Pathfinder's Way (13 page)

She looked at Dane and Witt, making sure they
knew she was serious. “That’s why if you see your chance, you take
it. Don’t try to rescue me. Don’t come back for me.” The look on
her face silenced any disagreement they might have had. “You do
that, and I promise to do the same. Once there, if I see my chance,
I’ll take it.”

Witt nodded. They’d never make it if each
tried to save the other. But if they focused on their opportunity,
the odds increased greatly.

Seeing Damon standing with his hands on his
hips looking at the tree where he left her, she knew she didn’t
have much time left. She rose to a crouch in front of Dane and gave
him a hug before doing the same with Witt.

She patted Witt on the calf, slipping her
knife into his boot as she drew away. The blade was one of two she
kept on her person at all times. Damon hadn’t taken the time to
search her when he picked her up. Probably thought because she was
female she was harmless. His ignorance; her gain.

Witt’s eyes were unreadable as they held hers
for a long moment, knowing the risk she’d just taken. She smiled at
him, the grin lighting up her face like a ray of sunshine after a
cloudy day. Then it was gone. A twinkle still lingered as if
inviting him to share a private joke. His lips tilted up at the
corners.

She was yanked to her feet and hauled
off.

“She was hugging them. Search their hands to
see if she slipped them anything.” Damon tossed over his shoulder
as he marched her back to her tree. He sat her down and started
wrapping rope around her wrists. “I thought I told you to stay
here.”

Shea watched him work silently.

“Well?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I assumed ‘here’
meant inside camp.”

A vein pulsed in his forehead as he tried to
stare her down. He took a deep breath and the tension in his body
just fell away.

“You knew what I meant.” He jerked a thumb
over his shoulder. “Why were you over there?”

She shrugged.

“Why?”

She sighed loudly. “Saying goodbye.”

“What makes you think you won’t see them
again?”

She snorted. “I don’t know where we’re going,
but from your talk it sounds like there’ll be a lot of people. As
it’s unlikely you’ll keep us together, I thought I’d say my
goodbyes while I still could.”

“Uh huh,” Damon said skeptically, raising
both eyebrows.

She met his eyes steadfastly, not wanting him
to assume deception if she avoided his gaze.

“Did you know people are twice as likely to
hold your eyes if they’re lying? Otherwise they tend to avoid
direct eye contact.”

She frowned. Wasn’t avoiding a person’s eyes
a sign of deception?

He gave an abrupt laugh. He didn’t believe
her story at all. “Guess Fallon and Darius were telling the truth.
You have a little bit of fire in you after all.” He took the rope,
wrapped it around the tree and then looped it around her chest. He
repeated this several times before tying it off. “I’ll have to keep
a closer eye on you for the rest of our journey. Wouldn’t want you
to slip away before you meet Fallon again.”

Great. She could hardly wait.

Shea’s breath caught as they crested a ridge
and a sprawling encampment came into view.

A vast number of tents clustered together,
concealing the land with their mixed shades of tan, gray and white.
The less frequent vibrant red, blue and greens stood out in stark
contrast.

There weren’t hundreds of warriors down
there. There were thousands. This wasn’t the small number of men
she had assumed they would find.

No way was this a raiding party that would
eventually make their way back to their own lands. This was a full
scale invasion force.

The Lowlands were lost. It was just a matter
of time.

The encampment was set in a small valley
surrounded on two sides by steep hills. It wasn’t where she would
have chosen to bed down for the night with an element of this size.
For one thing, there were only two easy exits. That wasn’t
necessarily bad as it limited the direction an enemy could attack
from. But the camp was located a bit too far up river, which would
make getting drinkable water difficult once thousands of men got
done polluting it with their waste. They should have made camp at
the opposite end of the valley, that way their waste would travel
down river, and they could walk up the valley for clean water.

Shea grabbed for the horse’s neck as it moved
under her. The beast followed the stallion in front of it,
beginning the journey down into the valley.

Nine days had passed since Goodwin of Ria
betrayed Shea’s group to the Trateri. That first night had set the
tone for the ones to follow. Every night, once they made camp,
Damon tied Shea to a tree while he attended to his own matters.
When meal time came around, he untied her, let her eat and take
care of personal business and then retied her to the tree, leaving
a blanket over her for warmth against the cool nights. In the
morning, he’d come for her, and they’d ride together until it was
time to make camp again.

She was beginning to hate sleeping sitting
up.

A chance to speak with Witt and Dane never
came again and neither did an opportunity to escape.

Now they were about to join the main army and
butterflies were swarming in Shea’s stomach. She hadn’t counted on
such a big force. Perhaps she shouldn’t have waited to escape.

Too late now.

As they made their way into the transient
city, it became obvious there was order to the chaos. The Trateri
had spaced their tents far enough apart to create pathways. Banners
containing images of animals, plants and objects flapped from poles
at the entrance of each tent.

Most of the bigger tents had hitching posts
hammered into the ground off to the side. The ones that didn’t had
young boys or girls waiting to hold the horse of any visiting
warriors. It was an efficient way to take care of the animals and
keep the young ones out of mischief.

Nightfall was still hours away, but campfires
already flickered in the cleared areas. Men and women lounged or
stood around them, not paying attention to the group riding in.

Several fires had pots suspended above them.
The tantalizing smell of food made Shea’s stomach grumble,
reminding her she hadn’t eaten since lunch. It was past time for
dinner, but they’d been so close to their destination that the
Trateri had refused to stop for a break.

“Don’t worry; we’ll feed you once we
dismount,” Damon said. He’d been quiet all day, not trying to
entice her into conversation as he normally did.

Maybe he could sense Shea’s nerves and was
giving her space to process things. She’d feel more grateful if he
hadn’t insisted on tying her up every night.

