The shadow of home was a smudge on the horizon as they rode through fallow, snow-dotted fields, fields full of dead wheat and corn, lost to the early chill and the death of the modern world. If they weren’t so far away, they’d make good fields for replanting when spring finally decided to finally come.
Maybe someday, Thom thought, closing his eyes for a moment. Someday, they’d clear the fields they rode through again, someday they’d be more than what they were today.
Someday, a fortress on the edge of the ravine, a waterfall, the river spreading, clean and beautiful…
He shook himself and opened his eyes. Someday was a very long way away.
“You were about ten thousand miles away for a second,” Cameron said, still swaying in his saddle, less with the moments of his horse and more with the effort to stay upright. “Or was it years away?”
“Thoughts running wild,” Thom said, shaking his head slightly. His horse danced sideways a little before he jerked it back into check. He was tired—they were all tired. They’d been riding for home ever since J.T. had finished patching them up after their closer encounter with what Seamus had called shadowspawn.
Something about them had been damnably, frighteningly familiar and it left Thom more than a little unsettled. They hadn’t been camazotzi or Greys, but they’d reminded him of them. That alone was enough to set his teeth on edge, but there was something deeper, something just beyond his memory, tickling at the back of his mind.
He’d seen them before—somewhen.
J.T. appeared on the other side of Cameron, leaning out of his saddle to steady the former pilot. “I think both of you had better concentrate on the landscape. Falling wouldn’t be pleasant, and I’d rather not have to get Cameron back in the saddle again. I know mounting wasn’t pleasant for you, either, Thom.”
Thom grimaced. His friend was right, of course, but that didn’t make the words easier to take.
“Road looks clear between us and home,” Seamus said over his shoulder. “At least it seems that way.”
Thom sighed. “Then let’s hope everything’s exactly as it seems.” If it’s not, I’m not sure there’s anything we’ll be able to do about it now.
