Chapter Eleven: Wildmen

  “This is a terrible plan,” Ean said.

  The sun was half-risen, casting weak light through the tent walls. He and Leo were stuck inside while the others packed up camp. That had been Chadwick’s idea. He didn’t want the Wildmen scouts to get a good look at them.

  Leo gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled over, pulling his blanket over his head and trying for another minute of sleep. “The decision is made, and the debate is closed.”

  Ean dropped back onto his bedroll, fuming silently. He knew there was no point in arguing, but the recklessness of the plan rankled him. His body buzzed with frustration. There was no way to expend it, not cooped up in the tent. He settled for some deep stretching.

  Flora slipped into the tent as he was folded over his legs, hands wrapped around his feet. She grabbed the edge of Leo’s blanket and gave it a playful tug. Leo groaned in protest but sat up. There were creases on his face and his hair was sticking up on one side. Flora laughed and reached out to comb it back into place. Asali stepped through the tent flap just in time to see it. She glowered. Ean made a mocking face at her; she tossed the nearest bag at him.

  Chadwick budged in behind her. “We’re about ready, so you two can switch clothes now.”

  “You have the worst plans,” Ean told him.

  “Your job is to kill people, not to think,” Chadwick retorted.

  Ean gave a vicious grin. “Oh, I’d be more than happy to do my job right now.”

  “Ean, if you could tone down the hostility, it’d be greatly appreciated,” Roarke said, poking his head into the tent. “Our friends are on the move. We need to get going.”

  Ean sighed and pulled off his shirt, tossing it into the Prince’s face. Leo batted it away, his nose wrinkling. “Why can’t I wear his clean clothes?”

  Ean knew the shirt reeked, but it’d been days since they’d stopped for a wash. What did the Prince expect?

  “Hair color and clothes,” said Chadwick. “That’s what the scouts will look for. We can’t change your hair, so we need to keep the clothes the same”

  Leo grudgingly pulled off his shirt and threw it at Ean in retaliation. Ean caught it and gave it a sniff, ready to comment on his own stench, but Leo’s shirt smelled as fresh as the spare in Ean’s pack—a little musty from travel, but largely odorless.

  “Dark stars, do you sweat at all?”

  “It’s the fabric,” Leo said. “It doesn’t absorb odors.”

  “It’s a damn miracle.” Ean stood up to pull the shirt on, stooping under the low roof of the tent.

  Leo sucked in a startled breath. Ean immediately glanced over, scanning for the cause of surprise, but Leo was staring at him. More specifically, on the scars that cut across his arms and torso. He’d amassed an impressive collection over his years of training and apprenticeship. He bragged about the scars to other shadow-walkers, and compared battle stories, but he tried to keep them covered around the general public. They usually found them alarming.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be able to catch arrows?” Chadwick asked, not letting the opportunity for an insult to slip by.

  “He can’t catch them yet,” Asali and Leo chorused.

  “Wait, are you still an apprentice?” Chadwick looked to the others in askance. “Do we have an apprenticeshadow-walker on this trip? How the hell is he supposed to protect Leo if he hasn’t even graduated?”

  “Pretty sure I got your ass out of Northpoint,” Ean snapped.

  “You look like someone used you for a pincushion.”

  Ean bristled and his hand dropped to his hip knife.

  “How are you still alive after this one?” Asali asked, reaching out to touch a rather nasty scar on his side.

  Ean flinched back. “No touching.”

  “Are all those from killing people?” Leo asked.

  “Well, most people do fight back,” Ean said dryly, but then had to shrug. “Honestly, a lot of them are just from practice.”

  “You got those from practice?” Asali sounded incredulous.

  “How could a wooden sword do that?” Leo asked.

  “We don’t train with wooden swords.”

  There was a pause as the group took that in.

  Asali shook her head. “But—”

  “But what?” Ean challenged. “No one uses a wooden sword in a real fight. If you get hit with a wooden sword in practice, you start thinking, ‘Oh, that’s not so bad,’ and then you make the same mistake over and over again. But if you get cut with a real sword, you think, ‘Dark stars, I’m never doing that again.’”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Asali’s brows knit. “But training accidents happen all the time. The point of a wooden sword is to keep accidents from being fatal. How do you survive training with a real sword?”

  Ean shrugged again. “Some trainees don’t.”

  There was another pause, this one longer than the first. He could tell they didn’t like his answer. He could tell they were upset and outraged, but really, what did they know of shadow-walking?

  “That seems unnecessarily cruel,” Leo said finally.

  Ean gestured to the scar Asali had exclaimed over. “See this one? I overextended in a lunge. I never did that again. And this one,” Ean turned to show the back of his shoulder blade, “I over-rotated a spin. Never made that mistake again either. It’s a dangerous job. If we’re coddled in training, we won’t live long afterwards.”

  He saw them exchange looks but no one spoke again. He finished pulling on Leo’s clothes. They didn’t fit right. They were too tight across the shoulders and too short on the legs. In contrast, his clothes were too big on the Prince. He didn’t think they looked that much alike, but the grimace on Leo’s face helped the illusion. Everyone said Ean scowled too much.

  “You should smile more, Ean,” said Asali, proving his point. “You might pass for Leo that way.”

  “I’m not blond.” Ean grabbed the knit cap from his pack and tucked his hair under it. “And he’s shorter than me.”

  “Not by much,” Leo said indignantly.

  Ean laughed. He had nearly a full head on the Prince.

