Another morning, another familiar weight on the side of my bed. I cracked my eyes. “Do you normally find your way into a man’s bed every morning, Rowan?”

  She smirked. “Just yours as of late. Don’t read too much into it. Get up.”

  “That was the plan.” I yawned and tried not to groan when I stretched. “I guess we’re starting training today.”

  “That was the plan.”

  She stood when I started to sit up. “I could’ve sworn I locked the door.”

  “You did.” She stepped back a few paces and stood there, arms crossed.

  Half out of the covers, I paused slipped out of bed. Is she going to stand there and watch me change? “You do know waking me up like this is a little creepy, right?”

  Instead of flat banter, she responded with a slow smile. “That’s the point.”

  I guess she is. I slipped out of the sheets and padded over to my dresser. “And I suppose watching a guy in his underwear get dressed completes the creeper image? We going out in the woods or staying up top today?”

  A raised eyebrow accompanied her appraising gaze. “Mere observation, though admittedly your physique is impressive. Most of your kind tend to be undernourished, gaunt. We’ll spend most of the day at the Harvester’s hall. I want to see how you move, what sort of skills you have. Depending on how things go, we might go below.”

  I nodded and dug out a pair of cargo pants, some lighter shorts, and a gray t-shirt. As I pulled the t-shirt over my head, she asked, “I can’t say I’m familiar with that fabric. Or most of what your belongings are made out of. Take that large chest, for example.”

  I snugged the shirt down and tossed a glance in the direction she was pointing. “That? That’s a pelican case. Ah, Pelican is the name of the company that made it. Not sure what it’s made out of exactly, some sort of pressure or thermal formed plastic, I’d bet.”

  She gave me an expectant look while I slipped into my shorts so I said the first thing that popped into my head, “Tell my why you’ve made a point of waking me up the way you have and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  Rowan’s eyes narrowed briefly before her lips quirked into a slight smile. “It’s a graduation requirement. Harvesters must be perceptive enough to sense hidden threats.”

  I grinned. “You do realize I finally got back to the point where I almost sleep like a normal person, right?”

  “Almost?”

  I lifted my pillow and retrieved my pistol. “Normal people don’t sleep with a weapon under their pillow.”

  “These normal people of yours don’t become Harvesters,” she noted with no small amount of disdain. “And that?”

  Out of habit, I hit the magazine release, jacked out the round in the chamber, and offered her the weapon. “It’s a— Right, none of that will mean anything to you. It’s a pistol.”

  I caught her eyeing the cartridge in my hand before she turned her attention to the weapon in her hand, turning it this way and that. “Am I correct in assuming this fires some sort of projectile, like some kind of miniature crossbow?”

  I blinked. “I guess you could frame it that way, yeah.”

  As she handed the weapon back, she asked, “How well does it do against armor?”

  “Depends? Cloth and leather, it’ll go right through. Plate? Eh. I’d say it depends on how well made the plate is. Though, that depends on the bullet. The one in my hand is made to penetrate. I have some that are intended to expand when they hit, make a bigger hole. They don’t handle armor terribly well.”

  Rowan’s head tilted to the side as her eyes narrowed. She was certainly interested in learning about what I’d brought. “The other, longer ones, those are just bigger pistols then?”

  “They’re called rifles, and using ‘just’ to describe them understates things by a lot. They pack quite a bit more of a punch. Most heavy armor would basically just be paper for them.”

  “Any chance I could see one of these rifles used?”

  I pursed my lips. “I suppose I can spare a few rounds. Problem is, I can’t make them, so once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

  Rowan made a sour face. “Why not?”

  “I don’t have the equipment or the components. I also don’t know how to make either, and even if I did— well, look how different everything else I have is from what you guys have. Probably wouldn’t have the tools to make those either.”

  After a few soft disappointed noises, her eyes focused on mine. “I find it ironic that you come from a world without magic, yet your way of making things are as alien to us as magic is to you. Do you have anything remotely close to what we already have?”

