had conferred with Hugin and Echo before he set out and now as he passed over the next to last spire on the top of the mountain, he could see the first two of the four landmarks that would take him to his objective, now only one mile away by his reckoning.

A few minutes later, Signar dropped down among the rocks still covered with snow and flew four feet above the ground along descending groves of aspen trees and then began to serpentine among them as they thinned out and the stands turned to spruce trees once again. When he reached his fourth and final landmark, a huge outcropping of rock covered in lichen and moss, he landed in a small clearing covered deeply in leaves and free of snow. He took two hops and stopped in the shadow of the large edifice, letting his heart rate return to normal as he listened to the night sounds of the forest. Presently, he began to circumvent the rock face, squeezing through narrow channels still filled with snow and ice until he was on the other side and standing atop a steep slope that fell away from the rock face and overlooked a dense forest that Signar estimated was at least twice as large as the Four Mile Forest. Hugin had called it Crows Lookout and now Signar hurried down the talus slope in the darkness, taking care not to start a small landslide that would carry the clatter across the inky blackness of the forest. When he was near the bottom, he moved sideways across the slope to the first big tree he could see clearly. He waited at the bottom for several minutes, listening for any noise or motion he could detect in the darkness that surrounded him.

*

Damon waited as the one of the nest guards laid the long strips of elk meat down just outside the dark crevice in the largest Crag that held the new nest and the brood that Lila attended to each hour of each day and night as she warmed the oblong orb beneath her.

"Two more trips and that should last them for at least another hour." He watched for a few seconds as the raven took once again to wing in the direction of the carcass before he grasped the meat in his beak and flew straight up in the air pausing in mid-flight until the warm moist air that spewed from the cavern filled the space under his wings. He flew with a steady wing beat down into the dark recess and checked his wings as he saw the black raven shape of his sister-in-law outlined against the pale yellow walls of the redoubt. He settled down lightly beside her. She examined the strips of sustenance as he piled them up against the side of the nest.

"These are fresher than the ones from yesterday. Has Sasha been busy?" Damon moved one of the strips that had rolled away up toward the rest of the small pile.

"No, Signar discovered a winter kill that had just come under thaw as he was out patrolling before dusk last night. I have not seen Sasha for three weeks." He peered over the edge of the nest to see if he could make out the form of his wife three feet below.

"She sits in fitful slumber, my liege, an hours' succor for the weary." Damon turned back toward Magda.

"I have added another warrior to the one you have chosen. That makes eight that attend her though we be in war's bloody grasp. More cannot be spared, and this company must acquit the task as arrayed. The order of battle is thin, and the campaign will be a close and risky thing." Magda glanced upward to where a round plate of stars reflected a pale beam of light almost to where she and Damon were standing.

"Tis all that rests with Signar. The sun will climb high and bring the bellys' full of war and blood."

*

Calvin Michaels looked past the four empty beer steins and into the blue eyes three feet away. His right hand lightly touched the edges of the paper that was tucked deep within his pocket; the list of chemicals and lab equipment that Eva was waiting for back at the burned-out barn. He measured his words and watched for their effect on the man across from him.

"No, colonel, I don't think I will. Arrest and intern me if you wish, but there is nothing more I wish to say." Colonel Sackett looked past the professor and made a definitive gesture toward the other two soldiers who had taken seats by the door. They stood at once to attention and then moved again to block the doorway. Sackett turned back to his table companion.

"A CDOT was misplaced sometime in the last three weeks at the port. Do you know what that is, Professor?" Calvin shook his head slowly. The colonel sighed before he continued. "It is something that could be used to do good, I suppose, if it fell into the right hands," he paused for effect and then leaned forward, his elbows resting on the small table. "but of course, where it is and who has it and more importantly if they know what they are about..." He shrugged and held up his hands in supplication. "Nobody knows at this point, right, Professor?" Calvin didn't take his eyes from the colonel and replied, changing his expression as little as possible.

"If you are implying I do, colonel, why don't you come right out and say so or arrest me." Colonel Sackett smiled mostly to himself as he stood and pulled several American dollars from a pocket in his tunic. He slid them under the nearest glass as he spoke.

"Like I said, my job is to keep an eye on the resistance, a task that fits my skills, and also..." he clicked his tongue toward the door and signaled the other two soldiers that they were leaving. "also, Professor Michaels, to put down the coming panic by any means at my disposal." He stared into Calvin's eyes. "A job that doesn't sit well with me, but one I will carry out if ordered." He rapped twice on the surface of the wooden table and turned, walking over to the two soldiers. He stopped when Calvin spoke to his back.

"And if I am in that crowd that panics, Colonel? What will you do then?" Colonel Sackett followed his men out the door and onto the sidewalk without a reply.

*
CHAPTER FIVE

The eye that mocks a father and scorns a mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. —Proverbs 30:17

Signar moved stealthily to the top of the spruce tree and peered toward the east in the darkness and waited. A half hour later he heard the quiet swish of crow wings and a faint caw as four hooded crows flew in a tangential line away from him. A few seconds later an answering caw came from somewhere on his right, followed by another even softer, fifty yards in front of him. Signar waited for twenty minutes before he began to retrace his steps back down the tree. He was tempted to fly to the top of the rock outcropping when he reached the bottom but began instead the laborious climb through the sharp piles of shale. When he was safely on the other side of the rock, he flew in a straight line over a small rise and landed in a long narrow snow field on the other side. He moved to the edge of the snow and hid beneath a fallen pine bough, waiting and listening for several minutes before he set about his task.

*

Damon stepped up onto the edge of the Crag and judged the time before the sun would first peek over the horizon to the east. Below him were all the war birds that the ravens could muster from all their colonies. Eighty-two nervous beaks spread out before him in the darkness. He sent a loud caw down the slope to where Hugin and Magda waited ten yards below. They repeated the command and one hundred and sixty-four wings vibrated the cold night air as one and lifted into the sky, momentarily blotting out the moon. Damon was the last to leave the Crag and five minutes later he assumed his place at the front of the long lines of raiders.

*

Signar had just finished with his last pile of sticks. He had collected them over several minutes and then one-by-one had placed them carefully in the snow and now, the signal finished, he flew to the top of a nearby pine to choose the best place to wait until Damon and the raven warriors flew over. Though it was still dark, the first glow of the dawn enabled him to see the large outcropping and the beginning of the forest beyond. But he knew as well that he would have to be even more cautious than he was an hour ago as he was now more visible to any observers. This fact almost kept him in his hide behind two large pine cones, but he chanced the short flight back to the tree where he had first observed the crow roost. He was only a few feet from the tree when it erupted with the thrashing bodies of twelve crows and he was in their midst and surrounded in seconds. He instinctively twisted his torso in mid-flight and corkscrewed toward the ground, but his maneuver was too late to outdistance all his attackers and three of the nearest hooded crows struck him as one and spun him into a snowbank at the base of the tree. Before Signar could free himself from the icy prison, he was pinned down by several pairs of sharp talons. He remained calm trying to figure out a plan that would buy time for the raven force that he was sure was already airborne. His effort was aided by the confusion and indecision that he heard from his captors. There didn't seem to be a senior crow in charge and several opinions were being hotly debated. The plan that won out several minutes later had already been put into action as one of the crows had flown off as soon as Signar had been captured. The consensus was that they wait and let Rothschold or someone he delegated decide the ultimate course of action. They rolled Signar free of the snow and two of the larger crows now crouched on top of him so that only his head was showing. Other than that, he was ignored, but there was still bickering between the remaining crows that seemed to be some sort of scouting or forward observer unit. One of the crows restraining Signar was also the most vocal.

"What are you standing around here for? Do you think this is a young bird of the year that has lost his way looking for his mother and a free meal?" He let out several loud caws before he spoke again. "Get airborne and look for others he was with or some clue as to what he was doing here." Only two of the remaining crows agreed with him and took off, disappearing over the tree that Signar had hoped to hide in. The big crow craned his neck around and looked at Signar. "Nothing to say, haughty one? Savor your last few breaths as one of God's creatures, knave." Signar stared at the dark sky and said nothing. He was still in that position when he heard the rush of several wings landing nearby. He could tell by the instant change in the demeanor of his guards that someone important had arrived.

Rothschold strutted over to the raven pinned to the snow in the well of the large spruce. He bent down until he could see the dark quiet eyes of the captive bird.

"Who do we have here? Or more importantly, why do we have who we have here?" He plunged his beak downward and pecked viciously at Signars' exposed neck, drawing blood but producing no scream of pain. Rothschold straightened up and glared at the large crow astride the captive. "This is no ordinary raven coward. I have seen him before doing the bidding of Damon, why have you not made a wide reconnoiter of the area?" Even through his pain, Signar could feel the trembling of the crow.

"I implored them thusly, Lord, but only two saw fit and..." He was interrupted by the two crows that had left earlier returning at a high speed and almost crashing into the tree above in their panic. At the same time the drumming of many wings reached all their ears. Rothschold turned again toward Signar, a savage look in his eye as he let out a shrill scream.

*

Damon saw the pilot bird as the lone raven flew back toward the formations. As the force of ravens approached he fluttered upward before turning on his back and diving toward the ground. Damon gave the signal to descend and the flock began a low angle shallow dive toward the side of a mountain. A few seconds later, the pilot raven and then the flock adjusted their direction as they flew over the arrow made of sticks laid out neatly in the snow. The pilot bird flared again and flew three quick loops before diving toward the ground just beyond the large rock outcropping. Damon did not need to give a new signal as the ravens accelerated toward the line of trees and the group of crows flying in frantic circles.

*

Nofel crept in a semi-crouch through the tangled alders, sweeping them aside and waiting for a second before continuing so that they could not lay their wet stinging slap on his cheeks. He could hear the creek rushing in the darkness beside him, the brown water swollen from the early spring melt. He shivered as he thought about the numbing cold that would result from a misstep in the frozen blackness but pushed the thought from his mind and continued on. He saw the pale flickering ahead of him several times before he realized it for what it was, and it took him another twenty minutes of circling around a large bend in the creek before he approached the spot where he had first seen the light clicking on and off but from where there was now only darkness. He stood still, breathing heavily, his breath coming out in great steamy clouds and obscuring his vision. After a few minutes the light clicked on for several seconds, then off, then on again and began to move toward Nofel. Before he could react, he heard the Russian accent coming from behind a downed cottonwood tree.

"You are late, and if you are not alone, you will soon be dead in the bargain as well." Nofel stayed where he was as he could hear the breaking of small twigs and the swish of the alders as the Russian approached. The piercing light of the torch announced the arrival of Colonel Valich. Gregor swept the light up and down on the man in front of him before he laid it on a stump that was three feet in front of him, stomping his feet several times and clapping his heavily clad hands together. "Been here for an hour, another twenty minutes and you would be talking to a frozen mummy." He came closer and moved the fingers of his right hand in a gesture that made Nofel move his hand to his mouth, pull off the woolen mitten and fumble inside his coat. A few seconds later he handed over the burgundy carnet. Gregor bent over and studied it in the light of the torch. He grunted, straightened and handed it back. Nofel replaced it and the green mitten as well. He spoke for the first time.

"I am not sure how one goes about this." He was cut off by a hearty laugh from The Russian colonel whose features were obscured in the dying half-light of the torch.

"Do what, comrade? Give up your own people?" he snorted and spat on the ground. "The first time?" he moved his gloves in an uneven rolling motion, "maybe hard. After that, it will feel like you have done it every day of your miserable life. After all, it is a time-honored tradition in our country, no?" Nofel moved his feet uneasily on the bumpy frozen ground.

"We need to talk about money." Gregor cut him off again with another hearty laugh.

"You are right, comrade and tell you what I have decided." He waited for a few beats to build the tension before he spoke again. "I am going to take them off your hands for nothing." He leaned back and laughed into his own white breath that escaped into the dark night. When he was done he looked down at the serious face before him. He stopped, chuckled and pointed at Nofel. "I see. You were thinking I was going to pay you to tell me where I can find this rabble that wishes to escape westward, right?" Nofel made a small noise in the back of his throat as if he were going to reply but said nothing. Gregor Valich took two steps nearer and pulled a small pistol from his belt and pointed it at Nofels' stomach. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a husky growl. "If you want money, get it from them, another fine tradition. All you will get from me is your life if that proves useful. Now, where is that priest hiding?"

*

Damon led the lead formation straight down onto the crows while Hugin and Magda formed a large circle that surrounded the forest several seconds later. They moved in unison herding groups of crows that flushed from the forest, pushing them into a disorganized mass that swirled around and folded back upon itself hastening its' own destruction.

Damon's group engaged the several units that had arrived at the large spruce tree at the same time as he and his warriors had screamed down from above the rock outcropping. The fighting was brutal and hard in the dark and among the closely spaced trees where many of the crows fought in small units and acquitted themselves well. The sun streamed down in hazy shafts of light as the ravens mopped up the few crows that weren't dead, dying or had escaped to the west into a narrow valley, where they spread out and hid quietly among the aspens.

Two hours after the raid began, Damon flew slowly over the unfamiliar territory until he spied the large rock, its' worn surface shining dully in the mid-morning sun. There were no other birds about when he landed near the wounded raven that lay on his back, several large drops of bright blood dotting the snow beside him. Damon bent over him and cawed softly. One eye opened slowly.

"Signar. It is Damon and heavens' purpose has no avail if today has seen your slaying." Signar croaked weakly and spoke with effort.

"See not my end, my liege, but the fear in the crow eyes that beheld this battle." Damon looked up as two raven shadows crossed the snow field in front of him. He cawed raucously, and the shadows turned and the ravens that cast them landed softly beside Damon.

"Your comrade-in-arms is in need of aid. Fly in search of Hugin and Magda and return here with them." He only heard the two birds launch their flight as he had turned back to Signar. He stayed with him until the two ravens dropped from the sky and after having examined Signar, Magda gave her prognosis.

"He will live." She shook her beak slowly at Damon. "But only if we can get him somewhere warm and Melampus can prescribe something in season that will bind his wounds without infection." Damon turned to Hugin.

"There is a fresh deer kill near where the crow captives are being held. Send several raiders to bring the back skin of the animal. Make sure they leave some of the fat on so that it remains supple." Hugin left and returned shortly having sent three of his guard to accomplish the task. He lowered his voice when he spoke to Damon.

"And Rothschold, Damon, what is to be done about him?" Damon looked over to where Magda and another raven were tending Signar.

"What do you recommend, Hugin? Once again, he has taken the cowards' road to freedom. One day his forces will be no more, and then he will have no choice but to fight or flee the territories for good."

"It was he that wounded Signar dire, my liege. His neck in the falconers' noose would see the wars' ending." Damon did not answer but walked slowly toward Signar. He looked down at the raven who now had been laid on a bed of pine needles.

"Thy test and thy ordeal will see their end before nightfall, my dear Signar. I have a plan to bring you home with us."

*

Calvin Michaels stood in the dusk outside the burned-out barn and watched as three men he had only met ten minutes before, stretched a long green tarpaulin over the CDOT, fastening it underneath with long cords until it took on the appearance of a green tanker car. The oldest of the three approached Calvin crunching in the old snow up to where the Professor stood, ever vigilant in a spot where he could see several miles in all directions. The man who had introduced himself only as Sven, turned halfway round and gestured back toward the mobile laboratory.

"The task is completed, but we are to wait until an hour past dark," both men turned instinctively to where the sun had dipped below the horizon twenty minutes before. "My men and I wish to build a fire inside the barn and get warm before the trip." Calvin nodded his assent as the man turned and put his hand to his mouth and shouted gruffly at his two companions, pointing toward the barn when they looked up from their last-minute tasks. He watched as they disappeared into the darkness of the interior just as Eva was walking up the slope from the opposite direction. She caught her breath for a few seconds when she arrived.

"Everything is secured, Calvin, Trina is boxing up our notes and she will carry them with her in our car." Calvin nodded and turned his head looking out toward Lansford Kenny's homestead. He turned back toward Eva.

"Do you trust Trina, Ev?" He kept his face blank as she looked up at him. She sighed and shook her head.

"You've already asked me that, Calvin, so, for the second time: yes, I trust her, we worked together in Helsinki and in New York, she is a top-notch researcher and we work together instinctively." Calvin screwed his face into a frown and turned to look in the opposite direction, out across the gently rolling contours of the pasture as it moved up into the foothills, now only covered with snow in places where the wind was weakest. She reached out and touched his arm. "What has gotten into you, lately? It was you who was the most insistent that we move to the new place earlier than planned." Calvin turned and shrugged.

"It doesn't matter, don't you see? He will find us wherever we go, there is no place that is safe from him." Eva shook her head.

"I hope you are wrong, but we have the vials and if we are on the right track they will tell us and maybe we won't need much more time." Calvin looked down to the road below where Trina was loading two brown boxes into the back of the small sedan before he raised his face to Eva.

"I wish Damon was here."

*

Damon and Hugin watched as several ravens worked to spread the deerskin flat onto the snow. When it was in position, they lifted Signar gently and placed him in the center of the bloody skin. They pulled the sides to the middle and folded it over the gravely wounded bird, as Damon bent and whispered into the opening where he could just barely see the top of Signar's head.

"Be still and trust your brethren in their transport safe. We will see each other at journeys' end." He stood straight and gave the signal to the two large ravens who stood near the ends of the deerskin. They each pulled the ragged ends of the skin with their beaks and together lifted the light brown package into the air. They were immediately followed by two other pairs who would spell them on the twelve-mile journey back to the Crags.

Damon watched until they flew out of sight over the rock outcropping and into the bright haze of the sunny sky. He turned to Hugin and Magda who looked as if they had something to say. Magda spoke first.

"And the hooded ones we have captured, Damon, what of them? There are sixteen and four more that are wounded and cannot be moved." Damon looked at Hugin and then turned his eye back to Magda.

"We are not butchers nor barbarians, enough that our enemies sink so low. They can stay here, perhaps they will spin the tale on the roost and dissuade others from Rothsholds' murderous plotting." Hugin shook his beak vigorously.

"They will not be dissuaded, and you know it, Damon. They will rejoin their filthy mates and next time we may not be so lucky as today." Damon made a small noise in his throat and shook his beak slowly.

"Luck, you would have it, Hugin? Have we not carried the fight to them in complete surprise? Have not their incursions been turned aside with much loss to tally in their foul nests?" He took a few steps away before he turned and faced the two commanders. "It is not by fortunes' cold smile that the Ravens of the Valley endure, but by the hardening of sinew, bone and feather in all the battles our lineage has fought since the rise of the first wing to air."

*

The small round knob turned back and forth several times in the wooden door. The same knocking repeated itself two more times. Father Jovan forced himself to breathe as he peered at the front sight of the pistol that was in sharp focus, the door a brown blur beyond it. For a few seconds there was silence before he heard Arinas' voice.

"Father Jovan, please open, I need to talk with you." Jovan moved as quietly as he could across the small attic and pressed his ear to the varnished wood.

"Arina, are you alone?"

"Yes, Father, please let me in." Jovan slipped the long brass key from his pocket and pushed it into the lock below the knob, turning it slowly and opening the door only two inches as he peered at Arina and the small landing behind her. When he had satisfied himself that she was alone, he opened it wide enough for her to slip through. He closed it immediately and locked it again, replacing the key in the pocket of his canvas pants. He turned and held his finger up to his lips and pointed to a door that led to another room. He led the way and opening the door, let the young woman enter first. He closed it behind them and motioned to a bed that was pushed under the sloping ceiling. Arina sat down on the bed while Father Jovan pulled out a chair from a small desk in the corner which was the only other piece of furniture in the room. He smiled at her.

"Sorry about that, I can't be too careful these days." She nodded, her eyes wide.

"You are correct to do so, Father, you are in great danger. Nofel is on his way to sell your whereabouts to Colonel Valich. It is not safe for you, if you and your group are going, you must go now." Father Jovan stood up and paced the small room. He turned back to Arina.

"When did he leave?"

"Two hours ago, but I don't know where he was going, a Russian soldier came to the door and gave him a piece of paper that must have been instructions, you must leave now." The priest shook his head.

"I can't go, there are more preparations to be made and I can't leave alone, I can't leave them to their fate." Arina cast her eyes around the room.

"You can't stay here, father, that I know. He will come, you do not know him, Nofel will do anything for money, money and power, that is all he thinks about." The priest nodded lost in thought. He looked up at Arina.

"Do you have a car?" She nodded slowly.

"Yes, but Nofel knows it, he will see us." Jovan shook his head.

"Not if we leave now, not if we leave right this minute, there is a place where we can find shelter, but it is over fifty miles from here and the roads are not good, can your car make it?"

"It is a good car, it will make it."

*

Damon peered down into the old nest that hung off the ledge of the largest Crag. Magda had placed short pine branches over the litter in the bottom and now Signar was resting on top of the soft green boughs.

"How doth the evening find thee, my Signar? I trust that the long flight did you no more harm?" The raven below raised his head a few inches from its' rest and gazed wearily at Damon.

"As well as could be flown, my liege, a prescription's friend from Melampus himself into the bargain, and no more fortune could have cleaved to me than of that you see before you." Damon took a step back as a smaller raven hopped onto the small ledge above Signar and pushed another small sprig of greenery against the wounds.

"All's well, Signar, victory flew on your gloried wings this day and the valley is the safer for it. Take your rest and dream fast."

Damon turned and flew to the top of the Crag and surveyed the valley as he could see three quarters of it from his perch. He was still musing on the day and what lay ahead when he felt Madga's presence beside him. Damon spoke first.

"The close of a difficult but worthwhile day, sister-raven. The death rattles of the war winds blew hard on their side today, but who knows what lies in store for us tomorrow." He turned a curious eye toward her when she did not respond. Magda dipped her beak toward the ground.

"Forgive me, my liege, but I come on an errand flown high in anticipation." She straightened up and looked directly at Damon. "Lila has felt the shift. The birth of Darius is nigh."

*

Calvin Michaels slid the tall metal barn doors together, their metallic meeting sending a loud ringing sound across the barnyard. He turned and started walking awkwardly through the frozen ruts left by the heavy truck that had transported the CDOT and Eva along with her assistant, Trina, to the new location. He had almost reached his car when he heard the sound of a motor coming toward him on the part of the lane that was obscured from his vision by the low hill. He looked around and sliding badly he made his way as quickly as he could to the side of a low equipment shed twenty yards away. He moved to the far end of the structure until he could view the bottom of the yard as it met up with the road that lead to Kenny's house. The engine noise grew louder just as a small blue sedan driven by a woman came into view. It stopped below the gate and Lansford Kenny squeezed his large body from the confines of the passenger seat and walked the five yards up the hill. He unwrapped the chain on the gate and then motioned the driver to pull into the yard. Calvin could now see that there was another person in the back seat. He stepped out from behind the shed and walked to the back of his car. Lansford looked up and gave a small wave as he swung the gate back into position. The woman shut off the engine and gave Calvin a worried glance before she turned and said something to the man in back. Calvin waited as Kenny trudged up the hill, expertly avoiding the worst of the ruts. He stopped and held up his hand as he caught his breath. A few seconds later he turned and indicated the car where the woman had gotten out but stood on the other side surveying her surroundings. The man in the back seat stared at Calvin through the side window. He turned his attention to Kenny who was starting to speak.

"These two are part of the resistance. I can vouch for them." He indicated the barn. "is the trailer still inside?" Calvin rubbed his jaw absentmindedly and nodded.

"Yes, no need for it in the new location." Kenny nodded as well.

"Good. They're going to need it for themselves and their friends." Calvin turned and grunted.

"That isn't such a good idea, Kenny. I told you about the American Colonel. He probably has this place under surveillance and is watching us right now." Kenny shrugged and indicated the car with a casual motion.

"They are Russians, Russians and a few Poles mixed in as well. No concern of the American Colonel, besides if he thought something was up he would have already been here by now." He looked at the man across from him with a sly grin. "And you and I would be having this conversation by tapping on the walls of our cells." Calvin did not smile but glanced at the barn and the small farmhouse beyond it before he turned again to Kenny.

"I have to leave now. I want to get there before Eva does, I need to help get things set up." He held out a hand. Kenny looked down and then grasped it. "Thanks, Red for all you've done, I hope when this is all over we can repay you, somehow." Kenny smiled.

"We do only what they force us to do, every day is a new battle. Good luck." Kenny turned and walked down the slope to where the blue car sat on the level part of the yard. Calvin walked to the front of his car and climbed in. He sat for a few minutes and watched as Kenny pointed out the landmarks to the new arrivals. The other passenger had gotten out of the car and was stretching as he took in his new surroundings. As Calvin started the car and began to back carefully down the slope his eyes met the newcomers' and for the first time he realized that he was a priest.

*

Sasha sniffed the early morning air. The sun had been up for three hours and she had been keeping watch since before dawn. The ground sloped away in front of her down to a small creek, then to a wide pasture that lay on the other side and a farmhouse beyond that nestled in a small glen. Still no smoke curling from the chimney. She turned and looked behind her at the two other members of her small pack standing in the shadow of a short cedar tree. Her vision returned to the farm and she whimpered quietly as she looked toward the barn where Lupo had said that he had seen the elk carcass hanging. The farm lay on the outermost fringes of what she now considered her new territory, the Crags soared behind her ten miles away and the valley of the ravens lay between. It had been a week since the last elk herd had crossed the highest ridge west of the Crags and had not come back. Denied her normal spring haunts, the pack was growing too lean and wasting too much energy chasing ground squirrels and other small mammals. She came up from her haunches and sprinted across the small creek keeping to the fence line when she came out on the other side. If the farmer was waiting with his rifle, she thought, he would have to make the best shot of his life to bring her down.

*

The dried strips of elk disappeared into the hungry gullets as soon as Damon dropped them into the nest. When the small pile was gone, he lowered his head down toward Lila's so that he could be heard over the din.

"The sun is high my love, is there any change?" She raised her beak and rubbed it gently against his larger one.

"Does thy counting suffer from fatigue, my liege?" Damon took a step backwards as Lila shifted in the nest revealing the broken remnants of the black shell beneath her. Damon quickly counted the brood. Five scraggly heads, all with mouths wide open and wailing. He looked over each one carefully, but they were all the same size and appeared identical as far as he could tell. He was just about to address his wife again, when one of the nestlings began to climb onto the back of its' mother. It crawled slowly until it reached her head and then raised up as far as it could, its' small squinted eyes moving back and forth as it tried to focus on the shape at the top of the nest that looked like his mother, only larger. Damon took two steps down into the nest and nuzzled the sparse black feathers that barely covered the pink baldness of the tiny head.

"Welcome home, Darius. May you be protected from the fools' gold of life and may the winds always free you from the bonds of the earth."

*

The round field of vision swam in front of Eva Lisson's eyes as she raised her head from the microscope and rubbed her temples inside the large sterile suit. She glanced over at Trina who was pulling two more samples from the centrifuge. She stepped back from the microscope and indicated it with a small gesture.

"Trin, take a look at this and tell me where we have seen it before." Her assistant laid the vials down on a folded towel and bent over the microscope, gently turning a dial on the stand. A few seconds later she turned her head awkwardly inside the headpiece so that she could look up at Eva.

"It looks like the inert cells of cancer that they show you in third year." Her face held an inquisitive look as Eva peered through the instrument again before straightening and shaking her head.

"Cancer was obliterated in 2067. How could there be biologically active cells alive in this culture?" The two scientists stared at each other for several seconds before either one of them spoke again. Eva crossed the small space the size of a narrow galley kitchen and picked up a gray notebook that lay open on a shallow shelf. She leafed through it as she walked back to where Trina was standing. She found the page and held it out to the younger woman.

"A portion of this sample was processed last night. We both worked on it. There was no sign of cancer cells then." Trina took the book in her hands and read the notes. She closed it slowly and looked apprehensively at the microscope. Eva walked resolutely to the table and picked up one of the vials and handed it to Trina.

"Run it through the centrifuge again and we will start over."

*

The car crawled up the icy slope, sliding sideways when the front tires lost traction and too much gas was applied by the driver. Calvin cursed into the darkness of the car and took several deep breaths before he gingerly turned the wheel and eased back into a straight line toward the crest of the hill where large flakes of snow were illuminated in the headlights and were rapidly covering the pavement. He breathed a small sigh of relief as the nose turned downward and he could again see the road. He coasted for fifty yards and then swung the wheel lightly guiding the heavy auto into a shallow lane that was barely wide enough with a rock wall on one side and large pine trees on the other. He drove slowly for a half mile until the mountainside rose up before him, a long blackness that held the cave. He stopped the car and stood in the open door. From a hundred yards away, there were no lights to be seen, but he could just make out the hum of the generators though from what direction it was hard to discern unless you knew beforehand. He opened the trunk and lifted out two canvas bags loaded with supplies and food and placed them on the ground. He looked at his surroundings for a better place to park the car and seeing none, he locked the doors and began trudging through the snow where it was gouged out by the truck when it had delivered the CDOT. When he reached the mouth of the cave, he set his load down again and reached for his flashlight inside his heavy coat. He ducked down slightly and followed the path as it sloped for several yards before turning a wide corner and continued a few yards farther along until it turned another corner into the main cavern. The CDOT sat twenty yards away and through the large porthole he could see Eva and Trina moving about inside the narrow, brightly lit space. He picked his way across the rubble strewn floor and stopped in front of three green tents that were secured to the low ceiling by guidewires. Two of the tents were for sleeping and one for preparing food and it was this one he entered, setting the parcels down on a low table. He separated the canned goods from the fresh produce, placing the latter in a tin box that was set into the rock wall and was cold enough to keep the vegetables fresh for several days. Having completed that task, he returned to the main cavern and approached the CDOT. He first checked the cable that connected the solar panels high on the cliff overlooking the cave to the CDOT. He lifted a small cable from its' hook on the side by the pressurized door and waited until a green light blinked on. He spoke into the small conical microphone on the end.

"Ev, are you at a place where you can stop?" It was Trina who answered his query.

