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    Seeds 2: The Growing Time: The Chronicles of Kepos Gé
    Seeds 2: The Growing Time: The Chronicles of Kepos Gé
    Seeds 2: The Growing Time: The Chronicles of Kepos Gé
    Ebook440 pages4 hours

    Seeds 2: The Growing Time: The Chronicles of Kepos Gé

    By Rachel Starr Thomson

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    About this ebook

    "Mind the growing things, Amos … everything that grows comes to harvest."

     

    With Jerusalem Valley occupied by enemies, Linette is forced underground while the settlers undergo a trial by fire. Meanwhile, in the Old World, the newly deposed Carlos Vaquero embarks on a journey to reclaim his province — and his faith. And Jonathan Applegate, newly redeemed and cleansed of the poison in his vines, joins the people called Outsiders to rescue the oppressed and discover the truth about the disease that nearly destroyed him.

     

    But dark forces are at work in the Old World and the New, and everyone — friend and foe alike — must face their greatest fears and confront the truth about things that grow.

     

    SEEDS 2: THE GROWING TIME is the second installment in the Kepos Gé series — award-winning Christian fantasy by author Rachel Starr Thomson.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLittle Dozen Press
    Release dateDec 26, 2020
    ISBN9781927658611
    Seeds 2: The Growing Time: The Chronicles of Kepos Gé
    Author

    Rachel Starr Thomson

    Rachel Starr Thomson is in love with Jesus and convinced the gospel will change the world. Rachel is a woman of many talents and even more interests: she’s a writer, editor, indie publisher, singer, speaker, Bible study teacher, and world traveler. The author of the Seventh World Trilogy, The Oneness Cycle, and many other books, she also tours North America and other parts of the world as a speaker and spoken-word artist with 1:11 Ministries. Adventures in the Kingdom launched in 2015 as a way to bring together Rachel’s explorations, in fiction and nonfiction, of what it means to live all of life in the kingdom of God. Rachel lives in the beautiful Niagara Region of southern Ontario, just down the river from the Falls. She drinks far too much coffee and tea, daydreams of visiting Florida all winter, and hikes the Bruce Trail when she gets a few minutes. A homeschool graduate from a highly creative and entrepreneurial family, she believes we’d all be much better off if we pitched our television sets out the nearest window. LIFE AND WORK (BRIEFLY) Rachel began writing on scrap paper sometime around grade 1. Her stories revolved around jungle animals and sometimes pirates (they were actual rats . . . she doesn’t remember if the pun was intended). Back then she also illustrated her own work, a habit she left behind with the scrap paper. Rachel’s first novel, a humorous romp called Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe, was written when she was 13, followed within a year by the more serious adventure story Reap the Whirlwind. Around that time, she had a life-changing encounter with God. The next several years were spent getting to know God, developing a new love for the Scriptures, and discovering a passion for ministry through working with a local ministry with international reach, Sommer Haven Ranch International. Although Rachel was raised in a strong Christian home, where discipleship was as much a part of homeschooling as academics, these years were pivotal in making her faith her own. At age 17, Rachel started writing again, this time penning the essays that became Letters to a Samuel Generation and Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord’s Prayer. In 2001, Rachel returned to fiction, writing what would become her bestselling novel and then a bestselling series–Worlds Unseen, book 1 of The Seventh World Trilogy. A classic fantasy adventure marked by Rachel’s lyrical style, Worlds Unseen encapsulates much of what makes Rachel’s writing unique: fantasy settings with one foot in the real world; adventure stories that explore depths of spiritual truth; and a knack for opening readers’ eyes anew to the beauty of their own world–and of themselves. In 2003, Rachel began freelance editing, a side job that soon blossomed into a full-time career. Four years later, in 2007, she co-founded Soli Deo Gloria Ballet with Carolyn Currey, an arts ministry that in 2015 would be renamed as 1:11 Ministries. To a team of dancers and singers, Rachel brought the power of words, writing and delivering original narrations, spoken-word poetry, and songs for over a dozen productions. The team has ministered coast-to-coast in Canada as well as in the United States and internationally. Rachel began publishing her own work under the auspices of Little Dozen Press in 2007, but it was in 2011, with the e-book revolution in full swing, that writing became a true priority again. Since that time Rachel has published many of her older never-published titles and written two new fiction series, The Oneness Cycle and The Prophet Trilogy. Over 30 of Rachel’s novels, short stories, and nonfiction works are now available in digital editions. Many are available in paperback as well, with more released regularly. The God she fell in love with as a teenager has remained the focus of Rachel’s life, work, and speaking.

