“I like the Beacon better,” Milena replied. “The stories always have a more hopeful vibe to them. The Voice can often come across as grim and critical of Queen Frost.”
Lark frowned as she mixed her cut duck, greens, peppers, and grits altogether on her tin plate. It was irrational, she knew, but she’d always associated Queen Frost with her father leaving home to guard the nation.It’s not like Luther Irons and his crushing horde will ever make it all the way to the coast,she brooded silently.
When Leif returned, plodding rather than dashing, he dropped two rolled newspapers onto the table and plopped onto a bench.
“He’s very busy in Marchland,” Lark explained. “He can’t write to us every week. We always get the money he sends each month.”
Struggling to present a stiff upper lip, Leif squared his shoulders. “When I turn eighteen next year, I’m signing up. Then I’ll be out there with Dad, making a difference.”
“You can make a difference here,” Gramma reminded him. “Fightin’ isn’t the only wayto contribute.”
“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “People from all around bring their corn to our mill to grind it into grits and meal. We help feed people, and even soldiers need to be fed.”
“Neither does man live by bread alone,” Gramma reminded them. “Without culture and the arts, how are we different from the other animals that inhabit the earth? Remember when Roy wrote to us about the singers Queen Frost sent to entertain the troops? Their music uplifted everyone’s spirits. Lark, remember the folk song your mother used to sing?”
Lark nodded, a lump tightening in her chest at the memory of her mother. She had been gentle, kind, lovely—and she’d died.
“Sing it for us,” Milena requested. Glancing across at the soft expression on her friend’s face, Lark couldn’t deny her.
“I love that song,” Tommy agreed, reaching an arm around Milena.
Lark wished she were the one holding Milena—but her heart was knotted, tangled in years of love for them both.
She pushed her mostly empty plate aside and scooted her chair back from the table. After a cleansing sip of plum wine, she closed her eyes. With crickets and cicadas providing the accompaniment, Lark sang the words to a hauntingly beautiful melody.
“Leaves on the wind, not knowin’ where or when, they’ll come to rest again.
“Hearts on the sea, never knowin’ when they’ll be, swept to the shore again.
“The wind keeps on blowin’, the river don’t stop flowin’, the spirits are always knowin’,
“All’s reborn again.”
The second time through, everyone joined in. Dusk settled in with the music, pink streaks softening the sky as peace wrapped around them like a warm shawl. After the last note, Bryn declared, “That song sounds sad. Let’s sing a happy one!”
Milena laughed—priceless music to Lark’s ears.
Then a new sound—sharp, urgent, unmistakable. The alarm bell.
Chapter six
Stand at the Reach
Lark snapped into action mode, muscles taut, senses razor-sharp. She, Tommy, and Leif sprang from their rest in unison, racing for their weapons. The bell clanged louder—three long, three quick, three long. The old S.O.S., the pattern reserved to signal an attack.
Watch towers had been constructed along the coastline to warn the people of dangers long before Lark was born. Each bell pattern meant something: storm, ship, or invasion. This one meant war.
“Milena, watch over Bryn and Gramma,” Lark directed as she pulled her bow and quiver over her shoulder.
“Be careful!” Milena returned, voice strained. A glance over her shoulder—Bryn pressed tight to Milena’s side, arms locked around each other. Lark nodded, grabbed a machete, and dashed toward the bell’s brash alarm with Leif and Tommy.
Fighters poured in with axes, pitchforks, clubs, and pikes. One older man hefted a pump-action shotgun—four to six rounds,Lark estimated.While ammunition was scarce, if kept dry, it would last forever. By the time the militia, thirty-two strong, gathered at the tower, twilight was upon them. One in four held a torch in their off hand.
“Over there!” the sentry shouted, pointing. “No, they’re here!”
A motley coalition of swamp raiders and mutants descended on the town, swarming in from the western swamps. The raiders—men, women, and youths—wore leather, buckskin, and moccasins, each armed to kill. While vicious, wild, and disheveled, they were fully human, unlike their mutant counterparts. These albino creatures, even nightmares would shun, stood shorter and hunched, with sparse to no hair, jagged, rotten teeth, open sores, black splotches, and eerily glowing eyes. They were hyper-aggressive, with misfiring brains, claws for hands, and absolutely no fear. Everyone knew their bites carried disease and decay, so their threat must be eliminated first.
Lark braced, notched, and let fly at the lead mutant. The force of her arrow sent it reeling to the wet ground. The shotgun rang out amid the din. Smoke, fleeing residents, and the aggressors filled the west side of town. Lark focused her fire on the abominations, but there were too many. Soon, the militia found itself in hand-to-hand combat.
