The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (22 page)

Brillen chuckled, his eyes pained. There
really was no more time to delay. “Perrin, the Guarders are back.
And they may be looking to stay. Scouts from Quake went on a
surveillance ride to Moorland and discovered that houses nearest
the forests were occupied. Major Fadh sent me an urgent message
yesterday wanting to make sure you knew. You’re most likely to get
hit first, since you’re the closest. But both of our forts are
ready to assist in any way. I’m sure Major Yordin at Mountseen will
offer assistance as well. If you need extra men, or supplies, or
leadership—”

“
I appreciate that,” Perrin
cut him off, putting a hand on his shoulder. “But I’m sure we can
handle it.”

Brillen shook his head. “If anything happens
to you, half of Idumea would demand the execution of Cush, Mal and
the Administrators, I’m sure. Even
we
hear the stories about
you. The Compassionate Colonel. The Colonel Who Cares,” he winced
at the titles. “People in Rivers stop me on the road to ask
questions about you. You’re more popular than that kickball player,
whatever his name is. My niece has his name written all over her
school slates.”

Perrin chuckled and squeezed his shoulder.
“It’s good to know I still have a few friends.”

“
Perrin, you’ve got more
than a ‘few friends.’ You’ve got the world!”

As Perrin sat this morning on the sofa
thinking about Karna’s gleaming evaluation, he knew it didn’t
matter how many friends he had: the Administrators couldn’t be
happy about the citizens fawning over him. The fact that he hadn’t
received any personal communication from the garrison for the past
season seemed telling. Captain Thorne had been distant for the past
week, thanks to Shem, so Perrin didn’t know what Thorne’s father or
grandfather were thinking.

But Perrin knew what
he
was thinking.
Whoever was in charge of sending cats to watch the injured falcon
had now called in the mountain lions. He felt as if they were
slowly closing in, surrounding him, waiting for the ideal moment to
strike.

“
They believe I’m still
trapped helplessly in the barn,” he whispered to the dawn. “But
recently Shem relayed to me a most brilliant battle, carried out in
secret. A victim that was surprised, but still overpowered the
stalker and rendered him temporarily impotent.” He sniggered in
satisfaction.

“
So,” he announced quietly
to the growing light, “if even my daughter can fight her way out of
a barn, surely I can too.”

His next thought was, Why should there even
be
a ‘barn’?

He got up from the sofa and walked into his
study. Instead of taking the seat behind the desk, he sat down in
the chair across from it where he could view his bookshelves
crammed with books, rolls of old maps, parchments . . .
maps—

“
There shouldn’t be a
‘barn’,” he whispered. “As long as it exists, others can be
imprisoned. So how does one bring down the barn? No, scratch that.
How do
I
bring down the barn?”

A twisting knot of anticipation formed in his
chest and radiated, hot and prickly, down his arms. He knew what
that meant. He’d felt it before on the rare occasions he was about
to embark on a completely different way of thinking, or do
something that was about to change the course of his life. He felt
it when he was tutored by Hogal when he was eighteen, again when he
was twenty-eight and learned Edge would be getting its first fort,
and once more at the moment Mahrree Peto first came into view. That
sense of significant excitement had come to him a few times since,
but what he felt right now was more powerful than ever before.

“
I
bring down that
barn. Correct?” He looked to the ceiling for
confirmation.

His heartbeat increased.

He nodded. “So . . . who’s in control of that
barn? That’s easy: Nicko Mal, Aldwyn Cush, and Qayin Thorne. But .
. . there are also the Guarders. And in the barn, they are—oh,
forget the analogy.”

He folded his arms, sat back in the chair,
and stared at the shelves.

“
There are actually two
enemies—the Guarders, and my three little friends in Idumea. Both
need to be brought down . . . but who should go first? It’s all
about power,” he decided.

He glanced up again for confirmation, nodded
once, then tapped a finger on his lips.