“One thing I didn’t miss was all these damn
people,” Damon groused as he steered his horse around a group
arguing in the middle of the thoroughfare.

“There are women here,” Shea said with faint
surprise. They’d passed several on the way into camp. Most carried
weapons and were dressed in the same leather armor as the men.

Damon snorted. “Of course there are women.
Did you think all Trateri were men?”

“Not at all. It’s just most Lowlanders and
Highlander’s don’t allow their women to take part in war, and they
certainly don’t let them become warriors.”

“Then they’re fools. Women are some of the
most vicious fighters I’ve ever seen and can be just as capable as
any man.”

“Makes sense. In nature, the female is likely
to be the meaner one of the species, especially when it comes to
the young,” Shea said.

“Not all of our women or men are warriors.
There are many roles in our society. We would be starving if there
were no cooks. We would lose every battle if there was no one to
make our weapons. We leave it up to the individual to decide which
of their skills they feel would provide the greatest benefit to
their clan.”

Shea’s guild had much the same view about the
roles of men and women. If you had the talent and skill to do your
job, it was yours. It didn’t matter what reproductive organs you
had. It surprised her that the Trateri held some of the same
beliefs.

The pace had slowed to a crawl as the group
pushed further into the heart of the encampment. Gradually, the
path narrowed and became congested with people and horses.

“Move with a purpose, you maggot infested
swine!” Damon shouted at a pair that were trying to figure out
where they needed to go.

That wouldn’t have been so bad, but then they
decided what they were looking for wasn’t in that direction. They
tried to turn their horses, creating a jam that quickly became a
shoving match.

“You can’t turn here.” Damon made a rude
gesture. “Keep going until the next juncture and take one of the
other avenues.”

The two didn’t seem inclined to listen and
tried to pull their mounts around. Darius growled and surged
forward, forcing people to move or be trampled. He cuffed both
young men on the side of the head, grabbed the reins of both horses
and rode forward, forcing the beasts to ride after him.

Damon and three others followed quickly while
the rest of the party, including the one containing Shea’s men,
peeled off to follow a side road.

Time was ticking down as the confrontation
with Fallon drew near.

Darius guided his horse to a side street and
took it to another where he turned right. After several of these
narrower paths, they rode into a wide-open area that was relatively
unpopulated compared to the main road they just left.

He dismounted before a tent that was twice
the width of those on the main road and considerably taller. Shea
noticed most of the surrounding domiciles were larger than the ones
they had passed but smaller than this one.

A deep blue banner with an embroidered
phoenix in rebirth marked the entrance. An awning stretched out
from the opening, creating a small strip of shade. If they’d been
allowed to speak, the two warriors standing guard would probably
have voiced appreciation for the tiny oasis shielding them from the
blazing afternoon sun.

That was all Shea had time to notice before
she was pulled from the horse. She caught a brief glance of the
warriors’ curious stares before she was pushed inside.

A variety of candles illuminated the
interior, showing that the ground was covered by rugs. So many that
one couldn’t see the natural grass and dirt beneath. A table meant
for dining, with a half dozen chairs surrounding it, was off to one
side. Several sitting areas were dotted throughout the rest of the
room. The ceiling had open flaps as did two of the walls to create
air flow.

There was no sign of Fallon. Darius and the
other three were the only people in the tent.

Shea felt the tightness in her shoulders
relax just a little.

Her relief was short lived as Damon guided
her past Darius and to the back of the tent, which she finally
noticed had been partitioned off with a large canvas wall. He
shoved her through the flaps. She glanced around as he pulled her
over to a large wooden post located in the middle of the tiny
area.

He bent, picked up a chain and then spun her
around to face him. Before she could back away, he grabbed her
wrists, clapping the iron manacles around them.

“What’s this?” Shea looked at the length of
chain now securing her to the post. She lifted a wrist. The chain
rose with it.

“You’ll wait here until Fallon arrives. This
way you can’t run off.”

“So much drama for one woman. What would I do
even if I did escape? There’s thousands of warriors out there. I
wouldn’t get very far before I was caught.”

He shrugged and turned to leave. “Maybe so,
but you’ve got a reputation. I don’t want to be the guy responsible
for losing you. Just stay put. Fallon will figure out what he wants
done when he gets here.”

He disappeared back to the other side of the
tent.

As soon as he was out of sight, Shea bent to
examine her bindings. There was a small keyhole on each manacle and
a four-inch chain ran between her wrists. She had never been good
at picking locks. She also didn’t have the necessary tools.

Trying to slip her wrists out of the cuff
didn’t work. Her hands were too big, and she wasn’t quite desperate
enough that she was willing to dislocate her thumbs.

Shea sighed. Standing took energy so she sat
and leaned against the post. Anybody who spent a lot of time
walking knew that when you had the chance to sit, you made the most
of it because you never knew when you’d get to take a seat
again.

Closer examination of her circumstances
didn’t fill her with confidence. The post she found herself chained
to was thicker than her waist. An experimental yank on the chain
didn’t budge it. It had likely been pounded several feet into the
ground. Trying to pull it up would be pointless.

She stared sightlessly at the canvas across
from her.

This was quite the situation in which she
found herself. Her party had been captured, the others forced to
serve the Trateri. The kicker was she had been the one to rescue
the army’s Warlord from death.

She was now separated from her group and had
failed at creating a chance for them or herself to escape. The best
part were that her maps were also still in the enemies’
possession.

That brought her to the present. Chained to a
post, waiting to meet this man she had saved, and no hope for
rescue or escape.

Perhaps the guild elders were right when they
said she suffered from a serious lack of judgment.

Shea hoped the others would be all right. She
hoped
she
would be all right.

She stretched her legs out and tilted her
head back. And back.

She blinked. Then smiled.