The mule scented the intruder before the woman or the dog, though in fairness to Ry, Peregrine had sent him to patrol the downwind slope. The mule stood with his black velvet nose into the wind and bless him, he didn’t make a noise, just waggled his ears and stamped his forefoot.
            Peregrine scanned the upslope and frowned with concentration, trying to figure out what the mule was looking at from where she stood twenty feet away. She didn’t see anything. Nothing moving. No splash of color out of place. If it was langers, the mule would have brayed in alarm. But she didn’t doubt him. Baily was solid. If it had been Burly Boy, who was grazing in the paddock on that particular day, she might have had second thoughts. But this was solid, trustworthy Baily, so she extracted herself from the thorny bushes. When she reached the mule, she patted his shoulder and offered him cubed sugar from her jacket pocket. Baily munched the extravagant three cubes with relish, but he kept his head pointed up the hill, flicking his ears at the unseen enemy.
            Peregrine carefully poured the soft, reddish-purple berries from the bucket into the pack baskets Baily wore. The biting sweet scent filled her nostrils. She breathed deeply, then shook off the desire to get lost in the smell. Some people wore gloves and masks to pick Essence berries, but not Peregrine. She’d never make the claim aloud, but she knew the Essence that flowed from her still pots was superior because she let her own essence mingle with the berries from the very beginning. It meant her hands got scratched, but to her way of thinking, that was just the beginning of the sacrifices a distiller had to be willing to make.
            Ry had noticed her movements and returned silently to her side. She pointed her arm to direct the big dog, whispering, “Perimeter. Hold.”
            It wasn’t langers, so it had to be human. If it was a neighbor, they would have whistled a signal and hoped she wasn’t there to hear them trespassing on her berry patch. So chances were, it was Dracos over the hill. She could take the mule and dog and leave, hoping they wouldn’t find her. But if they happened over the hill, even Dracos couldn’t miss the broken brambles, the berries in one section missing, the tracks of human, mule and dog crisscrossing the soft ground.
            Dracos pushed for more information about Essence all the time. Did chemical analysis. Dropped in unexpectedly to inspect distilleries throughout the fall and winter. Questioned people. Hell, they’d set up their own distillery in several Population Centers and forced Pathians to work there. They made whisky, but they’d never make Essence. Even if they did discover Essence berries, they couldn’t make Essence.
            Kara Foxworth, the eternal cynic, opined that the Dracos already knew about Essence berries and it was pointless to go through the effort of keeping that a secret any longer. Fortunately, Kara wasn’t in charge of the Foxworth family yet. In Peregrine’s opinion, letting Dracos know berries were a key ingredient would give them one more piece of the puzzle. And one more piece of leverage against every distiller on Path because they’d control access to the berries. As it was, no one was allowed to keep a distillery intact without a Draco license. So she had to take Ry and go over the hill to do what she could to keep the Dracos from discovering this berry patch and getting curious about what she, a known distiller, had been doing there when she should be home sprouting the malt.
            She picked up the picket rope and led the mule away from the hill Ry had been sent to defend. There was a cave entrance nearby. They had to travel through the thorns that thrived where Essence berries grew, but Baily, sweet cooperative Baily, didn’t protest, though he did balk if she didn’t push the thorns far enough aside. Peregrine slipped on gloves for this duty. Once past the thorns, they moved more easily through lush rhododendrons to a cave no one would have seen if they didn’t know where to look.
            When they reached the cave, Baily waited just inside while Peregrine quickly unfastened the panniers and set them behind a rockfall. A serious inspection would find them, but a casual glance would miss them. She turned the mule into the small corral and he contentedly thrust his head in the water bucket. He wore only a halter without a bit, so he could eat and drink without interference. He didn’t mind wearing the light harness the baskets attached to, nor did he object to being left alone in the dark, damp cave. Burly Boy would have been braying his fool head off by now and Peregrine blessed the fates that made this Baily’s shift.
            She pulled the camouflaged, soundproof door into place behind her. With a twist of the hidden wheel at the base of the door, she locked it. There was always a twinge when she did that. If something happened to delay her, there was no one else on the holding to come find the mule and bring him home. She had nightmares about Baily and Burly starving to death in the dark because she forgot they were there, because she couldn’t remember the combination, because the Dracos held her captive.