  With that, I set out into the office room and through the assorted boxes until I found the case that had come to mind. Rowan joined me at the desk while I popped latches.

  When her eyes fell upon the object inside as I opened the lid, they lit up with fierce interest. “Alien, yet beautiful nonetheless. I’ve never seen a bow constructed from metal like this before. What are the arrow shafts made from? They are clearly not wood.”

  I motioned toward the bow, inviting her to handle what she wanted. “Keep in mind, this is a simplification, but if you took wood ash and refined it properly, you’d end up with a black soot-like substance, carbon. There’s an entire process for treating it and binding it, but the end product is carbon fiber.”

  She picked up one of the arrows and her eyes flitted to me. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself over how incredulously she looked at me. “Yeah, they’re very, very light. Carbon fiber is strong, but it doesn’t handle being bent too much. And yes, the edge on the head is remarkably sharp.”

  “Would you mind bringing this to the hall? The pistol and a rifle, too.”

  After rounding up a gym bag for my clothes and gym shoes, I let Rowan carry the bow case while I shouldered my AR’s soft case. Unsurprisingly, the hall was located adjacent to the access to the forest floor, which made perfect sense to me, in a defensive sense anyway. From the outside, the first major feature I noticed that distinguished the hall from any of the other tree-borne structures was the extensive open decking behind it. The hall’s front door, thick wood bound in iron bands, was the second.

  “Cailleach, Aine,” Rowan called out as we passed through the door.

  Within seconds, two flame-haired women popped into the entry room from opposing doors. Both wore light, neutral colored clothing I categorized as their equivalent of PT gear. It took me a moment, but I realized two things at once: they were the pair that dosed me when I arrived, and they were clearly twins.

  “Yeah, boss?” both of them asked simultaneously with the same lazy drawl.

  Rowan glanced back at me as she spoke. “You’ve already met him, but this is Sam.”

  I nodded. “And you two would be the pair that saved me.”

  The one of the left’s face flushed slightly while the other nodded and offered a friendly smile before saying, “I’m Aine. Nice to meet you.”

  “We’re going to train him to be a harvester,” Rowan stated evenly.

  The twins blinked and glanced between me and Rowan a few times before the Aine raised a finger. “Uhm, he’s a bit human, Captain.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Quite aware, Aine. Both our Lady and Mistress Quinn have asked us to take up this task.”

  Cailleach shrugged. “Nothing to do for it then, I suppose. Personally, it’ll be nice to have another man around, even if he’s got short ears. His shoulders make up for the lack of ears if you ask me.”

  Aine stared at her sister. “Sister dear, I did not just hear that.”

  Eyes a twinkle, Cailleach tilted her head as she replied, “Hear what? I’m just saying he’s better suited to picking up some of the heavier shit around here. What did you think I meant?”

  “Enough, you two,” Rowan barked. “We’re going out back for some sparring. I expect you finish up whatever you were working on and join us.”

  “Yes, boss,” the pair replied in unison.

  We were outside and setting everything down by the door when Rowan spoke. “This might sound strange coming from me. I want to let you know that what just happened isn’t how I want things to run here. We’ve been so short-handed for so long, I’ve had to make many hard decisions on when and where I put my foot down.”

  That doesn’t sound good. I glanced over. “What exactly do you mean by that? Order and discipline issues?”

  She slowly nodded. “Before everything started falling apart, we had two dozen harvesters here, and the Glade’s Lord supported us with his men-at-arms, some thousand trained soldiers backed by militia twice that in number. I don’t even have five hundred draftable civilians now, and there’s only eight of us, if you want to be generous.”

  “Lord?” I leaned up against the wall. “This is the first time I’ve heard anything about titles and nobility. What happened?”

  “As requested by the King, Lord Cahir led three quarters of his men and most of our militia in defense of our homeland. They never came back. The remaining quarter died to the last buying us time to set up what defense we could at the keep. You know how that went.”