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      Book preview

      Seeds 2 - Rachel Starr Thomson

      Prologue

      Carlos Vaquero, the newly deposed count of Tempestano and a dead man, opened his eyes and gasped for air.

      He blinked the shock of ice-cold water out of his eyes until he could clearly see the face of his servant, Massimo Diego, looking down at him.

      Diego looked stricken with guilt. Appropriately too, given that he had been recently revealed to be a spy in the employ of Carlos’s worst enemies and had, in fact, betrayed him to them.

      Carlos tried to sit up but couldn’t quite manage it. His entire body was a throbbing, freezing, soaking wet ache.

      On his knees beside Carlos, Diego bowed his head and with both hands, held out a pistol.

      Please, my prince, he said, shoot me. Take away my guilt.

      Are you mad? Carlos sputtered. He tried to push the pistol away, but he didn’t have the strength to do that either. I’m not going to shoot you.

      Something in Diego’s eyes hardened, and he tucked the pistol away in his belt and held out a hand instead. Good, he said. In that case, get up. We’re not safe here.

      Carlos stared up at his former friend and servant, betrayer, and now apparent rescuer for a full minute, until Diego impatiently shook the hand he was holding out. Could you hurry? he asked. They’ll be here soon.

      Carlos took the hand. Diego pulled. Somehow Carlos made it to his feet.

      Where are we going? he asked, pushing thick, dripping wet hair out of his face.

      Diego looked impossibly grim. We’re going to see the Imitators, he said.

      Chapter 1

      November 20, 1642, Jerusalem Valley Settlement—The New World

      Linette Cole closed her eyes and tried to melt into the shadows of the barn as the pounding of soldiers’ footsteps and the sound of their shouts grew louder. She quieted her breathing with every ounce of self-control she could muster and tried to calm the pounding of her heart. Behind her, the wood of the barn wall felt splintered and rough against her back, her shoulders, her head. Cold air found its way through the slats and settled in her bones.

      Their shouts grew louder. One of the soldiers kicked the barn door open, and a cold wind and pale light knifed in together, cutting through the dusty air. Linette opened her eyes just barely, as though keeping them almost shut would help her stay hidden. On the other side of the stall where she was hiding, over its half-wall and gate, and past the tools and ropes that hung neatly from the ceiling, she could make out the shapes of soldiers and the deep red of their coats. They carried muskets and bayonets.

      Almost in spite of herself, she dared raise her eyes up. In the rafters high overhead, the foreigners crouched in the darkness. Jacques, the tall man in a green coat, his hands gloved. And Serena Vaquero, the small, dark-haired woman with fire in her eyes.

      They met her gaze, and Jacques raised a finger to his lips in the universal signal for silence.

      As though I would dare cry out.

      She wanted to, of course. She wanted to protest this mad injustice. She had come out of the Trembler meeting house beside Jonathan not even an hour before, flushed with triumph and hardly able to keep herself from throwing her arms around him with pure joy over what she had witnessed—the restoration of his sanity and the redemption of his soul. She’d wanted to dance and sing and shout.

      She couldn’t do any of those things. The soldiers were everywhere. Instead she had just grasped his hand for a moment, and they’d met one another’s eyes and nodded before he let go and ran toward the mountains that surrounded Jerusalem Valley.

