Twice they had to double back and work their way around patrols that Tool sensed, and so their route was circuitous, but eventually the broad muddy swathe of the Potomac River opened before them. Mahlia had been to Moss Landing twice before with the doctor, but each time she had remained on its fringes while the doctor went into its heart to bargain for medicines from the troops who smuggled black market goods in from the coast. As long as there was a river, there was transport, the doctor had said. Medicines were smuggled upriver from where the big scavenge companies and their corrupt workers would sell to the troops, and guns moved downriver, magically penetrating the war lines, even though armies and refugees could not. More guns and bullets for the struggle. “Why do they keep fighting?” Mouse had asked once. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop? Everyone would make more money.” Mahlia had almost laughed at that. He was basically repeating what her own father had said every night for years.
