Reincarnated: Vive La France

In the camp.

A murmur in the tent where the boy slept beside the radio that hadn't spoken in days.

Carmen stood alone near the water trough, her sleeves rolled to the elbows, her wrists scarred with quiet burns from kitchen fires and first-aid kits.

The sound of goat bells floated in the valley air.

She watched the path.

She didn't know why.

Her hands were wet and cracked and she'd spent the morning boiling roots to make something like broth for the evening meal, but now she just stood.

She knew.

The path had changed.

Behind her, old Salvador pulled Tomas' blanket tighter over the boy's shoulder.

"He's not slept properly since the squirrel sang," he said quietly.

Carmen didn't answer.

Elias sat by the tent flaps, tying off a sack of spare bandages they'd gathered from a cache buried three fields over.

He looked up.

"I hear boots," he said.

No one moved.

Not yet.

The steps were slow.

Not urgent.

Not hurried.

Not searching.

They were the kind of steps that belonged to someone who had walked too far to care who saw him coming.

Then he was there.

The edge of the clearing opened and Étienne Moreau stepped into the dust, the coat slung over one shoulder.

Behind him, a tall man with a rifle strapped awkwardly, and another with a case of medical supplies.

Renaud came last, carrying nothing.

Moreau looked thinner.

There were deeper lines beneath his cheekbones, and one shoulder slouched as if it never healed right.

His collar was open, his boots stained with old clay.

He stood still.

No trumpets.

No speeches.

Just the wind again, brushing the dry grass and the hem of his coat.

Carmen stepped forward.

She didn't run.

She didn't speak.

She stopped two steps in front of him and looked at his face.

He looked back.

"You're late," she said.

He smiled. "The Pyrenees are steep."

She hit him.

Not hard.

Not even cruelly.

Just a firm slap on the shoulder.

"You idiot," she said.

He nodded. "I know."

Then she took him into her arms and they didn't say anything for a while.

Tomas had come out of the tent without them noticing.

He stood, barefoot, holding the corner of his blanket, staring.

⁵When Moreau opened his eyes, he saw the boy, and crouched slowly until they were level.

"You heard the squirrel sing?" Moreau asked.

Tomas nodded.

"I waited."

"I know."

"You promised you'd come back."

Moreau touched the boy's forehead.

"I did."

"You look older," Tomas said.

"So do you."

Elias stepped in, gruff but his eyes wet. "We thought you died."

"I did, a little."

"And now?"

"Now I walk," Moreau said.

Old Salvador approached. "You come as commander or comrade?"

"I come as debt."

Salvador grunted and took the pack from Renaud's shoulder. "Then you've come to the right place."

They moved inside.

No one made a speech.

No one asked for news.

They laid out bread and two mugs.

A third was poured but left on the shelf Ortega's.

No one touched it.

Carmen ladled the thin broth into Moreau's bowl and set it in front of him.

"You'll need strength."

"Only if there's something left to fight for."

She gave him a look that told him not to play martyr here.

Not in the place that had stitched his ribs and sung him back from the dead.

"We've never stopped," she said. "Even when they burned Zaragoza, even when Madrid cried blood, we remembered."

He nodded. "I saw the signs."

She leaned forward. "Did you see the boy's letter?"

He reached into his coat and pulled the folded paper.

"I memorized it."

"He's dead," she said.

Moreau looked down at the letter.

"Franco's patrol. They hung his uncle. He buried what was left. Then disappeared. Some say he's gone to the hills with the others."

"I'll find him."

"No," Carmen said. "You'll find them. All of them. And you'll give them what they never had."

Elias lit a cigarette and passed one to Renaud, who shook his head.

"We're not ready," Elias said.

"We're not waiting," Renaud replied.

Carmen looked at Moreau. "So what are you, now? A president? A myth?"

"I'm a man who made a promise," Moreau said. "And I have soldiers now. Not just ghosts. Soldiers with rifles, with maps, with breath."

"And what do they wait for?"

"My step."

Tomas stood again and spoke from the doorway.

"The radio spoke this morning."

Everyone turned.

"It said one word."

"What word?" Moreau asked.

Tomas smiled.

"Lion."

They sat outside that night.

No candles.

Just firelight in a metal tin.

Carmen patched a boot.

Salvador sharpened a rusted blade.

Renaud scribbled into a small book he never let go.

Elias hummed something from before the war.

Tomas asked the question all of them had been circling.

"When do we leave?"

Moreau didn't look at him.

"When you can't sleep knowing others still bleed."

"That was yesterday," Tomas said.

Moreau looked at the boy.

"Then tomorrow we march."

Before they went to sleep, Carmen pressed a strip of cloth into his hand.

It was old, frayed, yellowed at the edge.

"From the boy," she said.

Moreau closed his fingers around it.

He didn't need anything else.

The next morning, he stood at the edge of the path again.

Footsteps joined his.

Not thousands.

Not yet.

Just a few.

But enough.

Enough to make the mountains listen.

The Lion had returned.

Not with thunder.

But with footsteps.

And when he stepped into the clearing at dawn, the people in the camp men, women, boys barely taller than rifles fell to their knees.

He raised a hand, not in command, but in refusal.

"No kings. No gods. Just stand with me."

And across Spain, though they had no order, no bugle, no clear sign men began to move.

In basements, in barns, in riverbeds and school ruins.

They did not wait for signals.

They simply knew.

The Lion was in.