      She hadn’t expected danger to herself. Not until Sarah came out of nowhere, grabbed Linette’s arm, and shoved her behind her back with her eyes searching the settlement.

      They’re looking for you, Sarah hissed. Get out of here. Hide.

      Linette kept her eyes fixed on the strangers in the rafters.

      It’s your father, Sarah had said.

      In another stall, Smith’s horse shifted its weight. A board creaked in response.

      There’s someone here! a soldier announced. Linette went rigid. She didn’t dare look, but from the corner of her eye she thought they were moving closer to her.

      The mare whinnied.

      It’s just a horse, one of the men said, sounding disgusted. He turned. Linette lowered her gaze from the foreigners. She couldn’t see the soldier’s face, only his body circling as he scanned the barn.

      The shadows were deep. Fire Within, hide us, she prayed.

      Sarah had said one more thing: They took Smith.

      Tears pricked at Linette’s eyes. They stung. The hay dust itched in her throat. For a moment she wanted to give herself up. Just get this over with.

      But she stayed still, one with the wood, and the soldiers left without another word. They didn’t close the door behind them.

      Linette let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. The cold was too much, and she pulled herself away from the wall, still unwilling to come out of the shadows. She could hear their voices outside, receding. Going toward Sarah’s house, maybe. Her stomach ached at the thought. Or maybe it was her heart aching. She wondered if Jonathan had gotten away and what was happening to Smith.

      Overhead, she heard the sound of the other fugitives shifting position. A moment later Jacques was on the ground, having leaped from the rafters to some foothold lower down and then to the floor of the barn in a flow of motion so fluid she hadn’t even seen him start. He reached up and helped Serena, who was climbing down with considerably more trouble.

      Cautiously, Linette allowed herself to step away from the deep shadows toward the strangers. When Serena reached the ground, she dusted herself off with a grimace. She looked freezing—and out of place, Linette noted. With her olive-toned skin and flashing dark eyes, she was clearly far away from her native land, no matter how much she was wrapped in scarves and coats and fur.

      Jacques acknowledged Linette with a courtly nod. She nodded back, feeling shy and awkward. He was a stranger, but she felt that she owed him her trust. He had helped Jonathan—had fought a demon to free him from his torment long enough to go with Linette to the place where they had found healing.

      Under the floorboards. Just as the Fire Within had said.

      None of the three spoke. The women naturally fell into step beside one another as Jacques edged toward the open barn door and peered outside, over the bare ground that sloped away toward Smith and Sarah’s brown and snow-dusted fields. How they had all ended up together was something of a mystery to Linette. She had been doing as Sarah said—trying to get away from the settlement, to hide as Jonathan must have done. But the soldiers were everywhere, and she had ducked and dodged her way through the settlement and toward the open fields and beyond them the mountains, until finally the soldiers all seemed to converge and she found herself with no choice but to shelter in the barn and hope she hadn’t been seen.

      When she’d looked up, Serena and Jacques had been there.

      Jacques spoke quietly. They’re gone, he said.

      It’s a miracle we weren’t found, Linette said.

      Serena looked at her with an eyebrow raised. Especially you. Your hiding spot was terrible.

      Linette flushed. I didn’t have time to find a better one.

      Jacques shot back a reproving look. They’re gone, but best we keep our voices down. Be kind, Serena. Your hiding place was no better before I arrived.

      Serena huffed. I was intending to be found.

      The corner of Jacques’s mouth quirked. I know confrontation is your usual plan, but I will never understand why you like it so much.

      Listen to you. You’re the one who suggested we get the army to bring us here.

      Actually, that was Eben’s idea.

      Linette looked from one to the other as they spoke, feeling more and more left out of the conversation. They were raising their voices a little, which she felt bound to point out. So she did.

      Jacques lowered his immediately. My apologies, Miss Cole, he said.