"We can't stop right now, Calvin, we are at a critical juncture. Eva says come back in the morning." Calvin grimaced to himself and turned back toward the middle of the cavern. He saw the shadow first and his breath caught in his throat when he saw the form that threw the darkness on the rocky floor.

"Damon. What are you doing here?" Damon turned his head in several directions, even peering behind himself at the tents. He turned slowly and faced Calvin.

I said it was time for a meeting with Ms. Lisson. That is why I am here. They don't wish to be disturbed right now, so perhaps you and I should wait in the tents until they emerge.

"I was just going back to my apartment to get some sleep." Damon looked toward the last tent.

You can sleep here after we speak to Professor Lisson. I have a feeling they won't be long. They have been working for fourteen hours straight, they will need a rest break soon.

Damon hopped from the rock on which he was sitting and took a circuitous route through the rubble toward the last tent. Calvin sighed and followed, sitting on one of the two cots in the tent when he arrived, while Damon sat on a canvas director's chair just inside the door. Damon stared at the weary man for several seconds before he spoke.

I came to hear for myself, Calvin. They have had the blood samples for two days and three nights, they should have formed some opinion by now.

Calvin shrugged.

"They might have, Ev doesn't confide in me much these days. I spend most of my time trying to keep them resupplied and staying away from the American Colonel." Damon lifted his beak at the mention of Colonel Sackett.

Yes, the colonel. Wouldn't you say that that was an interesting conversation you had in the café the other day?

Calvin leaned forward and peered in the dim light thrown by the one kerosene lantern.

"Yes, and I reported it word-for-word."

I am sure you did, Professor, but doesn't it strike you that it was less the words spoken but that the whole tenor of the conversation was unusual?

Calvin sat back and held up his hands in a questioning gesture.

"I don't know what you mean." Damon walked a tiny circle in the narrow chair and perched on the front edge lifting his head until it was even with Calvin's face.

I'll best describe it this way, Professor: The colonel knows who you are, obviously, and he must have returned and reconnoitered the farmhouse sometime after he visited Lansford Kenny's farm. Which means he knows we have the CDOT and that you are instrumental in keeping it hidden. Why not arrest you on the spot? Why play semantic games over a beer?

"Maybe he is just biding his time until he can catch more of us."

No, Professor Michaels, men like Colonel Sacket do no wait for the action to begin, they strike first and force it. He clearly has some, as yet unknown interest in what we are doing, an interest that compels him to undermine his mission and disobey orders.

Before Calvin could respond, the door of the tent was flung back, and Eva Lisson stepped into the space, stopping short when she saw first Calvin, then Damon. She made a small chuckle in the back of her throat.

"I don't believe this." She stared across the small space at the large bird. Damon turned his head and made a soft quork of greeting.

*

Rothschold stood on the small ledge in front of the cave high in the Tartar Mountains. From his perch he could see most of his territory, north to the lake, and south to the forest where his latest defeat had taken place. He turned and eyed the only other animal in the cave.

"I told you what would happen if you were defeated in battle and survived." Grindol let his gaze slide off the malicious stare and instead looked at the sun as it slipped behind the gauzy curtain of gray clouds in the west. He spoke without moving his eyes back to Rothschold.

"I saw my duty before my life, my lord." Rothschold made a small guttural sound and paced a few feet from the entrance and circled around behind the smaller crow.

"Ah, yes, your report that Damon and Magda have Carbini." Rothschold stepped up behind Grindol and raised his voice causing the crow to jump. "Hearsay!" Rothschold moved out to the entrance and again stared Grindol down. Grindol was forced to avert his eyes once again.

"No, my lord, I saw his feckless form myself. Damon has him tethered to a rock on the largest of the Crags." Rothschold stood with his back to Grindol and gazed at the last pink and orange colors as they were drained from the darkening horizon.

"So, you think it was Carbini who gave up the location of our sanctuary?"

"Yes, my lord, we were well secreted, and no raven ever flew within miles of the redoubt, yet there they were as dawn broke, swarming over us as if led there purposely." Rothschold's voice became lower and less urgent.

"And what do you think a fitting punishment shall be for such treachery, then, my dear Grindol?"

"Death, as painful as possible, my lord." Rothschold turned and walked slowly toward his lieutenant.

"My boy. What would you say if I was to give over this scoundrel to you to do as you wish?"

"I would say that I would be grateful and honored in equal measure, my lord."

"Grateful enough to lead all the crow clans into the final battle?"

*

The conversation was not going as planned. Eva shook her head and refused to look at Damon who sat unconcerned on the director's chair. Calvin shook his head as well.

"I don't know how to convince you, Ev, I tell you everything exactly as I hear it." She shook her head as well.

"It is preposterous and perhaps delusional on your part to think that bird is speaking to you." Calvin was distracted by something that Damon said as he held up his hand. A few seconds later, he turned back to Eva.

"He says to ask him to pick up something in the tent and bring it to you." Eva started to protest, but instead sighed, and pointed toward a small writing desk behind Damon.

"My writing pen." Damon hopped over the back of the chair and landed lightly on the table. He bent over and grasped the pen in his strong beak and moved a few inches over to a piece of paper and began to move the pen across it. Twenty seconds later he dropped the pen and pierced the paper with the end of his beak, flying to Calvin's side when he had it safely secured. Calvin took the paper and after looking at it, handed it across to Eva. She looked down at the three shakily scrawled words.

'Eva', 'Calvin', 'Damon'. She looked over at Damon who had assumed his former position on the chair. He bowed his head slowly down toward the green fabric, his tail feathers rising behind him. Eva gazed at him for several long moments before she spoke in a low voice.

"What do you want to know Damon?" After a few seconds of silence, Calvin replied.

"He wants to know if the blood samples from the Mennonite girl were as helpful as you hoped?" Eva looked perplexed.

"Do I look at you or do I look at him?" Calvin motioned toward Damon and Eva turned and looked squarely at Damon.

"Yes and no, would be my answer. In many ways the blood samples have complicated things. The data that was generated from the first government tests on the blood do not correspond to anything we saw when we first got our hands on it and ran our own preliminary tests. Now we know why. The plague is a gene multiplier and gene mutator." Calvin held up his hand as Damon spoke to him.

"He says the third cycle was one as well, though when it began to repeat the mutations, it's flaws became visible." Eva nodded.

"Yes, but that was hundreds of years ago. There have been thousands of new genetic markers since then. Just a few minutes ago, we saw it mimic cancer cells. Cells which haven't been seen in human blood for almost a hundred years. All our blood carries vestiges of the markers. This organism is expert at discovering them and imitating them to throw us off." She stopped as it was obvious that Damon was speaking to Calvin.

"He wants to know what you need to make the process progress more rapidly." Eva turned and bent down a little as she addressed Damon.

"Something probably impossible, Damon, we need the girl herself."

"Damon said that he and Melampus anticipated this and they have a plan that may work."

"Who is Melampus?" Calvin stood up as Damon hopped down from the chair and walked to the door of the tent.

"I'll tell you some other time, Ev, Damon says 'goodbye'."

*

Lila had busied herself for most of the morning tidying up the nest between feedings. As she did so, she was aware that Darius was watching her intently, unlike his nest mates who when not concerned with their stomachs spent their time sleeping or squabbling with each other. When she returned to the nest after a few minutes' absence, she watched Darius as he picked up the smaller bits of broken egg shell in his tiny beak and after struggling to the top of the nest, deposited them over the side. When she came back to the nest with food, he stood quietly in the corner and watched as his siblings clamored and climbed over each other to get their fair share and more, of the elk meat. Lila would wait until the others were busying wolfing down their portions before she approached Darius with his share, which he normally ate a small piece of and then left the rest for his brothers and sisters. Since the first day, she had noticed something else as well. Whenever Magda or Damon or any of the other ravens were at the nest conversing, Darius sat in rapt attention and turned his head back and forth as if he was following the conversation. She was musing on this and more, when the large shadow of Echo appeared over the nest. She stood up and greeted her brother-in-law.

"An uncle's pride sees no fault." Echo dipped his head in salutation.

"An uncle's pride sees no fault." Lila moved her beak toward the hatchlings who were stirring from their sleep and which she knew meant that food would soon be their next concern.

"Hopefully you have brought meat, brother-in-law." Echo bowed again.

"The Lord's providence passes over thine lips and small bellies prosper the more for it." He took several seconds to drop the desiccated strips of meat down to Lila. When the young ravens were busy at their meal, Echo indicated Darius who as usual was off by himself and staring intently at the adults.

"The dust of curiosity puffs heavy on the wings of Melampus. No river of tidings can quench his thirst for the ken of wee Darius." Lila glanced at her last born.

"Tell him that the child grows strong and nods with clear head and glad heart."

A few hours after Echo had departed, Lila settled down on the edge of the nest waiting for the brood to fall asleep before she entered the nest to keep them warm. She was thinking of Damon and where he might be as the last rays of the afternoon lit up the edge of the flume above her spreading a soft orange glow down to the nest. She heard a small noise and when she turned her head, she saw Darius standing beside her. Though his eyes were still small slits, she had the distinct impression that he could see her better than his nest mates. She was about to speak to him when he spoke first.

"Melampus."

*

Come through the woods on your right. There is something in the largest tree that you need to see.

Colonel Sackett looked around and his eyes narrowed as his gaze swept over the three soldiers leaning against the truck enjoying their lunch.

"Who said that?", he demanded, hitching his rifle sling higher on his shoulder and taking three steps toward the troops. The closest one, a Sergeant, looked at his two companions, shrugged, and then looked at his superior officer.

"Nobody said anything, Colonel Sackett."

Leave them and come through the woods, there is something I need to tell you.

Sackett turned and looked at the willows on the side of the road and the faint snowy trail that wound through them. He turned back to the troops.

"Sergeant Kiner. Take the detail and move the truck across the road. We will set the roadblock up here." The Sergeant tried not to appear too obvious as he glanced up and down the deserted road.

"Here, Sir?" Sackett scowled.

"Yes, Sergeant Kiner. Here."

"Excuse me Sir, where will you be?" Sackett contemplated the question for a few seconds and then spoke as he began to move toward the clump of willows.

"I'm going to reconnoiter a bit, you're in charge until I get back."

Sackett walked casually until he had moved twenty yards into the thicket. There he unslung his automatic carbine and stepped off the trail as he moved noiselessly through the clumps of willow keeping the trail ten yards off his left shoulder. Every thirty seconds he paused and listened. After a quarter of a mile, the willows ended, and the ground leveled out into a sparse forest of oaks, some still draped with frozen moss from the year before. Sackett became even more cautious and moved from tree to tree always keeping something between himself and any threat coming from either side or from behind. When he reached the middle of the forest, he paused before an open space the size of a football field. He kept to the edges and worked his way around ducking in and out of the trees as he did so. When he stopped to listen at the end of the clearing, he carefully surveyed the area in every direction. He had paid attention to the ground as he had moved and aside from a few animal tracks, there was no sign of anyone having traveled through the glen. The only thing he could see from where he stood was a large raven sitting on the branch of a tree twenty yards in front of him. Colonel Sackett took several steps into the clearing.

Ah, there you are Colonel, I was hoping your curiosity would get the better of you.

Sackett crouched and swung his weapon in a semi-circle as he stepped back behind the nearest tree.

"Who's there. Show yourself or I will consider you a foe." He listened to the silence for several seconds before he heard the voice again.

I am here, right in front of you.

"All I see are trees and a raven."

Then you have seen all there is to see, Colonel. I am Damon, son of Thedes and leader of the Ravens of the Valley.

Sackett looked at the raven for several minutes before he began to advance slowly toward the tree. When he was ten yards away, he stopped, the barrel of his carbine pointing at Damon's chest.

I don't think the occasion calls for gun play, Colonel Sackett.

The Colonel lowered his weapon but kept his finger just outside the trigger guard.

"My Pappy gave me my first rifle when I was five and the only thing he said to me was to never shoot a crow or a raven."

His sentiments were half right, Colonel, and from what I know of your linage, even if your father didn't know exactly why he told you that, he most certainly was told the same by his father.

"What is this, some sort of telepathy?" Sackett stepped closer but still held the carbine at the ready.

That is a good working thesis, Colonel. Someday, time permitting, we can delve into it further, but the important point for now is that we communicate and understand each other.

"And why do we need to do that, exactly?" Damon ignored the question and after a few moments of silence asked one of his own.

You knew that Lansford Kenny was hiding with his family beneath the old chicken coop. You also knew that the next farmhouse over concealed the CDOT. Why did you not act on your knowledge, Colonel?

"You seem particularly well-informed for a bird, Mr. Damon. I don't recall seeing you about on either of those occasions."

The advantage of being part of the scenery as it were, Colonel, but you deflect, and this land and its' creatures have not the time for verbal sparring. Please answer the question.

Colonel Sackett shrugged and eased the safety back on the carbine before he slung it over his shoulder. He walked to a stump five yards away and sat down. He took the olive-green watch cap from his head and ran his hand over his short gray hair.

"Well, you see, that's the thing, Mr. Damon, I'm not sure exactly why myself. So maybe you and I can put our heads together here and somehow shed some light on the situation."

*

Father Jovan grunted as he lifted the large wooden shutter from the floor and pushed it into place across the window, bracing it with his weight while he pounded several five-penny nails into the edge and all the way through to the heavy sill. When he was done, he looked around the suddenly darker room. They were forty-eight people with him in the burned-out barn and though he had spent almost two days on renovations, the quarters were stark and barely adequate. All that is left of the flock he thought, and an elderly group at that. He was still musing when Lansford Kenny pushed open the main door several inches and gestured for him to come outside. Jovan walked through the slushy snow to where Kenny was filling his left cheek with tobacco. He decided to stop a few feet short and on the left side of the big man to avoid the frequent streams of expectorant. Kenny pushed the blob down further into his cheek and gestured with his head toward the barn.

"I'm not comfortable with that arrangement. Too many people, too many things to get noticed, even out here." He motioned to the empty landscape behind them. Father Jovan smiled benevolently.

"And where would you have them go, Mr. Kenny?" The first brown stream splattered into the slush before he received an answer.

"Anywhere, Father, anywhere, but here. Best to keep them moving, if you know what I mean." Father Jovan changed tactics.

"I thought you were under the impression that the American Colonel knew that you and your family were hiding just a few feet in front of him under the chicken coop?"

"That was my impression, Father and that might be all it is. For all I know, he was just biding his time until he could catch bigger fish, or..." he gestured toward the barn, "maybe a whole netful of them." Father Jovan put his hand gently on the nearest big shoulder.

"As it stands now, we will leave here in four days. I have assurances that we have shelter further to the west." Kenny nodded and walked a few steps down the slope before he turned back.

"I heard that there is a Russian Colonel looking for you and your flock. I will let you know if I hear anything about his whereabouts. You won't see me around for a few days, I have another matter to attend to." Father Jovan raised his right hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Kenny."

*

Nofel leaned forward and pushed with his weight as hard as he could, twisting the small wrist with his right hand. Arina closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

"I don't know where he is, or when he left."

"Liar!" Nofel turned and braced himself as he flung her slight body halfway across the room and onto the small bed in the corner. He followed and leaned menacingly over her as she rubbed her swollen wrist.

"Your car wasn't here when I came and there was a half tank of gas gone when you returned. That priest is dead as far as you are concerned." He turned toward the small desk beside the bed and began to search each of the drawers. He turned when he found what he was looking for and held up the small key to the car. "And if I were you, I would fear for my own life. That Russian colonel will clap you into prison if I tell him to." He pulled back his fist as to if to hit her and snickered when she recoiled. He moved to the door and looked back from the hallway.

"Do not take me for a fool, Arina, you would do well to leave for the west."

*

I have been watching you rather closely, Colonel, and while your reputation is well known, I find that some of your actions are not those that might be expected from a man in your position.

"You do seem particularly well informed, Mr. Damon. I had no idea you were so vigilant and observant, but before you read too much into that, I might add that everything that seems to happen around here is not very much by the book. As a soldier, I have to assess threats to my men, and a missing CDOT and a bunch of people running around playing hide and seek from the government is rather low on the list, you might say." Damon took several shuffling sideways steps and moved further out on the limb.

I think it is more than that, Colonel Sackett, but on that point, I agree with you. The coming pestilence makes everything else pale by comparison. But let me ask you another question. Is the young child still safe?

The Colonel seemed puzzled for a few seconds before he replied.

"The young child? Which one?" The two forms stared at each other for a few more awkward seconds.

The young Mennonite girl you took from the dairy farm in Miners Camp, Colonel. Are there others?

"Seventeen so far. Don't know if all or any of them besides her are Mennonite, but they are all under the age of ten."

That is interesting information, Colonel, what do you make of that?

Colonel Sackett snorted softly.

"What do I make of that? Nothing, nada, ninca, nune, Mr. Damon. I don't think you understand what I have been trying to tell you since you dragged me out here away from my men. I'm not paid to have an opinion, one way or the other. I get my orders and I try to carry them out in a manner that puts myself and those under my command in as little jeopardy as possible, period."

I don't think so, Colonel. You are not be paid to have opinions, but you do have them, and you act on them as well, even by doing nothing. You knew where Lansford Kenny and his family were hiding, and you knew that Professor Michaels was involved and probably harboring Ms. Lisson, yet you failed to act against them, again I must ask you why?

"Like I said, Mr. Damon, I assess threats. I am largely on my own out here. I get direct orders..." he turned and indicated the direction he had just come from, "like the roadblock there, but nobody told me to arrest Kenny or your Professor Michaels. The battlefield is a fluid and everchanging landscape, Mr. Damon, and today's allies are tomorrows' enemies and so forth and so on until you realize you are better off spending your energy collecting as much intelligence as you can." The Colonel shrugged. "Only way I know to survive, and it's worked pretty well so far."

That is all well and good, Colonel Sackett, and I am not about to impugn your methods, but I think the plague holds the trump card here and perhaps requires more than the machinations you have employed to survive heretofore, would you not agree?

"Perhaps, Mr. Damon, but as I said, gathering intelligence and reducing the unknown unknowns is the first step and sometimes the only one available, whatever the mess you find yourself in."

Normally I would agree, Colonel, and I would probably do the same if I found myself in your position, but I think you are overlooking the fact that now you have a new resource and ally, one you weren't aware of until now.

"Are you putting forth a proposal, Mr. Damon?"

Yes, Colonel, and because time is of the essence, I am going to impose on our as yet unformed partnership rather strongly. We need access to the children.

*

Colonel Valich was waiting outside of Sackett's quarters two hours later when the special forces colonel stepped off the truck that had brought him from the main gate. He gave the Russian a blank stare as he walked by him, opening the door and tossing the rucksack on the cot before he began stripping off his outer clothing. Gregor leaned on the door sill and waited until Sackett had hung up his coat and put his hat and gloves on a rack above the closet.

"I looked for your roadblock, I didn't see it." Sackett snorted as he sat down in the desk chair and motioned toward the cot. Gregor slid off the door and sat down wearily. Sackett reached over and pulled a thermos from his rucksack and poured some coffee into a mug behind him on the desk. He held it up to the Russian who waved it off. "Been drinking that stuff all day... so, where were you?" Sackett shrugged.

"Ten miles up route 27, just south of the covered bridge." Gregor snorted.

"Well, if you want to die of boredom, I guess that is a good place to set up." Sackett took a large gulp of the coffee.

"Seemed as good a choice as any, remote, not too much traffic, someone may try something at a place like that." Gregor leaned back until the back of his head rested on the wall.

"And did they?" Sackett shook his head.

"No, nothing." Gregor sighed as he pulled a piece of paper from his tunic.

"Well, that was probably your last easy day." He held out the folded piece as Sackett reached for it.

"What is this?" He opened the sheet. It was a close-up photograph of a dead body, one that had died of the plague. From the background it wasn't from Miners' Camp, but one of the many smaller settlements close by. Gregor sighed again.

"Both newspapers were going to run that before the government stopped them, but as we speak, the resistance is printing these in dozens of unknown locations and they will be blanketing the city by morning." Sackett tossed it on the desk. Gregor held up his hand. "Oh, yeah, the General was looking for you." Sackett frowned.

"General Holms?" Gregor snorted.

"How many generals do you know, Colonel? Of course, General Holms. But my guess is that he was going to tell you what I just told you, so..." He threw up his hands and shrugged. Colonel Sackett turned back to the desk and picked up the olive-green telephone.

"Get me the Brigadier General, please, this is Colonel Sackett." He turned and looked at Gregor who was scowling.

"Good evening, Sir, this is Colonel Sackett, I hear you might need to speak with me."

*

The widowed farmer opened the door that led to the small kitchen and sank to his knees as his hand clawed upward for the doorknob to arrest his fall, but to no avail. He rolled painfully onto his back, his hands grasping his throat as he struggled to breathe, his lungs rasping as he slipped toward unconsciousness. His eyes closed on the sight of Melampus peering down at him from his cage.

*

The small pile of elk meat grew as Damon's wings worked for three hours, flying a circuitous route between a newly discovered carcass and the Crags. When at last he stopped, he stood quietly on the rim of the deep nest and watched his brood as they fell asleep one by one until the only ones still awake were Lila and Darius, who only now was partaking of small portions of the meat.

"Most days he does the opposite of his siblings, my liege. Were your ablutions as contrary?" Damon leaned far down into the nest and rubbed his beak gently against hers.

"No, my love, there was but Echo as my nest mate and the greater of his wounds required much care. Only when I was past being a bird of the year, did my father take me by his side and reveal the gift and only then did the order of the pecking change."

"And now, my liege, do you wish for the different outcome, the missed chance to live as one of them?" She moved her head down toward the sleeping brood. "A member of the flock and your only strength flows from their comforting motions?" Damon looked down upon his children and then gazed upon Darius who stopped pulling at a piece of elk and looked up expectantly at his father. Damon replied as he continued to look at his son.

"No, my love, my ken could never have been so, the years have well informed me of that certainty. The strength that comes to me through you and from the lineage is all that I need to flourish. I see now as my father saw, and as his father saw, the purpose, the reason for the gift. In my father's time the gift lay fallow and his brief was the survival of the lineage from the onslaught of first the crows and then the raptors. It is only now that I must lift the mantle last plucked up in the far distant past when the raven held high honors in the court of men."

Their conversation was interrupted by Magda, who fluttered down close by and waited for a pause before she spoke.

"Signar wishes to speak to you my liege, and the guards report that Carbini is refusing food and water." Damon looked down at his wife.

"They will be awake within the hour, my love, and I will return shortly with more provision." Magda joined him on the rim of the nest.

"I will keep thy company, dear sister. It has been two seasons since I breathed the warm air of the brood nest."

Damon moved his wings slowly as they lifted him toward the small patch of blue sky twenty yards above his head. He turned deftly onto his back and entered a shallow dive that brought him to the edge of the old nest, his wings backstroking and lowering him down gently to the rocky ledge.

"Hail, Signar, this pile of bones speaks of an appetite's return." Signar stood tall in the deep nest that had been half filled with pine boughs and allowed him to see outward when he stood up very straight.

"Good evening, my liege. A captain's haste is an errand not warranted in the case of this vassal, as there is but a galling request to lay at your roost."

"Nay, Signar, no request of yours will go wanting from my quarter, but as only the one that would assume your full duties. Tell me it is not that one I have flown for."

"I cannot, my liege. My place is empty and my duties unperformed for this insolence of inactivity. Pray I may return to my former spirit and be of use to the flock." Damon strutted around the small scrape before he turned full circle and looked at the top half of the ravens' head above the rim of the nest.

"Tomorrow I have an important mission and one of the guards will share the flight. Rest the day and the night and you may replace him inside the Crag tomorrow." Damon walked to the edge of the nest and looked down at the expectant expression he found there. "You will find a new addition in the nest, and he may help you pass the time."

*

Father Jovan placed the one hundred U.S. dollar bills into small neat piles on the rough wood with the picture of the fourth Head Commissioner facing to his left. He silently counted the piles and when he was done, he looked up at the short, thin man in front of him. The man whose name was Damir, grinned back.

"You have done well, Father. The collection plate must have been busy, there is almost twelve thousand dollars here." He deftly brought the stacks together as one and slipped it quickly into a inside coat pocket. Father Jovan reached across the small table in a swift motion and grabbed the slim wrist.

"You are quick to pay yourself, comrade, but how quick are you going to be now that it is time to perform?" A small smile appeared on Damir's face but did not reach his eyes. He took the hand from his wrist and laughed.

"Relax, Father, all is in readiness. The transport trucks are in a warehouse near here and they will arrive where they are needed by two o'clock tomorrow morning." Damir sat back and pulled a thin packet of cigarettes from the same pocket the money had disappeared into. He didn't offer one to his companion but lit it quickly with a sulphur match he struck against the side of the table. He pointed with the smoking taper as he took a deep inhalation. "You know it is lucky for you that you found me as you did." Father Jovan stood from the table.

"As I remember, it was you who found me." He waited as the man exhaled. "Make sure you hold up your end of the bargain." Damir nodded and shrugged as he watched Father Jovan turn and wend his way through the café tables and out the front door. A few minutes later, Damir rose from the table patted his pocket that held the bills and walked to the back of the café where there was a blue curtain that he swept aside. Nofel grinned when he saw the face that appeared in the small back room. Damir held up the bundle.

"All that is left, comrade is to split the spoils."

*

The sirens had been sounding for forty-five minutes and though they were ten miles away in the heart of the city, Colonel Sackett had heard enough and adjusted the headphones snugly against his ears. He motioned with a twirling of his index finger toward Sergeant Kiner and a few seconds later the low level static crackled through the phones followed by the Sergeant's laconic voice.

"Check, check. Do you copy, Colonel?"

"Copy that, Sergeant Kiner, move out."

The ten mile drive took over an hour as the small convoy had to thread it's way through the long lines of automobiles crammed with frightened citizens their masked faces peering from every car window. Sackett shook his head and muttered to himself. There was nowhere to escape to. The brownies manned every corner and every crossroads and the only permitted destination was one of the three large internment centers that were now filling up and were already being referred to as the 'death camps'. Sackett rubbed his forehead tenderly remembering the last twenty-four hours, hours he spent in the vice grip of the worst headache he had ever experienced. The serum had done that. The serum that everyone in his regiment from the Brigadier General on down had taken. Only a few including the General and Sackett himself knew how truly experimental it was, but all had taken it willingly, most eagerly, and even now some of them still lay feverish and incoherent in their bunks. Colonel Sackett cleared those thoughts from his mind as the truck he was riding in ground to a halt in the center of the city.

He climbed from the cab and stared at a burning telephone pole on the corner opposite from the one where he stood. He stepped quickly back beside the truck when he heard several shots fired just up the block. Through the grimy windshield he could see three of the bootie special enforcers chasing a small group of men down a side street. One of the men turned suddenly and threw a clear bottle toward the nearest bootie, the glass shattering against his carbine. Immediately a column of bright light shot up into the air, as the enforcer sagged toward the pavement engulfed in flames. The man who had thrown the cocktail stood for a second to behold his efforts and received a bullet in the head as the two remaining enforcers raced by in pursuit of the rioters. Sergeant Kiner clamored out of the cab toward Sackett and crouched low as he closed the door behind him.

"What are our orders, Sir?" Sackett grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along to the back of the truck.

"Get everybody out of both trucks and assemble in front of that building." Sergeant Kiner looked toward the shattered glass and the curtains waving from the gutted windows in the wind caused by the numerous fires up and down the street before he sprinted to the back of the second truck and started shouting orders. Sackett moved back to the cab and pulled a handset from a radio mounted just behind the passenger door.

He keyed the receiver several times before he spoke into the small round screen.

"This is Red Rover, repeat, Red Rover, come in, please." The voice of General Holms was the voice he heard in reply.

"Everett, how is it going? Did you arrive safely?'

"Yes, General, all present and accounted for. We are moving toward the objective shortly." He keyed the instrument several more times and then replaced the headset. He turned toward Sergeant Kiner as he returned with two of the men. Sacket pointed to the radio.

"You two stay here, right on this spot." He pointed to his feet and then pointed to the radio. Any trouble you call me right away. No goldbricking, keep your eyes peeled and cover each other. Don't interact with the enforcers or any of the booties. If they bother you, call me or the General. We understand each other?" The two men nodded, and Sackett motioned to Sergeant Kiner. "Let's get over to the men."

*

I know it is late, but this task cannot wait. It is two hours from here, the roads are hazardous, and the booties are about, but I know a back route. I will be with you every mile and I will guide you there.

Calvin Michaels looked up at Damon who was perched in his customary spot on the director's chair.

"I am supposed to be here at eleven when Ev and Trina take a break. Who is going to cook for them?" Damon shook his beak adamantly.

Fix them something that can keep for the next two hours, this is important. Until we can procure one of the children, they are at loose ends anyway. Come, we should not tarry.

*

Father Jovan watched as the yellow beams of the truck headlights swept toward him as they made the last turn before they would pull slowly up the icy grade to where he stood in the barn, sixty-three of his congregation waiting silently in the darkness behind him.

He had prepared them all the long afternoon, getting the newcomers acclimatized, redistributing the few provisions he had left as equally as he could to insure everyone carried something and that all had water for the journey, a journey that would take the better part of three days on snow covered roads that wound through freezing mountain passes. Now he waited. As he did so, he thought of his long journey and the callow dreams of a young priest who had been thrust into leadership when two priests in the church where he was the junior member had died within weeks of each other. He worried even now if he was worthy of the trust that had been placed in him, first by the church elders and then by the congregation. He brought his mind back to the present as the lead truck in the four truck convoy stopped ten feet from the barn, the large exhaust pipe that thrust up beside the cab spewing out great white clouds that obscured the stars.

