Ah. They can tell we?re from west across the Mississippi. From the gear, most likely. Though probably not quite how far west. ?I?m Jake sunna Jake, n? these are my bros Tuk n? Samul.? His smile revealed several missing teeth.?We runs with the Southside Freedom Fighters. I?m the big man a? Southside. Youze save our asses.?

Rudi thrust his sword into the earth and took the man?s hand, as callused as his own and very strong for his size. Probably big man meant something like chief. The native of the Wild Lands was several inches shorter than his own six-two, and failed to match Edain?s five-nine by a finger or so; he was wiry-slender, with a sparse young black beard and hair haggled off below his ears and eyes so crow-colored that the pupil disappeared in the iris.

The dark olive face was scarred and weathered, but he judged the man was about his own twenty-three years, give or take. His short pants of crudely tanned and worse-sewn rabbit skins were held up by a broad belt with a buckle of salvaged metal; his weapons were a knife and a hatchet, besides his javelins, and all but the wooden shafts of the throwing spears looked to be of pre-Change make.

His eyes were shrewd as he took in Edain?s bow, and he nodded at the peace gesture as the archer returned his arrow to the quiver. They went a little wider as he looked around and realized how many of the enemy had long gray fletched shafts in their bodies, and how far away some of them were; both were obvious as the younger Mackenzie went about the grisly but essential task of retrieving intact arrows and the heads of the broken ones. It was also obvious how easily they?d smashed through crude armor-leather studded with bits of metal, wooden shields surfaced with salvaged STOP signs and similar makeshifts for the most part, though one body wore a modern mail shirt stolen or bartered from the other shore of the Mississippi.