  Asali pointed at Ean. “There. Keep doing that, and you have a passing resemblance.”

  “I think you need your vision checked,” he told her.

  “No, I think she’s right,” Flora said, looking between them. “You have the same eyes.”

  “A lot of people in Eastmere have gray eyes.”

  “Let’s get going,” Roarke called from outside. “We’re wasting daylight.”

  They packed up the tent and moved out. Ean stole a look behind them as they crested a hill. He could see more of the other party now. Large men. Lots of weapons. From this distance, it was hard to distinguish one man from the next. He hated to admit it, but the switch might actually work.

  They kept a fast pace through the morning. Up ahead, Ean could see the ridge indicated on the map. It wasn’t particularly high, but it was steep. At certain points the gray rock became a vertical cliff face. He hoped Chadwick had remembered Ward’s map correctly, because from this angle it looked solid. He couldn’t see any place to cross over.

  They reached the foot of the ridge at mid-day. They didn’t stop to eat, just divvied up the packs. It was agreed that Leo’s party would take the tent and ponies as it looked to be the smoother journey. Ean, Chadwick, and Asali would travel light to keep their pace up.

  “Stay safe,” Asali told Leo. They hugged briefly.

  “We should hit the crossing on the third day and meet up with you by late afternoon,” Chadwick said. “Wait for us before staring any fights, alright?”

  “No promises,” said Leo. They clapped each other’s shoulders and then Chadwick moved on to give Flora a hug.

  Leo turned to Ean, hand outstretched, and for a moment Ean was caught off guard. He hadn’t expected any sort of farewell.

  Ean clasped his hand. “Don’t ruin my clothes.”

  “I doubt much more could be done to them,” Leo said with a grin, but then his face went serious. “If this works, and they chase you, take care of them.” He tipped his head toward Chadwick and Asali.

  Ean nodded. “We’ll see you soon.”

  “God will it,” he returned.

  Flora stepped in to give him a hug; Roarke nodded from a distance.

  Ean, Chadwick, and Asali walked eastward, and the others walked to the west. The ridge soon blocked them from sight.

  *   *   *

  Ean, Asali, and Chadwick traveled in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. They all had the same goal: move fast and make it back to the others as soon as possible. He could see the tension he felt reflected on their faces. He tried calculating the odds of his survival if this plan got Leo killed. The blood-oath dictated that he should be executed, but the others wouldn’t kill him, not when Leo himself had agreed to the plan. They would take Ean back to the King to face judgment and he doubted they would give chase if he slipped away during the return journey. The chances of his survival were surprisingly high. He waited for that knowledge to ease the tension in his body, but relief didn’t come. They walked until night fell.

  *   *   *

  Ean had the watch before dawn. He practiced Fire Dance from the shadows around the campfire and tried to get his movements to match the flicker of the flames, fast as the blink of an eye and full of heat. When the sky lightened, he put the kettle on and brewed a strong pot of tea. Asali and Chadwick roused. Neither of them thanked him for the tea. They understood there was no kindness in the act; it was simple necessity. The quicker they moved, the quicker they would rejoin their party.

  “Any sign of the Wildmen?” Asali asked.

  Chadwick shook his head. “If any of them split to follow us, we’ll be able to see them tomorrow morning.”

  They broke camp and started off. Again, there was no conversation. They were moving fast enough that talking would have been a hindrance. They did break for lunch, eating quickly and stretching out their muscles. Chadwick spent the time staring behind them, even though he’d said they wouldn’t be able to see the bandits until tomorrow.

  A bird cried overhead, loud and piercing. They all looked up.

  “Golden hawk,” Chadwick said.

  Ean squinted into the sky. Golden hawks were said to have feathers as bright as molten gold, but he couldn’t see the coloring.

  Chadwick pointed below the hawk. “It’s hunting a rock dove.”

  The smaller of the two birds was flitting close to the cliff. The hawk swooped down, lightning fast. The dove darted into a crag and the hawk was forced to pull up without its prey.

  “You can’t tell it’s a golden hawk from this distance,” Ean said.

  “Golden hawks have long tail feathers, giving them a distinct silhouette,” Chadwick said. “They’re the only hawk native to the north. The speckled hawk and red-winged hawk were introduced to this area by hunting parties hundreds of years ago.”

  Ean sighed and grabbed his bag. “I’m sorry I asked.” He’d only wanted to give Chadwick a hard time, not receive a nature lesson.

  “Golden hawks mate for life,” Chadwick said as they resumed their trek. “They develop distinct songs to call to each other. If its partner dies, the hawk won’t take another mate, although widowed hawks sometime form platonic pairs.”

  “I really don’t care.”

  “Don’t care?” Chadwick repeated.

  “This isn’t my world.” Ean gestured out at the mountain ridge and open sky. “My world involves cities and shops and houses. I don’t need to know about hawks and their mating habits.”

  “Golden hawks live where game is plentiful, and the winters are harsh. The ground will be fully frozen for at least two months. If you had to live off the land, that would be good information to have.”

  “I have no intention of living off the land.”

  “Everyone should be able to survive without the luxuries of modern life,” Chadwick said. “Only then can we truly appreciate how easy our existence has become.”

  Ean rolled his eyes to Asali because he hadn’t meant to stumble upon a lecture.

  “It’s your own fault for challenging a Ferex Ranger,” she said.

  “Wait, what?” Ean turned to Chadwick. “You’re a ranger?”