*

Damon flew through the black skies always keeping the headlights on the road below him in full view. Several times he landed on the ice splotched pavement and indicated which fork or which direction at a crossroads was required. Calvin Michaels sat grim faced and tense behind the wheel and drove slowly. After twenty-five miles, Damon landed in the narrow lane next to an iron gate and waited. Calvin pulled forward cautiously and stopped. Damon strode quickly to the side of the car and was waiting when Calvin emerged with a flashlight in his hand. He clicked the small button and illuminated the large bird who stood on top of an icy rut. Damon closed his eyes against the glare before he spoke.

You have done well this far, Professor Michaels, but the easy part for you is over.

He turned his beak and cawed loudly at a small farmhouse that Calvin had not noticed when he first emerged. Calvin turned back toward the corvid.

"You haven't said exactly what this mission entails, Damon. It's dark and cold and the booties could just as easily come around that corner as not."

You will know all there is to know in due course, Professor. For now, open the trunk of your vehicle and pull out the anti-contamination suit. I think you will find it's restrictive fit more than compensated by the warmth it will provide.

Calvin turned and stared at the back of the car before he looked back at Damon.

"How did you..."

I presumed upon Trina and Ms. Lisson, and with much pantomime and patience was able to persuade them to provide me with one of their spares. They await the child with excitement and were in a mood to ask few questions.

Calvin moved slowly on the icy road to the back of the car, and after opening the trunk began to pull on the suit. When he was done, he stood in the middle of the lane breathing heavily through the air hose that connected the large cumbersome helmet to the white box on his chest.

Normal breathing would be best, Professor, we may have a long night ahead of us and you will need all of your equipment in good working order.

Damon gazed with unblinking eyes at the Professor for several seconds before he spoke again.

I must warn you, Professor Michaels that very soon you will come face-to-face with death of the most gruesome kind. Are you willing to accept the risks, such as they are?

The muffled voice inside the helmet was followed by a slow up and down motion.

Good, Professor. Follow the road on the other side of that gate. I will fly to the farmhouse and meet you there.

Damon flew to the large fencepost that secured the gate and waited until Calvin had laboriously unwound the heavy chain that bound it and had pushed the gate open. He gave a loud caw and disappeared into the darkness.

*

The long wind-swept street was illuminated by several burning cars as Colonel Sackett peered around the corner. He had brought three of his men with him to the spot where he stood, the rest were patrolling the larger street behind them, rounding up looters and preventing other civilians from entering the center of the city. The street just in front of him seemed deserted but he knew from experience that his every move was likely being observed. He glanced at his watch and signaled for the men behind him to come even with the corner of the building. When they could all hear his voice, he laid out their instructions and then watched as they filtered like ghosts through the rubble and took up their positions out of sight down the street. A few minutes later, Sackett himself crossed the street and entered a narrow alleyway. He stopped and listened and when the only sound he heard was water gushing from a nearby broken main, he moved deeper into the byway, the headquarters of the government looming over him a half block away.

*

Colonel Valich sat in the warmth of the cab and smoked the last of his cigarette. He leaned forward and pushed it into the overfilled ash tray under the dash and looked at the young soldier next to him.

"Time to get out. Leave your hat and coat in here." The soldier squirmed out of the heavy parka and stuffed his fur hat into one of the pockets. He opened the door of the cab, climbed down and stepped in front of the headlights. He motioned toward the barn and then pointed to the trucks. When he spoke, he spoke in Russian.

"Comrades, come... come out, the trucks are here, and we will not wait in the freezing cold forever."

Father Jovan lifted the heavy beam that barred the door and stepped into the barnyard, his left hand over his brow, shielding his eyes from the harsh glare.

*

The beam from the flashlight illuminated the black corpse. Calvin breathed shallowly inside his decontamination suit. The body was wedged in the partially open doorway. He looked around the small farm house for another way into the kitchen but gave up after a few seconds. He took a deep breath and put his shoulder to the door.

Damon watched from the other side of the room as Professor Michaels took a large careful step over the dead farmer. He moved to the middle of the room and brought the torch up to illuminate the scene in front of him. Melampus stared back at him from behind the thin wires. Damon moved nearer the cage.

This is Melampus, Professor. He is the keeper of all the knowledge that has been gathered through the ages since before man walked the earth.

Calvin stepped closer and peered down at the smaller of the two ravens. Melampus cocked his head and stared back.

"I'm not sure I understand, I don't..." Damon flew over the cage and landed near the small door, giving a brass lock several vicious pecks.

You must break the lock, Professor and free him. We have no time to look for the key, it is somewhere in the barn, you must use what you can find at hand.

Calvin shuffled a few steps to his right and opened a shallow drawer, his heavily gloved fingers clumsily searching through the contents. After a few minutes he held up a screwdriver and inspected the end as he moved back to the cage. He put out his hand and tested the wires of the cage.

"I trust he does not mind if I ruin his house. I think this way will be quicker." Damon took two steps away from the cage as Melampus retreated as far as he could from the screwdriver as Calvin inserted it between the wires and bracing himself against the counter, pushed hard.

*

Colonel Sackett stood in the shadow of a granite overhang just across the narrow alleyway that ran along the back of the headquarters building. He had checked his watch and now shuffled nervously as he realized that the operation was badly behind schedule. He was still mulling over the implications of that revelation when he heard someone enter the alleyway from the direction he had just come. From deep in the recess of the building, no one could see him from the street and now he watched as the three booties drew closer. They had their guns at the ready and they were on high alert. Colonel Sackett took a deep breath and stepped out into the light of the alleyway.

*

Father Jovan didn't see the carbine that Gregor Valich carried when he stepped down into the frozen slush of the barnyard path. He barely saw the two platoons of soldiers that rushed by him on their way into the barn, and now as the trucks groaned down the long hill toward the two-lane paved road, he looked at the faces across from him in the darkness and prayed that he was in the grasp of a bad dream. He willed his mind to accept the fact of his captivity and after a few minutes with his head in his hands he sat erect and began to assess the situation and the fate of the congregation he had led into the hands of the Russian Army.

*

The barrels of the three rifles were pointed at Sacketts heart as he surveyed the men in front of him who had a few seconds earlier been glancing nervously at each other. The colonel kept his carbine pointed at the ground, but his finger was on the trigger and only a small movement of both hands would put the weapon into action. He smiled wearily.

"Lost, gentlemen?" Their uniforms were new and well-pressed, Sackett guessed they were from inside the large government complex. His suspicions were confirmed a few seconds later as one of them answered.

"We were sent out here to investigate, someone heard a commotion." Sackett laughed as he kept his gaze on all three at once.

"That's one way to describe what's going on out here, son. Look around, I don't think this is someplace where you want to spend much time." He indicated a vehicle ten yards away. "That guy waited around too long." The three booties looked as one at the body that lay halfway out of the back door of the still burning car. When they looked back, Sackett pointed in the opposite direction toward the entrance to the main street. "My force is stationed on that street, keeping everybody out of this area." He indicated the ten story building behind them. "I think you will do more good back in there." There was a few seconds hesitation before the one who had answered the Colonel's question jerked his head toward the back entrance. He looked back at the Colonel.

"Why are you here if your men are out there?" Sackett shrugged.

"Two lines of defense. I have several of my men in this alley as well, in case anybody gets through, so you see, we have everything under control." He smiled wryly to himself as the backs of the three booties disappeared into the door they had just unlocked. When they were gone, Sackett turned his attention to a service door forty feet away. He was just about to move back to his original position when it opened halfway. Sackett stepped into the alley and stood with his carbine in the crook of his arm as he casually looked in both directions before settling his gaze on the man with a red beard. For a moment they locked eyes before the man who was clad in camo opened the door wider and two more men and three children quickly crossed the wide sidewalk and entered a white van with the government shield on it. The man with the red beard moved from the back of the van into the drivers' seat and a few seconds later gunned the engine as he pulled out into the alley ten feet from Colonel Sackett. Before he could turn the wheel and continue in a straight line, a bootie came rushing through the same door, knelt down and fired a pistol wildly at the back of the van. As Colonel Sackett moved to the front of the van, he noted that the man with the red beard appeared calm and looked at Everett as if he was merely waiting for him to cross in front of the vehicle so that he could continue.

Sackett cleared the front of the van and sent a three shot burst into the chest of the bootie who crumpled to the pavement as the van squealed away. Sackett moved swiftly down the sidewalk and when three more booties rushed up to him from the back entrance, he pointed in the opposite direction the van had taken before he pointed to the bootie on the sidewalk.

"That man has been shot." One of the booties ran over to the corpse and returned quickly when he realized there was nothing to be done.

"What happened? Alarm bells are going off on at least three floors." The man was scared and kept looking over his shoulder at the door as if he couldn't wait to get back to the relative safety of the building. Sackett stepped into the street as he saw two of his men returning from the main street. He turned back to the bootie.

"One of your vans took off out of here at a high rate of speed after he was shot." He indicated the dead bootie with the barrel of his carbine. He turned to address his men.

"What do you have to report, Sergeant Kiner?" The man took several deep breaths and pointed over his shoulder in the direction they had just come.

"Finally quieted down. The enforcers have a perimeter set-up two hundred yards out, so we're good." The Colonel pointed his carbine toward the corner where the van had disappeared.

"See a government van go by on your way in?" Kiner shook his head.

"No, Colonel, but there has been quite a lot of official traffic in the last ten minutes, might not have seen it go by, but I don't think so." The Colonel grunted and turned to the bootie.

"Better get back inside and see what all the alarms are about", he said in his casual drawl as he indicated with a nod of his head that Sergeant Kiner should lead the way back out to the street.

*

Melampus sat quietly in the back seat of the car next to Damon as the trees of the orchard moved slowly by the window. Calvin steered the car carefully on the icy track and stopped when he reached the junction with the larger road. Melampus turned his head and glanced at the gate he had seen almost every day for the last twelve years from his perch in the kitchen. He looked at Damon as the farm grew smaller in the back window.

"It is warm in here and there are strange vibrations that rattle through my bones." Damon moved his beak up and down several times.

"Needs must, my liege, as luck was on the side of the just and sent my sentry by at a propitious time or you would be prisoner still." Melampus looked curiously at the glowing dials on the dashboard a few feet in front of him and said nothing.

I must impose upon you for another favor, Professor, this one will require more time. A week's effort will be required before Melampus can attempt the flight to the Crags. I will instruct you in what will be needed. A new diet must be introduced and all the sturm und drang of modern life, such as it is nowadays, should be availed as slowly as possible. Can you assist me in this task?

Calvin Michaels peered at Damon in the rearview mirror and shook his head.

"If he doesn't mind being alone for long stretches of time, I spend most of my days supporting Eva in the lab."

That will not be a problem, Professor, he just needs a safe place to retrain his wings.

Damon was repeating to Melampus what had just been said when he felt the car slow rapidly as Calvin took his foot off the gas pedal. Through the windshield Damon could see several men standing in the middle of the road. They were all carrying shotguns in the crooks of their arms and as Calvin stopped twenty yards in front of them, one of the four detached himself from the group and walked toward the car holding up his hand as a traffic cop might. When he was five feet away, he pulled a large black flashlight from behind his back and bathed the car in the bright beam. He stopped when he reached the driver's side and bent down slightly to peer at Calvin. He was just about to say something when he caught sight of Damon and Melampus in the back seat. He swung the shotgun around and quickly shoved the barrel into the open window toward the two birds.

"Hey! Over here! This guy's driving around with two of them in the car with him!"

*
CHAPTER SIX

He gives to the beast it's food, and to the young ravens that cry. —Psalms 147:9

The truck stopped and for a few seconds there was silence before the clanging of a falling tailgate brought Father Jovan's thoughts back to the present. Two soldiers appeared at the rear of his truck and were staring directly at him but not speaking. After a few moments, Colonel Valich appeared between the two men and pointed the short ugly carbine at Father Jovan.

"End of the road for you, Father. No trouble now, please, just climb down here quietly."

Father Jovan stood up unsteadily and grasped onto one of the thin metal poles over his head that supported the canvas roof. He turned in both directions and looked at the members of his congregation that were in the truck with him. Some looked away, but most nodded and offered small gestures of encouragement. He found his voice just as Colonel Valich indicated that the two soldiers should get into the truck and bring him out.

"Forgive me brethren for my folly. I have made a grievous error. Stay together and have faith in God's will." He started to continue but was grabbed roughly by the arms and thrown toward the back of the truck where several parishioners tried to break his fall as he tumbled out and landed heavily on the ground six feet below. He lay on his back gasping for breath and gazed up at the stars that could be seen through the gaps in the clouds, his eyes swimming with tears from the pain in the back of his head. The stars were replaced by the grinning countenance of The Russian colonel.

"I told you no trouble. Now I have to put this in my report and it will go badly for you in there." Valich indicated something that Father Jovan could not see, and it was only when the two soldiers hoisted him to his feet, he realized that he was standing in front of government headquarters. Several fires were burning nearby, and the orange glow covered every face with an erie light that made human features appear tight and grim leaving only the faces of the dead who looked to Father Jovan to be peaceful in comparison. Colonel Valich turned and began walking toward another soldier who stood nearby as Father Jovan was quickly hauled up the three short steps and pushed into the black door that someone opened from the inside.

*

Colonel Sackett quietly smoked a cigarette and watched as two Russian soldiers threw a man from the crowded truck onto the street in front of Colonel Valich. He winced at the sound that the man's head made when it contacted the pavement and was relieved when the man appeared to be able to stand on his own several seconds later. His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the Colonel heading his way. The Russian stopped in front of him and after hooking one thumb into his wide leather belt, he threw the other over his shoulder.

"That's all put to bed. Been chasing that scoundrel for two weeks." He peered up at the American, his eyes fastening on the cigarette. Sackett fished into the top pocket of his jacket and took out the small pack and handed it over without taking his eyes from the shorter man. Sackett held out the small remainder of his smoke and Gregor steadied Sacketts' hand with is own while he lit one of the cigarettes. The American Colonel nodded toward the trucks still idling in the middle of the street.

"What's going to happen to them?" Gregor glanced casually toward the vehicles and shrugged.

"They will die. A week, ten days at most is all anyone can last in those camps." He looked closely at Sackett and something in the man's eyes made him continue. "They had their chance. They were told not to leave their area and they chose to disobey an order. Too bad for them."

"And the priest?" Gregor laughed behind a small cloud of blue smoke.

"He will join them, it may take a little longer, but it will be just as uncomfortable." Colonel Valich looked past Sackett to the small group of American soldiers standing twenty yards away. "And you, Colonel, what brings you down to this little horror show this evening?" Everett turned slightly and glanced at his men.

"Crowd control, riot and looting control." He indicated the gray building behind them where several searchlights from a building nearby were playing over the flat unadorned surfaces. "Someone broke into the second floor and took several of the children." The Russian exclaimed.

"Ha! Serves them right." He threw back his head and then stopped, his grin dissolving into a serious expression. "The girl. The one you found, was she among them?" Sackett shook his head.

"Don't know. Don't know anything more than what I have just told you."

*

Lansford Kenny drove the large white van as close to the concrete wall as he could manage. He stepped down from the cab and walked several yards away before he stopped and looked back. Good, he thought. From here, it cannot be seen. He turned and moved rapidly up the wide ramp to where the pick-up truck sat idling. He clamored into the passenger seat and turned around to gaze at the three children sitting quietly in the seat behind him before he turned toward the driver.

"I hope you know what you are doing." The young woman ignored the comment, instead she turned the wheel forcefully and gunned the truck toward the exit fifty yards away. Once they were on the street, Arina looked both ways and seeing no one she made a right hand turn and headed for the freeway a half mile away.

*

Calvin Michael's mind raced, his arms and legs felt heavy and numb as he watched the three men running toward him, thier red faces growing larger in the yellow light from the car. Just before they reached the front of the hood, Calvin stomped down on the gas and the car immediately spun in its' tracks, the back tires spewing up the icy slush into a tall rooster tail. Calvin fought the wheel as it tried to jerk from his hands and was able to straighten the front end just enough to avoid colliding with a snowbank on the right side before the car sped back down the lane. The shotgun the first man had been pointing at Melampus and Damon clattered onto the back floorboard, the man who had been brandishing it was left on his knees in the middle of the road hugging his injured arm to his chest. Nothing was said for several miles until Calvin pulled into a dark side road and parked under a grove of trees that shielded the trio from anyone coming down the lane from the direction they had just come.

That was very quick thinking, Professor, I don't think they would have been much interested in any explanation we had to offer.

Calvin turned wearily in his seat and gazed at his two passengers.

"Don't remember a thing after that first guy yelled into the window. Maybe it is better that way sometimes." Damon turned his attention to Melampus for a few moments and then moved his beak slowly up and down several times.

Melampus says that the brave heart is always the one the brain cannot speak to. He also says that birds are being exterminated wholesale in the cities and thousands have perished from poisoning already. If you wish to reconsider our agreement, Professor Michaels, I will understand.

Calvin turned around, twisted the key in the ignition and put the car in reverse. He backed into a deep turn and drove slowly back to the road. The three waited in silence and when nothing was heard except the night wind, the car turned and made its' way toward the lights of the city, the horizon glowing more orange than usual.

*

Rothschold walked back and forth in the mouth of the small cave that sat halfway up the sheer rock face in the southward facing Tartar Mountains. The pulse of wingbeats made him pause and look upward as Grindol flared his wings and settled lightly inside the opening as far away as he could from the larger hooded crow. Rothschold stood still and eyed the newcomer suspiciously.

"Two days gone and ambling back as if from a summer's roost, are we?" Grindol said nothing but bowed halfway to the rocky ground keeping his eyes focused on a spot several inches in front of his beak. He kept this position as he spoke.

"The Crows of the Dump regions are no more, my lord. They have been wiped away as have all the winged creatures in the two cities and beyond." Rothschold moved a few inches closer.

"Look at me when you speak. Do you think I know not your wiles and trifles? Carbini's rabble numbered above one hundred fifty before the snow flew and now you pretend to tell me that none still lilt on the wind?" Grindol sat upright but didn't reply. Rothschold turned his back on the subordinate and moved to the edge of the cave.

"The plague. The one that the ravens have been yammering on about since who knows when. Avian bred and spread, they say." He turned abruptly toward the smaller bird. "And whose advantage now, eh Grindol?"

"Sire?"

"It is a bad plague indeed that doesn't deliver someone a windfall." He moved to where he could look Grindol in the eye. "There is a large flock of displaced crows from farther out toward the north shore. The remnants of three groups that have fled the persecution. You will find them, get them to appoint a leader if they have none and bring them here to the Tartar Mountains. Have I made myself clear?"

*

Lila looked at the dual shadows that played upon the rock wall inside the largest Crag from the moonlight that streamed down from the cold heavens. She nuzzled the beak of her husband and indicated the brood sleeping in a feathered pile in one corner of the nest.

"You have returned at the very hour of the cessation of their din for today." Damon settled down beside her in the half of the warm nest that they now had to themselves.

"A year's flight would have seen less miles than my body feels have been reeled upon it these last three days."

"And tomorrow, my liege, are you able to tarry the nest?" She indicated the nearest small body lying slightly apart from its' nesting siblings. "Perhaps the questions should pepper thine ears for a spell."

*

Father Jovan rolled onto his back, his eyes seeking out the thin window high on the opposite wall of his cell. It was lighter than when they put him in and so, he surmised, it must now be daylight. He moved his head gingerly from side to side and decided to try lifting it from the hard metal cot but received a searing pain between his ears for his effort. He lay back and was reconstructing the night's events when he heard the thick metal door twenty feet away began to slide in the metal slot.

"How are we feeling today, Father Jovan?" When he did not receive a reply, the man walked across the concrete floor and peered down at the cot, his black eyes moving up and down before they rested on the priest's face. "Come, now, Father, things are not as bad as all that. I think you are in here because of a mistake, a mistake I will help put right with your cooperation of course." The man walked back to the door and pulled in a small chair from the hallway and brought it to the center of the cell and positioned it so that he could see the cot and the door before sitting down and crossing his legs, one of the brown half-booties dangling in the air. He said nothing as the door was closed noisily, and then spoke in a firmer voice.

"Sit up, Father Jovan, I do not wish to talk to your inert form." Father Jovan took a deep breath and rolled carefully onto his right side before he grunted as he pushed himself upright with his arms. He steadied himself for a few seconds before he carefully slid backward on the cot resting his back on the cold wall behind him. He shifted in small increments until he found a position where his head did not throb as much. When he was still, he looked across at the man who was a little too big for the chair and whose eyes never left Jovan's face for an instant but seemed poised to catch something in their watchfulness. The priest sighed and looked up at the ceiling without moving his head.

"You spoke of cooperation. Where I come from that can only mean information. Information you think I have that will further your own aims, am I right?" The man said nothing at first but drew something out of his pocket and held it in his closed fist that he leaned over his folded knee. When Father Jovan finally took his eyes from the ceiling and locked onto the steely black ones across from him, the man opened his fist. Father Jovan looked at the string of dark brown rosary beads and the small silver cross that was attached and resumed looking up at the ceiling.

"Want to know where we found these, Father?" The voice stopped and waited for ten seconds before continuing. "We found these where a certain type of mobile laboratory had been hidden and only moved a day or two before we arrived. The same place that Colonel Valich found you last night, you and your cohorts." Father Jovan's voice was low and even when he spoke.

"That rosary is the one they give you as a novitiate, all priests have them." The government man chuckled to himself and stood before walking in small circles behind the chair, pausing each time he came around to peer at father Jovan who was still staring at the ceiling.

"That is true enough, Father, but I must ask this, forgive me, where might yours be?" Jovan imitated the man's chuckle before he replied.

"It was in my pocket when I was arrested, and I still had it when I was dragged in here last night." The man stopped in front of the chair and sat back down.

"I checked before I came up here and it was not there among your other meager possessions, Father. No, I think you dropped it in the barn by the CDOT." Father Jovan began to count the bolts in the steel girder that spanned the ceiling of his cell. The man whistled softly as he spun the rosary around his index finger and then reversed the direction before repeating the action. After several minutes he spoke again.

"Let us agree on this, Father. For every day you do not tell me what I must know, one of your flock will die." Father Jovan moved his eyes from the girder for several seconds before he resumed his silent counting.

"You would be giving them a mercy."

*

Eva Lisson printed carefully into her notebook. When she was done, she looked at the three blank faces that sat across from her in the biggest of the three tents.

"Let's see if I have this right." She indicated each child in turn with her pencil. "Jayden", "Stijn", and "Eline". She waited a few seconds to see if there were no objections and then closed the book and indicated their surroundings. "Each of you have a cot and a place to put your belongings once we have found you suitable clothing." Though she had been in the children's presence for over two hours now, she still found herself stopping after almost every sentence in the hope that one of them would reply in more than the 'yes' and 'no' answers she had received so far. Trina had fed them though they didn't seem much interested in food but ate more out of a somewhat muted desire to please. If her questions became personal or referred too much to their former lives they stared blankly and said nothing. Eva thought of the genealogical outline she had prepared and wondered how she was ever going to complete it for each of the children. She was still musing on this task and watching the children as they moved slowly around the tent inspecting each other's cot and the tent itself, when she heard the alarm buzzer sound three short times. She rose and pushed the flap of the tent out of the way as she walked out into the middle of the large cavern.

"You're late." Calvin Michaels shrugged and put down the two paper bags he was carrying.

"More complications. I am babysitting a raven until he can fly safely." Eva scoffed.

"Another talking bird? What next? A dog that can solve quadratic equations?" Calvin moved wearily to two director chairs that had been placed in the middle of the floor to relive the boredom of the tents and sat down heavily.

"No, this one doesn't talk, not directly, anyways, but if Damon is around, he still has a lot to say." Eva sat down across from him and indicated the tent.

"We got them settled down as best as we can for now. I don't have enough warm clothes for them or things to keep them occupied so that they don't get bored." Calvin reached into one of the bags by his feet and held up several pieces of clothing.

"Try these and see if any of them fit." While she sorted through the items he had placed in her lap, he held up something else." Eva looked up quizzically.

"What is that?" Calvin turned the object over in his hand and ran his finger along the gilded edges before he handed it across.

"It's a bible."

*

"Is that the whole of your report, Colonel?" Colonel Sackett nodded at the Brigadier General.

"Yes sir, everything we did and saw last night is in there," he motioned to the thin file on the desk in front of the General before he continued. "But something tells me that isn't the only reason I'm sitting here, right?" General Holms stood up and walked to a large map on the wall beside Sackett before he started pacing back and forth. Sackett turned in his chair and craned his neck so that he could see the older man.

"I'll give it to you straight, Ev. I told you when we got here that I would get you and your men out before this whole shebang comes tumbling down around our ears." The General put his hands in his back pockets and took a deep breath before he turned to face his younger Colonel. "I'm sorry, Ev, it's not going to work out that way." There was silence for several seconds before either man spoke again.

"And how exactly is it going to work, General?" Brigadier General Holms sighed as he walked back behind his desk and sat down slowly. He slid open a drawer on the right side of the desk and pulled out a blue file that had the Government crest on it. He placed it in the middle of the table and looked up at Sackett.

"Resistance activity has picked up a lot, just as we predicted. Three of the children survivors were taken from the Government headquarters building last night," he pointed to the Colonel's report, "the man you found shot was the head of security for that section. The resistance has surely messed up on this one, it has gone to the top of the priority list which means it has gone to the top of ours." He pushed the file across to Colonel Sackett's side of the table. "Sorry, Ev, they've cut your group loose. I've been reassigned back to the contiguous forty-eight once I clear quarantine and your group with you still in command stays here and is attached to their security section." Colonel Sackett kept his face as blank as he could manage as he pulled back the light blue cover of the report and feigned interest in the contents of the first page.

"To do what exactly, Colonel? This thing is already out of control. A few more weeks of this and the resistance problem along with every other one we've got or can imagine will be taken care of for us." The General shrugged.

"You might be right, Ev, this is a bad deal, no two ways about it, but you've been through worse and come out the other side, I pray this will end the same."

Two hours later, Colonel Sackett had finished his review of the three hundred page file, a file he had become more than a little interested in the farther he read. Now, he sat back and smoked a cigarette as he looked up at the ceiling and listened to the far-off wail of the sirens from the center of the city.

*

Gregor Valich pushed the blade of the knife deeper into the four day old beard. He sneered as he kept his eyes fixed on the fear he saw and smelled only inches away from his face.

"Did you think that you were done with me, eh, Nofel?" He pushed a little harder and smiled at the result. "Your type never thinks around the corner." Nofel swallowed hard and almost gagged from the pain of the blade against his Adam's apple.

"I did as you asked. You have the priest, I can do no more." Gregor laughed sardonically but did not push harder on the knife.

"The priest disappeared behind door number three, you idiot, no one will ever see or hear from him again. But there is another problem, a new one. But this one is going to get me a field promotion." He pulled the knife away and in the same motion grabbed Nofel's coat collar and threw him across the small rented room and watched with hooded eyes while Nofel climbed slowly to his feet and sat on the narrow bed. Gregor put one of his feet up on the short bedpost and gestured casually with the knife a few inches in front of Nofel's face.

"You see, Nofel, there was a woman in the van last night that took the children from government headquarters." He pulled a small card from his pocket and held it up in front of Nofel with the hand that wasn't holding the knife. "See anybody you know?" Gregor put his foot down on the ground and stuffed the picture back into his pocket. He leaned over and leered at Nofel who was looking at the floor and sweating profusely. "Suppose we go now and find your sister. What do you say, eh?"

*

The first rays of the sunrise had colored the top of the tallest Crag for over two hours as Damon flew down to the old nest. He looked around when he found it empty and saw Signar several feet away gazing down the side of the Crag.

"Word is up that a duty has not lain unfulfilled these last days. You look the better for it and my only wish is that this remains your redoubt." Signar turned toward his leader.

"Light duties, indeed, my liege. No better snare for the castle keep as it commands a view of all." Damon moved to his side and they gazed toward the ledges that jutted out from the side of the Crag halfway down the long slick slab of basalt. Damon indicated the third ledge with his beak.

"Carbini has been quiet of late."

"Yes, sire, the rumors burn and swell and lest they be brigands in the night, all that he follows and all that rests in his ken be gone and rots in place."

"And does his favor be informed as much?"

"No, my liege, no one goes near him save to water and feed the beast." Damon looked down thoughtfully before he spoke again.

"One of the Ravens of the Corn folded wings in the night that carried tales of a curious bent. Seek out the messenger and tease the truth kernel from the pulp."

A few minutes later, Damon flew several wide circles around the highest spires before he let himself drift down toward the narrow ledge that held the captive crow.

*

The earth was wet and thick and though the stiff frost of winter gave up slowly, the three graves were dug under the thin warmth of an early spring's sun. Three small crosses placed, each side by side, their white bunting riffling in the stiff breezes that swirled around them in the low glen before they moved on to the barn and farmhouse beyond.

Lansford Kenny pulled the door to the shed closed and took a long look around the small compound before he heaved the heavy pack onto his shoulder and carried it twenty yards to his truck. He slid the rifle off his opposite shoulder and secured it in the window rack behind the front seat before he cranked over the engine and let the vehicle roll down through the gate. He shifted into low gear, gave the gas pedal a tap and left the farm without looking back.

*

Carbini pecked irritably at his leather tether. He cast cold eyes on the large raven that stood over him blocking out most of the sun.

"And I should believe what a raven should choose to say on this day or any other?" Damon didn't change his position but turned his beak to one side.

"And how would a profit be turned by the telling of the tale, were it not so?"

"Profit can be had from many angles, this I believe, but not from the words of a craven raven." Damon walked a few inches away and stood on top of the rock that secured the falconer's loop. He fluttered his wings for a few seconds before he spoke again.

"If your thoughts run a course true and your memory abides, you will recall that I warned of your insolence when calamity's thunderheads covered thy view of heaven. The unheeded advice lies as dead and impotent as your kingdom, Carbini, and now the blame attaches itself nowhere but to the dirt of your mangy feathers." Carbini jerked his foot in frustration and slipped to one side as the tether snapped back upon him.

