The Dead Do Not Return

"Lieutenant Olivier!"

Elliot turned at the call. A knot of vaguely familiar faces was filing toward him.

"I—I'm Corporal Kevin Douglas, sir. This is Private Brooks, and..."

The introductions looked likely to run long, so he set down the part he'd been carrying under his arm. Their faces were nothing alike, yet every one of them watched him with the same bright, yearning admiration.

"If it hadn't been for you the day before yesterday, Lieutenant, we wouldn't be among the living. We wanted to thank you properly."

"Thank you, Lieutenant!"

"Thank you!"

The enlisted men raised their voices and bowed from the waist. He managed only the faintest lift at the corner of his mouth. When he had sent off even those who tried to press some small gift on him by way of thanks, Sergeant Miles, who had been drinking in the exchange from a little distance with open relish, came sauntering over.

"Cigarettes are hard to come by these days. You might've just taken them."

"What would I do with something I don't even smoke?"

"I used to say the same. Then I got here, and I changed my mind."

Elliot picked the part up off the ground and started walking again.

"You know what a corporal's pay amounts to. I'm not taking that off him."

"Oh, Lieutenant. That was almost handsome of you just now."

Miles fell in quickly at his back, snickering around the cigarette clamped in his teeth.

"Funny, though. You don't seem to care much for being thanked. Most men wear it like a badge of pride."

"Saving them means I killed just as many."

The bleakness in his voice stopped Miles short. A flicker of discomfort passed over his face.

"They were the enemy."

"They were men before they were the enemy."

"Well, yes, but... this isn't the sort of place where talk like that gets you anywhere."

Elliot turned the last of it over and gave a hollow laugh. Guilt, after all, was an absurdity on a battlefield where dozens, hundreds, died in a single day. If you did not want to die, you killed. That was the one iron law of war, and it did not change.

"Besides, if there's a man in the whole army who's killed more of the enemy than anyone, nine times out of ten it's you, Lieutenant..."

Miles said it without a thought, and the line of Elliot's mouth went a little hard. Catching the discomfort a beat too late, Miles laughed sheepishly and scratched at the back of his head.

"Anyway, don't go getting so gloomy. Say what they will, you're a hero of Fala. The hope of the whole alliance."

"I didn't realize you believed in a symbol the brass forced into being."

"I don't believe in the symbol. I believe in you, Lieutenant."

Elliot frowned and looked back at him. Miles paid the set of his face no mind and went on, easy as ever.

"You're the Blue Meteor, aren't you? Just as your mother, Captain Campbell, did—you've got to keep us alive and bring Fala its victory."

"Sergeant."

"That's what they hung the name on you for."

Miles grinned. Down his washed-out face, red blood began to sheet and pour.

Elliot stopped breathing.

The clear sky soured to a leaden gray, and heavy drops began to fall. He stared blankly as Miles blotched over, red upon red, then slowly lifted a hand. The rain striking his palm was red. Thick, and rising with the reek of iron—human blood.

Unable to face what lay in front of him, he covered his face with a blood-wet hand. In an instant a sea of blood swallowed the parched earth. Swept along toward somewhere he could not name, he shouted and shouted a thing no one would hear.

It isn't my fault.

I had no choice.

Both feelings rose at once, and the contradiction of them closed around his throat.

I am the one who let you die.

"Elliot?"

His name jerked him back. Anna sat across the table, watching him in silence.

"Does something hurt?"

"N-no."

He fumbled his teacup up. Swallowing the hot tea too fast, he scalded his tongue and only fed her suspicion.

"You look like something's wrong."

He endured a pain sharp enough to start tears and barely got his numbed tongue to move.

"I just haven't been sleeping."

"You never sleep..."

He pretended not to hear the mutter and slipped up from his chair. A mouthful of cold water, he thought, might take the edge off the sting.

All at once a bark cleared the windowsill. Their eyes met in the air between them. Elliot laid a finger to his lips and crept to the parlor window.

The barking came again, insistent. His gaze raked what lay beyond the glass: a half-eaten lump of meat, weeds coming up green in the garden. He was searching the doorway hidden by the white outer wall when the dog itself flashed into sight, bounding and bounding.

"Stay there."

He left her with that and was out in the hall like a draft of wind. Striding for the door, he drew the pistol holstered at his back. Cold steel settled into his palm, and a familiar tension woke a mind gone dull with idleness.

He set his back to the wall beside the door and steadied his breath.

You've got to fire before the enemy ever sees you.