      Linette.

      He smiled. Linette. He glanced around the dusty shadows of the barn. Tell us, do you know of a better place to hide?

      Linette frowned and realized she was wringing her hands. She quickly tucked them behind her. Jonathan ran for the mountains, she said. He might be able to survive out there indefinitely, especially if the Outsiders will help him.

      Jacques shook his head. I’m afraid the warriors who brought us here were the last of their people to remain. They told us their tribe had moved to another place for the winter.

      Linette nodded. The thought of the six men who had accompanied Jacques and Serena to the settlement introduced new worries. What had happened to them? Were they still here? Maybe they had gone, and Jonathan would meet up with them and avail himself of their help. She had recognized one of them as his friend, Anasan. There was some comfort in that thought.

      If the soldiers search everywhere in the settlement and are convinced we’re gone, we might be able to hide with the settlers for a while, Linette said. It’s not a good option, but it’s something. Unless you know how to live in the wilderness.

      Serena looked around, hands on her hips. So for now we stay here, she said. Wait for them to look everywhere else.

      Why do they want you? Linette asked.

      Because I am a convicted witch, Serena said.

      Because I am an Imitator, Jacques said. Serena looked askance at him. Linette’s mouth dropped a little, but she quickly shut it again.

      And you? Serena asked, her voice softer and kinder now.

      Linette dropped her gaze. She said the words she hadn’t told anyone except Sarah. Because Phinehas Cole is my father, she said. And I ran away.

      OUTSIDE, LETTY FOSTER watched the soldiers leave the barn with her shawl drawn tightly around her shoulders. Ordinarily, Letty stooped a little—an odd posture for one so young and so short, but it reflected her general outlook on life. Today, she stood ramrod straight. Glaring at the soldiers. Defending everyone she loved, with her posture if she couldn’t do it any other way.

      Thankfully, they didn’t head toward her family’s home, instead marching back toward the governing house. When they had gone a comfortable distance, she began to follow them up the dirt pathway toward the Mescahannec River. Her mother, Sarah, had told her to linger and watch. It seemed to her that everything worth watching was happening in the direction the soldiers went.

      She followed slowly, inconspicuously, up the dirt track toward the little cluster of log and simple frame buildings that made up the heart of the settlement, just inland from the mooring: The governing house with its log walls and welcoming front porch, so lately stained with the blood of their murdered governor. The Trembler meeting house with its whitewashed slat walls and floor. Two squat storehouses where the community kept tithes and provisions. The doors to both storehouses were open now; from where she stopped, she could see the soldiers dragging out barrels of fish and salt pork and carrying sacks of wheat and corn on their shoulders. They were laughing and hefting the sacks as they joked with one another.

      Letty swallowed hard. Besides what individuals had in their homes, the stores were all the extra provisions the settlers had to keep them alive in the coming winter. The harvest had been destroyed in a freakish hailstorm the day before they were to reap it. Even before the soldiers came, they hadn’t known how they would make it through the winter.

      Now ...

      Linger, Sarah had directed her, and keep an eye on what’s happening here.

      Letty stiffened as the soldiers moved to either side of the storehouse doors and looked toward the governing house. She followed their gaze and saw the door swing open and ten or more soldiers march out, surrounding seven men in chains.

      One was her father, Smith. The other six were Outsiders, Jonathan’s friends—painted warriors who had escorted the two foreigners to the valley just minutes before the soldiers arrived. All were shackled, ankles and wrists.

      Her father was prodded inside one of the storehouses. The Outsiders were crammed into the other one. The doors were closed and locked shut with heavy iron locks. Two soldiers stationed themselves outside of each.

      On the porch of the governing house, Captain Almon stepped out and surveyed the scene with his hawkish eyes. Shoulder-length blond hair brushed his shoulders, and yellow vines framed his face. His mouth was hard-set and cruel. Letty wondered how old he was. Younger than her father, she thought. Older than Jonathan. Old enough to tyrannize.