"And the promise of flying over my mounds once more, what fate has befallen that, or is that a tale told out of the other side of the beak?"

"The curse that has roiled the seas and now splits open the earth will soon remove all men from lands known or imagined and then it will roll back upon itself and it will be then that it will come for the beasts and wither your precious garbage mounds then?" Damon waited as Carbini looked out over the brown landscape devoid of the fields of white that covered it only a week before. Damon reached down and slid the leather thong from the rock's grasp.

"Fly to your mounds, Carbini, and stay far in front of the pestilence and my visage for the wrath of one shall surely outdo the other."

*

Damon added several more strips of meat to the pile which never grew larger even though he had flown seven times to the nearly bare carcass that lay in a copse of aspens at the foot of the smallest of the Crags. He took as many pieces as he could carry down into the nest and helped Lila fill the bottomless gullets until the brood finally had their fill and began the three hour sleep that would be but the precursor to the continual round of feeding intervals that made up each of the days on the nest.

"There is something else besides the crow wars which seems to weigh heavy on the minds of all the visitors to the nest, Father, though they speak of it in hushed tones and veiled references as if to say its' name into the air would invite some form of new catastrophe."

Damon looked down upon his youngest son who now stood on one of the narrow ledges just below the rim of the nest and from his vantage point could see most of the hollow core of the largest Crag. Damon was long past the point where he was astonished at the questions and the command of language the young corvid demonstrated. Two of his siblings had learned several words, but the other two were still mute except for their gustatory wailings.

"There is a pestilence upon the land, my son. The fourth cycle, the avian cycle, likely spread by your brethren and mine though still in its' infancy not unlike yourself, threatens to remove all men from the realms." He watched as the information was taken in and the same thoughtful expression with which he was now so familiar descended onto the small wrinkled face.

"And if the tribe of man is removed from all the realms, what does that hold for the Ravens of the Valley?" Damon looked down into the darkness where the other nestlings slumbered and Lilas' dark brown eyes smiled back up at him.

"It is foretold that all winged creature will disappear from the realms as well, my son."

"And the pestilence. Is it true that we ourselves carry the death to men?" Damon waited until his son was looking up at him expectantly.

"They believe it to be so, Darius and so it is as if it were written onto the sky."

*

"We have Arina. We have her and unless you cooperate and give up the names of your co-conspirators, we will throw her in with the rest of your rabble and she can endure the daily lottery, a lottery which..." The black eyes dropped down to the small notebook balanced on a knee. "Which has resulted in three unfortunate and unnecessary deaths already. Deaths that are on your soul, Father Jovan. Doesn't that frighten you?"

Father Jovan lay on his back and stared up at the gray ceiling. He had ignored the commands that he sit up and though his tormenter had been at it for almost an hour he had yet to say a word, his thoughts running safe and deep inside the cocoon he had constructed, a cocoon he imagined as a living fibrous thing that shielded him from his daily torments and that even, as he once had dreamed or thought he did, could protect him from the ravages of the plague. He now came slowly up to the surface as if the shell had opened and allowed his crystalline thoughts to breathe in the same fouled air in which his corporal body was forced to dwell.

"You don't have her."

There were several beats of silence inside the cell. Silence which allowed the screams from the floor below to seep in through the thick walls and join the conversation as a menacing context which had been missing from the one-sided dialogue.

"What did you just say?"

"I said you don't have her. Your voice, your mannerisms, your syntax. Everything betrays you."

"I can have her brought here if you wish. Then you can hear her pleas in person and then you will cooperate."

"No, you won't, because you can't. The best you might manage is to blindfold me and induce one of your stooges to stage a ludicrous performance for my benefit. You see? I cannot be convinced."

"The screams are real, Father Jovan. I wonder what syntax you will use when the screams are yours?"

"The syntax of the righteous, Franklin."

"I have never mentioned my name."

"No, you haven't, but it is 'Franklin' all the same and you will betray yourself once again if you deny it and after that, it will still be the name your mother gave to you."

*

We need your help once again, Colonel. Do not think that we are not grateful for the services you have already rendered, but as you yourself have said, the situation is extremely fluid and not all events can be known or anticipated.

Colonel Sackett turned and looked down at the camp from the hill that he was standing upon. He could see Sergeant Kiner as he supervised the loading of the three trucks that waited idling just outside his former barracks. He looked back at Damon who sat on a felled tree trunk and who now was gazing at him expectantly.

"I only did what I thought was prudent at the time, given the circumstances. My misgivings about the serum the government produced have proven correct. Many soldiers have died, some from the plague, some from the serum itself. That was my only motivation, so unless there is something I have left undone in that regard, I am afraid that I cannot help you further, Mr. Damon."

I will describe our problem anyway, Colonel Sackett, then I will pose a question and then I will accept whatever answer you proffer.

Damon closed his eyes slowly and waited for several seconds before he continued.

The Russian Colonel is pursuing an important member of the resistance. He is using her brother as his leverage and it is only a matter of time until he finds her. Once he does, only another small increment of time will pass before they discover the new location of the CDOT. I think the implications are clear enough, Colonel, so let me now pose a series of questions: Has not a line been crossed where you are concerned? Your General has left. You and your soldiers have been given to the booties to do with as they please, had you not acted as you did on our behalf, would you not be compelled to the same sort of action now? Action that would save the lives of your men and possibly the future of all men as well?

Colonel Sackett turned his back and let the front of his body feel the stiff breeze as he walked a few yards on the hilltop until he could see the city sprawling wide below him, the yellow and white clouds rising from the factories on the north end mingling with the dark gray smoke that still rose from the blackened city center. He reached inside his tunic and squeezed the small leather bag that lay against his chest before he turned and retraced his steps back to the felled tree.

*

Grindol searched the skies to the east once again as he struggled to keep his balance on the thin spruce branch that sprouted from the very highest part of the tall tree. Below his perch he heard the cackling and cawing of a hundred and thirty-six other crows their caustic acoustics reminding him that they were of the common variety and displayed not the physical beauty nor the strong breeding of the hooded crows like himself. He hoped that the branch and lookout he had chosen would spare him any more conversations with their leader and was dismayed when he heard the nearby flapping of wings and was forced to grip harder when the top of the tree swayed dangerously under the large crow that landed beside him.

"You said another hour half a day ago. I'm beginning to think that this great warrior crow you go on about is only a figment of your imagination." Grindol turned his head slowly and gazed at the newcomer who was fidgeting on a nearby branch in an attempt to get comfortable.

"Rothschold will come as I have promised, Lamos. If you have somewhere else that holds a roost more inviting, perhaps you should take your noise there." Lamos rose up as high as he dared on the precarious perch.

"You have an insolent tongue for someone who does not call the wingbeats, hooded one." Grindol held the crow's gaze with his icy stare.

"When you speak to me, you speak to him, and as you are the uninvited one, it would be wise to open thy beak a little less and prolong your already weak welcome."

Lamos broke off the stand-off as he turned his gaze to something in the sky behind the pair. Grindol didn't need to do the same as the familiar rush of wings came closer.

"Now your impatience will be quelled. I hope you enjoy the fruits of the waiting."

*

The small hands pushed the wet cloth along the thin arms. Once that was done, she repeated the action on each leg and then turned her attention to the light blue dress where several splotches of dirt clung to the hem. She looked up and held out the cloth to the boy who had put down the large book, crossed the tent and now stood before her. He took the cloth from her hands and quickly wiped his face before he handed it back. She folded it neatly beside the white bowl and looked up into the blue eyes above her.

"When can we leave here, Stijn?" He didn't answer at first but turned and looked over at the only other person in the tent, hunched over on his cot and hugging his legs as he rocked gently back and forth. Stijn turned back to the girl.

"We must stay, Eline. It is safer here, even though it is cold and always dark." He reached for her pale hand and stroked it gently. "These scientists are kind. They won't hurt him anymore and they will protect us." Eline slid off the cot and walked to the one where her brother still rocked silently, staring at the tent wall three feet in front of him. She sat down beside him and leaned against his legs as she hugged him trying to still his motion. He continued the same rhythm but reached with a hand and stroked her blond hair.

*

Eva Lisson leaned forward as far as she could and slowed the scrolling on the small screen in front of her as she reread the long columns of numbers for the fifth time in as many minutes. She sat back in the chair and reached for the half cup of coffee by her elbow. She took a sip of the liquid and looked across the table at Trina.

"It knows." Trina sat a little straighter in the chair.

"It knows what, Eva?"

"It knows we have the children. The pattern has changed completely and now it is inventing false markers and then imitating them as if they should be in the blood, so we keep looking for them and miss the real sequences."

"Why would it do that? What can it gain?"

"Time, Trina. When we first viewed the samples that were stolen from the government lab it didn't know and was repeating the same iterations that it knew were stumping them. The new blood we have taken from the children has tipped it off and it has now shifted modes once again." Trina shivered slightly and shook her head.

"You speak of it as if it were intelligent, that is frightening." Eva nodded absentmindedly and looked back at the screen.

"It is if you think three thousand years of hiding and waiting and looking for the right time, the right opening is intelligent." She moved her finger over several columns. "I happen to think it is the perfect definition of the word."

*

Gregor Valich sniffed the empty glass before he placed it on the table and looked up at Colonel Sackett.

"You want to know what I am working on, eh, Colonel? And why is that, I wonder?" He held up the glass. "Pour some more, and I will consider the question." Sackett reached under the table and lifted the bottle from the floor beside his boot and filled the glass halfway full. Gregor lifted it to his lips and watched the American colonel over the rim of the glass as he took a long sip before smacking his lips and lowering the glass to the table once more. "I will tell you this, my friend. I was the one who said it would turn out this way, am I right? Your friend the General has made himself scarce as I said he would and now there is only Gregor to tell your troubles to, no?" The Russian shrugged and held out the glass to accept another refill. "What happened to: 'This is my side and that is your side, Gregor?', eh, Colonel?" Sackett smiled thinly at the Russian.

"Fluidity of the battlefield, Gregor. We are on the same side now. The NSS has us both doing their bidding and I think it would be better if we don't get in each other's way, don't you?"

"Perhaps, Colonel, but I think you are forgetting that I still have a commanding officer, someone who under the right circumstances and for the right price will watch my back. I don't think you can say the same, Colonel. The booties will use you and then you will be all on your own." Gregor leaned forward and grinned maliciously. "That is, if they allow you to live." Sackett smiled and took a small sip of his own drink.

"And if they choose not to allow, Gregor, are you the man for the job?" Gregor leaned back in the chair and laughed.

"Come now, Colonel, what would Gregor have to gain, eh?" He lifted up his empty glass. "And who would give me their liquor for free?"

A half hour later, Colonel Sackett acknowledged the knock on his door and pointed to the chair that Gregor had left just minutes before.

"Sit down, Sergeant Kiner." The young soldier swept his cap from his head and sat down at the same time. His superior pushed a glass of vodka across the table.

"Have a drink, Sergeant." The man looked quizzically at the glass before he grasped it in his hand.

"Isn't this a bit outside regs, Colonel?" Everret Sackett smiled as he leaned back in his chair.

"Yes, it most certainly is, Sergeant." He indicated the room and the world outside the four walls. "But maybe that is the whole point of the predicament we find ourselves in, don't you think?"

*

"I am ready, Damon." Damon looked around the small apartment and silently estimated the distance from the patio door to the front one just behind him.

"How many circuits?"

"One hundred, rest for two minutes, one hundred more for the next half hour, one hour's rest and then repeat, just as you ordered." Damon's eyes slid from Melampus to the sunlight coming from the small patio.

"There is but one chance here, my liege. If you fall behind or fail to maintain altitude, there be dire consequences from below as arms have been taken up against all that is wing born and bred."

"We go at night. The hours that are wrapped in our cloaks' color promises an aim untrue from below."

"And if we are separated and cleave not in the blackness? What then, Melampus?" The older bird fell silent and remained perched between two pillows arranged as a small fort on the leather couch. Damon turned his beak toward the patio wall and the large elm on the other side.

"You are right, my liege, we will wait for the night to come. Either way it goes, at least I will no longer have to bear up under the endless questions about the hour of your appearance upon the Crags."

*

The worn wooden staircase groaned as Arina drew herself slowly toward the narrow black door ten feet above her head. She stopped when she was two steps away and leaning over, she rapped two times on the bottom of the scarred wood. A few seconds later, three light knocks were heard from the other side. She bit her lower lip as she tapped out the intricate response sequence and then stepped back and waited. When the door finally opened, she looked up at the red beard backlit with the light coming from the room beyond. Lansford Kenny said nothing but stepped to one side to allow her entry. She moved to a small table in the middle of the room and sat down in one of the four chairs that were arranged around the circular piece of furniture. Kenny closed the door but didn't move away from it toward Arina and the table.

"I have been with the plague, aren't you afraid to be here?" Arina put her purse on the table and slipped her shoes from her feet before reaching down to rub one of her heels.

"You didn't show up at the meeting place, I had to come here in spite of the risk." She shrugged and straightened up, her black eyes locking onto his from her pale round face that was framed by her dark curls. "Besides, it isn't working that way yet. It takes only the weak and is waiting until it is stronger to take the rest of us." Kenny scoffed and moved to the table, his hands grasping the back of the chair across from her.

"You've been listening too much to the Professor and his girlfriend. Their serum will be as worthless as the one we stole from the government labs. My wife, daughter and grandchild were as fit and healthy as you are, maybe more, but now they are just as dead as any of the rotting corpses they burn in their plants." Arina twisted a hanky in her hand and looked down at the table.

"I am sorry, Lanny. I didn't know." There was several seconds of silence before he spoke.

"It doesn't matter, none of it does. They are dead, so what? A few among the thousands, a few among the waiting millions, it doesn't matter what we do anymore, it will win." He looked down at the top of her still bowed head. "Unless you came for some other purpose, I am leaving, I was stupid to come back here." She raised her head.

"I came for help, Lanny, I don't know where to go, Nofel is trying to find me so he can turn me over to the NSS like he did the priest." Lanny scoffed.

"And there you have it, Arina, don't you see? It's over. How long before the priest tells all he knows, huh? How long before someone recognizes you on the street and runs to Nofel?" He walked to the small stove and smashed his fist against the hot tea kettle, sending it clattering onto the floor. He rubbed his hand as he stared at the wall.

"No, Arina, it is best for all of us if it finishes it's dirty work as quickly as possible."

*

Rothschold strutted within the large circle formed by the unfamiliar crows. He stopped in front of one and then another before completing the circuit and moving to the center of the clearing where Grindol and Lamos waited.

"And you call this a fighting force, Lamos?" The wholly black crow turned his beak to the side and looked up at the imposing figure.

"What do you think? We have flown over an entire ocean, drifting on ice floes with no food when we could fly no more." Rothschold cawed roughly in his throat.

"Oh, and that prepares you how to do my bidding? For make no mistake, you will be taking your flying orders from Grindol here from now on, is that clear?" Lamos moved his head as he took in the circle of friends and relatives, before he turned back to the oddly colored crows.

"Tis not for me to say, Rothschold. They have heard you, they will decide as one." Rothschold made a derisive sound and winked at Grindol.

"And truer words could not shout to the heavens any louder why you are unfit to lead even a small flock of sparrows, Lamos." Rothschold moved closer to the common crow and lowered his voice.

"Take your silly vote, you vagabond, and if the tally favors me not, be gone by nightfall or the ravens will hear of your unfriendly incursion and bloody deeds intended."

*

Tell me about this priest, Professor. I confess I have not heard of his exploits before this. If he is as important as you say he is, at least from the standpoint of what he may know or divulge, we must make every effort to secure his release.

Professor Michaels ducked his head slightly as Melampus came around on his fifth circuit, narrowing missing Calvin's eyes as he swept by on his way into the bedroom.

"He is Russian, Damon and leads a congregation of the Russian Orthodox church. He worked with Arina, before he was compromised by her brother, Nofel and turned over to the Russian colonel, the one you pointed out to me in the restaurant that evening."

I see. The priest in custody of the NSS is as dangerous to our plan as the imminent capture of Arina, would you say that is accurate, professor Michaels?

Calvin watched as Melampus landed on a small table and looked up intently at the clock on the wall above his head, before he looked back at Damon who was perched on the glass shade of a torchiere in the corner of the living room, well out of the large raven's flight path.

"Yes, I think the danger to our plans is equal. But I see little hope of freeing the priest, locating and protecting Arina is proving hard enough as it is."

Perhaps his freedom isn't the first approach we should consider, Professor. Let me ask you several questions about the character of this man before I take Melampus to the Crags and leave you to the quiet and solitude of your abode.

*

Sergeant Kiner adjusted the seat of the small car and shook his shoulders in an effort to get more comfortable inside the strange feeling civilian clothes he wore as he waited for the Russian colonel to emerge from the building directly across the street from where he was parked. The small sign and the tall logo on the side of the building identified it as the main headquarters of the NSS and Kiner sunk lower in the undersized seat every time a uniformed bootie crossed the street and passed in front of his car.

Two hours later his feet and the lower half of his legs were numb from cold when he saw the Russian walk down the granite steps, stopping to speak to another Russian soldier, his hand on his shoulder and the gestures suggesting he was instructing the man to do something. When the soldier had moved away down the street, the Colonel lit a cigarette and walked across the wide boulevard and entered a small lane twenty yards in front of the car in which Kiner sat.

Sergeant Kiner waited for several minutes before he left the vehicle and strolled as casually as he could to the corner and pulling up his collar against the wind, stepped into the narrow alleyway.

*

"Sulphur. Why does the whole city smell of sulphur?" Colonel Sackett took a deep drag on the unfiltered cigarette and waited calmly for an answer. The government official across from him was one he had never dealt with or met before and while the man knew the Colonel by reputation, he was unprepared for the directness of his questions.

"What would you have us do, Colonel? Would you rather the stench of burning flesh? We put the sulphur in with the corpses before they are rolled into the incinerators. It lessens the chances of widespread panic." Sackett interrupted him.

"I think we are fairly past that stage, commissioner. The populace, or what's left of it, pushed the panic button weeks ago. The only question now is whether or not this thing lets up before we all are gone."

"Precisely, Colonel Sackett, the city is empty of civilians except those we deemed are involved in essential services. So that also means that your mission has changed. The resistance can't operate where there are not large numbers of people among which they can hope to hide. Rounding them up should be fairly easy for a man with your talents, don't you think?" The Colonel shrugged.

"That depends, Commissioner."

"On what, Colonel Sackett?" Everett leaned forward and dropped the butt of his cigarette into the crystal ashtray in front of him as he stood up.

"It depends on whether they keep doing business as usual or if they adapt to changing conditions as the plague itself seems to be doing."

*

Damon beat a slow rhythm upwards toward a thin formation of clouds that was composed of equal parts water vapor and acrid smoke. As he entered the gray-green layer, he looked behind him and watched Melampus for several seconds before he signaled a change in direction. They had four miles in front of them before the Crags would rise up from the forest and Damon was already searching his memory for a place that would allow them to rest a set of weary wings safely. He was still lost in that reverie when he spied a solitary raven flying straight for them and at the same altitude. The new bird was still several hundred yards away when Damon recognized the silhouette of Signar who flew past the duo and then moved in a wide arc and came up behind them as they cleared the cloud bank and flew over farmland for the first time since they had left the professor's apartment. Signar greeted Damon and then drifted back five yards and spoke to Melampus.

"Wingbeats steady and a wind fair will take the prize, Melampus." Melampus did not turn his head as he concentrated on moving his wings in concert with Damon's.

"A fools' errand at best, young Signar, but the choices of the Gods brook no lookout of ours."

"There will be fresh elk and deer, my liege, and flock's host will lie at thy claw and talon and serve thy every whim." Signar moved ahead and addressed Damon.

"Two hundred wingbeats ahead, my liege, I have prepared a place restful and provisions hearty though spare." Damon looked over at the smaller raven.

"A mind's reading and a friend fair in the night, Signar, lead the way."

When they had safely reached the shallow cave, Damon made sure that Melampus was comfortable on a bed of pine needles and adequately nourished before he turned to Signar.

"Tis but three miles more to the Crags. A shepherds' pace should complete the journey and deliver our friend to his new home." He looked over at Melampus who was lightly dozing in the pine straw. "Signar will keep the wing beats strong from here, my liege. Another errand pulls me from your side, 'til the morning when I shall visit you and regale you with the night's events."

*

Colonel Valich congratulated himself on his choice of hiding place as he wiped the dull colored blade on the sleeve of his tunic. He replaced the knife in its' scabbard before he bent over and grabbed the body of Sergeant Kiner under the arms. With a little effort he dragged the dead man behind a brick wall meant to conceal a trash dumpster. He covered the Sergeant with several armfuls of the garbage from the large metal container and after making sure that no one was around, he moved out into the alley and walked toward the boulevard. He stopped at the corner and signaled the soldier he had been talking to earlier who was standing near the car that Sergeant Kiner had driven to the plaza. When the soldier approached him, Gregor pulled him around the corner and nodded in the direction of the dumpster.

"Report that you have seen another body and that you need a removal truck." He grabbed the man's arm as he started to move off. "Make sure he is in one of the bags before the booties get here, eh?" The man nodded and entered the alleyway. Colonel Valich walked casually toward the small car and sat down in the front passenger seat while he pulled on a pair of leather gloves. He removed everything in the glove box, placing it in a small bag he pulled from inside his tunic and after searching under the front seats he searched the back seats and the trunk. He closed the door and walked down the sidewalk until he came to a kiosk on the corner where one of the bootie enforcers sat inside smoking a cigarette. He looked up when Colonel Valich stopped in front of him.

"And what can I do for you today, Colonel?" Gregor shrugged nonchalantly and gestured behind him. "They sent me out here to check on a car that has been empty and parked all day down the street."

"And what of it, comrade, do they not have cars that sit empty all day in the old country?" Gregor smiled thinly at the smaller man and resisted the urge to smash his face against the side of the kiosk. Instead, he shrugged.

"Not one that belongs to an American Sergeant." He leaned forward and spoke in a loud stage whisper. "And definitely not a Sergeant who has just been found dead in the alleyway over there."

*

Father Jovan lay on his back in the dark. He shivered uncontrollably for several minutes before he was able to conjure his cocoon covering him in a warm liquid bath. Most nights the thin window that was open to the elements brought in the stench from the factories, but almost as often the still cold wind would flow into the concrete room and chill the metal cot upon which he lay. The bootie had tried another interview after the meager dinner of potato soup and carrots, but his heart had not been in it and after twenty minutes of silence on Father Jovan's part, he had left the cell quietly. Now as he returned to the recounting of his short life and the circumstances he found himself in, he resumed his prayers that accounted for every fifteen minutes of every hour of his incarceration. He was still in the middle of his meditations when a voice came to him through his cocoon, a voice that at first reverberated off the walls of his prison, but then seemed to come from inside himself and sounded to him as his prayers did on the nights when he was in a deep trance.

Father Jovan, I trust that your spirit is strong and that you see your incarceration as another of God's trials, a trial you must endure like all the others you have undertaken in the course of your calling. I am here to give you succor and to assure you that you have not been abandoned and given up to the forces of evil.

"I have faith, and in my faith, I gather the strength that keeps my persecutors at bay. I am open to the will and the direction of my father in all things and seek out the many ways that I may serve him."

That is good, Father, and thine spirit in its' strength will spread among your brethren and give them comfort and purpose as they carry on the work that you have begun.

"I repent of my sins born of the flesh weak with hubris. I offer myself up to my Lord, so he may take me in their stead and I forego the balm of forgiveness that their safety and everlasting life be assured."

*

"The rumor is true enough, my liege. Rothschold was seen with a group of itinerant crows that have come from the far north. They are debating among themselves whether they will join him in the fight as we speak."

"And what is the estimate of their number, Signar?"

"One hundred and forty, sire." Damon paced around the level patch of trampled down cheat grass that grew on top of the largest Crag and where he was fond of holding many impromptu meetings.

"Please make sure that Magda and Hugin are informed of this and any future developments that may occur."

Damon watched as Signar flew toward the main roost several miles away and when the lone raven finally disappeared into the early morning mist, he jumped into the air and waited until the updraft from the flume lifted him thirty yards higher before he rolled onto his back and dived straight down into the interior of the Crag.

"Yes, my son. Yes, it's true. Melampus arrived at the roost late last night and will require a day or two of rest before you can meet him." They were standing ten feet above the nest on a narrow ledge, their favorite place to talk. Darius climbed upon his father's back for the short ride upward and now the first rays of the morning sun were creeping down the walls toward the spot where they stood. Below, Darius could see his siblings as they gamboled and fussed with each other over the last morsels of the meal they had just enjoyed. He turned and looked up at his father.

"And when he is rested, father, where will he stay, then?" Damon watched as Lila entered the flume and beat several backstrokes with her wings as she approached the nest. He waited until she had corralled the rest of the nestlings and settled down before he replied.

"I will offer him the old roost outside if he finds it pleasing. It will mean doubling the guard to insure his safety, but better here than four miles away where I could not reach him in time of trouble." He watched his son take in the information without comment. Damon had been party to enough of these conversations in the short time that Darius had been alive to know that he was thinking through something. Damon waited quietly for several minutes.

"How old were you father, when you had to endure the 'filling'?" Damon turned his head sideways and downward at the same time so that he could peer into his son's small eyes. He spoke gently in a low voice.

"And how do you come to know of the 'filling?" Darius gazed up frankly at his father.

"It came to me in a dream and when I awoke, my uncle Echo was standing over me and when I asked him about it, he told me just as it was in my dream." Damon turned and walked two feet to the edge of the rim and turned around. He waited for a few seconds to make sure that his son was still looking at him with rapt attention.

"I have never endured the 'filling', Darius. That was not my destiny. I am Damon son of Thedes, grandson of Marcus the Strong and our linage has always had the gift of speaking to men. You are the first in our lineage to have the gift of the 'filling' and also a voice that may be heard by men."

"And Melampus, father, will he guide me through the 'filling'?"

"No, my son, that is not his ken or anybody's ken but thine own. Your mother is sore for the worry of it as you will be swept away from us and your return will be as if a stranger descends, and that is the way and the pity of it. You are the world's final gift to Melampus and your heart will complete him and through him you will understand many things that are beyond even his royal reach. He can fold his wings for the final time in peace when you return, the skirrum safe within your breast."

*

Colonel Sackett held the one page sheet of paper in his hand as a corporal stood over him running his finger down the long list of names, stopping three quarters of the way down.

"Sergeant Kiner, plague." Sackett took the paper from the corporal and tossed it onto the desk before turning to the man next to him.

"Where did you get this, Corporal?" The short man straightened up.

"It was on my desk when I arrived at 0:600 hours, Sir."

"Nobody has seen Sergeant Kiner since noon yesterday, is that correct?"

"Yes, Sir." Colonel Sackettt sighed and sat back in his chair.

"That is all, Corporal." Sackett stood quickly and grabbed his coat and was close on the corporal's heels as he strode through the office and turned toward the motor pool when his boots hit the wet pavement.

*

Arina walked slowly along the narrow sidewalk that bordered the deserted street. She kept close to the shuttered buildings stepping into an alcove or recessed doorway whenever she heard the sound of a motor coming. She had not seen many booties since she started out earlier that morning as they were mostly patrolling the wide boulevards and searching the hotels and bars that still attempted to do business even though it was forbidden. She had been lucky twice already as one of their trucks had appeared from around a corner just after she set out, but both of the passengers had been looking in the opposite direction when they had swept by her. The second time she saw an enforcer peering through the windows of restaurants a half block away and she was able to duck inside a deserted newspaper kiosk before the man looked her way. Now she entered the street she had been looking for, a long winding two lane carriageway that held upscale shops now shuttered, layers of the gray green dust that blew up from the street in small clouds whenever a vehicle drove by covered the corrugated metal of the doors. She paused and then stepped into a doorway and pulled the small piece of paper from her purse and held it close to her face in the poor light.

'Primrose Lane number 47. Professor Michaels, dark brown hair, medium height, will be carrying a red umbrella.'

She turned and looked at the number placard above her head. '24'. She stepped toward the street but didn't leave the protection of the awning that extended halfway out to the small lane. She looked up and across the street. There was a man standing a half block away not facing her direction but looking toward the wide boulevard that intersected the street a few yards away. He took two steps toward the curb and when he did, she saw the furled red umbrella he brandished as one would a cane. She smiled to herself and was just about to step onto the sidewalk and cross the street to his side when the squeal of car brakes made her step back quickly to the safety of the small alcove. The cars came from different directions and two men jumped out of the back passenger doors of the largest one even before it had come to a complete stop. One of the men tackled the man, landing on top of him as they both crashed to the pavement, while the other bent over and fastened handcuffs on him, the first man bending the wrists back so that he could accomplish his task. They lifted him to a standing position and quickly frisked the pockets of his jacket before they grabbed his head and pushed him into the back of the black car. A few seconds later, both cars turned right onto the larger boulevard and disappeared leaving the red umbrella lying on the sidewalk.

*

The shadow hovered for a few seconds and blocked out the light coming from under the door as Lansford Kenny heard the key slide home and watched in the semi-darkness as the knob turned slowly. He didn't move when the dark figure stepped into the room and groped for the light switch on the wall next to the door.

"Hello, Nofel." Lansford smiled as the bag of groceries crashed to the floor, the smell of beer permeating the small space a few seconds later. Lansford stood up and took two steps across the floor and grabbed Nofel by the collar of his overcoat. "Get over there," he growled as he threw the thinner man into the middle of the room. Nofel lost his balance and fell over the chair that Lansford had been sitting on and had moved away from the window when he had broken into the apartment two hours earlier. Nofel stood up and started to say something but stopped when he saw the shotgun Lansford was pointing at his chest. He raised his hands in front of his face.