Major Keaton's voice in his ear, he slowly closed his eyes. Against the dark sinking over his sight, a reddish horizon rose. Nothing showed on the radar. But his eyes caught what no one else could see.

They eased open. In the instant he reached for the knob, a slender arm cut across his vision.

The door opened.

"S-stop! Get away!"

He blinked, vacant, at the familiar voice pushing through the gap. Anna, who had opened the door, turned to him with a thoroughly unimpressed look, as if she had known it would come to this.

"I said get away!"

The dog barked.

"Agh—aah! Somebody save me, Anna?!"

Anna stepped aside without a word. Elliot jammed the pistol back into its holster and came out onto the step.

"C-Captain! No—Brother!"

Sure enough, the one locked in a life-or-death struggle with the dog was none other than Luke. At the way the boy's face lit the moment he saw him, Elliot could manage only an awkward smile.

"Hello, Luke."

"Hello! Ah, please! Do something about him!"

"Sorry. He doesn't listen to me either."

The color left Luke's face in an instant.

The stray they had started keeping loose in the yard a few weeks back ignored Elliot entirely, except at the hour he brought the three meals. He did not, of course, clamp onto a trouser cuff and hang on for dear life the way he did with Luke.

"Anna."

Luke looked so wretched, his trousers in real danger of coming off, that Elliot quietly pressed her. Only then did she call the dog, low and even.

"Gorgolio."

At that single word the stray shot across and flattened itself at Anna's feet. Luke stared, dazed, and muttered.

"Don't tell me that's his name..."

"Gorgolio."

"Who names a dog Gorgolio..."

Wisely, Elliot did not agree out loud.

"What brings you all the way out here?"

"Oh—it's, my cousin just opened a restaurant in the village! The place is clean, and her cooking's really good, and, um..."

Luke kept stealing glances at him.

"I thought it might be nice if Anna came along..."

"With Anna?"

Elliot looked down, puzzled, at Anna crouched by the front step with her hand on the dog, then turned back to Luke.

"Just the two of you?"

"Ah, no! Of course not! The truth is, I bragged to my friends that Anna and I were friends, and they raised such a fuss that I had to bring her next time. I thought it'd be good for her to meet some new people, too..."

His voice lost its courage by degrees and trailed away. Elliot, who had been quietly thinking, asked Anna,

"Do you want to go?"

"If you come too."

She answered without so much as looking up. His brow had only begun to draw in when Luke's cheer burst out of him.

"If you came too, it'd be an honor! You have no idea how much I've bragged to the boys about meeting you! They all said they had to see you, and I swore up and down that you were a busy man and there wasn't a chance in the world! If you actually showed up, they'd be thrilled!"

"No, I—"

"He's not busy. He can come with me."

Mischief dangled from the look she lifted to him. He bit his lip and smiled.

"I'll think about it. Thank you for the offer."

"I'm the one who ought to thank you! Oh, and this is a pie Aunt Maggie said to bring over. I think she misses Anna a great deal."

The latch clicked. He shut the front door with a large plate in each hand, watched Anna's back as she ran down the hall with her empty hands flapping, and only then started after her at a slow walk.

"Why on earth did you say that?"

"You're not busy, and you know it. You spend all day staring out at the sea looking pitiful—why pretend you are?"

"When have I ever stared pitifully at the sea..."

He swallowed a sigh and went over to where she was sprawled on the parlor sofa.

"I don't want to go."

"Why not?"

"What am I supposed to do, wedging myself in where a bunch of children are playing?"

"You're hardly old, and it's always 'children' with you."

Anna stuck her lip out and swung her calves in protest. This time the sigh got away from him.

"Just say it plainly. You said it because you thought I wouldn't let you go alone."

"And what changes if I say it plainly?"

"At least the conversation wouldn't be this exhausting."

"That's all?"

"Hard to say. Wouldn't it depend on the situation?"

"Hmm."

Anna narrowed her eyes as if in solemn thought, then sat up straight.

"Fine. I'll be honest. Are you going to let me go by myself?"

"No."

"Liar! What was supposed to be different!"

He shrugged and crossed to the kitchen. Anna glared after him, drumming both feet on the floor, then sprang up and vanished into her room.

"Just try shutting yourself in that wardrobe again!"

As if in answer, the door slammed. What was he to do with a temper like that? Elliot shook his head as though there were no help for it, and still a laugh escaped him.

Winsmore had slipped into May, and the days were lengthening in a way you could see. A season still bright as noon at six in the evening was a glad one for children who spent the whole day tearing around outside—but for those who, through no wish of their own, had to live in hiding, it could only be a stretch of empty hours.