      Her lip curled a little. Letty loved her father, her mother, Jonathan, and Linette, all of whom were threatened by this posturing animal on the governor’s front porch. She loved deeply, and the other side of her love was a hatred that arose in her quickly and settled in for the long haul.

      Linger. Watch.

      Another young soldier stepped out of the meeting house and stood beside Almon. Reddish-brown hair, a handsome jaw. He exuded arrogance. Both he and Almon wore insignia on their coats that indicated rank, but Letty didn’t know who was the superior—Almon, she guessed, judging from the way he carried himself.

      She was just lingering—but she realized she’d kept wandering, moving through the low-hanging branches of the apple trees with their few remaining brown leaves until she was up against a storehouse. The officers on the porch were talking but she was too far to hear. Instead she leaned her ear and her cheek against the side of the storehouse where her father was imprisoned and took comfort in the thought that he was so close. She wanted to call his name but feared attracting attention if she spoke.

      When she was small her father had taught her to tap out I’m scared on the floor of her bedroom at night when she couldn’t sleep. From the room below, he would pick up a broom or his rifle and tap three times on the ceiling in reply. The taps meant I love you. Somehow that was the antidote to fear.

      She raised her fist to knock twice on the storehouse wall, but hesitated.

      And knocked three times instead.

      For a moment, nothing happened.

      Then four taps came back.

      I love you too.

      Or maybe Go home, Letty May.

      She flattened her hand against the wall of the storehouse and could not quite manage a smile.

      They would get through this, she told herself. They had to get through it.

      You! a soldier barked, startling her. He had come around from his post at the front of the storehouse, and he glared holes in her cheekbones. Move on, he said.

      Letty dipped her head and backed reluctantly away from the storehouse. She couldn’t bring herself to say Yes, sir. She took steps away but didn’t turn her back, ducking under the skeletal shade of the barren apple branches.

      The door to the governing house opened again and two familiar figures stepped out—or rather, stumbled out, thrown out by the soldiers who followed close on their heels. Amos Thatcher, with his tall, spindly body quivering like a bowstring, and big John Hopewell. Three more soldiers came out behind them. How many were there, anyway? Dozens at least.

      To Letty’s surprise, Amos pointed himself in her direction, grabbed her arm, and began pulling her along with him as he walked at a rapid pace out of the square.

      Let me go, Amos, she hissed.

      Amos didn’t loosen his grip, despite Letty’s attempt at yanking away. She stumbled a little as he pulled her along. You shouldn’t be here, Leticia, he said.

      You shouldn’t call me that, she snipped.

      He lowered his voice, kept his eyes forward, and kept pulling. You’ll thank me later.

      Mother told me to stay here and watch.

      She wouldn’t want you lingering here. Amos abruptly stopped, but he didn’t let go of her arm. Instead he turned and arrested her gaze with his. His brown eyes were intense behind his spectacles. I don’t trust these men, Letty. The captain at least is not a good man.

      We need to do something. They’ve locked up my father. Letty straightened her shoulders and tried to hold his gaze, despite the feelings rising up. She blinked back sudden tears and fought to keep her voice from going wild. He’s in one of those storehouses, chained up like an animal. He’s alone, and it’s cold, and—

      There’s nothing we can do, Letty, Amos said. I’m sorry. Anything you try will only make things worse for him.

      She tried to yank her arm away, but he was still holding tight. "Then let me stay. I’m not a child, I want to watch. I need to see if anything happens. So I can ... tell Mother."

      His fingers were cutting into her arm. She pulled at his grip one more time, but this time he seemed to realize his error, and he relaxed his fingers enough for her to pull away.

      But she didn’t.

      Instead, she used the back of her free hand to smudge away tears on her cheeks. I need to watch, she said again.