"Listen Lansford, let me ex..." The end of the word hung in space as a small puff of his last breath as Nofel felt himself lifted upwards and backwards at the same time, his hands clawing the air in front of his face the last thing he saw and the roar of the shotgun along with breaking glass the last thing he heard. Lansford Kenny walked to the window where the curtains were blowing wildly in the evening wind. He bent over and picked up the empty hull from the floor before he leaned part way out of the window and gazed down at the small courtyard three floors below where Nofels' crumpled body lay in a shallow pool of rain water.

*

"The immunologist, Eva Lisson, Professor Michaels, where is she?"

"New York."

"No, Professor, she is not. She flew here over a month ago and hasn't been seen or heard from since." Calvin Michaels sat stone faced and waited for the next comment. He looked around the small office and leaned forward to relieve the pressure on his handcuffed wrists.

"Are these handcuffs really necessary?" The man across the table looked at Calvin with droopy eyes, his manner lethargic when he gestured toward the chair that Calvin was sitting upon.

"Uncomfortable, Professor?" The man stood up and came around the desk and moved behind Calvin. He leaned down and spoke directly into his right ear. "This is just the beginning for you. Soon you will be taken up to the fifth floor cells and you will hear the screams from the fourth floor and at first they will puzzle you, and you will sympathize with their plight and you will pray that you are allowed to stay safely in your comfortable cell. Before long, you will pray for their deaths believing that they are guilty and deserve their fate. The last phase, Professor Michaels, the one where we learn all there is to know from you, will find you lying on your cot in a cold sweat convinced that the screams that you cannot hide from are your own and you will beg us to end your misery."

*

Colonel Sackett tossed the wrinkled and folded piece of paper on the desk in front of him. The cold black eyes across from him flitted momentarily over the sheet before they looked questioningly back at the Colonel.

"And what is this, Colonel?" Sackett leaned forward and stared menacingly at the government official.

"It's a list of dead military personnel. One of my men is listed there as a plague victim. I need to see the body."

"When did he die, Colonel?"

"Sometime yesterday. He was on a covert mission for me just across the street. In the pink the last I saw him which was about nine o'clock yesterday morning. Hard to believe that three hours later he is dead from plague." The official sighed and sat back in his chair rubbing his temples.

"Did you get a number from downstairs?" Sackett nodded and pointed to the paper. The official picked up the phone and spoke into it, waiting for a few minutes and passing the time ignoring the colonel and staring up at the ceiling. Someone came back on the line and after listening a few minutes the official spoke back into the phone.

"You have my permission, examine it." A few minutes later he placed the receiver back onto its' cradle and gazed across the desk at Colonel Sackett. He tossed his hands a few inches off the desk in a casual gesture.

"Knife wound."

*

Sasha moved deeper into the trees that grew on the edge of the Four Mile Forest. She had left before sunrise with the other two members of her pack for the short trip to their latest kill, a whitetail buck that had been wounded during the fall hunting season and further weakened by the long winter. Now she skulked behind the line of blackberry bushes that grew just before the trees began their march up the long slope of Jackson Hill. She turned when she heard Lupo coming down the trail behind her.

"Why are we stopping, Sasha?" She issued a small silencing growl from the back of her throat as she crept forward, making her body long and low under the thorns of the bush. She rested on her haunches when she reached the other side of the thick band of berry bushes and took in the scene below.

She had heard them the day before, but they had been three miles lower in the valley and now as she watched them setting up their tents and their makeshift shelters, she realized that even she had underestimated the speed with which the countryside would begin to teem with refugees. Her eyes were drawn to a group of men who had gathered around a pick-up truck, rifles cradled in their arms or leaning against the fender of the vehicle. Several had scopes attached to them and just beyond the group, two men were skinning a pig and a deer. She pushed backwards through the brambles taking care not to snag her coat. When she was clear of the bushes, she gave Lupo and Rumba the signal to follow her back up the hill. There were two creeks, a large barranca and ten miles to negotiate if they were to eat before nightfall. She paused at the top of the hill when several gunshots rang out from the gathering below. She turned and put her nose into the wind and began a slow trot down the faint trail.

*

"What man, Colonel?" The official glanced at his watch and sighed. Sackett leaned forward so that he could see the man's black eyes under his gray government issue cap.

"His name is Calvin Michaels, he is a professor at the university and I saw him being brought in here as I was cooling my heels outside waiting for you to see me." The man took a deep breath and sat back in the leather chair.

"He is suspected of harboring a fugitive and of helping the resistance. Why are you so concerned about him?" Colonel Sackett tapped the table in front of the bored expression.

"Because I have been investigating him for several weeks now." The man shrugged.

"And so, Colonel? Where has that gotten you?" The small wrinkles around the colonel's eyes tightened as his voice lowered.

"Has he given you the information you seek?" The man looked away and the Colonel scoffed.

"I want him released immediately. If he hasn't talked by now, he isn't going to. At least with my way, he will lead me to the others." The man shook his head.

"That is not my decision to make." Sackett shook his head in disgust and picked up the phone without taking his eyes from the man across the desk.

"Then call the man who can make that decision."

*

Hugin flew up a small branch of the valley that was a back route to the Crags. He stayed higher than usual above the spruce trees that passed below, better the raptors, he thought than the hot pellets that rattled upwards in their long lines of leaden death. Three ravens of the flock had been lost in the last day alone and as the backside of the Crags came into view, he made a note to himself to include that in his report to Damon. Just ahead he saw the sentry raven as he flew out to suss out the identity of the visitor. A welcome quork reached Hugin's ears in the cold air as the raven disappeared around the largest Crag to announce the visit.

Damon sat on his customary perch as Hugin flared his wings and landed on the ledge just below the summit of the large rock formation.

"Hail, Damon, I trust thy roost is dry and receiving of company?" Damon bowed and strutted out to the edge of the rock ledge to welcome him.

"Thy company is but a family's piece lost that has been restored, Hugin. Has your trip been far?" Hugin bent in a return bow and spoke as he straightened up.

"Not far, but as it 'twere comprised of three parts, hours of both dark and light have been spent, my liege." Hugin made a small exclamation and repeated his bow but in a different direction.

"Melampus. I was not told that you were once again among us. The heart wings higher than even this noble rock at the sight." Melampus stretched his neck over the rim of the nest.

"And yourself, Hugin, a young pink-tongued raven when last you graced my visage. Your exploits have been noted from afar." Damon moved to the edge of the nest.

"Join us, Melampus, the hours' leisure is hung poorly with news of war and worse, thy wisdom is a welcome balm for the wounds born of conflict." Melampus climbed slowly but surely from the nest fluffing his feathers as he took his last step onto solid ground. Damon led the trio to a small overhang from where they could see the length of the valley and just beyond the yellow haze that lay eastward was the beginning of the territory that Rothschold and the Hooded Ones occupied. It was this topic that Hugin visited first, his report relayed in three flat sentences. Damon paced as he listened and now after a few seconds of silence he spoke.

"The itinerant crows have replaced the numbers lost on the garbage mounds. Rothschold will not hesitate to press the advantage and he will not fall for the same tricks twice. We must each ponder beneath night's black mantle and forge our plans with the rising sun."

"And what of Carbini, my liege? I did not see him in his accustomed lookout just now."

"He is away and more's the good for it. A crow without a murder of crows is but a piece of carrion on the wing." Hugin cocked his head toward the east.

"A shotgun's blast will be his only reward if his wings turn him toward his beloved mounds."

"And an end unfit for even his low station. He winged away with the promise of no quarter shall we meet again in battle." Damon fluttered his feathers three times for emphasis and as he finished, he cocked his head toward Melampus who had made a soft caw. Hugin moved a little closer to the older raven as he began to speak.

"And the serum, Damon. How close are we to it's existence and what shows for the effort of these past months?" Damon returned the intense gaze from Melampus evenly.

"Much has transpired, sire, but much more is left undone. She has three of the children and two be siblings which may portend fortuitous if our luck holds, but the pestilence has hardened its' grip, and many die every day, the more for the effort of the government who has pushed most of the population into crowded camps in order to control them. A feasting ground for an airborne pest so inclined."

"And the resistance, Damon, they are still intact?" Before Damon could answer, Hugin began to speak.

"Another topic uncovered, my liege. The sentries tasked to follow them have reported back that Professor Michaels is detained by the booties and is still undergoing questioning. The girl Arina is safe for now, but still in peril from the Russian colonel."

"And the American colonel?"

"By the chance of fate, sire, he is as we sit here in the same building where they are holding the professor and the priest. The Russian colonel is implicated in the death of one of his men." Damon paced back and forth in front of the two ravens.

"They have no more than their base suspicions. If their knowledge were wider, they would be at the cave and all would be lost, but the priest has not broken, and they will likely get even less from Professor Michaels."

*

Calvin Michaels sat in the concrete cell and listened to the moans and the spasms of screams that came through the floor and a rusted metal vent twenty feet above his head. Ten feet away another government man sat on a folding chair and flipped quietly through the pages of a light blue file. After a few minutes he looked up and smiled insincerely at Calvin.

"We know Eva Lisson is in the province and researching clandestinely. You flew to New York and back again within six hours. During those six hours she flew here and then disappeared." He turned a page in the file. "You have only taught three of your classes in the last two weeks. Why is that, Professor Michaels?" He set his mouth and waited. Calvin let the silence drag on for almost another thirty seconds before he answered.

"The plague came and any of the students that could go, went back home. Those that stayed quit coming." He shrugged. "Didn't seem to be any point in talking to myself in an empty classroom."

"And your duties and responsibilities to the Academy?"

"They can get along fine without me. If the truth be known, I just carry out decisions that are made by others." He paused and looked at the man across from him for the first time. "Much like yourself, I imagine." The government man just stared, his face revealing nothing. Instead he shuffled several pages in the file and held up a black and white photo.

"Have you ever seen one of these before, Professor Michaels?" Calvin's eyes moved down a little and then back to their focus on the wall across from him.

"No, but I know what it is." The man turned the photo around and looked at it for several seconds, dropping it back into the file before he sighed and shook his head.

"It is a CDOT, which stands for Communicative Disease Operations Trailer and you not only know what it is, Professor, but you are intimately familiar with it's function and furthermore it's current location, a location where Professor Lisson is working on a vaccine, and extracting blood and antibodies from the three children that were kidnapped from this building." The man looked again at Calvin and waited. When there was no reply, he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and spoke to the professor's profile.

"What would you say if I told you that all we want is for Professor Lisson to come work with us, bring us her data, she can still continue her work with the children and if she is successful, she will be granted immunity from prosecution." He waited for a few seconds in case there was a reply. "We would also be willing to release a friend of yours, who, sadly, is in bad health from a fall and in fact, is only two cells away from the one you are sitting in now." The man gestured with his right hand toward the door. "So, you see, Professor Michaels, you receive much more in the bargain then we do. All we require is the location of the CDOT, nothing more." The two men sat in silence for a full five minutes before the clanging of the cell door caused both of them to jerk halfway out of their chairs. The man stood up in response to a gesture from a disembodied hand that Calvin saw extended into the cell. The door clanged shut behind the government man and Calvin was left alone and in the new silence the screams from below took on a new intensity. Calvin found himself trying to discern the differences in their tones and idly wondered if the priests' voice was among the ones that reverberated back at him from the damp walls.

*

Melampus followed Damon as the two ravens flew slowly down into the hollow flute that formed the largest Crag. Melampus struggled to keep his equilibrium as the strong and varied currents of air rushed up under his unsteady wings. He settled onto the narrow ledge just above the nest where Damon had moved as close to the wall as he could to give the older bird all the space he might require for a soft landing. Safely settled, Melampus moved with steady steps to the edge of the nest and peered inside. Lila moved her beak in an up and down motion several times.

"Welcome, Melampus, as you can see your timing is one with a short interlude of quiet." She turned her beak toward the small pile of poorly feathered black bodies up against one side of the spacious nest.

"The ages will be but poor parchments when they extoll your acts of courage, queen of the ravens, and your progeny will by their deeds of toil bring glory to the lineage forever." As he spoke, the stack of bodies began to stir and one of the nestlings struggled out from the unconscious grasp of its' siblings and tottered to his feet as he fought against the sleep that conspired to keep his eyes shut. Melampus leaned over until the top half of his body was in the nest and his beak was just inches away from the youngsters'.

"It is truly Darius, is it not? And thy feathers with gold's glint bold even as they harbor the look and smell of the molt are fit for tasks regal and wise. Hail, Darius, thine resurrection and kinship pure with this world is the line bright that divides dark from light." Darius took a step forward and stretched his small body to its' tallest height and peered into the kind eyes hovering just above his head.

"Thou art in my ken and dreams as are the blue points of light that doth signify and testify to the brave hearts whom the ages have sprinkled through the domain and province of our lineage pure. Hail, Melampus, long may you cast a beacon's white light upon the darkness of our world."

*

Colonel Sackett looked at the end of the cigarette he had lit out of boredom several minutes before and watched as the smoke curled into the cool afternoon air. He tossed it away as he saw the steel door open in the gray monolithic building across the street. He put his hands in his pockets and watched as one man emerged, walked tentatively down the four concrete steps and after looking in both directions moved off slowly toward the park four blocks away. Sackett waited until the man stopped at the first corner to wait for the few government trucks that were on the street to go by before he walked across the street himself and followed the man's footsteps, the tallest of the trees in the park just visible ahead through the gray-green fog that had settled in a heavy layer on the deserted streets.

*

"You are dying. Your life is ebbing away, and the hours and minutes left to do the right thing are soon to be a thing of the past."

"And yet, I am still here." Father Jovan closed his eyes against the pain and felt the yellowed skin pull tight across his cheeks. He swallowed hard and braced for the pain that would shoot quickly outward from between his ears and spread toward his throat as he fought not to cough.

"But for how long, Father? A few days? A week maybe? We have skilled doctors here, Father, very skilled but very busy. But they would find time for you, they would examine you and find the best cure and then you would not have to pass your days lying with blood and worse seeping from your ears with nothing but the screams of the more fortunate for company." Father Jovan grew a small, slow smile across his face, one that only the ceiling could see.

"And if the prognosis is dire? What difference to me? They will 'tsk, tsk' as they always do and leave me to my pain and solitude the same as before, only you will know what only I now know and within that betrayed confidence will await the true torment."

"And if you die without telling, Father? Have you accomplished anything? Have you prevented us from learning what we must learn in the end, if not from you then from some other wretch in some other cell just like this one? Even you must see the futility, the absurdity of your position. How can you hope to offer salvation to others if you deny it to yourself?"

*

"You figure things out fast, Professor. I would not have picked you for one of the worldly ones." Colonel Sackett draped his arm along the back of the bench and held his face up to the warm afternoon sun. Calvin Michaels scoffed.

"But of course, there is a reason, a reason that will further your ends though not so much mine, right?" Sackett shrugged.

"That depends, Calvin. It wasn't hard to spring you out of their prison." He turned his head and squinted at the professor. "No, the hard part was deciding why I was doing it in the first place, making that decision before I made the smaller one to obtain your freedom."

"Is this the 'now I am on your side' speech?" Sackett smiled.

"No, it is the 'now you have a decision to make' speech and it goes like this: See that long cylindrical object attached to the tall pole next to the tree?"

"Yes, it's a CCTV camera."

"Was a CCTV camera. Most people don't know they have been inoperative for over twenty years, though the booties talk about them as if they still are, which makes sense in a way, because if people think they are still sending data about them back to the government, it is almost the same as if they were, same behavior, same outcome. When did it all start to move in reverse, Professor?" Calvin realized it was a rhetorical question and kept silent. "I'll tell you what I think. I think it all started going south when they first realized that forty-five years after they put a man on the moon, they didn't possess the technology or know-how to repeat that accomplishment. Think how they must have felt as that awful truth descended upon the Academy that you hold so dear. And then think about this: Thirty years ago, soldiers like me were relegated to subterranean holding pens to protect us from the scourge of the drone swarms." Sackett gestured toward the sky. "And now? Now we raid, and armies take to the field as if we were the Norsemen of old gunning for plunder in the English countryside." He stole a sideways glance at his audience. "So now, Professor? Has the time come to take back what they have so wantonly squandered on themselves? To push them into well-earned obscurity? What do you think?" Calvin looked at his watch and stood from the bench, turning to the Colonel who was looking up with a pleasant expression on his face.

"I think that Eva is worried that I have abandoned her for good." Sackett smiled and stood as well.

"Then you run along, Professor, but make sure that you move around where it will not be too hard to find you. After all, I have to be able to tell them something about your activities, don't I?"

*

The long golden rows of winter wheat swayed in the breeze. They were unharvested and were rapidly going to seed. Gregor Valich stood on the top of the cab of the large truck and swept the binoculars slowly back and forth, glassing each quadrant thoroughly before moving on to the next section. On his third pass he saw what he was looking for and called down to the driver to hand him up the radio. It clunked onto the metal next to him and he bent quickly before the coiled wire could retract it back into the cab.

"Left corner, just off the dirt road. Looks to be, fifteen, maybe twenty people." He dropped onto his belly and slid down into the open door and settled into the passenger seat. He pointed through the windshield and nodded to the driver. "Drive to the corner over there."

A few minutes later he slammed the door and motioned for the two other soldiers with him to cover the other sides of the field. When they were in position, he unslung his carbine and moved into the chest high crops stopping now and then to listen. He was halfway across the field when he heard the quick heavy footfalls on the damp earth. He pointed his carbine to the sky and fired off two three-shot bursts. The field in front of him fell quiet.

"Let's do this the easy way." His loud voice boomed across the field before all was silent again except for the faint rustling of heavy stalks in the breeze. "One minute to surrender or what happens next will be on your heads and yours alone." He fired another burst and then quickly pulled a new magazine from his belt, letting the old one fall into the dirt at his feet. He had just pulled the bolt back and let it snap forward when seven heads emerged from the grain twenty yards in front of him, their hands straight up in the air. He smiled as he waved the barrel of the gun in their direction. "Good. Good that you have some sense." He pointed to his right. "Now, get moving over there, and when you get to where the field is no more, stop." He watched as several more heads appeared behind the first group. "Single file and keep your hands up where I can see them." Gregor moved in tandem with the line, looking down every third or fourth step to keep from tripping on the uneven ground. Most of the group were still standing with their hands in the air when Gregor stepped out of the field. He saw his companions moving toward him from their stations to his right and had turned his attention back to the group, realizing for the first time that there were all men in their mid-twenties, no women or children, when several shots rang out from the middle of the field. Gregor's carbine had already begun to swing into action before the shots and now the light weapon bucked hard against his side as he moved it quickly from left to right and then back again, the bolt slamming open as the last round left the barrel. For a few seconds there was nothing to be heard and then two more shots from the center of the field followed by a shout from one of his men that had pushed the group toward him from the lane.

Five minutes later six Russian soldiers stood at the edge of the field and looked down at the fourteen dead civilians, two more had been drug from the wheat field and lay on the muddy ruts of the two-lane road. Gregor gave the order to move out and when nobody moved, he fired a shot into the air.

"I said, let's go!" He took three steps toward the nearest soldier and used his carbine to push him roughly to the ground before he swung it toward the others. "Haven't you ever seen dead bodies?" One of the soldiers stepped forward, a corporal that had been just transferred into the unit and one Gregor had never met before today.

"Our orders were to capture any civilians out on their own and transport them to the internment camps." Gregor smiled and scoffed as he walked slowly over to the soldier.

"What is your name, again?" The younger man took an involuntary half-step backwards before he recovered and saluted smartly.

"Corporal Domotrov, Colonel." Gregor smiled widely and used the barrel of his carbine to indicate the corpses behind him.

"Well, Domotrov, did you not see them trying to escape? And hear the shots from the others who lay in wait and refused to surrender?" Gregor took a menacing step closer to the young soldier who stood at attention and kept his eyes focused straight ahead.

"The shots were mine, Colonel, warning shots. It was only after you fired that they pointed their weapons at us." Gregor's eyes slid from Domontrov to his companion.

"And you. What did you see?" The private looked quickly at the corporal before he stared at the ground and spoke hesitantly.

"Colonel, I... I don't remember, it happened so quickly." Gregor snorted.

"I thought as much," he said as he turned back to Domotrov.

"Since you seem so concerned, Corporal, I am having you transferred to the internment camps. There are plenty of Russians there you can watch over, though there aren't as many as yesterday or the day before that, but you will see for yourself that what I just did was something they would be begging for if they knew what awaited them," he smiled wider, "and now awaits you at the camps."

*

Eva Lisson stirred the stew around with her spoon before she sighed and sat back in her chair. Calvin Michaels glanced up from his meal and pointed to the deserted bowl.

"Not hungry again, Ev?" She shrugged and rubbed her temples.

"Just jumpy I guess." She turned and looked through the tent flap across to the window of the CDOT where she could see the helmeted figure of Trina as she removed more samples from the centrifuge. She turned her weary expression back to Calvin. "I had it, Calvin, for just a minute, I was sure I had it. It was right there in front of me. It sequenced perfectly and in a blink, it was gone, cycling through the same iterations we have been seeing for the last three weeks." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes became unfocused.

"Perhaps it is just the beginning, Ev, maybe you have it on the run. If it revealed itself once, you can probably get it to do so again, and this time for long enough to record it." Eva shrugged again.

"I don't know anymore, Calvin, I have never worked on something this powerful in isolation with only one other pair of eyes trained on the problem. If I knew I had a year or even six months, I would be more confident, but there isn't any time. It isn't going to slow down and from the reports you bring, it has entered a new, accelerated stage." She looked up at him for the first time. "And you. How much longer before they find us here?" She glanced around the messy tent. "And them." She gestured toward the tent next door where the three children were sleeping. "The booties seem to know the whole story and you were foolish to come back here." Calvin took a deep breath.

"Your operation needs support whether you care to admit it or not and Damon trailed me all the way here, nobody followed." Eva scoffed and stood up from the table.

"This whole thing is absurd. A raven running the resistance." Calvin shook his head.

"He doesn't run it, Ev, that's not fair. He coordinates with them and they trade information, that is all. I was asked if I could help bring Arina in and I agreed. If you're looking for someone to blame, let it be me." She turned and pushed her black hair back into a ponytail as she moved toward the door. "Ev?" She stopped and looked back into the tent where Calvin was now standing behind the table. "Lansford Kenny was right. If you spend any time at all in their clutches, you will do anything you can to bring them down." Eva stared blankly for a few seconds and then turned and left the tent.

*

"You forgot this, Colonel." Gregor laid the leather scabbard on the table of the mess hall. Sackett looked up from his lunch and stared at the knife for a long moment.

"Was looking for that, how did you happen to come into possession of it?" His tone was flat, and the Russian raised an eyebrow slightly as he answered.

"One of the Russians who was detailed to clean out your quarters found it on top of a shelf." Gregor shrugged. "I thought I would do you a favor. Maybe I should have let him keep it." Sackett grunted and pointed toward one of the chairs beside the Russian Colonel.

"I don't have any booze on me, Gregor, but if you want to sit down, do it, you're making me uncomfortable." Gregor smiled sardonically.

"By all means, we can't keep making our American hosts nervous, nothing good for Gregor could come of that." Sackett ignored the remark and decided to change the subject.

"Heard about your engagement this morning, care to talk about it?" Gregor snorted.

"If you heard about it, then you heard all there is to hear. Since when did you get so skittish about casualties, eh, Colonel?"

"As a general rule I don't, Colonel Valich, but I do draw the line somewhere, especially where civilians are concerned," he paused for a beat before he continued, "as well as allies just going about their business and doing what they are told." Gregor's eyes narrowed, and he watched the Colonel for several seconds as the American ate several more forkfuls of food.

"And this ally, Colonel, the one who was doing what he was told, he was a man that other allies could trust, eh?" Sackett looked up from his food and matched the Russian's irritated expression with a bland and blank one of his own.

"Sergeant Kiner was a very good soldier, Gregor. He wasn't doing anything that you or me, or any of us posted in this god-forsaken place hasn't done many times over until it is routine and expected. He didn't deserve to die." Gregor sat back and nodded.

"Routine and expected, eh? Perhaps, perhaps, not, Colonel. Maybe this Sergeant Kiner chose the wrong approach or maybe he was somewhere where someone else felt threatened." Colonel Sackett placed his fork carefully onto his plate and leaned forward his blank look now long gone and replaced by a twisted frown and a redness that was rapidly moving up his neck toward his cheekbones.

"Somebody killed Sergeant Kiner, Colonel Valich, and when I find out exactly who, I will kill that man." The two colonels locked into a direct stare for several seconds. It was Gregor who moved his eyes to the side first as he threw up his hands.

"I believe you, Colonel, and if I hear or see something you should know, I will make sure you hear it right away." There was an uncomfortable silence that lasted until Gregor gestured across the table. "That bag, Colonel, that leather bag you carry with you everywhere, what is it you carry and why is it so important?" Sackett gazed sullenly across the table for a few seconds and then reached into his shirt, grasped the bag, lifted the leather thong over his head and placed the small bundle on the table. He pulled the drawstring apart and carefully shook the contents onto the table in front of the two men. He picked up a small round object and held it up in front of Gregor's eyes.

"A musket ball from 1776. One of my ancestors dug it out of a Hessian General he had just finished shooting on Christmas Eve." He placed the lead ball back into the pouch and picked up the next object. "A tunic button off a Union Captain, slain at the battle of the first Bull Run. A Legion d' Honneur presented to a Sackett on the conclusion of the First Great European War, a SS symbol from the collar of a dead Nazi Colonel, a .223 round for a Stoner carbine, circa Vietnam, 1968, and a beard ornament from a Chinese warlord." He placed the last object into the leather bag and pulled the string tightly before he slipped it back over his head.

"A traveling offering to the war gods, eh, Colonel?" Gregor laughed and pointed at the bag that Sackett was pushing back under his tunic. "And that beard ornament, Gregor was there and saw that, no?" Sackett nodded, but said nothing. "I have many of the same things." He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. 'But which wife has them I wonder?" he looked over at Sackett and pointed toward his chest. "I should get one of those myself, I have one or two new things to add to my collection."

He stood up as he finished the sentence, Sackett's hot glare following him as he turned toward the door.

"You do that, Colonel Valich, but you would do well to avoid any more engagements with civilians or otherwise." The Russian Colonel left the mess hall without looking back.

*

Damon flew high on the mid-day thermals, the warm currents pushing hard against his belly as he maneuvered to keep a steady altitude, the Crags disappearing behind a layer of thin clouds five miles behind him. A few hundred yards further and he began a long sweeping turn around a rocky ledge that jutted out from the side of a mountain that was almost as high as the tallest Crag and faced to the west, its' bare slopes covered with light gray talus rock. He issued several loud caws and after two circuits his calls were answered by several loud screeches. Damon banked into the wind and set his wings as he glided toward a ledge that was half hidden beneath an overhang that formed a shallow cave in the cliff face. Damon alighted onto the far corner of the rock shelf and peered into the half darkness where he could barely make out the huge mound of small twigs and branches that formed the large nest and the three foot tall eagle that stood beside it. The nest made the same noise as the one that Damon visited several times a day inside the Crag, though it was apparent that only one or two eaglets resided inside. Damon strode to the middle of the ledge and bent over slightly before he straightened and moved his thick beak up and down three times.

"Hail, Galba, how does the spring's warmth find you and yours?" The eagle stepped forward and lowered his white-feathered head as his sharply hooked beak turned along with a curious yellow eye toward Damon.

"Damon, son of Thedes. The days were long the last time we met. Long and serene, at least from this distance and the new turmoil from below. What has pushed your shadow across this remote valley?" Damon walked to the edge and looked over into the chasm beneath his taloned feet before he turned back to the raptor.

"A thing or two that presses and suffers from lack of detail." Damon moved his head slowly from side-to-side and took in the whole of the small area they were standing in. "And Galea, I do not see her as we stand, nor was she at patrol as I entered the canyon."

Galba stood stock still, his eyes fixed on the sky and the green horizon on the other side of the canyon.

"Dead, Damon. Dead three weeks and butchered on the wing." Damon gathered the words in silence and waited for several seconds before he spoke.

"Tis a notable sky and roost that dwells nevermore save for mind and fable, Galba, I am truly sorry to hear of it."

"The whirling rotors come each day, though the hour is unknown and random. They have swept the sky clean of wings, how is it that you have been spared the slaughter?"

"The Crags sit remotely and apart. They are not accustomed to seeing any birds that high and our former roosts of habit are abandoned."

"And the game, Damon, are your roosts full of meat?" Damon cocked his head and looked up at the large bird.

"It dwindles surely each day. Those that flee the plague have filled the forests and now neither beast nor fowl is safe." Damon waited a few seconds before he changed the subject. "And the birds that have been driven southward, their flyways thicken thine air overhead, no?" The large eagle lifted his wings and spread them slowly. Damon had to back up several feet to avoid being swept from the ledge as the glistening brown feathers filled the small space. Galba folded them and stole a quick glance toward the nest before he spoke.

"And I imagine that the ducks and geese among others are not thy lookout, eh, Damon?" Damon gazed unblinkingly at the eagle for a full minute before the large yellow eyes turned away and Galba spoke again. "Two groups. One of over a hundred crows, another, three days ago, over two hundred."

"And their direction, Galba?"

"Straight toward Rothschold, where else?" The eagle waited and when he saw Damon deep in thought, he spoke again.

"Thrice the crows that your father defeated, is it not so, Damon? And when the Ravens of the Valley number small and hide in frightened flocks among the rocks, what shall the raptors of the world do then? Does the truce still bind, or might there be other choices to be made?" Damon gazed stonily straight into the yellow eyes.

"Thou may do as thou wishes, Galba. I be not my father, and the truce such as it stands, is but the natural order that you and yours do nurture as well. Rejoice in the demise of the noble ones if you will but give heed to the wolves and those who lead them to the beasts from whom all feed." Damon strutted over to the nest and peered inside. After a few seconds he returned to his spot in front of Galba. "Thy born is thin for the days that have passed." When Galba said nothing more, Damon continued. "Just outside your valley, in the small cottonwoods beside Hayward Creek, a young fawn lies dead two days." He walked to the very edge of the ledge before he turned and faced the eagle. "When their wings can move the air, there is room for you among the Crags." Damon dropped from the ledge and let his body freefall for ten seconds before he turned into the wind and headed north out of the valley. As he passed over Hayward Creek, he felt the air pulsating as the helicopters dropped from the clouds on their daily sweep down the narrow chasm.

