“Aye, Mortigen,” I said, and clasped his gardbrace. “A wise plan.” I looked back and forth between them. “We’ll use our riot shields—just like the charge on Post Falls. I’ll take point, followed immediately by Mortigen; Black Duncan, you bring up the rear. Do not stop until you reach the rails—then get off the bridge as fast as you can. With luck, they’ll be little to no resistance.” I crossed myself even though I wasn’t Catholic, or even Lutheran. “May God be with us.”
“May God be with us all,” they repeated, and took up their shields.
And then we went: approaching the opening and cracking our reins; thundering forward as the dusk trembled and yielded before us (and no gunfire erupted), weaving in and out of the empty vehicles and time-displaced cycads—and leaping over fissures—like cla