      Amos dropped his hand. He looked suddenly like a child himself—all long and gangly, a boy who had grown too fast. They were only about seven years different in age, and he hadn’t changed much from Letty’s earliest memories of him, when he was little more than a youth. Except there was an earnest strength there now, a strength she had seen for the first time when he came down from the mountain with an unconscious Linette in his arms and promised her he wouldn’t let Jonathan come to harm.

      The memory of that moment calmed her some. Amos took a step back and ran both his hands through his hair like he was trying to pull thoughts out of his mind. They had stopped in a little grove only yards from the governing house and the soldiers milling around it. Letty swallowed a huge lump that rose in her throat without her asking it to, and found she had to swallow it again and again.

      There had to be a way to free her father, she thought. But then she peered past the storehouse to the armed soldiers milling in the yard in front of the governing house, and she knew there was not.

      There was no way at all.

      With tears pricking at her eyes, she turned to go. Amos was right after all. There was no point, really, in standing out here glowering at the soldiers when she couldn’t do a thing. Dimly, she lifted her eyes and looked up at the mountains across the valley.

      I lift my eyes unto the hills, her mother liked to quote, from whence cometh my help.

      Where was that help now? Letty wondered. Where was any ally, any help at all when they needed it?

      And where was Jonathan? The lump in her throat grew more painful. The last she’d had any time with the young preacher, he’d been out of his mind and tormented by poison in his vines. Linette and the foreigners had tried to help him, but there had been no time to find out if they had succeeded. The soldiers arrived, driving Linette and Jonathan into hiding.

      Her heart ached. They had been so close to breaking through—to leaving the darkness behind them, to bringing home the Jonathan she loved and making everything all right again.

      She blinked away angry tears. Letty hated crying. She hated being angry. She hated feelings, generally, which only made her feel them more.

      And she hated the soldiers. She felt that hatred pulse like poison in her own vines, and she glanced down at the slender vine ends that protruded from her cuffs and netted over the backs of her hands as though they would throb with black ichor like she had seen Jonathan’s do. They were their usual pale shade of purple, however, no matter how she almost wished they would course black. Maybe if they did, they would fill her with power enough to kill the soldiers the way Jonathan had killed Governor Melrose.

      That thought coiled her hatred into a tortured knot in her stomach.

      Jonathan had killed Herman Melrose.

      The soldiers on the other side of the storage huts stirred and talked to one another in low voices, and Letty whirled on her heel so she was facing them again. There was at least one small bright spot to their coming: they gave her a place to focus her anger and pain.

      Deep inside her, Letty felt a warning. It took the shape of something else her mother said.

      Beware lest a root of bitterness spring up and defile many.

      She knew what it was warning her against.

      But she simply squared her shoulders again. Enmity was the only thing she had to cling to in this moment.

      Even God would have to understand that.

      LINETTE AND THE STRANGERS stayed in the barn as the shadows grew deeper and darker and the cold grew worse, so cold they could see their breath in the faint moonlight and feel it settling into every muscle and bone. Jacques had suggested they climb into the loft, in case the soldiers came back.

      That is the first place they will look, Serena had said.

      But we’ll hear them coming, and we can escape out the back if we must, Jacques had countered.

      We’d have to jump! It’s a nine foot drop!

      Better than burning at the stake, he had said. He won. Linette envied the ease with which they parried and poked at one another. It was clearly an expression of affection and of care, and it made her feel like even more of a stranger than she was.

      Now they sat in the deep darkness, lit by a sliver of moonlight coming through a small rectangular window in the loft. They sat back to back to back, shoulders touching, sharing warmth. Linette could have made it warmer, of course—though they didn’t know that—but if she used the phosphorescence in her vines to warm them, light would come with it. And she couldn’t risk the light being seen, or allow it to drain her energy when she might need to run soon. She was grateful for them, yet she ached for people who knew her, who shared her history, who had given her trust and earned it in return.