*

The cell door creaked and squeaked in its' metal track as it was pulled open a quarter of the way. Father Jovan heard the metal tray slide a few inches on the concrete floor and then the noise was repeated as the door was closed. He did not rise from his cot, why bother? he told himself, the same thing he had said to himself for two days now. The meal would be the same one he had not eaten this morning and why come out of one's cocoon for that? he reasoned. The twice daily opening of the cell door was all that transpired in the airless space he found himself in. His interrogator had not returned for three days and outside of the screams that pierced the silence and a few echoed voices in the corridor now and then, Father Jovan could have been on a deserted island, an island he had already conceived of and visited regularly, especially at night when the cement walls wept, and the temperature dropped close to freezing. The warm tropical breezes that were conjured blew through the thin aperture high above his head and carried the scent of brine and verdant vegetation. Now as he knelt for his daily prayers in the warm sand, the gently lapping waves created a sound barrier that muffled the screams from below until they became the soft burblings of a nearby tide pool. He was still in that position when the voice again came to him.

Father Jovan, I have returned to your side. I shall not abandon you in the midst of your ordeal. I have brought news this hour from the outside. Nofel is dead and Arina is still alive and in hiding.

"You have been faithful, that much is true, but I know not your origin or the truth of what you say, a booties trick can be as deft as a magicians' wand and twice as cunning.

I am not offended by your skepticism, Father, it would be strange if you were to take any other approach in your position. The reprisal murders against your congregation have ceased, not for lack of intent, but for lack of personnel. The sickness sweeps through the camps and the cities with more ferocity each day with no end in sight as the weather grows warmer and aids it in its' endeavors.

"I have meditated on your words and your possible origins and have decided that though you are of this earth you represent some other dimension, some other way of being."

The way of the spirit, Father Jovan, is the way of all sentient beings whether their ken be of a higher or lower consciousness and they swim the seas, stride on the soil of the earth or drift on the air currents of the sky. You yourself believe this as a Jesuit, as a man of the church and as a man who lives out his allotted days in the company of other men.

"I have never told anyone that I am a Jesuit. How is it that you have this knowledge and trade in it so freely?"

The traditions and history of men is important information to the survival of beings such as myself. No one has revealed this to me, it wasn't necessary to do so, your actions, thoughts and words, and the way the world gestures to you tells all. The worldview and ethos of your order have been well known to my lineage for the past one thousand years. That it has been outlawed and persecuted for the last one hundred of those years does not make its' members any less apparent to those who make it their business to discern such matters.

"And you yourself, as a being in this realm, cannot I discern your intent, origin and general orientation? Have you and your way of being not been presented inside my purview over and over again until I know them as well as any other culture distinct from my own? But I am answering my own questions am I not? To muse upon it, to meditate and pose interrogatives suggest the problem is just that: I have no a priori experience that is isomorphic in this instance and indeed the points of intersection, if they exist at all are outside my experience and have not been encountered before."

You are correct in your assumptions, Father, I am well within your ken and knowledge, but at the same time wholly outside it, but I think that we are spending too much time on cosmological and ontological musings when the subject of your health, physical and otherwise is more pressing as is the method of obtaining your freedom.

"My freedom? I have resigned myself to this hole, where I will surely die. Each day the weakness comes earlier and more verbosely. I am done for, whoever you are, if not by the wasting away of my body, then by the sickness that will surely find me here in my cell. But what does that matter in the larger scheme? What is one more death in a sea of them? Perhaps your wisdom can shed some light on that, eh?"

Wisdom or not, there is a reason I am here, and it relates quite directly to the purpose of your survival, or more precisely, your survival will serve a vital purpose in the years that will follow. Your belief or disbelief in your mortality does not concern me beyond the sustenance of the physical. You should begin to take the nourishment, such as it is, that is provided. It may not be too many days before even that small point of contact each day will cease. I will return before too much time has passed.

*

Arina sat in the small blue car and tried to look as casual as possible. Once in a while she glanced across the narrow street to the government building where a man in shabby clothes was leaning on a cane and casually smoking a cigarette. Every five minutes or so, he would turn and catch her eye, once giving her an indication with his hand that she should stay where she was until he gave her the 'all safe' sign. Two booties patrolled the sidewalk and on their third trip past the man one of them stopped and with an irritated expression on his face, demanded the man's papers. The man moved slowly as if he were sick or elderly and the guard grabbed them roughly from his hands when the small carnets appeared from his coat pocket. A few minutes later his papers were handed back, and he was told to move on. He bowed slightly and nodded his head and made motions as if he were leaving as he watched the booties as they marched off and approached the corner of the building. Arina saw the sign and quickly climbed from the car, walked across the street and hurried down three concrete steps until she was standing in front of a brown metal door and out of sight of anyone on the street. The man turned and took a few steps toward the corner, giving two low whistles before he crossed the street as the booties came back around and began to approach.

Arina slipped a small lanyard from around her wrist and pushed the long silver key that was attached into the lock, twisting it and turning the long handle of the door as she did so. When the handle didn't budge, she adjusted the angle and depth of the key in the lock as the sound of the half boots on the pavement came closer. Just as they were almost opposite her, the handle swung down, and she slipped quickly and quietly behind the thin metal door. She held her breath as she heard the booties pass by and continue toward the end of the block. She rotated the bolt on the door as quietly as she could before turning around and surveying her surroundings. She was at the end of a long hallway though dimly lit, clearly held several doorways on both sides. She stayed where she was and counted silently. Sure of her choice, she moved down the hall to the third door on her right. There was a small rectangular window just below eye level that she could look through if she bent down slightly. The room inside was even darker than the hallway, but she could clearly see what she had come for. She slipped the same key into the lock and profiting from her experience with the outer door, the handle moved down smoothly. Arina opened the door just enough to slip inside before she closed it gently behind her.

*

"Rothschold will surely press his advantage, my liege, for he is now in possession of more wings than before the Crows of the Mounds were wiped out. We should bolster the border defenses even more and put all the reserves on alert." Damon said nothing in reply to Hugin as he stood on the highest spire of the highest Crag. Instead he turned and paced in several circles around the small area that also held Magda and Signar. He stopped and focused his eyes on the small group.

"And you, Magda, what would you advise?" She moved her beak up and down three times.

"I agree with Hugin, my liege, he is likely to strike soon and hard." Damon waited for a few seconds, the small feathers at his throat blowing in the stiff wind.

"No, we will do the striking, as he will not yet have folded such a response into his thinking."

*

Gregor Valich sat in the front seat of the truck and quietly smoked as he peered through the window at the sprawling base a quarter of a mile away. Every few minutes the breeze stiffened and the sharp acrid smell permeated the cab even though Gregor had the fan on high. He had just lit a new cigarette when he saw Corporal Domotrov moving at a quick pace toward him on the road. He glanced at his Sergeant, nodded and gestured with his head toward the corporal. The soldier turned off the engine, pulled the thickly padded surgical mask up over his nostrils and jumped down from the tall cab of the truck. Colonel Valich watched as the two men met a hundred yards in front of the truck. Domotrov pulled his mask down and half-turning, gestured back toward the base. The two men exchanged a few more words and then Domotrov replaced his mask and started for the truck. He had only taken five steps when the sound of a bullet from the Sergeant's pistol cracked through the air. The Sergeantt paused for a few seconds over the body of the corporal while he holstered his weapon. He was still panting when he climbed back beside Gregor.

"Well?" The Sergeant shrugged as he turned the key bringing the large engine to life.

"As you thought, Colonel. Half the base is dying from plague and the other half have taken off in small groups." Colonel Valich nodded absentmindedly as he gazed out the windshield at Domotrov's body. He was still gazing in that direction as he pointed toward a road on his left that led to the countryside.

*

The children sat on two benches facing each other in the small room. Arina looked at each face that was turned toward her as she leaned with her back against the metal door. She held her finger to her lips, knelt down and then spoke in a quiet voice.

"In a few minutes we are all going to go out this door and across the sidewalk and get into a big truck that will be waiting for us, OK?" She looked at each child in turn, until she received a silent nod before she moved on. She then walked slowly down the center of the room and tapped each child on their shoulder until they were all standing in two rows facing the door. She moved to the door and turning the handle she opened it partway and peered down the passageway. She turned back to the room and opening it a little wider moved each child quickly into the corridor. When they were all next to the big door that led to the street, she repeated the same action with that door, this time opening it until she could see the man leaning on his cane across the street. He made eye contact with her and then turned slightly and made a gesture toward the corner. A few seconds later, Arina heard the sound of an engine as a vehicle approached her position. She waited until the white van came to a complete stop just a few yards away before she began to guide the children to the waiting arms of two people who stood in the open door of the truck. When all the children were safely in the van, she closed the door behind her and began walking toward the corner. She was ten yards from the end of the building when the two booties came into view and before their gaze turned in her direction, she looked away and crossed the street, ignoring her car parked at the curb before turning into the same small alleyway that Colonel Sackett had waited in just nights before. Halfway down the block she took two concrete steps down into a small alcove just off the sidewalk where she was out of view of anyone looking up or down the street. Several minutes passed before she heard someone approaching from the direction she had just come. She looked up when the footsteps stopped in front of her. The man held out his arm and gestured down the street with the cane. She climbed up onto the sidewalk, looked both ways and then locking her arm in his, strolled casually toward the wide boulevard just fifty yards away.

*

"That is all that there is to be found, my liege." Damon looked down at the desiccated carcass he guessed to be over three weeks old.

"And Sasha? What does she have to say?" Signar turned his beak toward the south.

"The elk herds, such as they are, have moved twenty miles past Windy Pass and in a week will be scattered among the peaks and valleys fifty miles away. She may have no other choice but to follow them, though she will have many men in her path." Damon turned his eyes to the Crags and from where he stood, he could see many of the roosts that had been established in the last two weeks.

"There are at least a hundred nestlings on the roost. Last week the estimate was that we had food enough for six days. Has the ration program slowed the rate of consumption?"

"That is hard to answer, my liege. As it stands today, we have four more days left before the food runs out." Damon considered the situation for several minutes.

"And Sasha. Where is she right now?"

*
CHAPTER SEVEN

O, it comes o'er my memory, As doth the raven o'er the infected house, Boding to all. — Othello - Act IV, Scene 1

And yet you are still alive. The pestilence spreads and spreads, the righteous perish alongside the wicked, Father, and the sword of justice scabbards its' dull mute blade. And yet you live to pray, to meditate and to reflect upon the world in the grip of chaos and damnation. Surely, in God's own way therein lies a plan, wouldn't you say?

"And yet, God's plan is not mine to divine. I will not dwell beneath the folly of the fake righteous that see the blessing of God in every wind that blows them profit and the devils' hand in misfortunes wrought by their same self-seeking ways. That is the false philosophy of the serpent's tail caught in its' own mouth."

To divine, Father, or merely follow one's own destiny? To give succor to the living and comfort to the dying, Father, that is your purpose, one that you are prevented from performing in your present circumstances. Circumstances that are in fact, saving your life. When was the last time the cell door opened, and sustenance was offered? The screams have ceased Father, and with them have gone the operators of torture, most of whom have fled to their homes and beds to perish quaking in fear.

"I am not well. Why do you waste your time? Surely other deeds lie undone for the spending of it inside these walls. Thou art torture of another stripe, truly. You come in expectation of something. Something I cannot give and do not wish to, even if I was party to it. I am a lost cause in a world wounded for it and passing into shadow."

And yet, Father, the shadows will recede and in their flitting departures a new world will be revealed, a world that will need the wisdom of the past, cast though it will be in new dress. The flock will assemble anew, and the same demons will dance in the minds and hearts of the unprotected. Meditate upon what has been said, I will return.

*

Sasha gazed without blinking at the large raven sitting on the rock at the end of the long meadow. She waited for a reaction to her last statement. Damon peered down into the pale blue eyes.

"And are they well-provisioned?" She took two steps and sat on her haunches, looking behind her at the meadow.

"There are two kills that lie just below their roost, Damon, what is left after the humans took what they could carry."

"And their numbers?"

"Over three hundred in the roost and beyond them there is an elk herd that beds in a hidden valley behind the rocks of Hunters' Den, protected from all who might stalk them from below. Rothschold has sent more messengers beseeching me than I can count, and I am weary from the bother. He fears reprisals from the meat hunters and dares not leave his warm cave for any length of time." Damon hopped down to the carpet of pine needles and looked up at the large wolf.

"There is a plan bold, that if decided to our advantage will mean survival for both our families."

*

Calvin Michaels blinked several times as he stared at the three vials of clear liquid on the table in front of him. After a few seconds, he looked up at Eva.

"Are you sure, Ev?" She shook her head.

"You can never be that sure, Calvin. In another world we would run tests and trials for months, maybe years and then we might be confident of the results, but these...," she gestured toward the vials, "these are the best attempt with the incomplete data we have. We were able to get enough samples quickly enough from the new children to catch it out and see where our prior missteps had taken us, but it is an educated guess at best."

"Is it safe to take?" Eva sighed.

"Safer than the alternative."

"Intravenously?" Eva nodded.

Calvin picked up one of the vials and held it up to the light.

"The children. I suppose they won't need it?" Eva shrugged.

"For now, no. But if this one is structured as other weaker ones I have seen, it will try to recreate itself and double back to finish what it has begun."

"Who is first?" Eva smiled thinly.

"You, then Trina and myself, then Arina."

*

Colonel Sackett steered the small Jeep around the deep muddy ruts and the standing pools of water that choked the small two lane dirt road. The sky was darkening as he crested a tall hill and saw the roadblock a hundred yards below him. He slowed the vehicle and applied the brake carefully to avoid sliding on the slick surface and came to a stop a few yards away from three grim faced government men. They were heavily armed and a quick glance around confirmed his suspicions that they had been in this spot for a long time and were not as green and incompetent as most of the booties he encountered. He waited quietly as one of them approached him, the other two standing apart from each other and covering their comrade with their carbines.

"Papers." Sackett sighed and pulled his ID from the top pocket of his field jacket. He then leaned over and retrieved an envelope from the open glove box in front of the passenger seat. He handed both of the items over to the outstretched hand and waited while they were being carefully examined. The bootie glanced at the Colonel and then looked up the hill behind him. He flicked the paper that had been in the envelope a few moments before with his finger.

"Says here that you are attached and leading two platoons, Colonel. Where are your men?" Sackett kept his face as blank as he could and his voice matter-of-fact when he replied.

"Quarantined. Confined to base, or what's left of them." He stopped talking and waited.

"Your mission is unspecified, Colonel, suppose you tell me what you are doing in this particular sector." Sackett sighed and stared with a slightly bored expression into the dark eyes in front of him.

"My mission, as far as it concerns you, and it really doesn't, is to ferret out any resistance activity I come across." Sackett raised his eyebrows in an expectant gesture. The man held the Colonels' gaze for a few seconds before he looked again at the papers.

"Wait here." Sacket sat back in the seat while the man walked the twenty yards in the failing light toward one of the other booties. After a brief exchange, the second man took Colonel Sacketts' papers and walked to the Jeep. He smiled with a crooked grin when he stopped, leaning his hand casually on the edge of the windscreen.

"Well, well, if it isn't the famous Colonel Sackett, once again." Sackett snorted when he recognized the bootie as the one who had briefed him when he first arrived. Sackett turned on the southern drawl.

"A long way from your cozy nest, aren't we, what happened? Did your misdeeds finally catch you up?" The man sneered, and the crooked grin became a sinister smirk.

"I might ask you the same, Colonel." He looked quickly around the immediate area and then looked back with a mock expression of shock. "Where are your men, Colonel? You don't strike me as a man that can operate without the cooperation, voluntary or coerced, of others who are tasked to do your bidding." Sackett adopted the same bored expression he used on the first guard and shrugged.

"Fortunes of war, but I guess that is a little outside your mien, am I right?" The man held up the carbine.

"Maybe not, eh, Colonel?" Sackett chuckled and then leaned over and spit beside the man's right half boot, before he looked up smiling.

"Unless you've had several hundred hours training on that weapon you are holding so carelessly, you are in more danger than anyone standing in front of it." Sackett held out his hand and twiddled his fingers in an impatient gesture. "My papers?" The barrel of the carbine was lowered slowly and came to a stop two feet in front of the Colonels' eyes as the man reexamined the papers. After a few seconds, he shrugged and tossed them into Sacketts' lap and tightened his grip on his weapon.

"You're not coming through here, Colonel Sackett." He gestured toward the top of the hill with the carbine. Sackett smiled, pushed on the gear shift and after the crunch of the transmission told him he was in reverse, he gunned the engine and swept the wheel to the right as a fine spray of mud covered the bootie before he could react. Sackett smiled to himself as the Jeep shot over the top of the hill ten seconds later. He slowed and then cranked the wheel to the right again as the Jeep swung quickly onto a faint logging trail that curled upward toward the backside of the same hill.

*

Damon walked around in a three foot diameter circle and looked at the diagram he had just scratched out in the damp earth, peering at it from several angles. After a few minutes, he looked across the circle at the small assembly that had gathered as the sun had broken through the thin clouds that lay on the horizon and bathed the Crags in a weak light.

"It lies just as it came to me in the night. If there are any modifications to be made, or if there is something I have not thought of, now is the time to speak." He looked first at his brother, Echo, before his eyes slid onto Magda, then Hugin and then back to the diagram. Magda took several steps around the circle and put her beak near the ground at one point in the top part of the diagram.

"How will Sasha be able to convince Rothschold that he needs to send so many of his troops with her to Hunter's Den?" Hugin chimed in with an inquisitive caw from the back of his throat. Damon straightened and looked at them both in turn.

"A key element to be sure. She will tell him that the operation must be executed quickly, before the human hunters tumble to the fact that the elk are there, and therefore, she needs four times as many crows as scouts if she is to find the animals quickly and dispatch them without exposing herself to the long guns. He has mouths to feed and he is desperate for the taking of the elk."

"And when they return?" Damon moved next to his sister-in-law, bent over and scraped the earth beside several small circles at the top of the diagram.

"Remember what these represent. Each of you will select ten of the fiercest warriors under your command. They will operate as three separate units. They will leave here this evening and fly by way of the wastelands and come into Hunters' Den from the south, arriving tomorrow morning. They will fall upon the scouting crows at the agreed upon ambush points. Sasha will make sure they are arrayed correctly and sent to different sectors in the Den." Damon looked over at his brother who had listened with rapt attention but had yet to speak.

"And you of my own feather and bone, how does the plan sit in that famous craw of yours?" Echo looked up from the diagram and shifted his weight as he placed one of his taloned feet inside the circle.

"And the hatter mad, whose lives number twelve or more, where lies the soil patch that will lie damp with his blood under the new moon?" Damon looked at his three commanders in turn.

"The butcher birds will fly as one, their sole intent a shadowing of the scoundrel, hounding him in his cowardly hide and slaying if he chooses, capturing him if he cannot summon the courage to defend himself." For a few seconds there was a profound silence before Hugin voiced the thought that hung heavy in the light morning air.

"And the royal roost, my liege. Shall the abode of Darius and of thy bride Lila lie open to the bloody vagaries of the sky." Damon stood as tall as he could manage. His thick beak moved up and down three times very slowly.

"A night's fitful slumber and a morning breaks with uncertainty to be sure, my dear Hugin, but a father and husbands' risk against the survival of the Valley of the Ravens clan is to be born under and raised up with good prayers and glad wings. Melampus will also remain and all that has been bestowed upon us for the ages will we bear upon our backs and in the strength of our wings."

*

Lansford Kenny pointed the shotgun through the smoke that rose from the small campfire. He shifted his position on the smooth rock so that he could clearly see the three men who stood ten feet away, their eyes on the two large squirrels that turned slowly on the spit above the fire.

"I guess you guys don't hear so well. This isn't an open camp, now move on." One of the three stepped forward and pointed at Lansford.

"Look, we aren't asking for much." He turned and indicated his two companions. "We all have families and food is hard to come by..." Lansford cut him off.

"Which is exactly why you should have stayed in the city. Look how you are dressed. You've no business out here at all. And how many just like you are going to smell my fire and come begging same as you?" He raised the gun a little higher and then jerked the barrel toward the narrow trail that the men had just come up. In the moment that he had taken his eyes off the other two men, one had pulled a small pistol from the pocket of his raincoat. Kenny saw it as it was being raised toward him. The shotgun was not secured against his body and bucked sharply in his hands as the campfire smoke swirled wildly in the blast. Both men dropped to the ground, though one sprung up almost immediately, clutching his arm and staring down at his companion. He looked up at Lansford with a blank expression, his eyes wide.

"You killed him. You killed him and all he wanted was some food for his wife and little girl." Kenny took three long steps around the fire and pushed the closest man toward the other one still on his feet. He raised the gun and pointed it at the heads of the two survivors.

"Get him out of here." His voice was barely above a growl and when the man nearest him didn't move quickly enough he slammed the barrel against the back of his head knocking him to his knees. The man straightened slowly and began to help his friend lift the top half of the dead body. With one on each side holding an arm, they started pulling him through the rain slickened grass toward the trail, with Kenny following, the shotgun on his cheek.

"Take your families and go back home. You belong there... you stay there, and you wait for it to find you there." Lansford's eyes were wild, and his lips were purple as he squeezed hard on the stock of the weapon. "You savor the last moments you are ever going to have with your family and pray to God it takes them first, so they do not die alone."

The men had been gone for ten minutes around the small bend in the trail before Lansford grunted and dropped the shotgun and slumped down into the mud as blood flowed back into his hands and neck.

*

The black hole on the end of the shotgun barrel loomed large in his vision as Colonel Sackett leaned back against the Jeep and held his hands out to his sides. He spoke slowly, almost laconically and kept his facial expressions to a minimum.

"I told you to stay where I could find you." He indicated the loaf-like mountain behind Calvin Michaels. "This is a good place to hide, most of this area," he turned slightly and still keeping his arms away from his body, gestured toward the countryside in general before he looked back and grinned slightly, "most of this area plays out real sketchy on the maps, not many roads, or leastwise not many that a truck could get up and over, so..." He shrugged. "I guessed this was where I might find you." He smiled wider. "Plus the fact that I figured the plan would be to keep this operation mobile which is why I put a small tracker beacon on the CDOT." He held his hands up higher and pushed his smile to its' widest. Calvin moved a little closer and let the barrel slide off the Colonel, though he kept it at the ready.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" The Colonel shrugged.

"Can I put my hands down, Calvin, if I promise no quick moves?" He stared into the professor's eyes and raised his eyebrows. Calvin indicated his assent with a slight upward jerk of his forehead.

"You can. But answer my questions." Colonel Sackett pushed his hands into the slit pockets of his field jacket and turned his shoulders toward the back of the Jeep.

"More what you might want or need, and what I might possibly do for you." He stepped away from the vehicle and held his hands up again as Calvin took several long slow steps and peered into the small space behind the front seats.

"What's in the boxes?" Sackett nodded his head toward the cave.

"Data. Data from the research the government has been conducting. Saw it sitting unattended, lab door wide open, no one around, most of the staff is dead or missing, so I scooped up as much as I could carry in two trips and well..." his voice trailed off as Calvin leaned the gun against the back of the jeep, keeping his body between it and the Colonel as he lifted the flaps on one of the boxes. He turned back to the Colonel and pointed toward the cave.

"You first. I carry one and you carry one and I will carry the shotgun." The Colonel shrugged and reached for the box that Calvin had pulled from the Jeep. He slung it under one arm and watched as Calvin bent over to pick up the other one. He found it considerably heavier than the first one and was shifting it to his other hand when he looked up and saw the Colonel with a box under one arm and the shotgun held casually in his other hand. Calvin's face froze as his eyes dropped to the weapon. Sackett followed his gaze and held up the shotgun with a quizzical expression.

"Yes, of course, how stupid of me, here you go." He held it out at arms' length. Calvin still stood stock still and the Colonel shrugged and leaned it up against the Jeep and backed away until Calvin balanced the box on the Jeep, quickly bent over and picked it up. Sackett smiled and pointed toward the gun.

"There is a black button just behind the trigger guard." He waited while Calvin inspected the weapon. "Yes, right there. See how it is black all the way around? Now push it...that's it...see how a little red rim appeared? Now it is ready to fire."

*

Damon watched as the last of the strike force disappeared into the mist that was moving in a soft cloud toward the Crags. He had briefed them and planned out two possible temporary roost areas en route and had made sure the group leaders knew the landmarks and the times that coordinated with the appearance of the wolves inside Hunters' Den. Now, as the cloud bank closed upon him as he stood on the tall Crag, he felt the weight of the many small as well as large decisions that he had made in the last three days. He shook himself and fluttered his wings to bring his thoughts around and turned his attention to the daily ration he still had to gather from the last carcass within easy reach of the roost. He had pushed feeding time in the nest later and later each day and all the nestlings of the colony were feeling the pinch. Indeed, there were a few members of the strike force that were babies during the last famine and their smaller frames and weaker wings bore testament to the effect of lean times. He was still musing on these thoughts when he felt the familiar movement of air that meant that Lila had landed next to him. He caught her soft brown eyes and waited until she made herself comfortable on the rocky perch.

"I waited at the nest, but Echo said that you were still out here."

"Yes, my love, I had to see that the operation began auspiciously."

"And has it, my liege?"

"Yes, Lila, it has. All that is left for us is to launch in the morning and by this time tomorrow night we shall know if the plan was sound." He apprehended a quiet solemn aspect of her mood and waited for her to speak again and when she did not, he leaned closer. "And the nestlings, my love, they must be at a high and piercing pitch by now." She turned until both eyes were looking at him before she resumed gazing into the whiteness that surrounded them.

"Not a peep for the last hour."

"But surely, at this point they must be starving, and a young raven does not normally suffer that condition in silence."

"A true state of affairs at most times, my liege, but they now follow Darius in all things and he has taught them to attach their mental energies to more than just their stomachs." Damon was silent for several minutes before he spoke again.

"And tomorrow, my love, there will be just you and Melampus and much of the roost itself will be nothing but half-clothed nestlings and elders. Wither you in my absence? Does your prescient nature inform you of the future near?"

"Nay, my love, it brings forth no promise of those days that are closest, but rather spins an aura much like a web that has been woven through the future of the colony, and for that, my liege, it portends that the Ravens of the Valley will live and prosper, and the lineage will stay aloft on the valley winds for generations to come."

*

Colonel Sackett sat by the fire that crackled at his feet in the middle of the large cave. He had offered to pass around the small flask he carried but receiving no takers, he now sat and drank quietly as he watched Trina and Eva sort through the hundreds of pages of documents and readouts he had delivered. On the far side of the cavern, several groups of children were engrossed in their games and now and again small giggles and even some laughter floated upward toward the blackened ceiling, the sounds magnified and softened at the same time. The colonel stole a sideways glance at Calvin Michaels who sat a few feet away and stared into the fire until he was needed to add some of the pages from the boxes to the flames. Colonel Sackett stretched and yawned and took another small sip of the cognac before he spoke casually.

"The farmer. The one that lived on the next farm over from the first one that held the CDOT, the one who hid his family from me under the chicken coop. What has become of him?" Calvin looked up briefly before he resumed his fire watch.

"I don't know, you have seen him since the last I saw of him." Calvin caught the curious glance from the man beside him and continued. "He was driving the night the first children were taken." The Colonel nodded in comprehension.

"Ah, the red bearded one. A smooth customer in my estimation. Probably a valuable man in the resistance, yes?" Calvin glanced over with a frown and then looked back at the fire.

"Not my place to say one way or the other. You would make people more comfortable if you would stop asking leading questions about the resistance." The Colonel shrugged to himself.

"Then I will ask questions that are of a more concrete nature, professor." He waited for several seconds before he spoke again. "The new serum, does it work?" Calvin looked over sharply and was just about to speak when he saw the Colonel pointing into the fire where the empty glass vials lay blackened among the embers. Calvin shrugged.

"Who knows, Colonel, how is one to judge those type of things? We live, we die, maybe the serum keeps us alive, or perhaps we die of something else." Sackett chuckled.

"You sound like a Russian soldier I know." He looked up as he detected a movement on the other side of the professor. Eline walked slowly around the rock that Calvin was sitting on and perched upon a small one beside the Colonel. The child stared into the fire for a few minutes with her chin in her hands before she looked up at Sackett. A small smile came over her face as she lifted her arm toward the man beside her. Colonel Sackett smiled and held out his hand. She placed hers into his palm as the orange glow from the flames lit both their faces.

*

Damon kept his wingbeats in a steady pattern as he moved through the whiteness of the cloud, his interior altimeter alerting him to small shifts as the air currents bubbled up beneath him. After a few minutes the cloud thinned and a few seconds later, he broke into clear sky forcing him to hood his eyes from the brightness. He climbed forty feet higher, decreased his speed and watched the large chevron of ravens pass below him. There had been some debate on the roost about the most efficient battle formation, but in the end, Damon decided on the one that had been used by his father in the last battle of his life. The 'V' formation phalanx of ravens struck fear in even the largest army of foes and Damon was counting on it and indeed, had chosen the middle of the day for the attack. Now as he accounted for all beneath him, he increased his speed, lowered his altitude and again took his place at the head of the formation. Directly behind him were the butcher birds, their feathers gleaming in the noonday sun.

*

Arina stood outside the makeshift tent that Colonel Sackett had rigged up for himself on the far side of the large cavern. She cleared her throat and called softly,

"Colonel Sackett, I need to speak with you please." A few seconds later, the front of the canvas opened several inches.

"Who are you?" The voice was not unkind, but firm.

