Free Valentine's Rising by E.E. Knight

walked past a Reaper once on an Honor Guard march. They had us out burning down houses. It didn’t move. Just looked at us dead cold. Reminded me of a snake sitting on a rock.”
    â€œDead cold, all right,” Valentine agreed.
    â€œSo that’s why everyone’s scared all the time now. They’re afraid the Reapers will get them.”
    â€œThat’s why people cooperate with them. The people who serve them get badges, or cards, or pieces of jewelry that mean the Reapers can’t touch them.”
    Hank nodded. “Yeah, we heard some of that in Honor Guard. Our Top Guardian had some sorta certificate that signified his family was too important to reassign. I hated him, Dallas trash if ever there was.”
    â€œYou grew up here in the Ozarks, right?”
    â€œYes, in the borders. My pa would go out into Texas and steal, or trade for horses. He sorta worked for Southern Command; at least they gave him stuff when he brought horses in.”
    â€œYou remember what the Free Territory used to be like, right?”
    â€œYes, it all happened last spring, or last summer, really. I heard a lot of fighting. Then there were new people in charge. My pa was in Texas at the time; when he got back he said we had to do what they say for a while.”
    â€œYou liked it better before they came, right?”
    â€œYes. Momma was happier. She hated it when Pa was in Texas though.”
    â€œI was gone for a couple of years myself. Now that I’m back I’m trying to find if there’s any Free Territory left.”
    â€œAre we going to live there? Is there anywhere safe now?”
    â€œI hope so, Hank. If there is, we’ll find it.”
    Â 
    They were refilling their water skins at a trickle when Ahn-Kha came back from his scout of the old camp.
    â€œEverything’s burnt out, my David. Picked clean. Lots of holes in the ground. If there were buried weapons, I’d say they’ve been dug up.”
    â€œNo one there?”
    â€œTracks. I smelled urine.”
    â€œYou speak really well, for a big stoop,” Hank said.
    Ahn-Kha stood straight, towering over the boy. “We call ourselves the Golden Ones. I grew up trading with men in Omaha. I translated for my people when I was David’s age.”
    â€œWhat’s old for a stoop?”
    Ahn-Kha’s ears folded flat against his head.
    â€œAbout forty years older than you’re going to get if you call him a ‘stoop’ again,” Valentine said.
    â€œYou can call me Ahn-Kha, or Uncle, if that’s too hard for you to pronounce.”
    â€œUncle? My ma would smack me if I called a . . . Golder Ones my uncle.”
    Valentine decided to change the subject. “Hank,” he asked, “what kind of scrounger are you?”
    â€œHaven’t had many chances. We’d just burn when we’d go out on the Honor Guard sweeps.”
    Valentine picked up a stick and put three parallel scores in the ground. He added a fourth, under them and perpendicular to the other three. “That’s a mark for a cache. You know what a cache is?”
    â€œUmmm . . .”
    â€œIt’s a hiding spot. The mark would be on a tree or a rock. See if you can find one as we walk. Chances are it would be out at the edge of the camp. We’re all going to go in and have a look around.”
    The crossed a series of gullies and came upon the camp, folded into the base of the mountain in the broken ground there.
    The camp was in ruins, inhabited only by the memories in Valentine’s mind. The Quonset huts were gone, the shacks and cabins burned to the ground. The smaller branches of many of the trees in camp were black-barked where the flames had caught them. Valentine saw again the old faces of his platoon, remembering the smiles of his men over mugs of beer in the canteen and Sergeant Gator’s slow, easy laugh. He was a Ghost haunting a Southern Command graveyard, and in a few more years there