Calis and Miranda approached and Erik said, “Captain?”
“We’re going to walk a bit,” said Calis. “Set your sentries and tell them the call sign is two finger snaps and ‘magpie.’ Is that clear?”
Erik nodded. “Clear.”
Whoever might blunder into this camp would be warned with two finger snaps by the sentry. If he didn’t respond instantly with the word “magpie,” he would be greeted with deadly force. Erik hoped that no itinerant traders or mendicant friars came wandering down that trail for the next few days.
As Calis began to depart, Erik said, “Captain?”
Calis halted. “Yes?”
“Why ‘magpie’?”
Calis indicated Miranda with a nod of his head.
Miranda said, “Because it’s the word my agent has, and besides, magpies don’t exist on this continent, so no lucky guesses.”
Erik shrugged and returned to eating his supper.
Calis said, “We need to speak of a few things.”
Miranda sat on a fallen tree bole. “Such as?”
Calis sat beside her. “If we survive, do we have a future? You and I, I mean?”
Miranda took his hand in hers. “That is difficult to say.” She sighed. “No, that’s impossible even to think about.” She leaned over and kissed him. “We have been special to each other since we met, Calis.” He said nothing. “We have found feelings for each other that few people know.” After another moment of silence she said, “But the future? I don’t know if we’ll be alive next week.”
Calis said, “Think on it. I plan on surviving.”
Miranda studied his face in the golden light of the late afternoon sun as it streamed through the trees. She laughed.
“What is so funny?” he asked, his lips turning up in a guarded smile.
“I am,” she said, standing and reaching behind her to unfasten the ties of her dress. “I was always a fool for a pretty blond boy. Now come, warm me up. It’s a cold day.”
As her dress fell to her ankles, he rose and wrapped his arms around her, his hands upon her buttocks; he picked her up in his arms, as easily as he would a child. Kissing her between her breasts, he playfully spun her around in a circle, then laid her gently down on the ground and said, “Boy? I’m past a half century of age, woman.”
Miranda laughed. “My mother always said that younger men made enthusiastic lovers but often took themselves far too seriously.”
Calis paused a moment, studying Miranda’s face. “You never speak of your mother,” he said softly.
Miranda said nothing for a long time, then laughed. “Get out of your clothes, boy!” she said in mock-command. “The ground is cold!”
Calis smiled broadly. “My father told me always to show respect to my elders.”
Quickly they coupled, losing their fear of what tomorrow might bring in one of the most basic and life-affirming acts possible. For brief moments, their experience was one of shared joy and a denial of death, fear, and misery.
Two finger snaps were quickly followed by the word “magpie,” spoken with a slightly odd accent. Erik was at the sentry point only moments before de Loungville and Calis.
They had waited three days, and Calis had decided that if Miranda’s agent didn’t show, he would move ahead, regardless. The horses had been moved to a lush valley that would keep them grazing for weeks. Erik also knew that if no one survived to return, the horses would find their way out of the valley and down into the lower meadows as winter approached. That made him feel better for a reason he couldn’t articulate. While the mountains of Darkmoor were less impressive than those they now approached, Erik recognized the change in the weather. The nights would quickly fall below freezing and snow would come with the next storm. Winter was almost upon them.
The man who came into view in the lead was oddly dressed, in whitish armor that Erik instantly marked as not being any metal with which he was familiar. For one thing, it should have clanked loudly, but it didn’t; for another, it should have made the man wearing it plod along, but he moved lightly upon his feet. His head was completely enclosed in a helm with two narrow eye slits, and upon his back he wore what appeared to be a crossbow of some alien design. Otherwise he fairly bristled with swords, daggers, and knives.
The two men who followed were familiar figures to Erik, who greeted them softly when they were close. “Praji! Vaja! It’s good to see you again.”
The two old fighters returned the greeting. “We’d heard you were among those who got away from Maharta, von Darkmoor,” said Praji.
The two old men were armed as mercenaries, but Erik wondered how well they could still fight, given their advancing age. Still, he had seen firsthand two years previously Praji and Vaja’s toughness, and nothing he saw now indicated they were any less skilled—just tired.