"I work with the resistance and they have made a request of me, and you are the only person who can help me." She heard some rustling inside the shelter and a few minutes later, the Colonel crawled out on his hands and knees until he was clear of the tent and stood up. He was nearly a foot taller than Arina and she had to take a few steps back to look up at him. He slipped the green watch cap onto his head and smiled down at the expectant face.

"I will do what I can to help, Miss, but don't get your hopes up."

"Call me Arina, Colonel, and there is no one else who has a chance of completing this task." Sackett lead the way over to the small group of director chairs that were arrayed around the communal fire pit, which was barely smoldering in the early morning light. Sackett kicked several pieces of wood into the center of the pit before he sat down. Arina took a seat across the fire from him and watched as he used another piece of wood as a poker and brought the flames to life. When he was done, he tossed the piece of wood into the middle of the pit and looked up at Arina.

"And just what is this important mission that only I can accomplish?"

*

Rothschold flew from the edge of his cave to a tall spruce that towered over the rest of the thirty-odd trees that made up the main roost of his forces. Grindol had seen the flight and now joined him on his perch. Rothschold indicated a southern direction with his beak.

"The wolves should be at it by now, eh, Grindol?" Grindol glanced into the sky, noting the position of the sun directly overhead.

"Yes, Lord, the scouts should have located the herds by now, the area is not large." Rothschold rotated his head around as he surveyed the roost.

"After today, I think I will relocate the roosts to the Hunter's Den. We won't have to make as many trips for food and we can plan the final destruction of the ravens from there." Grindol waited a few seconds before he replied.

"But the man hunters, my Lord. They will be thick in the pines when they discover the elk. Here, there are no beasts and they are not aware of the roost, even their air machines are only seen now and again from a distance. Up there, we will be trapped with nowhere to go if attacked." Rothschold turned and looked at his aide with one eye.

"And you presume, do you, to know all the ratiocination that must go into a decision such as the one I have just made?" Grindol bowed low and kept the position as he replied.

"No, my Lord, I only look at it from the viewpoint of a soldier." Rothschold turned away and made a scoffing caw sound in his throat.

"And that is why you live your life on the lowest branches, my boy, it takes vision to see what others miss in their haste to be one with the rest of the flock." He was going to add a few more pearls of wisdom when his eye caught sight of a sentry crow heading toward the roost from the north at a high rate of speed. As the crow grew nearer, he spied Rothschold and Grindol on their perch and changed direction toward the tall spruce. Rothschold heard Grindol exclaim and when he turned his head and peered in his direction, he saw it too. The long line of ravens reached from horizon to horizon, the sunlight reflecting in flashing waves off the coal black wings that moved up and down in unison.

*

Colonel Sackett lay on his back and pushed with the heel of his palm straight upwards until he felt the spring compress and release the seal. He then inserted the small tool he held in his other hand and began the unwinding process he knew would take several minutes as this was the fifth time he had performed the procedure in the last half hour. When he had freed the long canister, he let it slide down between his hands and fall gently to his side. He picked up an identical one from his other side and performed the actions in reverse. When he was done, he wiped the white grease from his hands and looked over at Calvin Michaels who was squatted down three feet away and smiled as he spoke.

"Like I said, piece of cake." Sackett snorted.

"This was always going to be the easy part." He shook his head as he shimmied out from under the trailer. When he was upright again, he looked at the CDOT.

"The problem I see, is those filters don't last very long. If I don't get them out of all three that are sitting there, I will just have to make the trip again." He looked at his watch. "That will mean twenty minutes and a lot of movement. Even at night, there is a big chance of detection." Sackett sighed deeply and looked over at Calvin, smiling slightly. "But that's where you are going to help, right?" Calvin looked up with a frown.

"Sorry, I have too much to do to keep things heading in the right direction here." Colonel Sackett continued to smile even as he shook his head.

"That doesn't wash. Without those," he pointed to the cylinders, "there isn't any reason to be here. No, you're going to go and you're going to make sure the booties stay off my back."

*

Damon had seen the sentry as they had flown over his perch on a promotory just two miles from Rothscholds' roost. The crow had been lazing in the midday sun and was looking the wrong way when the shadows from the ravens passing overhead startled him from his reverie. It had taken him almost five minutes flying at top speed to catch up to the formation and he was now only thirty seconds ahead of it when he was finally able to raise the alarm. Damon led the raven forces downward as several groups of crows rose to meet them.

The battle plan that Hugin and Magda had devised called for the ravens to fight in staffels of three, uniting with other groups when the situation called for it, but otherwise they were free to tear through the roost ferreting out their prey. Damon met the first group of crows a hundred feet above the ground, slamming into them and knocking two from the sky as his talons sunk deeply into the breast of a third who met his end as the duo collided with the trunk of a tree. Damon wheeled back above the roost and turned a group of seven crows back toward three staffels that were diving for the ground out of the sun. A few minutes later, Damon turned over on his back and spun out of the grasp of a large crow that had been tracking him for several minutes through the sky. A staffel lead by Hugin killed the stalker and now Damon found himself flying toward the roost that Rothschold had perched on only minutes before. Damon landed on the top branch and surveyed the battle scene. There was no sign of Rothschold or the butcher birds. Magda alighted beside him.

"It is a close thing, my liege. The crows are able to group together and have as yet not panicked." Damon was just starting to reply when their attention was drawn toward the east. Magda spoke first. "What is that?" The black cloud came closer and began to dip toward the ground.

"Their reserves. Rothschold has been more clever than we thought." Just then Signar dropped from the sky and landed next to Damon.

"Over three hundred crow warriors approach, sire." Hugin was already sweeping through the raven attackers and alerting them to the new danger. Signar's voice was urgent. "We must retreat and regroup before they arrive, sire." Damon turned a calm eye toward his aide.

"Retreat will not bring us victory, Signar, we must make our stand here, but look closer and higher." Both Magda and Signar turned and looked to where the black swarm was now only a mile away. High above them and coming out of the sun, the three ravens saw the ten pairs of brown wings and the snowy cloaked heads above them. Signar's voice was pitched with excitement.

"Eagles, sire, it is Galeb." Even before he finished his exclamation, the eagles had split the crow formation in two and Hugins' hastily assembled attackers now had caught one half in a pincer movement that induced the panic the ravens had been waiting for.

Damon suddenly flew upwards and looked back down at the perch.

"Come, we will form a staffel and extract our revenge." He wheeled in the air as the three ravens flew as one toward the teeming sky.

*

Colonel Sackett sped along the black rain-slickened streets. Whenever he saw headlights coming toward him out of the darkness, he made a turn in the Jeep, waiting for several seconds until the vehicle passed on by. He had just lit a cigarette and was waiting for the road to clear when his passenger spoke.

"Do you have to drive so fast without lights and doesn't this thing come with a top?" Sackett smiled as he pushed the Jeep into first gear.

"Yes, to the first question, no to the second." Calvin's head jerked backwards as the Jeep rocketed to the corner and the tires squealed into a right hand turn. A few miles later, Sackett slowed and turned into a narrow street that ran alongside several low slung buildings. He pulled in behind one and stopped the Jeep in a deep shadow thrown off by the building. He turned to Calvin.

"You stay here. If any patrols come by, you leave the Jeep and hide down there." He pointed toward a concrete ramp that led down into the building. Calvin shook his head.

"Where are you going to be?" Sackett jerked his head toward the building.

"In there. I will be back out in five minutes." Before Calvin could protest, the Colonel had sprinted to the side of the building and was climbing through a side window. Calvin looked around nervously for the nearly ten minutes it took for the Colonel to get back to the Jeep. He threw several items into Calvin's lap.

"Get your clothes off and get into those." Calvin picked up one of the harder items and held it up.

"Booties? Have you gone nuts?" Sackett interrupted him.

"How else do we explain your presence? You don't have the right papers, so we can't go through roadblocks, but if there is anyone snooping around at the port, I want them to see a government man when they look your way." Calvin sighed and shook his head as he climbed out of the Jeep and began to peel off his clothes. Five minutes later, the Colonel stifled a laugh. He motioned to the seat behind him.

"You sure do look the part. Get back there, that way it looks like you're somebody important that is entitled to have an American officer ferry you around." Calvin climbed in behind the passenger seat and sat down glumly crossing his arms and bracing himself with his legs as the Jeep launched into reverse.

*

Nightfall approached as the sky battle raged on. As the sun was setting, the battlefield degenerated into dozens of small skirmishes and seek and destroy missions among the spruces as the crows exploited their knowledge of the territory. Just before twilight forty crows that survived the ambushes in Hunters' Den flew in a long line over the mountains that lay just to the south with the raven shock troops in hot pursuit. Magda and Damon quickly organized ten staffels to meet them above the trees and trap them between the two forces. Now as Damon flew with Signar attempting to run three crows into the ground as they weaved their way through the thick forest, he realized that they would have to spend a dangerous night inside enemy territory. He called Signar back and the two of them began to gather as many of their contingent in one place as they could. Two hours later, the full moon bathed the weary ravens in a cold light as they roosted in a cluster of ten trees in the middle of Rothscholds' territory. Damon called a conference but was dismayed when only Echo and Magda attended.

"And Hugin, what of Hugin?" Signar bowed low.

"No sight since the middle of the afternoon, my liege."

"The daylight will return him, as the darkness will cloak him from his enemies." He turned toward Magda. "What do our scouts report?"

"Seventy-five to eighty crow warriors still alive. They are in a canyon roost just to the south of us."

"And Rothschold?"

"Wounded and lying in his cave, guarded by two butcher birds." Damon moved his beak toward Signar.

"I will deal with him in the morning. Has Galeb and his company departed?"

"Yes, my liege, though they stand ready to return if needed on the morn." Damon turned on the large branch and looked at Magda.

"I have a mission for you, sister-raven." He paused while she bowed low on a branch just below his. "Take twelve of the shock troops that were deployed to the Hunter's Den and return there this night. Eat thy fill and then fill thy craws with sweet elk meat and fly back here with haste." He looked out into the moonlit landscape toward the center of the forest where the principal crow roost lay. He looked back at Magda. "Fill the gullets of their nestlings."

*

Hugin took several slow tentative steps, taking care to keep his broken wing from dragging and making noise in the soft pine needles. He had been wounded just before sundown and now as night descended, he sought a place to hide for the night. Above him he heard the wings of his tormentors as they crisscrossed above the tops of the trees seeking him in the growing darkness. He circled the trunk of a large tree and slumped to the forest floor where a small mammal had scooped out a burrow. He closed his eyes and thought of his home roost many wing days to the north.

*

Colonel Sackett sat quietly as the two booties approached the Jeep which sat behind the moveable barricade guarding the entrance to the port. When they were within ten feet, he held up his special ID card and raised his voice.

"I'm in a hurry and I need you to raise this bar now!" The two men stopped and looked at each other as Sackett worked to keep a smile from spreading across his face. One of the booties ran to the barricade and engaged the counterweight, the bar starting up almost immediately as Sackett gunned the Jeep underneath it, Calvin Michaels quickly ducking in the back seat to avoid hitting his head. Sackett immediately swerved the Jeep behind a line of troop carriers in order to disguise his direction of travel. He slowed and pulled into the shadow of the deserted convoy and when the booties returned to their kiosk and turned their backs, he slowly drove across the tarmac and down a small incline until the road appeared that would take them to the CDOTs. He stopped the Jeep behind a low wall and indicated to Calvin it was time to get out. Calvin looked around as he stepped out onto the ground.

"Quite a walk from here to the CDOTs." Sackett nodded as he surveyed the area.

"Park any closer and anyone that comes by will guess that whatever is up involves the trailers in some way." He held out a shiny object.

"What's this?"

"A whistle. If someone approaches in a vehicle, blow it." Calvin turned it over in his hand before he fitted it between his lips.

"And if they're on foot?" The Colonel nodded toward the trailers a hundred yards away.

"Call out loudly to them when they are twenty yards out, I will hear you." Calvin looked around nervously as Colonel Sackett moved quickly up the small incline and double-timed it toward the trailers which shone brightly in the full moon.

*

Lansford Kenny awoke abruptly in the night. He opened his eyes to the blackness inside the tent and remembered the dream that had startled him. Something had been crawling on him, and now that he came fully awake, he felt the same sensation on his arms. He pushed his hand underneath his pillow until he felt the metallic coolness of the flash light. He pushed the sleeve of his shirt up and turned on the light. The yellowish purple spots ran in an irregular line from the crook of his elbow to his wrist and were already raised and several of them were weeping and crusted. He dropped the light and rolled onto his back fighting hard to control his breathing which was now coming in ragged, hurried gasps.

*

Damon watched from his perch in the tallest spruce as the ravens returned in a thin line, their wings bright with silver flashes as the long wings pumped up and down in the moonlight. Magda flew a circle around the great tree before she alighted and together they watched the column descend to the circle of trees that held the nests where the female crows cowered with their young.

"An uneventful trip sister-raven?" Magda moved her beak in assent.

"As well as could be expected and save for the glory of the moon, the path could have led in circles." Magda moved her head in a way that suggested there was more, so Damon held his reply. "There are already men in the Den. They have discovered two of the three carcasses that Sasha has killed. They were busy on their walkie-talkies and radios. Signar believes there will be many more when the sun rises."

"And the elk herd?"

"They are nowhere to be seen, sire, tomorrow we will rendezvous if possible, with Sasha and get her opinion of the situation." Damon looked away and gazed out into the blackness.

"Hunger will descend, and hold watch as a sentinel gaunt and cold, and his kingdom will be large and fierce, and all living beings will be bowed as subjects before him."

*

Calvin Michaels didn't hear anything until he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around as casually as he could, but by then, one of the booties was looking in the back of the Jeep and the other was looking Calvin up and down. The one in front of him spoke first.

"I have never seen you before and everyone that comes on this facility checks in with me first." He began to push Calvin against the Jeep. Calvin pushed back.

"You aren't told everything. I am here at special request." The bootie stopped his shoving, but Calvin could tell from the way his eyes moved that he was more than a little suspicious. Before Calvin could think of a ploy that might buy some time, the bootie growled and grabbed the collar of his gray wool tunic.

"Papers!" Before Calvin could reply or move to comply, the second bootie exclaimed, and the other two men turned toward him where he stood at the back of the Jeep and where he was holding up a small carbine.

"This is American made. And the Jeep is one of theirs as well." The one holding Calvin sneered and strengthened his hold on Calvin's coat and began to try and twist him to the ground. Calvin who was slightly larger than the bootie, resisted and he had just succeeded in pushing the man onto his back when two explosions split the air next to Calvin's head, forcing him to his knees. He held his ears and stared at the bootie on the ground in front of him, who was holding his throat and choking as rivulets of blood poured from both sides of his mouth. Calvin straightened up and saw Colonel Sackett rolling over the body of the second bootie and retrieving his carbine from underneath the man. His mouth moved, and he gestured to Calvin to get in the Jeep. Sackett hoisted the heavy pack with the filters into the back of the Jeep, but Calvin could not hear them when they landed on the hard metal floorboard. He moved as quickly as he could, and barely had enough time to grab hold of the windshield support before Sackett had the Jeep in a hard turn and was speeding back toward the gate where they had first come in.

*

Hugin awoke as the sky began to lighten above the tree beside him. He lay still and thought about why he had come out of his slumber as he had, was it a dream or did something cause him to stir? He was still mulling the thought over when he heard a small scratching sound behind him. He turned slowly in the shallow depression and looked behind him. Two large crows stared down at him from a white rock, their eyes gleaming in the half-light of the dawn as if they were four pools of blue fire.

*

Damon inspected the formations as the sun spread its' weak glow over the forest even before it had climbed above the horizon. Though the losses had been higher than he hoped, Damon was heartened by the eagerness of his warriors. Nearly all the raiders from the Hunter's Den campaign survived and were even now circling in groups of six scouting for the remaining crow forces. He was just about to take to the air when Signar flew toward him and landed on the nearest spruce branch. He was slightly out of breath and Damon waited patiently until Signar signaled he was ready to speak.

"Sire, there is a flag of truce." He indicated the roosting trees a hundred yards away. "They wish to speak to you." Damon cocked his head and looked at his lieutenant.

"Only one crow and he must come here. I will give them five minutes of our time. After you have delivered the message, find Magda and have her take the shock troops three hundred feet above us and circling. She will know what to do when the time comes." He watched as Signar flew quickly to one of the smaller roost trees. A few seconds later a lone crow flew toward him and made three circuits of the large spruce and let out three quorks. Damon answered with one sharp one of his own. The crow banked in the air ten feet away and landed on the branch that Signar had just vacated. The crow looked at Damon for a few seconds before he spoke.

"I am Grindol." Damon moved his beak impatiently.

"I know who you are, the question becomes why are you here and not rallying your troops?" Grindol fluffed his wing feathers and looked casually around his former roost.

"There is an important matter between us that cannot wait. I would not want you to think at a later time that you did not do all you could." Damon raised up a few more inches on the branch and peered down at the smaller bird.

"As I am not in the habit of regretting any of my actions either planned or spurred on the spot, I must ask to what do you refer?" Grindol moved his beak to the north.

"We have Hugin." Damon stared at the crow until the black eyes slid away before he spoke.

"And we have Rothschold. Is the game on of bargains struck and battles' blood foiled?" Grindol fidgeted for a few seconds and grasped the branch more firmly.

"An exchange, your highness, to be sure. Hugin for Rothschold and a retreat back to your valley." Damon huffed and flared his wings three times rapidly.

"There be not here a fool who took to flight just yesterday, my dear Grindol, and even had the advantage so dearly won, not fallen to our side, Hugin himself would not allow the granting of such a foul request." Damon waited for several seconds for a reply and when none was forthcoming, he took two quick aggressive steps on the branch until his beak was only an inch away from the crow.

"You have five seconds to leave for your roost." Grindol looked around quickly and then dropped backwards off the branch and was halfway back to the roost when he came again into Damon's view.

*

Calvin saw Colonel Sacket mouth something in his direction but didn't need to be told to hang on as the Jeep barreled toward the barrier. Calvin braced himself with his legs under the dash and held the window stanchion with both hands as the front of the Jeep collided with the pole barrier snapping it off, the yellow cylinder careening over Calvin's head and bouncing on the pavement behind as the Jeep spun around and faced the direction it had just come. The two booties had rushed toward the barrier just before the Jeep reached it and now the ends of their rifles twinkled orange, though Calvin could not hear the blasts even though he felt a rush of air go by the right side of his face. Colonel Sackett regained control of the vehicle and was now zigging and zagging down toward the civilian side of the harbor. Within a few seconds they had dropped below a low breakwater and were out of sight of the booties who had begun to chase them across the tarmac, but now had retreated and were running full-speed back toward their kiosk. Calvin began to hear the sounds of the racing engine, though the sound cut out like every few seconds like a speaker that had a loose wire. Sackett steered the Jeep through the deserted back streets and made several u-turns to throw off any observers and finally slowed down when they were out in the country, the dimmed lights of the nearly deserted city glowing dully on the horizon behind them. The Colonel pulled off the road and parked behind a thicket that screened them off from any one coming down the road from either direction. He climbed quickly from the Jeep and walked around it with a flashlight in his hand. Satisfied that there was no major damage, he reached in the back and pulled out a small canteen. From his hip pocket he produced a small flask and poured the contents into the canteen. He was sloshing it around when Calvin heard the first words since the bootie had tried to wrestle him to the ground.

"and there was nothing else to do, it happened quickly as these things do, and don't worry, your hearing will return to normal in a day or two." Calvin nodded glumly and when he spoke, it sounded to him as if his head was a large echo chamber.

"Sorry they got the jump on me. They must have come out of the bushes on the other side." Sackett shrugged.

"Not to worry, Professor, this isn't exactly your balliwick, if you know what I mean. Let's just thank God we got all the filter canisters there are to get and that we are both still in one piece." He had taken two large gulps of the cocktail and now held it out to Calvin. Calvin raised the cold metal to his lips and took a big mouthful letting it slide in installments down to his stomach and was still in the middle of that process when Sackett cranked over the engine and made a wide turn back toward the road.

*

Damon flared his wings in the stiff breeze and led four other ravens in a sweeping diving turn that picked up speed as they collided with the ten circling crows that had been flushed from the blackberry thickets moments before. The impact from Damon's body killed one of the crows outright and his beak penetrated a second one as he latched onto a wing with his talons. As he flew on with the raiders still behind him, he gained altitude and circled the battlefield looking for more prey. All he could see were other ravens doing the same as they swept through the trees, making graceful turns and inspecting each one for malingering crows before moving on. He performed a looping roll and came up beside Signar.

"Take four of your fellows and find Hugin. I will look for Grindol and then I will meet you at the cave where Rothschold is being held. Damon dropped down to fifty feet above the trees and began to search for Magda. He found her on the ground surrounded by several members of her flock and tending to a wounded raven.

"Magda, how have you and yours fared this morning?" She looked up from her task.

"The same as yourself, my liege, from the look of it. There are no more crows in this sector that can put up a fight, though there be many wounded and the rest who are not already dead, dispirited in their hiding, but our losses were light today, and in that we can also rejoice." She stepped back as the wounded raven got to his feet and began to strut around, testing his wing.

"Unless you have more ministrations, Magda, join the search for Hugin, I have a meeting with the architect of all this fury."

*

Lansford Kenny moved carefully down the vine covered slope toward the small creek that ran under the bluff he had been camping on for four days. He knelt down and took in several mouthfuls of the cold water, letting each one trickle down slowly, giving him short relief from the burning pain in his throat. After a few minutes, he stood unsteadily and carefully rotated his head in an attempt to clear his vision, which was now reduced to a bright circle in its' center and swirling blurriness on the edges.

As he lay in his tent and listened to a light rain drum on the canvas, he heard the sound of an engine on the road a half mile away. I must move the camp deeper into the mountains he thought to himself. Perhaps tomorrow, he decided and rolled over onto his side and into a fitful sleep.

*

Damon gazed down on the wounded crow. Rothschold had raised his head when Damon first entered the cave, but now he lay on his side, his open eyes staring at the rock wall a few inches away. The butcher birds stood wary guard at the mouth of the cave, ignoring their prisoner.

"Behold what foul dividends thy ambition has paid, Rothschold. The loss of many souls whose wit and wings will be sorely missed in the crucible that awaits us all." The voice that replied was smaller and flatter than normal.

"And you, Damon, why so much bother about trivialities? Souls are born and die, their replacements always ready to hand, leave me to take my place among them in peace."

"Always the easy exit, eh, Rothschold? And the foundlings in their nests not a hundred yards from thy coward's beak, what say have they?" Rothschold coughed a small chuckle.

"Their fate is to be told which wing is up and their silly lives the raw ingredients for the great tasks that power and ambition are destined to perform."

"And where are we to look for these great tasks and achievements that you leave behind for us to behold and admire, Rothschold?" Damon waited in the dim light of the cave for a reply that didn't come. Instead a flutter of wings at the mouth of the cave caused him to turn his eye in that direction where Signar had just landed.

"Hugin is no more, my liege. He has been murdered by his captors." Damon stared at the far wall, ignoring the small chuckle that rose up from the ground beside him. A few moments later, he spoke.

"Where is he now?"

"Magda is with him, his soul is being attended, sire."

"And his executioners?"

"Dead, by Echo's own hand, my liege."
CHAPTER EIGHT

Who prepares for the raven its' nourishment when its' young cry to God and wander about without food? —Job 38:41

Gregor Valich leaned against the corner of the building and listened to his own breathing in the silence that filled the streets in front of the NSS building. He glanced at his watch and decided to smoke another cigarette when he heard the metal door close loudly across the street. He moved back into the shadows and watched as Colonel Sackett descended the five concrete steps, turned right and walked ten yards to the Jeep that was parked in the alleyway. Gregor turned and gave a hand signal, at the same time indicating that he wished the action to be accomplished slowly. The sound of the Jeep pulling out from the narrow alley masked the sound of the large truck that now pulled even with the building that Gregor was hiding behind. Colonel Valich climbed into the cab of the truck and pointed down the street.

"He went that way, but stay back, I don't want to spill the beans too soon." He laughed to himself as he sat back in the seat. When they turned the corner, the Jeep could be seen for several seconds before it made a sweeping left hand turn. Gregor cuffed the Sergeant's shoulder.

"He is heading to the government motor pool. Turn right here, there is another route and one that will make sure we are not seen."

*

Lila stood on the highest part of the highest Crag and watched as the ravens returned in long weary lines, most of them peeling away from the formations to deliver the contents of their craws to the roosts. From a hundred yards, she recognized the large raven that continued on toward her perch. She waited until he was safely landed and standing in front of her.

"Raven brother, I am pleased to see thy visage weary but well."

"Raven brother, I am pleased to see thy visage weary but well." He lowered his beak toward the ground and then pulled his head up even with hers.

"Homes' verdant ground is a visage's feast and a warriors' welcome."

"And tidings glad that hold a husbands' portent?" Echo turned and watched the last few ravens as they descended to the roost.

"A duty's begging attends ceremonies sorrowful and momentous. Hugin the great lies this day among the battles' lost remains and future coffers suffer for the losing." Lila raised her beak toward the empty skies as the hunger cries from the roost fell into silence. Echo waited for a few minutes until he spoke again,

"Thy nestlings await the gorging of a fool's craw many miles in the coming." Lila turned and gazed for a few seconds at her brother-in-law.

"And have it, they shall as but a shoddy stand-in for a father's caress."

*

Colonel Sackett smiled to himself as he saw the Russian truck behind him turn off the main road. At the corner he made a swift U-turn and headed back the way he had just come. Ten minutes later he slowed as he saw the Russians parked a half block from the motor pool. He turned into the first street he came to, parked the Jeep and began walking up the boulevard on foot. Aside from the truck two blocks ahead, there was no sign of anyone on the street and now that the wind was not blowing in his face, the acrid smell hung in the air as he inserted cotton balls into each of his nostrils. The only remedy he had at hand was his flask of Tennessee whiskey and he blinked his watery eyes as the fumes from the saturated cotton wafted through his sinuses. His vision had cleared by the time he stood behind the Russian truck.

"Gregor!" The passenger door opened, and Gregor pulled down his surgical mask and looked over his shoulder at the American colonel, his face growing an insincere smile.

"Colonel Sackett. You have this funny way of turning up at the odd moments, no?" Sackett ambled over until he was even with the door of the truck but five yards away, his carbine resting in the crook of his arm.

"I might say the same of you, comrade. You must want to see me very badly to wait outside the NSS for two hours." Gregor climbed down from the cab and buttoned his tunic up before he reached back into the truck and retrieved his own carbine. He waved it to punctuate his next sentence.

"I think this plague has made everyone jumpy, Colonel. I am on a mission just like you and I was waiting for orders, just like you." Sackett shifted the carbine to a more comfortable position and ambled toward the Russian stopping five feet away, adopting a casual pose and a blank expression. Sackett glanced up and down the deserted street.

"Not much left to police, Gregor. Even most of the booties are dead or vamoosed." Gregor shrugged and pulled a cigarette tin from his pocket and lit one of the small thick cigarettes without offering one to the American Colonel. He looked up as the end of the smoke ignited.

"There is plenty of work for Gregor, Colonel." He gestured to the truck and the Sergeant inside. "And I still have a squad of men." He looked up and down the street in an exaggerated fashion before he grinned back at Sackett.

"And your men, Colonel, where might they be?" Sackett snorted.

"Reassigned and you know it, Gregor." The Russian shrugged and spit on the sidewalk.

"News to me Colonel, but I am in a generous mood today, my friend. You are welcome to join Gregor on his mission, one that I am told you have been unsuccessful in accomplishing, eh?" Sackett held his blank expression, but his eyes fastened a hard stare onto the Russian.

"And what mission might that be, Gregor?" The Russian took a long drag on the cigarette and shrugged as he dropped the butt onto the ground.

"The CDOT and the resistance, of course. They are still out there, Colonel, but now they want them alive and they are willing to pay Gregor to do it. They think that those people can save them." He laughed heartily and spat again, looking up slyly at the Sackett. "And you Colonel, you look very healthy to Gregor, very healthy indeed. Perhaps you have some secret to share, eh? Something you have that keeps the plague away perhaps?" Sackett snorted.

"I took the same serum you did, Gregor and what makes you think you can find this CDOT and the resistance?" A wide smile spread across the coarse features.

"Ah, Colonel, that is where Gregor uses his head, eh?" He pointed to the red star on his canvas cap before he continued. "I ask myself: Gregor, who may know what you need to know? And I answered myself: The Russian peasants, the ones that priest was hiding. Hiding in the same place that they had kept the CDOT. So?" Gregor shrugged again. "It was not hard, though it took a week, but finally I hit upon the formula, or more precisely, the formula, just ordinary tap water in a vial, convinced a man who wished to save his family, and now? Gregor will complete the mission." He held up a finger and smiled again. "And also, Gregor will make sure he takes the medicine, eh?"

The two men stared at each other for several more seconds before Gregor sighed and turned toward the truck. When he had climbed inside, he leaned back out the window.

"You wish Gregor good luck, eh, Colonel?" He made a small salute as the truck engine revved and a few seconds later, Gregor's face disappeared down the street.

*

"The sun has been gone an hour, my liege, and my sister has sat the roost for two or more, and yet you just arrive. I have prepared a soft bed of boughs and you shall take your rest deserved." Damon walked wearily toward the soft bed that sat beside his favorite perch on the tallest of the Crags and hunkered down, his head sinking slightly in between his large wings. His eye rose to meet his mates'.

"Thou art the picture perfect, my love, many wing beats from war's horror and sweat." Lila softly caressed the short neck feathers of her mate.

"And thy time and blood spent, my love, does the lineage lie secure?" Damon moved his beak in a casual fashion.

"Tis never a thing done, my love, a realization that has been in my breast for many years. It was something my father said many times but too often it was left to whisper away on the breeze, but naught it be a false prophecy, it is but the same tale differently told and so it will be for Darius and for our grandchildren's ken." Lila spoke quietly.