“
Power to . . . create
fear? Control fear? Manipulate it? Or maybe,” he leaned forward,
“it’s all of it, isn’t it? Fear controls people, keeps them
confined. So, eliminate the fear and you free the people. I
overcame my fear of my dreams, my fear of the Refuser—”

His voice trembled briefly, still
overwhelmed, but not because of what he felt from the Refuser, but
from the memory of how the Creator rescued him.

It was the Creator who pulled him from the
barn.

It was important to always remember that.

“
Dear Creator, tell me what
to do, and I’ll do it.”

He sat quietly for another minute, then
slowly nodded.

“
You already have, haven’t
you? If I eliminate one threat, the other will fall on its own,
won’t it? The army and Administrators function primarily to protect
us from the Guarders. If there are no more Guarders, then the army
becomes nothing more than a peace-keeping force. The politics of it
all
ends.
”

He began to grin.

“
Cush and Thorne would be
bored silly! Mal would . . . I’m not sure what he’d do, but if the
people began to feel a sense of freedom, then . . . Mal just might
find himself out of a job. Who needs a controlling protector when
there’s nothing left to protect them from? Suddenly there were
would be options, possibilities. Opportunities to climb over the
walls, and—”

He was grinning broadly now.

“—
head into the
forests
!”

His cheeks began to hurt from the width of
his planning.

“
That’s it! Obliterate that
stupid barn! Let
everyone
out!” He gazed eagerly at the
rolls of maps on his shelf. “And then . . .
and then
, I
could do some amazing things for some remarkable people. Perhaps
the army could create a new occupation. Those going exploring may
need some guards.”

He sat back, closed his eyes, and let the
prospect wash over him until he worried that he might drown in the
exhilaration of it all.

Clanging in the kitchen—likely a dropped
pot—signaled that a mess was occurring and that Jaytsy was nearly
finished cooking, pulling him back to the present. Reluctantly, he
opened his eyes.

“
So, what has to happen
first?” he asked the ceiling.

Immediately he knew. Karna had told him last
night that one enemy was congregating, just ten miles away from his
home. Three other commanders would be willing to help—

That was more than one thousand soldiers.

“
Eliminate one, then the
other will also fall. Then, everything in the world changes.” He
looked to the ceiling and smiled. “That’s what you’ve been trying
to teach me, isn’t it? It’s not about revenge. It’s not about
changing things for me. It’s about changing things for
everyone
. That’s why I’m finally getting it now, because my
primary target has just taken up residence down the road. How
convenient
. So, when do You want me to begin changing the
world?”

He listened for an answer.

Another pot fell in the kitchen. Jaytsy
called out, “Breakfast’s ready!”

Peto’s voice came from his bedroom, muffled,
“Is it edible?”

“
Peto, you’d think a boot’s
edible,” Jaytsy snapped back.

“
Oh, grand,” Peto whined
loudly. “She’s mistaken my boots for the oatmeal again. Father, I
have to go barefoot today—”

But Perrin didn’t answer. He was staring at
the ceiling, his eyebrows up in surprise.

Obediently he threw a salute to the highest
general he knew.

Chapter 9
~
“We are here to remember.”

A
n hour later the
Shin family walked to the amphitheater at the center of Edge. Well,
more like weaved and squeezed their way. All of Edge was there,
along with visitors from other villages. To Mahrree’s amazement,
there was no more room in the amphitheater and people were waiting
outside.

“
Head for the soldiers,”
Perrin said when they saw the crowds. “We’ll use them to sneak to
the back entrance. I don’t need to meet any members of the
Committee of Retired Goat Milkers for Perrin Shin
today.”

It was fortunate Lieutenant Offra was as tall
as Perrin—something he confided to Mahrree that he hadn’t noticed
before about the reticent officer—because Offra served well as a
shield to smuggle the colonel past several groups of non-Edgers,
who really didn’t know who they were watching for, but knew enough
to look for insignias and name patches on the uniforms.

Behind and below the platform was a flurry of
people. Several soldiers, Magistrate Wibble, Rector Yung, and
Lieutenant Colonel Karna were discussing the program, while the new
chief of enforcement Barnie directed some of his assistants in
crowd control.