            But she didn’t have time for sentiment. She shouldered the rifle she’d kept hidden in the cave and moved quickly to hide any traces of her and the mule’s passage. Fortunately the resilient rhododendron had sprung back into place. Crouching, because the intruder could top the hill at any moment, she ran up the slope as fast as she could. It occurred to her, as her hip began to protest, that if this was one of the Foxworth clan trespassing without giving the whistle announcing their presence, she’d flay them for inconvenience. Young snots. Didn’t have any appreciation for what it was to be alone. How could they, the Foxworths bred like rats.
            When she reached the crest of the hill, she saw the figure. Draco, no mistake about that from the uniform and the flash of sunlight off the heavy rifle, but through two hundred yards of rhododendron and scrub under the yellow varsh trees, it was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman. Not that it mattered. She scanned, searching for the rest of the plague.
            What she did see was the flash of sunlight again. A flash of black movement through the brush. The Draco’s rifle swinging round at Ry. Without thinking, she stood and screamed, “Ry, drop!”
            The rifle flared. The dog dropped motionless. Peregrine swung her own rifle up and pointed it at the Draco.
            “Oh Jesus God, I’m sorry,” the Draco called, and of all things, dropped his rifle.
            Peregrine kept hers firm against her shoulder. “Stay where you are,” she yelled when the Draco took a step toward Ry.
            “I didn’t know it was a dog,” the man babbled. “I thought it was a langer.”
            She wondered how he could tell it was a dog from the motionless black lying so frighteningly still in the bushes. She saw the smoke.
            “Smoldering piles!” she bit off the curse to run zig-zags down the hill. There was a puff of wind and the smoke burst into orange flame. The Draco’s laser fire had ignited the dry leaves not five feet away from where Ry lay. The soil was moist underneath, but the leaves on top were dry and the varsh trees could go up easily this time of year.
            “Ry, release.” Peregrine had her eyes on the fire, not on the Draco. Just as she reached the fire and began to grind the burning leaves into the damp humus, her peripherial vision caught Ry leaping. She looked up. The Draco had broken position and was running toward her, rifle in hand again.
            He paused. Swung the rifle back to firing position. Followed the arch of Ry’s leaping body with the rifle.
            And never fired.
            Ry landed his forepaws square on the man’s chest, knocking him flat. Ry snarled, menacingly quiet. He refused to be distracted by the man’s arm and kept his teeth inches from the man’s face.
            Peregrine had to swallow hard before she could speak. “Drop the weapon,” she ordered, her voice not betraying the panic she’d felt.
            To his credit, the man didn’t struggle or yell, but he didn’t release the rifle either. “Ma’am, could you please call the dog off?”
            “Not until you drop the weapon.”
            He released the rifle and asked, “Should I move my hands away from it?”
            “I wouldn’t move much at all if I were you, boyo,” Peregrine said lightly, kicking the rifle away from his hand. She crouched beside him, getting a good look at his face. He might have been in the Draco squad that had quit her place just six days ago, but he might not. He was young, mid 20s, she’d guess. Dark hair, starting to get that shabby, in the field look. And at least three days’ worth of beard when Draco regulations called for a shave, in the field or not. His nose had never been broken, he wasn’t much of a brawler then. Or else he was very good. He was fairly smart about dogs, too, because he watched Ry without challenging the dog with direct eye contact. He looked wary, but not panicked.
            “What do you want Draco?”
            “To breathe?” he wheezed.
            She took a step back. “Ry, back off. Guard close.” The dog backed up to her side, never taking his eyes off his opponent.
            The Draco took a deep, gulping breath. “Scat! What’s he weigh, 200 kilos?”
            Peregrine declined to answer.
            “Permission to stand, ma’am?”
            “Don’t make any sudden moves. And don’t even think about reaching for your weapon.”
            He moved slowly, but easily, twitching his uniform into place in what Peregrine figured was an unconscious motion. She had been around enough Dracos to stop being surprised at how tall they were, but this one wasn’t much taller than she was, about average for a man of Path.
