Something flew by overhead. He couldn’t tell what it was. Only that it blocked out the moon’s light for a second.
“Somewhere out there is a bunch of Damaged Mutah, and they’re just as unwanted by Mutah compounds as they are by us. Mom, it’s been more than four years since we defeated them. Where have they been all this time? Why haven’t they attacked other compounds before now?”
“We believe they’ve been trying to build their numbers.”
“Wouldn’t that be difficult? I mean, in order for their ranks to grow, they have to infect more Mutah, and then recruit the ones who survived.” He gave her a confused look. “Mom, I know Normals can’t, but are Mutah able to tell which ones have been infected?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s impossible for anyone to tell who has been ill and recovered, until they reveal it themselves.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m talking about the Mutah who were ill and recovered. The ones who aren’t Damaged. Can they tell which Mutah end up Damaged?”
“No.”
“Then how do Damaged find other Damaged in order to recruit them?”
He watched as his mother’s eyes widened. She glanced downward, into the interior of the compound, but he could tell she was thinking. After a moment, she peered back at him. “That’s a very good question.”
“You mean, no one’s ever wondered or figured out how Damaged are able to recruit other Damaged?”
“We’ve thought about it, but we haven’t tried to investigate it. Our focus has been on trying to protect ourselves.”
Lucien crossed his arms over his chest. “A few years ago, when Iain was learning to become a doctor, he told me that physicians once chose between two fields of medicine. One was call preventative, which meant they worked at trying to prevent people from becoming ill. But since the Great Concussion, that field’s been pretty much pushed to the side because diseases are no longer the same as they were hundreds of years ago. Which is why, today, a doctor’s skill is in curing and coping, not prevention.” He paused, then continued. “If we were able to come up with a way to know which Mutah are Damaged before it’s too late…”
He caught sight of the moon winking again as another night bird passed in front of it. The creatures were on the hunt for prey, and would be streaking through the skies until dawn.
“You’re right,” Atty acknowledged. “It’s one of a countless number of ways our lives today differ from the past. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll be able to find a method.” She sighed and rubbed her arms for warmth. “I came up here to see how you were doing. I didn’t get the chance to talk to you on the trail.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Answer me something that I’ve been mulling over? The Damaged attacked Foster City, then Alta Novis, right?”
“Correct.”
“So why didn’t they attack here at New Bearinger?”
Atty brushed a wayward strand of hair from her eyes, tucking it behind an ear. “We think they may have planned to, after defeating us at Alta Novis. But because we pretty much decimated their numbers, we guess they chose not to, and withdrew west into the forests.”
“Speaking earlier of being on the trail, are we going to stick to the road until we reach Green River? Or will we cut through the woods at some point?”
“We’ll keep to the road. It’ll be safer than trying to maneuver all the men plus the wagons through the forest. Besides, our numbers are growing. We’re picking up another hundred troops from here to take with us when we leave in the morning.”
“Right after breakfast?” he halfway teased.
“Of course.” She smiled and turned to go down the ladder.
He caught a movement right above her head. A blackness framed against the starry sky, looming larger as it approached. With sudden clarity, Lucien realized the creature wasn’t going to fly over them. It was aiming directly at them. Without thinking, he grabbed his mother’s shoulders and shoved her downward, out of range. At the same time, he ducked to shield her.
Hard, leathery wings slammed down on top of him. Lucien struggled to ward off the thing’s talons, when his hand grasped a scaly leg. Instinctively, he twisted the leg, and the creature screeched in anger. The thing fought back, biting and raking his skin with its other foot. If not for his gloves, he knew the creature would have torn through the tendons and bones.
His grip on it was solid, but because he was holding onto the thing with his right hand, he couldn’t draw his sword with his left. Somehow he found the dagger in his waistband and wrapped his fingers around the hilt. With a swipe, he sliced through the thing’s breast, and hot blood splattered across his face and into his eyes and mouth. Mortally wounded, the creature doubled its efforts to free itself. Pain streaked across the back of Lucien’s head and neck as it struggled in its death throes.
He heard his mother screaming his name. At the same time, he heard distant yelling. Giving the leg he still clutched another shake, he pivoted around and flung the creature as hard as he could away from them. There was the familiar twang of arrows being launched, followed by boots pounding the boardwalk as they drew nearer.
Something warm coursed down his face and back as Atty grasped his arm, her voice stricken with fear. “Oh God, Lucien! Lucien! Are you all right? Guards! Help him down, and someone fetch Dr. MaGrath!”
“Mom?”
“Hush, sweetheart. Don’t struggle.”
“What?” The pain wasn’t so much a factor as the dizziness. He couldn’t focus. He reached out to her, when a strong hand took it.
“You were attacked by a bat,” she informed him, holding him tightly against her. “We have to get Iain to tend to that immediately. Help me pray that the damn thing wasn’t rabid.”
Chapter Nine
Demand
“Ow! That hurts, damn it!” Lucien sniffed his shirt. “And I smell like I’ve been on a three-day binge.”
“Hold still,” Iain ordered. He lifted the bottle of distilled alcohol and poured a little more over the wound in the back of Lucien’s head and neck. Lucien hissed from the burn and jerked away, earning him a slap on the arm. “I said hold still.”
He felt a prodding, followed by another lance of pain. There was the sound of more snipping, and a wisp of dark brown hair was tossed out in front of him.
“What are you doing? Cutting off all my hair?” He reached up to check for himself, but got his hand slapped away instead.
“What’s the prognosis, Doctor?” Yulen D’Jacques strode into the room. Atty was right behind him. They walked over to where Lucien was lying on his stomach, his back laid bare across several soaked towels. They both checked the deep scratches sustained by their son, then Atty walked around and hunched down to look him in the eyes.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her for the umpteenth time.
She glanced up at her husband. “He seems clean and clear.”
“But we won’t know for certain until we find out if the bat was the same,” Yulen remarked.