"The next time the Moles will come." Her tongue darted over her lips quickly. "Twelve days before the holiday. Two days to get here. That means they will attack us again in ten days."

"Zasen!" I roared. "Kanik!"

"Shh," she begged, pushing to her feet. "I'll get them."

"Guys!" I simply bellowed again.

Ayla's eyes were getting big and scared again, though. "Rymar, don't yell through the halls!"

"This is a house," I assured her, "and we yell here."

"Lots," Zasen said as he stepped into the room.

I could also hear Kanik's feet rushing up the stairs. "Rymar? Everything okay?"

"She found it!" I said, turning my chair so I could see both men now hovering in the doorway.

"Found what?" Kanik asked.

Ayla lifted up her pad of paper. "The Moles will be here in ten days. Saint Richard's Day is coming. Twelve days before, with two for traveling, and they will be here in ten days."

"Shit," Zasen breathed, crossing the room to look at her paper. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I started with the new year, then matched up all the other days. The last time the Moles were here was on August fourth, which you said was Arbor sixteenth, right?"

"Right," he agreed.

"And the next holiday the compound will celebrate is this one." Her finger stabbed down on the paper. "Saint Richard's Day. They will serve meat. They will have weddings." Then she lifted her eyes. "So the Moles will be back, right?"

Zasen traced his nail along her page, clearly tracking the dates backwards as if checking her work. "Shit," he breathed. "We know when they're coming!"

"Which means you need to tell the militia," I said. "Zasen, we can be ready for them this time."

"And tell Jerlis," he said.

"Figure out the rest," Kanik told her. "Ayla, figure out all of them."

So she turned her paper so we could all see. "The days with an X are our holidays. The ones with a circle are when the Moles leave. Where I scribbled - is that said right?"

"It is," I assured her.

"Where I scribbled is the day they'll attack. The dark boxes."

"So make a copy," I told her. "Fuck, make three copies!"

"Four," Zasen said, "so I can give one to Jerlis. Looks like I'm going to ruin his afternoon."

But Ayla was already working. Her grids weren't perfect, being drawn by hand, but she'd spaced it all out on our monthly system. Each week had five days. Each month had either five or six weeks. Each time the Moles would come was marked boldly, as if she was scared someone wouldn't see it.

"Zasen," I said softly, realizing how big this really was. "You're going to need to tell Drozel too."

"And make sure everyone is ready," he agreed. "Yeah. Trust me, I'm already making plans. We'll start training tomorrow."

"I'll help," Kanik assured him.

"Which means I'll stay here with Ayla," I said, knowing they'd worry about that next, and not wanting to make it obvious we were still hovering over her.

Zasen just glanced up and met my eyes. "If she's right?"

I nodded slowly, because if she was, we could finally get ahead of these fuckers. We would have our warriors out, armed, and waiting before the Moles even showed up. For once, we might be able to save people instead of organizing mass funerals!

But what if she was wrong? That was what scared me the most. Because if she got this wrong, the backlash would be swift and harsh. It might even be more than I could stop - but I'd do my best to protect her anyway. After all, I'd made a promise.

Sixty-OneAyla

That afternoon, Zasen took two of the copies of my calendar and headed out. Kanik found something called a ruler, and then helped me to make more that were straight and even-looking. Rymar found pens with different-colored ink for me to use to make the important days stand out.

Over dinner, we showed Zasen the new version. He praised me for working so hard at it, and then announced Drozel had his doubts but was willing to mount a defense on that day. The worst case, Zasen said, was nothing happened. The best case might allow us to finally stop the Moles.

And when he said us, Zasen made it sound like I was included.

But the next day, both Zasen and Kanik headed out right after giving me the daily dose of venom - which no longer made me breathless. Evidently, there was some training session they wanted to attend. For all the militia members who protected the town, they explained. Drozel ran it, so they were going to take the chance to work on tactics for offense instead of defense.

And Rymar was focused on cleaning up the office. Not just the piece of paper he'd thrown at me, but the entire office. I offered to help, but he'd waved me off. This was his duty, he'd assured me. I'd done mine, which meant I could spend another day reading my book and catching up on all the things I'd missed.

The history book was interesting, too. It talked about the technology people had once taken for granted, including things learned from outer space. There were pictures of science laboratories where miracles had been made - like Dragons. Chapter after chapter explained how once-great nations had fallen, talked about something called Gahnek, and discussed how countries had been replaced with tribes of people who had banded together.

Some had grown bigger, taking in others, like the Reapers. Others had been isolated because they were too different, like the Dragons. Various religious groups had called it the end of times, and many had reacted in drastic and unpredictable ways. Locking themselves in survival bunkers was mentioned, but so were mass suicides to offer their souls to God.

I wasn't sure how long I'd been lost in my book when the sunlight began to dim. I knew it wasn't early enough for the sun to set, and the color of the light was all wrong. Confused, I peeked out the window to see the sky was filled with clouds today. More than I'd ever seen before, and quite a few of them were dark. That made the house cool off a little more, which was nice. I managed to read a few more chapters, and then something outside changed again.

The wind picked up, slamming into the house like it was solid. Wood creaked. Windows rattled. My heart began to race, but another check proved it wasn't anything to be worried about. Dust blew through the street, whipping vibrant green leaves and dusty brown debris along with it. Some of it swirled, making little eddies at the edge of the road. The trees were all swaying, proving they were more flexible than I realized.

I watched for a while, but when nothing else happened, I convinced myself there was nothing wrong with returning to my book. The sound wasn't too loud, and when I tried to read again, I could smell something different in the air. I couldn't even explain the scent, but it seemed to come with the wind whistling at the edges of the door.

When a sound boomed loudly in the distance, I gave up on reading and went to open the back door. That was the direction the noise had come from. I barely released the latch before the wood was wrenched from my hands, banging against the wall with the force of the wind. Yelping in surprise, I scrambled to close the door again, unable to see anything but a mass of trees all swaying as if they were possessed and a sky turning ominously dark over them.

Was this the Devil rising up like the Elders had predicted? Was that boom caused by the gates of Hell opening? For a moment, I thought about bracing the door closed, but Zasen and Kanik were out there somewhere. I wished they'd come back, but I couldn't even tell if it was late in the day. The sky was so different. There weren't any shadows to judge by - and then that sound came again.

This time it was closer.

I spun to head back to the living room, but that didn't seem to make it any better. Now something was pattering against the front windows. It was sharp, like little bits of dirt or rocks. I'd seen glass break once before, and if it was hit too hard, I was sure the windows would do the same.

So I turned my feet towards the bedroom. There, the wind was quieter, but the window had the same problem as the one in the front. Starting to feel my panic rising, I turned for the bathroom, only to hear the entire house creak in protest. I gasped, my feet stopping somewhere between the two doors, and then bright lights flashed from every window the house had.

I dropped to the ground, instinctively covering my head. Cowering there in the hall, I tried to take slow, deep breaths, but just as I began to regain my composure, another boom sounded, and this one was almost right on top of us. I flinched, shielding my head again.

That was when the impacts moved from the windows to the roof. Loud, heavy clinks and thunks landed all over, sounding like something trying to break through. What started as a few quickly turned into too many to count. More of those lights came, and the banging and booming chased each one.