      The darker it grew, the more the scenes of the last few months played across her memory, as though the roof of the barn and the starlit sky beyond were a shadow screen with the images of her life cast upon it. The darkness stripped away any need to hide her emotions, and although she sat still and quiet, she soon found that tears were running down her face. Hot and grieving. Tears for her murdered friend and governor Herman Melrose. And for this—for whatever was happening in this place that she loved.

      CAPTAIN FREDERICK ALMON sat in the governing house that had lately belonged to Governor Herman Melrose of Jerusalem Valley. He sat behind the handmade desk, leaning back in the governor’s chair with his feet propped up on the worn and polished oak. He chewed the stem of his pipe and stared into the fire that gave the room some warmth in this godforsaken place. The darkness outside felt heavy and brooding, hemmed in by the mountains and the blasts of icy wind that came curling down their slopes.

      Nothing about this day had gone as he’d planned. It had instead been a day of sudden discoveries, sudden reversals—of events that called forth the mettle and the man in him. He had, he believed, done better than his superiors could have wished. He could only trust they would see it that way, when spring came and he could send word downriver to New Cranwell.

      First, there had been the Messenger. He had been preparing to receive Commander Premislav at Fort Collins and—begrudgingly—turn control over to him, but a tall, stout man he had never seen before had arrived to inform him that two spies were on their way to Jerusalem Valley and that in order to stop them, Premislav had diverted his course and gone to the settlement immediately. The Messenger also said that Almon should take a contingent of his own and go to Premislav’s aid, in case things in the valley turned violent—as there was good reason to believe they would, the valley having lately become a hotbed of sedition. The spies, a notorious heretic and a suspected Imitator, would only make things worse.

      How the Messenger had managed the superhuman feat of leaving New Cranwell after Premislav and his men and making it all the way up the river to Fort Collins before them—especially at a time of year when the river was beginning to freeze in places and snow threatened at every turn—Almon would never understand. He had asked, but the Messenger sidestepped his questions somehow. Nevertheless, the man carried letters from Elder Phinehas Cole telling Almon what to do, and they were all properly dated, signed, and sealed. There could be no doubt he told the truth.

      So Almon had done it, taking half the garrison down to meet Premislav on the river. But then things grew truly strange. When he reached Premislav’s riverboat, he found it in the midst of a mutiny. Premislav, the mutineers said, had deliberately released two prisoners. On further questioning, Almon had realized the prisoners were none other than the spies he was looking for. And Premislav, the great commander from the Old World, Phinehas Cole’s trusted military arm who had been judged the better man to helm Fort Collins, had proven to be a traitor.

      Further, he was Sacramenti. The mutineers had long suspected it, and Almon, strongly disposed to believe them, had a confession beaten out of him within a few hours.

      A written form of that confession now lay on Governor Melrose’s desk. It was a bit bloodied, he noted with distaste. Almon would send it to New Cranwell just as soon as he could—that was, as soon as the river thawed.

      It had occurred to him that the Messenger who had so miraculously brought him word from Elder Cole could possibly get through to take the confession and the news from Jerusalem Valley even now, but he had dismissed the idea.

      Better to oversee things here for the winter, make his position really secure. When he sent word to Elder Cole, he wanted every word of that letter to ooze confidence, strength, and good news—to declare, through its content as well as its form, that there was no better man in the Army of the Colonies than Frederick Almon, Captain.

      How he handled things here in the valley would be the deciding factor, he thought. After commandeering Premislav’s boat and crew, he had gone to Jerusalem Valley intending to track down the spies whom he was sure had gone there—and intending to carry out other orders, orders that had originally been meant for Premislav and not for him. Orders to take over governance of the settlement from Herman Melrose and impose Puritani law and order on the rebel Tremblers.

      Imagine his surprise to discover that Melrose was dead.

      No matter. He had arrested Smith Foster, the upstart farmer who dared take on the role of governor in Melrose’s place. He would take this place in hand and see to it that Elder Cole’s wishes were carried out.

