“Lots of time for everyone to get home and gossip, I see.”

“You’re the talk of the lake. Again.” The guard squinted and urged his horse closer, which made Copperhead squeal in warning, or at least in ill manners. The man was trying to get a clear look at Fawn’s left wrist, she realized. “All day, people have been giving me urgent messages to pass on the instant I saw you. Fairbolt, Mari, your mama—despite the fact she insists you’re dead, mind—and your brother all want to see you first thing.” He grinned, delivering this impossible demand.

Dag came very close, Fawn thought, to just laying his head down on his horse’s mane and not moving. “Welcome home, Dag,” he muttered. But he straightened up instead and kicked Copperhead around head to tail beside Grace. He leaned over leftward to Fawn, and said, “Roll up my sleeve, Spark. Looks like it’s going to be a hot afternoon.

T he bridge the young man guarded was crudely cut timber, long and low, wide enough for two horses to cross abreast. Fawn craned her neck eagerly as she and Dag passed over. The murky water beneath was obscured with lily pads and drifting pond weed; farther along, a few green-headed ducks paddled desultorily in and out of the cattails bordering the banks. “Is this a river or an arm of the lake?”

“A bit of both,” said Dag. “One of the tributary creeks comes in just up the way. But the water widens out around both curves. Welcome to Two Bridge Island.”

“Are there two bridges?”

“Really three, but the third goes to Mare Island. The other bridge to the mainland is on the western end, about two miles thataway. This is the narrowest separation.”

“Like a moat?”

“In summer, very like a moat. All of the island chain backing up behind could be defended right here, if it wanted defending. After the hard freeze, this is more like an ice causeway, but the most of us will be gone to winter camp at Bearsford by then. Which, while it does have a ford, is mostly lacking in bears. Camp’s set on some low hills, as much as we have hills in these parts. People who haven’t walked out of this hinterland think they’re hills.”

“Were you born here, or there?”

“Here. Very late in the season. We should have been gone to winter camp, but my arrival made delays. The first of my many offenses.” His smile at this was faint.

Flat land and thin woods gave little to view at first as the road wound inward, although around a curve Copperhead snorted and pretended to shy as a flock of a dozen or so wild turkeys crossed in front of them. The turkeys returned apparent disdain and wandered away into the undergrowth. Around the next curve Dag twitched his horse aside into the verge, and Fawn paused with him, as a caravan passed. A gray-headed man rode ahead; following him, on no lead, were a dozen horses loaded with heavy basket panniers piled high with dark, round, lumpy objects covered in turn with crude rope nets to keep the loads from tumbling out. A boy brought up the rear.

Fawn stared. “I don’t suppose that’s a load of severed heads going somewhere, but it sure looks like it at a distance. No wonder folks think you’re cannibals.”

Dag laughed, turning to look after the retreating string. “You know, you’re right! That, my love, is a load of plunkins, on their way to winter store. This is their season. In late summer, it is every Lakewalker’s duty to eat up his or her share of fresh plunkins. You are going to learn all about plunkins.”

From his tone Fawn wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a promise, but she liked the wry grin that went along-with. “I hope to learn all about everything.”

He gave her a warmly encouraging nod and led off once more. Fawn wondered when she was going to at last see tents, and especially Dag’s tent.

A shimmering light through the screen of trees, mostly hickory, marked the shoreline to the right. Fawn stood up in her stirrups, trying for a glimpse of the water. She said in surprise, “Cabins!”

“Tents,” Dag corrected.

“Cabins with awnings.” She gazed avidly as the road swung nearer. Half a dozen log buildings in a cluster hugged the shore. Most seemed to have single central fireplaces, probably double-sided, judging from the fieldstone chimneys she saw jutting from the roof ridgelines. Windows were few and doors nonexistent, for most of the log houses were open on one side, sheltered by deerhide canopies raised on poles seeming almost like long porches. She glimpsed a few shadowy people moving within, and, crossing the yard, a Lakewalker woman wearing a skirt and shepherding a toddler. So did only patrolling women wear trousers?

“If it’s missing one full side, it’s still a tent, not a permanent structure, and therefore does not have to be burned down every ten years.” Dag sounded as if he was reciting.

Fawn’s nose wrinkled in bafflement. “What?”

“You could call it a religious belief, although usually it’s more of a religious argument. In theory, Lakewalkers are not supposed to build permanent structures. Towns are targets. So are farms, for that matter. So is anything so big and heavy or that you’ve invested so much in you can’t drop it and run if you have to. Farmers would defend to the death. Lakewalkers would retreat and regroup. If we all lived in theory instead of on Two Bridge Island, that is. The only buildings that seem to get burned in the Ten-year Rededication these days are ones the termites have got to. Certain stodgy parties predict dire retribution for our lapses. In my experience, retribution turns up all on its own regardless, so I don’t worry about it much.”

Fawn shook her head. I may have more to learn than I thought.

They passed a couple more such clusters of near buildings. Each seemed to have a dock leading out into the water, or perhaps that was a raft tied to the shore; one had a strange boat tied to it in turn, long and narrow. Smoke rose from chimneys, and Fawn could see homely washing strung on lines to dry. Kitchen gardens occupied sunny patches, and small groves of fruit trees bordered the clearings, with a few beehives set amongst them. “How many Lakewalkers are there on this island?”

“Here, about three thousand in high summer. There are two more island chains around the lake too separated to connect to us by bridge, with maybe another four thousand folks total. If we want to visit, we can either paddle across two miles or ride around for twenty. Probably another thousand or so still back maintaining Bearsford, same as about a thousand folks stay here all winter. Hickory Lake Camp is one of the largest in Oleana. With the biggest territory to patrol, as a penalty for our success. We still send out twice as many exchange patrollers as we ever get in return.” A hint of pride tinged his voice, even though his last remarks ought to have sounded more complaint than brag. He nodded ahead toward something Fawn did not yet see, and at a jingle of harness and thud of many hooves gestured her into the weeds to make way, turning Copperhead alongside.

It was a patrol, trotting in double file, very much as Fawn had first seen Mari and Dag’s troop ride into the well-house farm what was beginning to seem a lifetime ago. This bunch looked fresh and rested and unusually tidy, however, so she guessed they were outward bound, on their way to whatever patch of hinterland they were assigned to search for their nightmare prey. Most of them seemed to recognize Dag and cried surprised greetings; with his reins wrapped around his hook and his other arm in a sling, he could not return their waves, but he did nod and smile. They didn’t pause, but not a few of them turned in their saddles to stare back at the pair.

“Barie’s lot,” said Dag, looking after them. “Twenty-two.”

He’d counted them? “Is that good or bad, twenty-two?”

“Not too bad, for this time of year. It’s a busy season.” He chirped to Copperhead, and they took to the road once more.