Hulius rammed another transponder spike into the earth by the road and Huw scraped an arrow on the nearest tree, pointing back along their path. The LED on top of the transponder blinked infrequently, reassuring them that the radio beacon was ready and waiting to guide them home. For the next half hour they plodded along the shallow downhill path, Hulius leading the way with his hunting rifle, Elena bringing up the rear. Once they were on the roadbed, it was easy to follow, although patches of asphalt had been heaved up into odd mounds and shoved aside by trees over the years-or centuries-for which it had been abandoned. Something about the way the road snaked along the contours of the shallow hillside tickled Huw's imagination. "It was built to take cars," he finally said aloud.
"Huh? How can you tell?" asked Yul.
"The radius of curvature. Look at it, if you're on foot it's as straight as an arrow. But imagine you're driving along it at forty, fifty miles per hour. See how it's slightly banked around that ridge ahead?" He pointed towards a rise in the ground, just visible through the trees.
They continued in silence for a couple of minutes. "You're assuming-" Yul began to say, then stopped, freezing in his tracks right in front of a tree that had thrust through the asphalt.
"What?" Huw almost walked into his back.
"Cover," Yul whispered, gesturing towards the side of the track. "It's probably empty, but..."
"What?" Huw ducked to the side of the road-followed by Elena-then crept forward to peer past Yul's shoulder.
"There," said Hulius, raising one hand to point. It took a moment for Huw to recognize the curving flank of a mushroom-pale dome, lightly streaked with green debris. "You were looking tor company, weren't you? I've got a bad feeling about this..."
It wasn't the first time Miriam had hidden in the woods, nursing a splitting headache and a festering sense of injustice, but familiarity didn't make it easier: and this time she'd had an added source of anxiety as she crossed over, hoping like hell that the Clan hadn't seen fit to doppelganger her business by building a defensive site in the same location in their own world. But she needn't have worried. The trees grew thick and undisturbed, and she'd made sure that the site was well inland from the line the coast had followed before landfill in both her Boston and the strangely different New British version had extended it.
She'd taken a risk, of course. Boston and Cambridge occupied much the same sites in New Britain as in her own Massachusetts, but in the Gruinmarkt that area was largely untamed, covered by deciduous forest and the isolated tracts and clearings of scattered village estates. She'd never thought to check the lay of the land colocated with her workshop, despite having staked out her house: tor all she knew, she might world-walk right into the great hall of some hedge lord. But it seemed unlikely- Angbard hadn't chosen the site of his fortified retreat for accessibility-so the worst risk she expected was a twisted ankle or a drop into a gully.
Instead Miriam stumbled and nearly walked face-first into a beech tree, then stopped and looked around. "Ow." She massaged her forehead. This was bad: she suddenly fell hot and queasy, and her vision threatened to play tricks on her.
The nausea got worse abruptly, peaking in a rush that cramped her stomach. She doubled over to her right and vomited, whimpering with pain. The spasms seemed to go on for hours, leaving her gasping for breath as she retched herself dry. Eventually, by the time she was too exhausted to stand up, the cramps began to ease. She sat up and leaned back against the tree, pulled her suitcase close, and shivered uncontrollably. "I wonder what brought that on?" She mumbled under her breath. Then in an effort to distract herself, she opened the case.
