“Garth,” he said then without preamble, “how about it, eh? I mean…what do you think?”
“What do I think?” Garth was mystified. “About what?”
“Why, about what’s going on here, of course!” Myers rasped. “Or rather—” and he flicked an urgent, suspicious glance into the unknown night, “—what’s going on out there!”
“Out there?” Garth repeated him listlessly. “What, you mean the movement?” He spoke inadvertently, without thinking what he was saying, and only then considered his words.
But the other had immediately tightened his grip on Garth’s elbow. “Ah!” he said. “So you have felt it, eh?” And he glanced this way and that, and once again into the swirling mist beyond the perimeter before continuing: “Yes, the movement! Damn right that’s what I mean! They’re on the move, these bloody things!”
And finally it struck home: that insidious, flowing motion that Garth had been sensing all along, without that it had registered as anything especially sinister. A thing of the mind—a mental thing, more often sensed than visible—yet stemming from a physical source. Oh, sinister enough, certainly, as anything remotely connected with fly-by-nights always was; but at the same time cloaked in this disarmingly dreamy inertia, this hypnotic effect, with which Garth, the other watchkeepers, and perhaps even a majority of the clan as a whole had become so—but so what?—so familiar, that it had indeed bred contempt in them…or if not contempt, then at least some kind of acceptance or leaning towards the inevitable!
Donald Myers was nodding his head knowingly. “Oh yes, I can see that you’ve definitely felt it! And so have I, often—and mainly ignored it, at least until tonight—until it changed!”
“A movement, yes,” said Garth thoughtfully. “But haven’t we known about it, been aware of it, for quite some time now—at least a week or more? Haven’t we spoken of it at some length to Big Jon Lamon and the other elders? Isn’t it common knowledge?” Now he felt as though he was arguing with himself!
“Yes, yes!” Myers answered, impatiently. “But that was when the bloody things were only watching us, keeping up with us and doing bugger all else! I reckoned maybe it was because there weren’t enough of them to mount an attack, but—”
“Not recently!” said Garth, cutting him short. “I’ve sensed that there are plenty of them, far too many, in my opinion! And getting stronger, gathering reinforcements as they follow us—though of course I could easily be wrong, because even one fly-by-night is too many in my opinion!” (Indeed, and in particular the one who was there even now in the darkest inner recesses of his mind!) “And anyway, being few in number—even when they’re down to a handful—never stopped them before! But Don, what’s this you say about a change? What’s happened tonight that’s got you so excited?”
“Excited, me?” Myers looked taken aback. He’d never considered himself excitable in any way, and didn’t much like it that others might. “No, not so much excited as feeling that I’m only just waking up! As to what I’m waking up to…” He paused for a moment to consider the best way to explain himself, then said:
“It was one of my new lads, a Big Jon Lamon ‘volunteer’ on his first night’s duty and maybe a bit more timid than most. An hour or so ago I visited him and his partner, one of my regular guys. I found them snapping at each other, as nervous and jumpy as Southern Refuge mice when cats were on the prowl.”
Nervous, and jumpy! Garth’s thoughts flew back two hours to his visit with Davis and Carter—but more especially Carter—and suddenly he was wide awake. “So, they had some kind of problem,” he said. “But what was it?”
“Not just them but me too, now!” Myers replied, and went on: “It was the young kid. He swore that he’d seen something out in the night and was arguing with Tom Griffin—the older guy, who I’ve known for years to be steady as a rock—that they should be sounding the alarm! But old Griff, with a load of experience back of him, was having none of that because he’d seen nothing. And there and then as I tried to reason with them: ‘Look!’ says the new kid. And we looked…”
Garth felt a shiver run down his spine. “And you saw…?”
“Movement!” said the other. “Out there where the mist broke on the far edge of darkness, they were on the move!”
“Fly-by-nights!” Garth barely breathed the words, and Myers nodded.
“It had to be,” he said. “And yet even now I can’t be sure! Even though—or perhaps because—I not only saw it but felt it, as if it was in my head! That forward-flowing motion; those gliding, spectral figures; that drift of tattered shapes, leaning into the night, hardly looking at us at all—but when they did with burning eyes, like so many fireflies at that distance, and quickly blinking out—and moving as if driven by the mist, or as if they were a part of it or even riding it! For a moment they were there, and then…there was just the swirling where they’d been, and they were gone!”
“But where to?” Garth’s mouth was dry as a stick. “In which direction?” And before the other could reply: “North!” he answered his own question, and with certainty. “And yes, now you’ve woken me up, too. For Donald, I’m sure that you have seen them, and felt them: the fly-by-nights! No longer satisfied to remain parallel with the convoy, they’re moving on, going north—and getting there before us!”
With which Garth also realized there was no longer any need to speak to Gavin Carter. He already knew what Carter had seen, and pretty much what he would tell him…
As the new dawn broke, however, and the sun lifted free of the horizon into a blinding blue sky, there were people whom Garth must speak to. And so, having stood his squad down, he at once sought out his father and the clan’s leader.
Accompanied by Donald Myers, he found Zach and Big Jon engaged in apparently gloomy conversation at the latter’s rauper. There, when the elders saw the squad bosses approaching—their serious expressions and grave manner—they broke off talking and instead prepared to listen.
In deference to Myers’ seniority, Garth held his tongue and let him tell the story of the night’s occurrences, then corroborated it word for word. But as he was finishing he gave Zach a look whose meaning the other clearly understood: that there was more to be told, perhaps best in private, at least for the time being.
“So,” said the leader when Garth had finished speaking, “It appears they’re moving ahead of us and getting stronger as they go. Huh! As if we needed more bad news! When I saw you two corming I had dared hope you weren’t bringing me problems, for I’ve enough of my own. And anyway let’s face it, the fact that a body of fly-by-nights is heading north isn’t proof that they’re especially interested in us. I mean, they haven’t attacked us yet, have they? And who can say why they’re on the move, or why they do anything for that matter? Enough, for I have other things on my mind! Off you go to your rest—and thanks for nothing very much!”
But then, as if he suddenly realized there was little else they could have done but make their discovery known to him, Big Jon added: “Wait! There’s an immemorial saying: ‘don’t kill the messenger.’ Or in this case, don’t be so ungrateful to him! For it’s far better to know what’s in the wind than to get blown arse over tit by it when it turns into a storm! So, despite the somewhat dubious nature of your report, still I must thank you for bringing it to my attention. Now go and get some sleep.”