Source: Fulcrum

Lan's eyes are closed, shifting with a hidden dream in the darkness.

Suddenly he starts up, flattened on the crude mattress, staring upward to the dimly lit ceiling.

There is a hammering at the door. He rolls to his feet and runs to open it.

"What's going on?" There is a cluster of ten or more in the light outside.

"They're coming. Council army!" Then, from the back of the group Oloron pushes forward. "Come on everybody, calm down. Get the weapons and we'll meet in the auditorium in five minutes. Get everyone up. Lights out. Hurry!" He waves them away with his huge hands, and they follow his direction, hurrying away.

Oloron grins at Lan, but his eyes are strained. "It's not quite as bad as they think, maybe. Looks like two armored cars and some police troops."

"But they're coming here."

Oloron nods. "I'm afraid so."

"Looks like you were right."

"Maybe."

"All right, let's execute the plan."

The night is crisp and cold, and their breath smokes on the light breeze.

Twenty people stream down the gravel road, excited, impatient and afraid. All have weapons, some carry large satchels. Their feet seem loud on the gravel, but Lan knows that they still have a half mile to go to the bridge.

The gatekeeper is waiting, as planned, by the cut off, and they hustle at his direction onto the wooded path.

Far behind them, the complex is emptying as the old, the young and those who are guarding step across the gangplank into the remaining boat. Others stream up into the hills overlooking the complex, to places long prepared.

Lan and Oloron direct their companions to appropriate places when they reach the riverbank. Cables latched to trees and slung around boulders are brought down and hooked into block and tackle that are dug from the satchels.

The boat moves from the dock, slowly. Elise stares out the window, hand cold on the glass. The darkened buildings move slowly away.

"Is everyone ready?" Lan asks Oloron when they meet at the foot of the bridge.

Oloron nods, out of breath from running.

"Remember, wait until they are just about to the far edge." He pauses and looks back toward the complex. "I just hope everything else is going this well."

The lead personnel carrier rumbles with the sound of its internal combustion engine and the bad road. Guerin sits in the front, bundled in his overcoat, not very worried. The picture he had been given by the doctor made it clear that little resistance could be expected. Even so, Guerin has used his authority to muster twenty police combat members, who are somewhat less easy than he. Their talk had been wild and excited as they left the city, and had died away as they turned onto the rough, darkened road. Now they are squinting into the dark through the slits that line the sides of the carrier.

The brakes moan as the carrier comes to a halt. The driver looks across the darkened cabin, face lit slightly from the dials below. "This is the bridge."

Guerin turns to the patrol in the back. "Two on each side, across the bridge. There may be some light resistance. Get to it."

From below, Lan and Oloron watch from opposite sides of the bridge, looking up at the darkened silhouettes, the dimmed vehicle lights, the stars beyond.

Everything is about to change, Lan thinks.

He waits. They all wait. The engines above rumble more strongly, and the vehicles begin to move.

I can't believe we're going to do this.

The wheels of the first vehicle are near the far side of the bridge.

Oloron and Lan, in a nearly perfect synchronization, raise and pull down their hands twice.

In total silence, the men pull on their ropes, breath like steam jetting into the cold darkness. There is a brief creaking sound. Then another. Finally, there is a large cracking noise that begins and then continues into a lengthly rumble. The bridge begins to change shape - slightly at first, then draining away under the vehicles. Lan slaps the shoulder of the nearest saboteur and then they all begin to struggle upward from the bank to the shore.

Behind them is a sound of screaming.

By dawn, the river is partly cleared, with water roaring over the wreckage of the bridge and the vehicles. Guerin sits on the edge of the complex side of the bridge, looking away into the woods. He is still wet, but warming slowly in the long sun.

He had climbed the bank and walked to the complex with the two uninjured patrol troops, and they had found only abandoned, darkened buildings. Doors were opened and behind them was nothing but disorder and waste in the glare of their hand held lights.

Now, the two troops had left for help, the injured were on the grass on the far side, being tended by the driver, and Guerin was in a dark anger at the doctor.

The doctor screams as he is struck. "I'm telling you the truth," he insists through bleeding lips. Guerin leans over him. "You are a liar."

Lan and Oloron sit on the cliffs overlooking the complex, the buildings below and the sea to their right with the sun high beyond. The air is cold and their breath is crisp vapor in the bright air.

"You know, that was almost home," Oloron said.

"I've forgotten home," Lan replies, faintly angry. "I was a kid when we had to run away and hide in caves. 'Civil war'" he laughs bitterly - " it wasn't very civil. I haven't had a home since, except for Clu. I had a mother, but she's gone. My father was gone so early I don't even remember." He pulls his legs up and hugs his knees, looking down at the vivid color and shadow of the complex, but not seeing it. Instead, he is seeing an explosion on a scree slope, and the screaming dark bodies of aircraft blazing overhead toward the horizon, past the column of smoke from the flaming wreckage. And then a wise face, haggard and tired, blocking away the view. Lan shakes his head to release the past. "But Clu is gone, too, now. I wish this could have been home."

Oloron watches his companion with a new sympathy, realizing how little they have actually learned about each other. "We have to find a way to make home happen for us, my friend."

Lan releases his position and climbs into a squat. "Sometimes I think you're the stronger of the two of us. I'm crippled by losing Clu and not knowing. It seems so simple to you. Even after Lyra."

Oloron looks away briefly and then back. "Not so simple. And what good does thinking about all this do us? You have ideas, you lead these people, you do things I'd never dare to. I'm a little too simple to do any of that, I'm afraid. I'd be dead by now in some big dramatic waste." His smile is wry and self-mocking, but without an edge.

Lan smiles. "One thing for sure, you help me with what I need to be thinking about." He pauses. "I'm worried about leaving them, but who could I trust with them except you?" He stands and looks along the cliff to the small knots of people sitting along the trail amidst the bushes, then out toward the sea. "You know, if we accomplish this, we'll be back at civil war again. Dying. Lots of dying before we can have a home again."

"Oskar would say you were dreaming too deeply. That it's ridiculous for anyone to think they can make a change that big. It's his way. I think you hear that too much. Or maybe you worry too much."

Lan spreads his hands. "Well, we can't wait any more. Let's just hope we survive it. Let's do everything we can to survive it."

"Phillippe!" a boy whispers from the path behind him.

"Yes?" Lan turns.

"Your truck is ready. Everything you need."

Lan looks to Oloron. "Time to go."

"We'll see you at the airbase," Oloron replies. "Don't worry, they won't get us."

Lan clasps Oloron's hand, with a brief hard look between them that silently says I may never see you again.

Then Lan turns and follows the boy away into the forest.