  I was already running numbers in my head when I asked, “The Glade covers the entire forest, horizon to horizon, as seen from the keep?”

  Rowan nodded.

  A vague memory occurred to me, someone had asked about estimating distances to the horizon during one of my land nav courses. If I’m remember right, then that’s twenty-eight miles out. Square that, multiply by three and some change. I know my face darkened when I realized Rowan had been defending just short of twenty-five hundred square miles with the ragged remains of the Harvesters and maybe a few hundred militia, if that. Wooded or not, even the US military didn’t pretend you could defend the St. Louis metro area with a single infantry company, much less half a fire team of rangers or Delta with only a company of civilian volunteers helping. Doctrine demanded a division, a full hundred times the number Rowan had, minimum.

  “Good god, Rowan,” I finally said. “How?”

  She turned her pinched face away. “Luck, mostly. Not always good, either. On the plus side, terrain at the forest edge is pretty rough, so there’s only so many ways down to us. That makes things a lot easier. Then there’s the fact that we were on friendly terms with the locals to the west up until two years ago, so we didn’t need to keep such a tight eye in that direction. We lost good people when that fell apart.” Rowan spit on the wood planks. “Bastards.”

  She started out toward the edge of the platform and I followed. After a few steps, she glanced back at me with a vaguely haunted look to her eyes. “In the early days, we stopped caretaking the forest other than the immediate vicinity of our settlements— didn’t have the people anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t make it sound like it was my decision. Once I had a handful of Harvesters— a decade after we were left on our own I guess— we started building sky trails.”

  I joined her at the railing overlooking the stretch of clear ground in front of the retractable stairway to the surface. “What are those?”

  “After decades of uncontrolled growth, a goodly number of the trees were close enough together that with a little pruning and encouragement, there’s no need to cross at ground level. Almost fifty years later, we have a network of paths that allow us to move faster than most any trespasser and unseen by them at the same time.

  “Still, even then if it weren’t for Fiachra and Tomas, it’d all be for naught. Fiachra is our only mage— well, the only one with significant training in the arcane. Apprentice to Cahir’s court mage, left behind. To hear him tell the tale, surviving the delaying action was an accident. I saw the scars, so I don’t doubt it. He’s come up a number of ways that let us keep an eye on a lot more land than we should be able to.”

  I breathed in some fresh air. “And this Tomas? That sounds more like one of our names than yours.”

  Rowan’s gaze fell to the ground directly below us and she didn’t speak for several long seconds. “That’s because it is. He’s half elf. His tongue is as slippery as he is, but he’s dependable, usually, and can pass as one of you when he needs to. He’s been our scout outside the Glade for a while. Looks a bit older than you. Born right after everything fell apart. His father fell at the keep.”

  Interesting. That does give me a starting point for guessing ages, shit as it might be. “When do I meet him?”

  Rowan flashed a mirthless smirk. “Your guess is as good as mine. Haven’t heard from him in almost a year. I don’t know about you, but all these old memories are dragging at me. How about we trade fists for a bit?”

  I pushed off the rail. “Rules? Fists only? Stay off the ground?”

  A slow grin spread across her face. “Are there rules on the battlefield?”

  I grinned back. “Fair enough. Don’t complain I didn’t give you a chance to save face.”

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

  I knew I had the advantage when it came to natural strength and reach, but I’d been in enough fist fights to know relying on that was a bad bet. Even pretending she hadn’t spent twice my lifetime as a soldier, I knew she’d have me in terms of speed and agility at the very least.

  That’s why, when we got to the middle of the open space, I put up both fists in a classic boxer stance and let her come at me first. It was a good thing I did, too. She nearly suckered me in with a feint, and when I replied with a block and counter to the actual strike, she ducked through the counter and landed a good elbow into my gut on the way through.

  By the look on her face when we squared off, she’d expected that to faze me. A decade ago, back when I first joined up, it would have, but I’d spent I don’t know how many deployments and training cycles collecting fighting arts, and while that gut shot did leave a mark, I’d been hit a lot harder many times before.

