Healey was resting his old bones in the sunny patch on the watchtower’s southern edge when Boz called the alarm. “Boss man, flares!” He struggled to his feet and padded over to the tower’s edge to stare at the two flares blossoming slowly over the rich multi-hued green tapestry of the forest crown. It was a wonder the flares had made it through the dense canopy, a wonder in fact that they had fired at all. It had been years since one had been used, and nobody left alive knew how to check the fuses.

“’Zat green?” Shell, furtive and quiet, what they would have called child-sized back before the Quickening, was the third person on watch this morning. She pointed with one skinny hand at the clouds of smoke as they dispersed in the persistent winds, drifting inland in spirals and whorls of red and some other color that, Healey had to agree, looked like it might be green. The quizzical tone in Shell’s light, soft voice reflected Healey’s own doubt at the possibility. Their flares were coded, red for help needed, yellow for ravagers incoming, black for a horde, and green for a survivor. Green had not been fired for a decade, not since the old Doctor had stumbled out of the wilderness, starved and half-mad and fully blessed. It was easy to imagine that the green dye had faded in that time, to whatever strange shade hung over the forest now.

“Yella maybe?” Boz grunted, he and Shell communicating in the short, emotionally-drained patois of the first generation, the children of the survivors who old people like Healey referred to as wildlings. Just as he voiced his doubts the large summer cumulus that had been covering the whole  area broke apart, and in the sudden bright radiance of the full summer sun the smoke’s color became clearer, more vivid. Definitely green.

They both looked to Healey, suddenly uncertain in the face of this alarm from out of history. “You know the drill,” he told them, speaking terse and fast. “We’ve got survivors and scouts in need of help. Shell, get on the bike and get word to the Battle Wall, bring a team.” He squinted back to the smoke where it drifted over the forest, spread so thin now it was almost invisible. “Survivors are serious,” he muttered to himself, adding, “Boz, go get her in the veil and bring her here. I’ll keep watch.” He looked to both of them, Shell with just seventeen summers all within the Battle Wall, who had never been to the forest, and Boz just two summers older, one trip outside that nearly went wrong, eager to prove himself again, small and scrappy with bright dark eyes under an unruly mop of chestnut-coloured hair, braided and dreaded and threaded with pieces of shell and sea-smoothed glass. This was no time for him to test his bravery again, but at least he could show his maturity. “You know the rules, you know the drills, let’s do it.”

#

There had been talk of relaxing on the drills and wariness that had kept their community alive for two decades, now that the ravagers were so quiescent. Sure we should keep the watch on the Wall of Silence, some people had said, but do we really need to keep the guardian teams at the Battle Wall? Those are good young people who could be ploughing or sewing or repairing or fishing, just idling down at the base of the Battle Wall waiting for a threat that no longer came. We always have time now, they’d say, what with the ravagers getting lost in the Field of Songs, we can rustle up a team more leisurely now, they’d say, and what’s the rush? Some even suggested dropping the entry protocols, because nobody could cross all that open land now and reach the Wall of Silence without visibly quickening on the way. Now, standing at the south gate with the Wall of Silence towering behind him, watching everyone gathering precise and fast at Shell’s alarm, Healey was glad he had argued against those voices, he and the other elders. Let this be a reminder, he hoped, to all those who doubted. Ravager trouble, a survivor, all the reasons they needed to keep their guard up.

It had only been a few minutes but Shell was already back, the messenger bike leaned up against the foot of the tower she had scaled like a monkey to resume watching. The team of guardians was hustling up the hill from the only gate in the Battle Wall and Boz was walking towards him along the Wall of Silence, keeping a respectful distance from the woman who accompanied him. Healey’s heart skipped a little as it always did when he saw her, tall and solid and unhurried, striding along the rough path at the base of the Wall of Silence with shoulders back and head high, shrouded in black. Her hut was nearby,  between the south gate and the Beast Pens that they, mercifully, had not had to use in the last year, and in the rush of the alarm she was still adjusting her veil, the tiny bells that adorned it tinkling slightly as she fussed at it with black-gloved hands. He caught a glimpse of the strange, dark pools of her eyes as she adjusted it, and then she was all business, just the outline of her face beneath the fine obscuring muslin of the veil.

“Healey,” she greeted him, voice firm and calm. “Boz says we have survivors?” She stood back from him at the prescribed distance that they sometimes broke when they were just the two of them in the shadow of the Wall, when no one was looking and they could stand close enough to see more than outlines beneath that accursed veil.

“Lily,” he returned the greeting, trying to maintain the same formal distance with her, in voice as well as deed. “Aye, it seems that way. And a ravager warning. Given the seriousness, I’d appreciate your help.”

She inclined her head slightly, the tiny bells on her veil whispering their small sounds. “Always, Healey, always.”

The team rushed in then, and the clamour of greetings and instructions began. There were four of them, wearing the best leathers the settlement could spare, helmets already on and precious chainmail neckbands in place, three of them carrying spears and one with a crossbow at the ready. That was Triss, known for her sharp aim and miraculous for being born during the Quickening itself, when babies were abandoned and only the ruthless survived. They talked briefly, everyone greeted Lily warily, and then it was time to leave the safety of the wall, and face the world of the ravagers.