      And there was one more thing. One more thing that seemed to him especially important—to his position, to his future, to his landing securely and forever in the elder’s good graces.

      He would find Cole’s daughter and secure her passage home.

      Outside the office door, Almon heard some of his men shifting position and talking in low voices. He grimaced and pulled his feet down from the desk, then stood up to stretch. His pipe had gone out. He chewed the stem one more time and then stuck the whole thing in the pocket of his red regimental coat. He should go to bed. It was late. But he stood and stared into the fire instead.

      It bothered him that they hadn’t found Linette Cole already. The settlers had all professed ignorance of her whereabouts. They’d acted like they barely knew her, like they hadn’t seen her in days. It surprised and troubled him that they all took the same tack. Surely, with their erstwhile leader locked up and the soldiers commandeering many of their precious winter stores, they realized the position they were in. He would have expected at least some of the several dozen inhabitants of Jerusalem Valley to be cooperative, especially given that half of them should have been on his side—Puritani, suspicious of the Trembler movement and welcoming of anyone who would shift the balance of power. But then, Smith Foster himself was Puritani, wasn’t he? Linette Cole too, or at least she had been. Who knew if she might have come under the sway of the heretics since arriving.

      The wind outside pushed against the log building with insistent force. Almon could hear the walls straining to resist it. The fire licked and curled. He thought he saw shapes in it. Wolves. Teeth. For an instant fear shot through him, spiking through the vines that grew down his arms and crisscrossed the backs of his hands. He shook himself and turned away. It was nothing, he told himself. Just this place.

      He would renew the search for Linette Cole in the morning. And in the process he would see to it that these frontier rabble realized fully who they were dealing with.

      Chapter 2

      When Jonathan Applegate ran for the forest that covered the mountains, he had only one thought. Reach the River People. The sight of soldiers filling the valley, redcoats with muskets in hand, told him everything he needed to know—the synod had acted at last. He was a wanted man, and the valley and its people would do better without him there.

      But it was winter—early winter, but still cold enough to burn his lungs and throat as he ran, leaping over roots and ruts and pushing aside barren branches as he forced his way up the mountainside on no path at all, straight up through the tangled trees toward Anoschi Pass. It was winter, and for all that he had lived for five years on the frontier, he was not foolish enough to think he could survive out here without help.

      Capenokanickon’s help.

      If only Capenokanickon was not gone, left for wintering grounds far to the west.

      It was a scant hope. In most years the tribe would have left by now. Jonathan would have seen them off. They would have tried to talk him into going, but he would have said no. Resisted, because his place was in the valley and the rough-hewn pulpit of the Puritani kirk, even though his heart was so often with the people called Outsiders.

      But all of that was before. Before he had been poisoned and harassed. Before the dark seed in his heart turned him into a monster. Before Capenokanickon gave him up for dead.

      As he ran, branches snagged and scratched at him, and his pace slowed as he pushed through thicker underbrush and up a steeper slope. He heard rustling and brittle twigs snapping nearby, but he had no time to react before the culprit burst out of the brush next to him, all red fur and wagging tail.

      He couldn’t help a smile as he reached out and laid a hand between the dog’s warm ears. Good dog, Rusty, he said. Good boy. Come on now ... let’s go find the People.

      The ground grew steeper, the brush even thicker as he made his way up the side of the mountain, eyes fixed on the ledge above where the pass wound its way west toward the Outsider village. He quenched the urge to push harder and deliberately slowed his pace, making his way slowly to keep from overtaxing his heart and lungs—to say nothing of the muscles that burned in his legs. He had come this way knowing it would be harder going than if he’d simply sought the bottom of the pass. Harder, but more hidden. Safer.

      He muttered a prayer for Linette and the settlers as he climbed, trekking up the slope as much with his hands as with his feet. He had tried to protect

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