  A minute of back and forth later, I still had yet to land anything remotely solid versus the half dozen rib shots she’d snuck through. When she grinned and started bouncing on her feet in preparation for another approach, I almost felt sorry for her. She came in, repeating a pattern I’d already seen twice, but instead of responding with a boxer’s block and counter, I flowed into an aikido stance during the feint. I met the actual strike wrist-to-wrist and then introduced her to the first rule of fighting a black belt Aikidoka: In the name of God, do not give them your hand.

  I can’t say I was terribly surprised when she executed nigh perfect ukemi and rolled out of the throw, but I did not expect to hear her giggle before she landed. Her eyes glittered in nigh animalistic glee when she squared off and came at me again, this time even faster.

  The feint I suspected she’d lead with materialized as a complete departure from the previous pattern of fist and palm strikes, a side kick aimed at my knee. I wasn’t the only person who’d held back in the hopes of baiting the other.

  I won’t lie, the kick actually hurt, but that’s where she made a critical mistake. Instead of hopping back out of reach, she evidently thought the strike would be distracting enough to let her follow the kick up with a lunging left jab.

  At that point, I’d done had enough of playing fair and passed the blow aside just in time while conveniently helping her trip over the leg she hadn’t kicked. I also followed her to the ground, ending with her completely pinned under me a handful of seconds later.

  “Well then.”

  Breathing hard, I looked up toward the voice and found both twins standing just outside the door.

  “Was that as fun as it looked, Captain?” the twin on the left asked.

  “You’ll have to get in here to find out, Cailleach.” Rowan tapped the floor, and I rolled off of her.

  Aine glanced to her twin. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Oh, Samuel,” Rowan said while sauntering over into the shade. “Stop pulling your punches. We can easily heal anything short of broken bones. Pain is the best instructor.”

  Sparring with the twins turned out to be an exercise in pain for everyone involved. Aine started off with what I suspected were standard Harvester forms, and much like Rowan, after several exchanges where she ended up flat on her face she switched things up a bit.

  It took me a few sudden stinging hits to realize Aine’s new strategy hinged on dancing just on the edge of my reach and focusing on pressure points and nerve bundles when the opportunity presented. Having seen that strategy employed before, I elected to simply not to play along. She squawked when I simply caught her next strike. The subsequent violent jerk into a hard knee to the diaphragm completely took the fight out of her along with the ability to breathe for a good long while.

  Cailleach didn’t even bother with the standard forms, and if she been anything other than a short woman, she might have pulled off a win. She started off by mirroring my initial strategy, focusing on responding to attacks instead of initiating them, which was smart. Every strike from her was an opportunity to get grabbed or countered because my reach was longer. Similarly, by remaining on the defensive, she could better marshal her efforts and minimize overexertion robbing her of the one advantage she had: speed.

  Watching her while we circled each other, it was clear to me that Cailleach was the deliberate, unshakable twin. Where Aine had been wide-eyed and easily baited, Cailleach simply kept her eyes calmly focused on me, looking almost bored the entire time. She passed up on multiple feints and even bounded back instead of taking advantage of a few deliberate openings.

  At that point, I was starting to get tired, but knowing that the best lies contained the truth, I played that up. My footwork slowed, my blocks got sloppy, my dodges came with increasingly poor timing. And then it happened, a momentary flicker of satisfaction that gave away her commitment to the coming attack.

  She came at me low and lit into me with a series of rapid punches that was supposed to culminate in a throat strike. Instead, she got manhandled in short order into a classic sleeper hold and levered off the ground. While she had the speed and almost got away from me, she simply did not have the mass, leverage, or power to pull it off once I got a solid grip on her. I let her feet jerk a few inches off the deck before setting her back down and letting her go.

  “Would you two mind getting us all some water?” Rowan called out the moment Cailleach’s head cleared my arms.