            “You’re not from Alpha or Beta, are you?”
            “No ma’am. You know I could have shot both you and the dog while you were distracted.”
            Peregrine didn’t answer, just stood easy with her rifle loose, but ready in her hands.
            “I’m just saying, if I wanted to harm you, I could have. And I could have shot the dog before he reached me, instead of letting him just tackle me.”
            “Yes, that is the one defining characteristic of Dracos that we all talk about -- how restrained you all are.”
            “I’m not, I don’t,” he stammered then paused. “I don’t expect you’ll believe it, but I’m not like other Dracos.”
            Peregrine wasn’t going to waste time discussing the relative merits of Dracos. “Where’s the rest of your plague?”
            “My what?”
            “A murder of crows, a mob of langers, a plague of dragons. Your patrol, squad, whatever the hell you call the rest of your plague. Where are they?”
            “Oh. I don’t know. I’m a little lost,” he added sheepishly.
            She was skeptical on general principle. Never distill past the spring equinox. Never poke a langer. Never trust a Draco. Lost, my fat uncle’s ass.
            “Ry, perimeter.” With a wave of her hand, she sent the big black dog out to verify the Draco’s statement. The Draco shifted his weight and was about to say something. She cut him off by asking, “Where’s your GPS?”
            “Only officers have those. And they don’t work most of the time anyway. Captains all say the GPS will be functional soon, that the Omegans can’t have put that many satellite hunters in space. But the non-coms all say the effing GPS is a piece of crap. Pardon Ma’am.”
            Peregrine shook her head. He apologized about a couple of swear words, but he’d say ‘Omegans’ and not even know how offensive it was. She watched him closely, shifting her gaze for only a second to check Ry’s progress before shifting back to glare at the Draco again. Ry’s tail was arched over his back and waving slowly. Peregrine cradled the rifle and scanned the trees herself. “When was the last time you saw your plague?”
            “Yesterday.”
            Peregrine relaxed just a little. The rest could be miles away, even back at the PC. Assuming this one was telling the truth. Ry seemed to confirm that he was. She jerked her head in the direction he’d come from. “You’re on my holding. Get off.”
            “Your holding? Oh you mean you have a contract.”
            Peregrine’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t been on Path long, have you boyo? This is my family’s holding. It’s been our holding for seven generations. A damned Draco contract doesn’t mean jack shit to me. This land is my responsibility.”
            Peregrine stepped closer. “The only thing your damned contract means is that military personnel aren’t supposed to be here without written orders approved by an IPC judge to investigate matters that may be of legitimate military concern. You’re military,” she said and jabbed the butt of her rifle hard in his ribs. The young Draco kept his hands spread away from his body and took a step backwards. “Without approved orders,” she jabbed again. “So you can get the hell,” Jab. “Off my holding,” Jab. “Now.” Jab.
            “The thing is, ma’am, not only am I lost,” he took a deep breath. “I’m a deserter. I’m looking for sanctuary.” Peregrine’s eyes popped wide and she snorted in disbelief. But the Draco kept talking fast.
             “I overheard the officers talking. Last year all the squads helped out at two or three holdings. But this year, each squad is doing only one and then patrolling for deserters and information about the underground that helps enlisteds like me.”
            Peregrine lowered the rifle and laughed out loud. “How stupid do you think we are? That we’d risk our lives helping Dracos? Invest time and energy developing some kind of underground for you? And assuming we’d take that risk and make that investment, we’d just show any old Draco wandering in the woods how it all works?”
            “I know you have to be careful, ma’am.” He spread his hands, palms up, appealing. “Maybe there isn’t any underground at all, maybe that’s just talk. But there’s plenty like me, who’d be happy to go away and leave you in peace if you’d help us.”
            Peregrine leaned forward, resting her hands on the rifle barrel. “Did you ever hear the story of the woman who found a snake freezing on the road? She felt sorry for it, so she picked it up and brought it home. She made a box for it by the fire to warm it up. The snake got warm, slithered out of the box and bit the woman. As she lay there dying, she said to the snake ‘How could you bite me? I saved your life.’ And the snake said ‘You knew I was a snake when you brought me home.’