"And Rothschold, my lord. Do his wings still move in the wind?" Damon shook his beak and turned his gaze toward the roost, where several squeals of hunger could be heard.

"He reigns no more but flies this night through the steamy sulphur clouds of hell."

*

Colonel Sackett reached for the carbine. Calvin Michaels tried the procedure one more time before he sighed and handed it over. The Colonel held the weapon up and repeated the procedure slowly and then handed it back to the Professor. He turned to Arina.

"Make sure he can do it in the dark before nightfall." He turned away and left the tent after she had nodded and taken the gun from Calvin. He walked to the fire where Eva Lisson was sitting and drinking a cup of tea. He sat down wearily across from her and watched the flames as they threw their shadows on the wall.

"Why not just find a new place, Colonel?" He looked up and turned his head toward her as if he had been unaware that she was sitting five feet away. He gazed back into the fire.

"Even if there was a place we knew was safe, we would be caught out in the open. Maybe the serum works, maybe not, but at least here there might be some protection from the plague. Out there..." He turned and motioned toward the entrance to the cave and then moved his gaze back to the fire without finishing his thought. Eva persisted.

"But if we stay here, we are doing just what he wants us to do." Sackett turned and looked at the scientist and rubbed his face with his hands and yawned.

"No, you and Trina are staying here with the children. The three of us are going to meet Gregor on our terms not his." Eva shook her head.

"The last time you saw him he had five men with him, men that have been in many battles. You have Calvin and Trina." Sackett nodded at the fire.

"It will be enough. If we can surprise him in the right place, it will be enough." The two were quiet for several minutes watching the flames.

"And after, Colonel, what about that?" Sackett turned and looked over at the woman her face bright in the orange light and older looking than just a week ago, he thought.

"I don't understand. After. After what?" She laughed and shook her head.

"There will no one to give you orders, Colonel, no need for men such as yourself in a world where there is no one left to fight." Sackett nodded slightly as he resumed gazing into the fire.

"Let us hope you are right, Ms. Lisson, though that would be the first time in the long sad parade, would it not?"

*

Father, can you hear me? The hour has come for you, the hour that leads past the darkness to the light of dawn. You must gather your strength for what awaits you in your new life.

"This new life that you speak of, it springs from where and materializes, how? The sediment of evil sinks to the bottom and pollutes all above it. The forces of darkness will always prevail as the devil's legions grow in number as if they were in league with the plague itself. Do not speak to me of the promise of life new or otherwise, whoever you are."

But the resurrection points in another direction, does it not? And are not all your philosophy and scriptures at base just the distilled essence and illumination of that truth? And does not the ultimate test come and come hard and the hour of your deepest disbelief be also the golden path where your own resurrection is nigh?

"I am weary, be gone. Is it not enough that I am to die in this tomb alone and forsaken? Must I also be visited by such harpies as you that confound my spirit already so mired in vexation? Away, I say, and take the false tidings of joy along with you to keep you warm at night."

*

Sackett peered down the hill to where the two lane road wound toward the cave a mile away. He looked at the steep hill across from his position but could not see Arina. He turned to Calvin.

"The plan, Calvin, are you clear about your role?" Calvin shifted the carbine uncomfortably under his body and nodded.

"I know what to do, I am not quite sure I can accomplish it." The Colonel spoke quietly.

"And what is it exactly, that you think you will not be able to do when the time comes? The gun is operable. You have only to aim and pull the trigger, it is set on semi-auto, so you can take your time and make the thirty shots count. It is not so important what you hit, it is what you will represent to Gregor and his men. They know the sound of that weapon, they will think it is me. That will be enough, that and Arina will be all that we need." Sackett waited and when Calvin said nothing more, he patted the shoulder next to him and climbed to his feet, scouting for the best vantage point to see who might be coming down the road.

*

Damon delivered the cached meat to the nestlings and watched while the young birds finished it quickly. Darius stood by his side. Damon heard and felt a rush of air and looked up to see Darius flapping wildly toward the ledge five feet above the nest. Before Damon could react, Darius had succeeded in clawing his way onto the precarious perch. He looked down at his father and his siblings, none of whom had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Damon lifted from the nest and joined his son.

"Foolhardy, my son. That is best done on the ground, not in a two hundred foot column of basalt. Praise be, that your mother was not in attendance."

"It is not the lack of wing that binds me, father, but the world withholding all there is to know and the days which stretch slowly and come to so little that is gained at the end of it." Damon walked to his customary perch and looked kindly at his son, who paced around and whose nearly bald head and body barely clothed in soft feathers reminded Damon of the ducks after they have come up from their underwater dives.

"And the rate of it, the rush to acquire, is that how true knowledge is bought? Would not the slow accretion of eternal truths taken in over months and years on the roost serve one better?" Darius considered his father's words for a short spell.

"And the wise decisions lost, father, the paths that could have been made shorter and easier. Do they not weigh heavy on your eyelids as they close for the night?" Damon cocked his head and moved his beak up and down several times.

"They bear down upon your soul no matter their ken or their outcome. It will be so for you as it was for your grandfather, Thedes, and your great grandfather, Marcus the Strong. The flock surrounds you always and within it is all that is needed to be known and all that can be relied upon."

*

Gregor Valich held up his hand and signaled for the Sergeant to stop. The truck creaked to a stop as the headlights lit the road up ahead where it made a slight curve between two hills.

"Why are we stopping Colonel, the place you want is still a mile further on." Colonel Valich nodded.

"Yes, you are right, Sergeant, but what else is out there, eh? The American colonel knows we are coming, he is out there somewhere." The Sergeant shrugged.

"Maybe, maybe not, but he is one man, you said so yourself." Gregor scoffed.

"And if I did, I was probably trying to convince myself as much as you. Tell the men to get out of the truck. Then you take it through there, we will be behind you when you get to the other side." The Sergeant cast a long glance at his Colonel before he slowly climbed out of the cab and disappeared in the darkness. Gregor sat alone in the cab.

"Come on, Colonel, where are you? Gregor will treat you right, you will die like a soldier should, I promise."

*

Colonel Sackett peered through his binoculars and watched as the driver climbed from the cab and went to the back of the truck. Four men jumped to the ground and joined the driver in the red glow of the taillights. Sackett cursed silently to himself and squinted his eyes toward the spot where Calvin Michaels was hidden. Would he know to hold his fire? The Colonel's gaze swept the hillside in front of him and rested on the small field of boulders that concealed Arina. He fingered the small pistol he carried and wished he had even the heavy slow shooting rifle the woman carried. Either way, he thought, it will be better if I am in position. He began to move slowly down the hillside, taking care to keep the trunks of the trees between himself and the yellow light which slanted through the branches.

*

Eline heard the loud hissing from outside the larger tent where she had just put all the younger children to bed for the night. She emerged from the shelter and looked around the large cavern where the only illumination was from the low glow of the embers in the fire and the slanted column of light that was thrown onto the cave floor from the large central window of the CDOT. Her eyes were drawn back to the window as she held her breath, hoping that she would see the scientists at their work. Thirty seconds later she was running across the rocky floor toward the silver trailer, her mind racing back over all the safety procedures she had watched Calvin perform.

*

Sackett reached the bottom of the hill where the truck was parked just ten yards away. He looked back down the road to where Gregor and the other four soldiers waited, just visible under the clouded moonlight. He moved a few yards to his left until the truck hid him from Gregor's view and then he walked calmly toward the cab where the driver was busy looking in his rearview mirror in an effort to locate the position of the rest of the troops. He didn't see the colonel until the small bore of the pistol was just under his nostrils.

"Stay calm, Sergeant and climb down from there, nice and slow." The Sergeant started to raise his arms, but Sackett shook his head. "Natural, Sergeant natural, as if nothing in the world is wrong." Sackett took two steps backward as the door slowly opened and the Sergeant's boots hit the muddy road. Sackett swung the door slowly shut and then prodded the man in the back with the pistol. "Start walking, keep a good pace but not too fast." The Sergeant spoke in a low voice that didn't hold the sound of fear that Sackett expected.

"My orders are to stay with the truck until Gregor thinks it is safe enough to join me."

"New orders. We are going to walk halfway to Gregor and then you are going to tell him that something is wrong with the truck, got that, comrade?" Sackett pushed the small barrel harder into the small of the man's back as the Russian started moving toward the small knot of men a hundred yards away. The Russian was as tall as the Colonel and Sackett believed that he could get almost all the way in the darkness before Gregor would spot him.

The two men walking as one made it almost forty yards before he saw movement ahead of him. The four men with Gregor split up and moved to either side of the road before crouching, their weapons trained toward Sackett and the Sergeant.

"Is that you, Colonel Sackett? Why didn't you just say you wanted to come with Gregor, eh? I think I remember inviting you, no? And why are you hiding behind Sergeant Kolov?"

"Tell your men to drop their weapons, Gregor, or Kolov pays the price." The Russian Colonel laughed loudly and brought his own carbine up to level.

"And my weapon, Colonel, what should I do with it?" Sackett tried to push the Russian out of the way, but Gregor's three shot burst tore through the Sergeant's chest as Sackett followed the man to the ground firing half of his magazine toward Gregor as he fell. Before he could assess the damage he had done with the five shots he had sent into the night, the mud around him erupted in harsh slapping sounds as Gregor's men opened up on the road, most of the bullets meant for Sackett plowing into the hapless Sergeant Kolov lying in front of him. Colonel Sackett was running through his possible options for retreat when he heard the sound of a heavy caliber weapon from the hill on his left side. Almost at the same time, he heard his own carbine as Calvin squeezed off the small 9mm rounds every three seconds as Sackett had instructed. There was a brief interval where the Russians had to redirect their fire that Sackett seized upon and rolled to his left into a shallow ditch that ran parallel to the roadway. He crawled several yards and then lifted his head just enough to see down the road. The Russians were crossfiring at their targets on the opposite hill sides and Gregor was lying on his stomach in the roadway still firing toward where Sergeant Kolov lay. They seemed unaware that he had changed his position. He quickly crawled the ten yards to a small culvert that blocked his way. Through the round one foot corrugated tunnel the two Russians on his side of the road were framed, one reloading his weapon while the other laid down fire toward Calvin's side of the hill. Sackett propped his arm on the edge of the metal, took careful aim and sent the 9mm bullet on its' way. The intended target spun around, his weapon clattering to the ground. His companion turned his head and received two bullets in the back from Calvin's weapon. Sackett raised up and swung the pistol toward the other side of the road where one of the other two Russinas lay dead, the fourth was standing near his dead comrade, his hands in the air.

Colonel Sackett climbed out of the ditch and walked the twenty yards to where Colonel Valich lay wounded in the roadway frantically trying to push cartridges into an empty magazine. He stopped when Sackett stood over him and blocked out the moonlight. Gregor smiled as he reached for the pistol on his belt. Sackett pointed the small pistol at the Russian's chest and shook his head.

"No, Gregor, it's over." Gregor's smile faded a little as he moaned and attempted to turn over. Sackett saw the pool of blood that was seeping slowly into the mud.

"Let me get you to one of the infirmaries so you can get that looked at." He motioned for the other Russian to get down on the ground. "If any of your other men are still alive, I will take them too." The Russian colonel looked up, the pale light of the moon glinting off the red star for a fleeting moment.

"No, Colonel, this is as far as Gregor goes. They would only patch me up enough so I could wait in the darkness for the black death." Sackett was going to reply when he saw a movement to his side. The other Russian soldier was pointing his pistol at Sackett.

"Back away." He spoke in his heavily accented English. Sackett took two steps backwards but flipped the safety tab to 'fire' on his weapon as he did so. The Russian realized that Sackett still had his pistol and was raising his to fire when there was a shot that came from behind Sackett. The Russian flipped onto his back and clutched his throat, his feet churning up the mud of the roadway as he died. Calvin Michaels stepped out of the darkness and the two men looked at each other across the short distance for several seconds. Sackett gestured over his shoulder.

"Go see if Arina is OK." Calvin nodded and glancing quickly at the dead Russian disappeared into the darkness his footsteps fading away as Sackett looked back down at Colonel Valich.

"Can't leave you here, Gregor, you know that." The dark face nodded and groaned again as the Russian tried to move his legs.

"Who thought it would come to this, eh, Colonel?" His breathing was labored, and his tongue was thick. "Many times, Gregor should have died, but here, for this?" He turned his head and looked around the bleak scene before he looked up again at Sackett. "I should be home with my wives." He chuckled and grunted as he turned his face toward Sackett. "You know what you must do, eh, Colonel?" Sackett stared into the dark eyes for several seconds before he nodded. A small smile grew on the Russians' face. "And when you are done, Colonel, take something from Gregor to keep in your bag there, eh?" Colonel Sackett didn't reply but stepped forward until he was looming over Gregor.

A shot rang out as Calvin and Arina came off the hill and stepped onto the roadway. Sackett's face came out of the darkness a minute later.

"Are you OK Arina?" She nodded and shifted the heavy rifle to her other arm. Sackett looked at both in turn.

"So far, we have done everything right. But now we have to shift this scene somewhere else so if someone is left to stumble upon it they won't know where this all took place." Calvin cleared his throat and Colonel Sackett looked in his direction.

"Aren't you afraid that he told someone where he was going?" Sackett shook his head as he replaced the magazine in his pistol and held it out to Calvin. Calvin handed over the carbine and slipped the pistol in his belt before Sackett replied.

"No, no worries on that front. I know how Gregor thought and how he operated. He would be too afraid that someone might steal his glory and the money." He pointed toward the truck. "Let's get that thing backed up, we have a long ride ahead of us."

*

Melampus strutted upon the trodden down turf of the meeting ground. He moved to the edge of the precipice from time to time and gazed out upon the domain of the Valley of the Ravens as it stretched before him tranquil under the mid-morning's mist. He glanced toward the sun as a rush of wings drew his attention. He moved his beak in greeting when he saw Lila folding her wings a foot away.

"Thine approach is propitious, as I was musing gentle on the events just passed." He peered into the kind brown eyes and moved his beak slowly several times. "Thy aspect be not of the variety gay this morning, would that be so?" Lila looked down at the smaller raven and noticed the white streaks that shot through the feathers of his head for the first time.

"My aspect though gloomy be, is not of any propitious act known. It is an aspect that visits frequently upon the nest maternal and one I know well, but there is more and though the futures' glance shines pure, there is but the thought that something is missing or soon shall be."

"Grieve not, Lila, thy progeny strong and rare, still attend the roost. A rare bird indeed and one that you shall grow to know and wisely." Lila closed her brown eyes for a second and then opened them to behold the lands that sheltered the Ravens of the Valley. She spoke no more but watched as Melampus launched himself downward on his daily trip to the roost.

*

Arina spoke calmly through the small microphone. She looked up through the window at Eva Lisson who was standing with her headpiece pressed against the plexiglass.

"How long were you exposed?"

"Ten minutes until Eline reattached the coupling and the oxygen began to flow again, and the locks opened." She looked at something near her feet. "Trina is still unconscious. We have to get her out of here."

"Is the capsule fully pressurized?"

"Yes, but we cannot be taken out in our decontamination suits, or we may infect everybody." Arina hung up the cord that held the microphone and cast a grim look at Calvin.

"What are we going to do?" Calvin turned around when he heard Colonel Sackett clear his throat.

"We have the extra contamination suit in the car. One of us puts it on and goes in there and minsters to Trina inside or brings her out here." Calvin considered the suggestion for a moment.

"But the suit only allows enough oxygen circulation for three hours under normal exertion. What then?" Sackett shook his head and nodded toward the CDOT. "Back in there." Arina stood up.

"I will go in, I'm a nurse, at least I can make some kind of determination as to what the problem is and whether we can safely move them into the cave." Calvin nodded and headed toward the entrance to the cave and the small car that was hidden beneath several inches of spruce bows. Colonel Sackett followed him outside and helped clear away the branches then indicated the Jeep twenty feet away.

"I'm going in to report Gregor missing. You going to be able to handle things around here?" Calvin nodded and began to move off, the contamination suit over his shoulder. "Professor?" Calvin turned and shielded his eyes against the rising sun. Colonel Sackett gave a short salute. "Thanks for the work out there." Calvin raised his hand a little way up and half smiled as he turned away.

*

Colonel Sackett slowed as he came around the curve and saw the large raven in the middle of the road. He smiled to himself as he leaned out of the Jeep.

"Good morning, Mr. Damon, how are you?" Damon looked up at him and lifted his wings, his pant feathers fluffy in the cold morning air.

I will feel better when you have turned onto that side road so that we are less conspicuous.

Sackett smiled and cranked the wheel to the right and drove down the narrow path twenty yards until he was under a large oak, the bottom branch already occupied by the big bird.

You have had a busy night, or so I hear from our scouts. There is some trouble at the cave?"

The Colonel shrugged.

"Maybe so, too early to tell. The oxygen coupling failed and if it were not for Eline who kept her head and remembered what she had seen, Eva and Trina would both be dead." He stared at Damon for a few seconds more before he continued. "That's the good news. Want to hear the bad?"

I already know the bad news, Colonel, what I want to hear is your assessment.

Sackett sighed and climbed out of the Jeep as he pulled a small pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one and leaned back on the fender. He indicated the direction he had just come from with the cigarette.

"That CDOT is full of pathogens. They had their headgear off for ten minutes until Eline was able to reconnect the coupling." He took a deep drag on the smoke and let it out slowly as a silent punctuation mark. Damon moved closer by walking to the end of the branch.

Have they made enough progress on a new serum? Enough to inoculate the children?

Sackett shook his head.

"Can't answer that, Mr. Damon, when I get back, I will find out what progress has been made." He looked up at the branch. "So far, the children seem healthy." He took another deep drag and looked at Damon.

That may not last, Colonel Sackett. The pestilence is nothing if not thorough and it knows, if you forgive the characterization, that there are those that are immune, and it will adapt itself to overcome whatever antibodies they possess that protect them.

The Colonel looked down at his boots and considered the statement for a few moments, before he looked Damon in the eye.

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

Of course, Colonel, ask me whatever you wish.

"It seems that you have gone to quite some bother to get this organized, the serum and all that, and it occurred to me that seemed rather backwards. Why so much concern whether the human race survives or not, seeing as how they are making every effort to eradicate you and yours?" Damon leaned over on his branch and looked into the pale blue eyes.

It is very simple, Colonel. Our tradition tells us that the day the last man disappears from the world is the beginning of the end for my race. The pestilence must be stopped and if we can keep the family of man alive, no matter how small the numbers, the winged world will survive as well. The children are the logical choice. There is something in their genetic make-up that has protected them thus far. A new serum would be extra insurance and the plague will busy it itself elsewhere in the world and then perhaps go dormant as it has three times before.

The colonel frowned.

"Three times? I was only aware of the one."

No, Colonel, three, this is the fourth and the one borne by birds. You should avail yourself of any new serum that is produced.

"I don't know about that, Mr. Damon. It has been pointed out to me recently that there won't be much call for my services in this new world you speak of."

Nonsense, Colonel, there is always a need for those who would give their lives for the good of the order. My lineage would not have survived if every member was not a warrior first, husband and father, second. But that is not why I detained you, as edifying as these conversations can be, I have another favor to ask, and my hope is that it will be the most easily accomplished.

A few minutes later, Colonel Sackett sat alone in the quiet lane. He reached into his pocket and withdrew an object which he looked at as he turned it over in his hand for several seconds. He pulled the leather bag from beneath his tunic, dropped the small red star inside and then turned the Jeep toward the main road.

*

Father Jovan awoke and stared at the sunlight streaming through the small aperture high above the cot upon which he lay. He stayed perfectly still for several minutes trying to divine the difference that he felt in this day. He had just begun to move his mind toward his hourly meditations when it came to him as a bolt. His cocoon. It was not enveloping him when he awoke, and now he could not conjure it no matter how hard he tried. He forced himself into his meditations and ten minutes later he gave up in despair. He covered his face with his hands and felt the warm wetness of his tears as they trickled through his fingers for the first time since he had been incarcerated. He was still in the same position an hour later.

Father Jovan, it appears you have weathered the crisis. There is nothing further that should cause you to weep. Thy belief is as it ever was and is the catalyst to do great things. Rise, Father and greet the day.

"This day compounds itself in upon me. Why in my personal torment must I bear up under such exhortations? Who pulls the levers that the air itself crushes down upon my soul?"

Your Lord is as he ever was, just as you are the same man though confined to this cell. He has not forsaken you, though you clothe him not with your thoughts and deeds. Cast out thy demons, priest and see to others that deserve the Lord's love more than thyself.

"And thy own sins? Are you not but the devils own will manifest and cast upon the earth to deflect the path of the righteous? To spread disbelief and chaos through the realms?"

I may be all those things and more besides, Father Jovan. But you will never know the truth or lie of what I am unless thy spirit drifts once again upon the surface of the earth. Arise, father Jovan, arise and free yourself.

"And if it 'twere the easement afforded a child, would there be but naught a chance slim that the black death would not envelop my being as it has all others and send my soul to the purgatorial depths?"

That is beyond my ken, Father, but this I know. No man or beast was ever to be free that didn't think himself so in his heart and in his soul. Cross to the door, Father and traverse the threshold.

Father Jovan kept his position for another ten minutes and when he was sure his interlocuter was gone, he sat up. The pain that usually accompanied such a move was almost gone and his head did not swim in the hot spirals as he opened his eyes. The sunlight seemed brighter than usual and he shielded them with his hand from the orange glow of the wall opposite him and closed them when the pain became worse. It was the air that first gave him the inkling. He had never felt a breeze that moved so resolutely through his cell. He slowly opened his eyes. Twenty feet away, the metal door was fully retracted in its' slot and the dimness of the hallway beckoned beyond. Father Jovan sat and stared and then turned onto his knees as he leaned up against the metal cot and began his meditative prayers.

*

Arina sat alone by the fire. She had just finished feeding the children and now she sat and watched Calvin talking to Eva through the microphone. After a few minutes he came toward her and sat down in one of the director's chairs on the other side of the fire. After a few seconds of silence, she looked up at him.

"I'm sorry, Calvin, I wish there was more that could be done." He looked over at her and nodded silently. When a few minutes more passed, and he didn't speak, she stood up and came around the fire and pulled one of the chairs closer to his.

"Trina has recovered somewhat. I think her immune system was weaker and the disease has progressed more quickly. I will make them as comfortable as possible, Calvin." He turned and looked into her dark eyes.

"She wants to keep working." Arina nodded.

"I know. That is all that seems important to her right now." They looked across the fire where four of the girls had scratched out a hopscotch diagram on the cave floor, their giggling voices, intent on their game, echoing softly through the caverns.

*

Father Jovan walked slowly down the corridor that was lit by one dying bulb at the far end of the passageway. When he first emerged from the tomb that he had lived in for twenty-one days he peered into every open door that he came across, but now he shuffled by the cells looking neither right or left, as now he was all too familiar with the horrors that most of them held.

He pushed open the large metal door and climbed the four concrete steps to the street. He felt the breeze and the sun on his face as he looked up and down the deserted boulevard that was covered with a fine greenish-yellow dust. He hesitated for a few minutes, unsure in which direction he should move. He remembered there was a park somewhere nearby, he turned to his left and began walking, the concrete under his shoes slippery from the powdery dust.

Just as the park came into view a block up ahead, he heard the sound of an engine coming toward him from behind. He stopped and considered whether he should attempt to hide or run but decided on neither as he heard the squeal of brakes beside him. He turned and gazed in the direction of the noise. All that registered was the pale blue eyes five feet away.

"Father Jovan, I presume?"

*

Lila found her husband in his usual spot. She saw him framed by the wide valley that the lineage had lived in for over two hundred years. Next to him was Melampus and she joined them in the warm midday sun.

"And has the brood quieted, my love?" He pressed his wing against hers.

"Yes, they are at rest, and Darius is reciting one of the poems you taught him." Melampus made a chuckling caw deep in his throat.

"Words are dangerous around that one, a heeding all should take in." Damon looked over at the smaller bird.

"And you, Melampus, do not the sentences fall long from thy beak more than from elsewhere?" Melampus moved his beak up and down.

"Truth be that more was contained inside the black shell than is given from without." Lila turned a brown eye toward the elder bird.

"The 'filling', Melampus, how long until it appears?" Melampus looked down at the ground and scratched the dirt with a thin claw.

"Not to be known until it begins. Mine was the beginning of the second year, but the one who came before me was in it's throes before he was able to take wing." They all looked skyward as Signar flared his wings and landed softly behind them. Damon turned and beheld his aide.

"How do you find the rations this morning, Signar, was the report of a new carcass sighting, accurate?"

"Inconclusive, my liege, one scout says it is there on Golden Ridge, another reports he cannot find it." Damon nodded his head. "I have a short trip to make and back upon my way I will check for myself." He looked at Lila and Melampus before he spoke again. "And the crows, any sign of activity since the battle?"

"None that speaks of concern, my liege, only that the remnants have decamped and moved south out of the areas our patrols frequent." Melampus cawed softly.

"Hail Damon, thou hath proved thy father's wishes to trueness. The lore of the crows will burn with the sting of it for generations and will move them not, lest they bear and break under the curse of Rothschold."

*

The Jeep meandered through the muddy meadow and stopped just in front of the entrance to the cave. Father Jovan climbed out slowly and put his feet onto the ground as Colonel Sackett came around the front of the vehicle and stopped at the entrance with an expectant look on his face.

"What is this place?" Sackett held out his hand as if to show the way.

"This is where the CDOT was moved when it left the barn by Kenny's farm." He led the way and shortened his pace so that Father Jovan could take his time on his unsteady legs. When they reached the main cavern, Calvin came up to greet them.

"Hello Father, how are you feeling?" The priest looked at the man standing in front of him and half-smiled.

"I remember you from the day we arrived at the barn. Yes, I am doing well." He turned his head toward the back of the cave where the sound of children at play could be heard. He walked slowly to the middle of the cave and stood as if in a trance and listened. He turned around and looked at the two men as Arina came over and took his hand.

"Father. You are free. I prayed for it every night. Come and sit down by the fire, I will get you something to eat."

"I am not hungry, child." He followed her to one of the director's chairs and sat down stiffly trying not to jar his head. Arina bent down and peered into his eyes in a clinical manner. Sackettt spoke from behind the priest.

"He may have suffered from a concussion, Arina, three weeks ago when he was arrested." Arina ran a quick series of visual tests and nodded up at the Colonel.

"There are no symptoms that I can see, Colonel, but I will keep him under observation for a few days, sometimes the symptoms return even if only briefly." Calvin and the colonel sat down on either side of Father Jovan, Sackett pushing several small logs into the middle of the fire pit. He thought of his flask in his pocket but decided against it. The three men watched as Arina climbed into the decontamination suit and checked herself through the procedure for deactivating the pressurized lock before she entered the CDOT.

Good evening, Gentlemen.

Damon spoke from a large boulder that sat several yards away from the fire and slightly behind the three men. His eyes gleamed golden in the orange light of the flames. Father Jovan half stood from his chair, his eyes unfocused as he stared straight ahead.

"I know this voice, from whence does it come?"

It comes from within you, Father as much as it exists outside of your being. You are here, now, among your tribe and soon you will be yourself as much as before and the work that is your destiny can begin in earnest.

Damon flew to the only empty chair by the fire directly across from the three men. Father Jovan sat down, and his eyes were now focused on the raven eight feet away.

"And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over all the cattle."

And your dominion shall reign, toward that very end is my toil directed. For wither men, wither the Ravens of the Valley, and all the wings of the air. And you, Colonel, your command has dwindled surely, but it is no less a bastion against the forces that would see chaos rise and irrationality prevail. And Professor Michaels, the world has been reduced to a microcosm handy, an extant tribe that shows boundaries sure and language pure.

Damon' attention was drawn to the CDOT for several seconds. He looked back at the men and considered them for a short spell.

My scouts report that there are but a few humans still alive in the territory that stretches from the north shore to the coast, and those that breathe today will cease in a week's time. That which has been foretold has come to pass. The plague will return to finish what it has begun, let us pray that Dr. Lisson is successful.

"She is successful." All eyes turned to the direction from which the small voice had come. Eline stood just outside the light of the fire, her blond hair framing her round face. She turned toward Damon. "I kept her company yesterday and watched her through the window. She has produced more vaccine. She is testing it today to make sure it will work."

Before Damon could reply, the sound of the airlock opening drew everyone's attention to Arina who moved toward the light of the fire, her hands holding several large vials that reflected the orange light of the flames from their sides.

*

Lansford Kenny reached out for the trunk of the tree and leaned heavily against it as his large body slumped to the forest floor. He breathed in great heaves through his mouth and shook his head to keep his eyes focused. His arms though twice their size and covered with a black crust, still held the shotgun and ten minutes later when the shadow crossed his blurred vision, he pulled the trigger.

*

Damon saw the pellet swarm arcing toward him in the fading evening light before he heard the blast from below. He turned his wings on edge and pulled them taut in a braking motion as the end of the lead string found it's mark, their searing heat coursing up through his body, as he fought to keep his wings level and pumping. He felt his body sliding sideways through the air currents as he turned all his remaining strength toward a large spruce that sat on the edge of a precipice twenty feet below. His shattered wing caught it as he tumbled through its' branches until he fell from the bottom, ten feet to the ground. His eyes stared up at the underside of the conifer.

Thy world gazes upon us sweet and fresh in regal redemption, father.

The edge of a dark line advanced across his vision.

All that has been foretold has come to pass.

The small meadow where he lay became still and the air grew colder.

I come now as I would but just been born.

He saw the highest point of the highest Crag and felt the stiff winds through the soft feathers that encircled his neck.

Lila......

The End

Other Books by B.R. Laue

The Steve Cannon Detective Series:

Vegas Wash

A Song for Desmond

Lost and Found

The Knights of Nauvoo

The Mayor of Burro Springs

Palaces of Sand

Seven Come Eleven
