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time
soon.
    Perhaps the same thoughts spun through his
head, for he sighed and said, “Yes, we should check the wreckage.
If the woman recovers, she may come after you again.”
    “Me? Are you sure she’s not after you?
Perhaps she’s some ex-lover you irritated, and she’s been planning
for years to take her revenge.”
    “I don’t irritate my lovers.” He hopped off
the roof.
    “Just business partners?” Kali climbed down
after him and gave him a smile to let him know she was joking.
    Cedar did not return it. He
looked...glum.
    “Maybe there’ll be a bounty on her head, and
it’ll be worth the side trip,” Kali said.
    Cedar grunted and pointed at the SAB. “There
won’t be a trail to the crash site. Think that can maneuver through
the forest?”
    “It’d probably get stuck in the snow or
undergrowth,” Kali admitted, feeling a twinge of envy for the
flyer. If she had an air-based vehicle, she wouldn’t have to worry
about such pesky things. Someday, she promised herself, thinking of
her airship design, though she was already wondering if the flyer
might inspire modifications.
    “Let’s walk then.” Cedar shouldered his
packsack, and they set out.
     
    * * * * *
     
    A branch swung back and smacked Kali in the
face. She grunted and scraped spruce needles out of her hair. They,
along with twigs, leaves, and sap, already provided her braid with
more decorations than a totem pole.
    “I know I mentioned this before,” Kali said,
“But you could cut some of this undergrowth with your
sword.”
    “One does not use a high quality, imported
Japanese katana to whack weeds,” Cedar said.
    “It came all the way from the Orient? You
must have paid a fortune for it. Perhaps, to justify that
substantial investment, you should use it for more than slicing
people’s heads off.”
    He slanted her a dark look over his shoulder.
“I got it from Jiro, one of my early mentors. We were hunting a
fellow who’d massacred a family in Florida when Jiro got shot in
the leg. He said I wasn’t experienced enough to go after the man on
my own; I was sixteen and figured I knew plenty. I left him to a
doc and tracked the cutthroat all through the swamps. Nearly lost a
leg to an alligator, but I got my man. Jiro said he’d been wrong,
and I was ready to hunt on my own. He retired and gave me the
katana to put to good use.”
    Kali knew Cedar had traveled, but she had not
realized how much. Even though a sane person would probably not be
excited by stories of swamps and alligators, her heart ached with
longing to see such places.
    “Alligator tussle, huh?” she said. “Must have
left a giant scar.”
    “Yup.”
    “Can I see it some time?”
    “Reckon so.” Cedar glanced back, his
expression lighter this time. A glint in his eyes suggested her
interest pleased him. Men always liked to show off war wounds.
    Kali dodged another branch whipping back in
the wake of his passage and resolved to stay farther behind. Smoke
thickened the air, though, promising they were close. She had to
squash an urge to lean to the side or bounce up and down so she
could see around Cedar. At one point, she tried to slip past him,
but he blocked her with a gentle nudge. Being protective, was
he?
    Flames came into view, licking bark and
nibbling spruce needles high up in trees. Broken branches hung from
several trunks, but metal glinting on the forest floor drew Kali’s
gaze downward.
    She could not muster caution, and she darted
past Cedar, this time evading his protective grasp.
    Less wreckage than she expected scattered the
forest floor. The vehicle’s wings drew her eye first. The fall had
mangled them, warping the framework and tearing holes in the
membrane. Kali rubbed the unique mesh between her fingers. Though
cool and sleek like metal, it had a lightweight, sinuous nature
unlike any alloy she knew about. She wished she could talk to the
maker, discover what exactly this was and how to make it. Already,
she could think of dozens of