But Mahrree found her eye caught by something
else: her old favorite oak tree by the warm spring. She hadn’t been
behind the amphitheater since her and Perrin’s last debate when she
thought she might never see him again. When she saw the oak so much
flooded back to her from their first tempestuous and wonderful
season together. The tree had grown significantly over the years,
despite being enclosed by the amphitheater and frequently covered
overhead by oilskins when it rained during a performance. Mahrree
stood there for a moment, just to remember.

Her family kept walking, but Perrin turned
abruptly when he realized she was no longer with them. He smiled
when he saw why.

“
Been a long time, hasn’t
it?” He returned to her, took hold of the trunk and tried to shake
it. “It certainly doesn’t move anymore. I once gave this tree a
real thrashing. I came back after that last debate of ours, late at
night, and tried to rip it out of the ground to take it back to the
fort.”

“
Really?” Mahrree said.
“Why?”

“
I thought it might be the
last thing I’d have to remember you by. Besides the holes I punched
in my office wall.”

Mahrree laughed softly. “There was something
I always wanted to do by this tree, but,” she looked around her
timidly, “now is
certainly
not the time.”

Perrin’s smile was full of mischief as he
took a step closer. She hadn’t seen that expression on his face in
a long time, and she loved seeing it again. “What is it?” he asked
in the deep hushed tone that he knew always gave her goose
bumps.

Mahrree bit her lip and took another step
closer to him. “I guess this tree has the same appeal for me as the
stand of trees back at the university had for you.”

“
Maybe you and I just have
a thing for kissing in the trees?”

Mahrree grinned at the old Perrin she always
knew and adored. “Ooh, don’t let Captain Thorne hear you say that.
He’ll turn us in on suspicion of secretly being Guarders.”

Perrin chuckled. “That’s why I left him at
the fort today. But I promise that someday we’ll sneak back here,
late at night, and do
whatever
you want under our tree.”

Mahrree’s eyebrows went up.

Perrin winked meaningfully, took her arm, and
led her away.

Mahrree and her children found the bench that
had been saved for them at the front while Perrin joined the others
behind the platform to discuss the ceremony. By the time it started
every seat encircling the platform was taken, and any spot where a
standing body could be wedged in was filled. Mahrree worried that
some in attendance were there for the wrong reason: to see Colonel
Shin, who was with the other presenters below and shielded by
curtains.

But soon it was evident everyone felt the
land tremor as deeply as the Shin family had. When Rector Yung took
to the platform the crowd grew silent. Just one year ago no more
than a hundred people knew who he was, and only half attended the
sole congregational meetings.

But after the land tremor, attendance at his
meetings included most of Edge. Then, just as quickly as his flock
grew, it scattered again. After five or six weeks of listening to
his sermons on healing and renewing, Edgers felt healed and
renewed—especially after the caravan of supplies arrived from
Idumea—and stopped attending. When the crisis was gone, so was the
need to feel the Creator.

But this morning the entire audience bowed
their heads as Rector Yung led them in prayer. He thanked the
Creator for preserving them, for sending the food that saw them
through, and for the sacrifices of so many. It was a beautiful
prayer, but Mahrree was sure she heard the distinct sound of
snoring behind her.

Yung then introduced Lieutenant Colonel
Karna, who joined him on the platform to great cheers and applause
of the village that knew him for so many years and was happy to see
him return for the day. He read a description of what happened to
the village, gave a report on the buildings burned, damaged, and
demolished, and amused the crowd with a recitation of the variety
of meals served at the Shin house each night that first week.

When he introduced Magistrate Wibble, a wisp
of a man, there was only polite applause that greeted him, but the
magistrate bowed and grinned as if they loved him as much as Karna.
Wibble described in flowing detail the efforts to join together to
help in cleaning up and rebuilding. He never seemed to remember
that it was Colonel Shin who developed the plan. With great emotion
that was mostly genuine, he retold the story of the family with the
twins that were found after all hope had been lost to recover any
more people.