“Could she be right?” Mason asked, looking to Ashlin for clarification.
Ashlin stared at the map, tweaking her mouth in thought. “Now that I think about it, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Whatever was in those crates must have come from Liadrel. Which is bad news. There’s no way of telling what could come out of that place.”
“We’ll just have to be ready for anything,” Mason said, rolling up the map.
When he came back after stashing it away in a back room, Ashlin moved to stand behind the head of the table.
“There’s actually something more important than last night’s shipment that I wanted to discuss with you today,” she confessed. “I’ve told you all my story, and it’s no secret that my goal is to eventually eradicate the Pax from Galerance. But… I guess what I want to say is, in Noor Summit I was biding my time, gathering information, trying to get better and stronger. And the reason that I’m here in Breccan now is because I think… I think that it’s time.”
“Time for what?” Logan asked, staring down at his shirt and trying to wipe off the ashes.
“It’s time the kingdom knew about me,” she announced. “They need to know that someone is living and thriving outside the system.”
Logan looked up and shook his head upon hearing her plan. “It’s not a good idea to draw attention to yourself in our line of work.”
“You sound like Norabel,” Archer mumbled in insult.
“This isn’t work!” Ashlin exclaimed. She slapped her hand down on the table, saying, “Wake up! This is a rebellion! And it’s time that Guardian Amias realized that he’s got a fully-fledged uprising on his hands!”
“She’s right,” Mason said, walking around the table to stand next to her. “We aren’t doing much returning pickled jars of onions to old ladies. The Pax haven’t even bothered to beef up the security on their carts. That’s how little of a threat they consider us. What we need to do is make a statement!”
“And draw more soldiers to Breccan in the process,” Norabel pointed out, growing very uneasy about the ideas being generated in the room.
“Well, it is a rebellion,” Ashlin said, as if pointing out the obvious. “They are going to fight back at one point. Did you think that taking down Guardian Amias wouldn’t require any sacrifice?”
“But it’s the village that will suffer for it, not us,” Norabel insisted. “What if Amias decides to set The Torrent on Breccan because of what we’re doing?”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Mason insisted. “That’s an act of war. He would be undermining the rules of his own Pax if he did.”
“Still,” Norabel continued. “He’ll make them suffer for everything we do. How can we just make that decision for everyone?”
“Look,” Ashlin said, chopping her hand through the air in a sign of anger. “People are suffering in the village already. Families are being preyed upon by leachers, working their fingers to the bone to fulfill their wretched appetites. There’s no one the people can turn to. The Pax say that they are justice, but nobody gets justice from the Pax. What we need to do is show the people that there are those ready to fight; there is a way out.”
“Yeah, but not everyone is looking for a way out,” Logan said. “There are a lot of people in Breccan that are in favor of the Pax. They get a free basket of food every morning, a shorter work day, not to mention two days every week to do with what they like. As long as you’re not one of the unlucky ones that gets your house raided every month, you think this whole Pax thing is going along splendidly.”
“You are right,” Ashlin agreed. “Amias is clever. He could trick a chained man into thinking that he was free and happy. But his trickery is one of the worst parts about the Pax. Which is why we need to be ready to wage war against it. We call ourselves Harbingers, and it’s time the Pax realize that we are more than just a bunch of kids hiding in the trees; we’re an omen of war.”
“So what’s our first move?” Mason asked, strategically trying to move the conversation along as if everyone had agreed with him.
“You’re the Point-Man,” Ashlin said, relenting to his position as leader. “What do you think we should do to let the people of Breccan know we mean business?”
Mason laid his palms on the table and leaned against it in thought. After a moment of deliberating, he announced, “Leachers. We hit the leachers first. Show the people what’s really going on behind closed doors.” He stood up straighter, adding, “And we should do it during the festival in a few days’ time. That way the whole village will be watching.”
“Watching what?” Norabel asked in apprehension.
Mason turned his head and looked out the front window towards the street. Outside, the summer bugs were chirping in the heat, the sound of horses trotted in the distance, and a group of neighborhood boys were throwing rocks at the side of a nearby house.
Glancing back to the table, Mason answered her question, saying, “Their judgment day.”
Chapter 9
The day of the summer festival was a day free from work—at least for most people. While the Pax allowed for commoners to cease from their normal duties, the job of a Pax official was never one that could be put on hold. So, while Hunter could see people walking about him, talking cheerfully about what they were planning to do at the festival and who they would see there, Hunter was stuck at his checkpoint.
However, it wasn’t just this that made him unusually depressed this day, but the fact that tomorrow he would be leaving the village, setting out on a transport mission. He would be gone for nearly two weeks, and when he came back, he didn’t know if he would get assigned a new job. The fact of the matter was, this was most likely his last day at his little post at the western checkpoint.
That whole morning, as he checked people in and out of his station, his stomach was reeling and twisting into knots. His checkpoint was busier than it ever had been, and with each new person that passed by, he seemed to grow even more nervous. He hadn’t even realized why he was feeling so anxious until he saw her pale halo of hair making its way over to his station, and his heart dropped into his stomach.
Hunter let out a shaky breath and nearly moaned in pain at the torture that his churning stomach was putting him through. She had a blue ribbon woven through the braid that wrapped around her head, and though her blue cotton dress hardly looked any different than the one she always wore to work, she somehow seemed as if she was fit to enter into the most elegant party.
He saw her take her place in the line that was waiting to come into his checkpoint, and he nearly forgot that he needed to keep working. Though no one would dare speak out against a Pax official, he could tell that the man waiting to get waved through was becoming impatient.
“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat and finding the man’s name inside his ledger. “Go on ahead.”
He waved a few more people through in this shaky, half-delirious manner, and then, all too soon, it was her turn.
“Morning Hunter,” Norabel said, giving him a smile. “I didn’t know you’d have to work today.”
“I’m not,” he suddenly blurted out. He cringed, realizing how stupid he probably sounded. Taking in a deep breath, he tried to start over. “I mean, well…what I mean is, I don’t have to work all day. I get to leave at festival. I mean at five. I get off here at five, so I can, uh, you know,” he cleared his throat, “go to the festival.”
Wow! That was smooth, he scolded himself. What was the matter with him!
“That’s nice,” she commented, her face lighting up. “I’m glad you’ll be able to enjoy it with the rest of us.”
“Yeah, uh…” he glanced to the man waiting behind her, then forced himself to look back into her eyes. “Do you think, uh, do you like the summer festival?”
He inwardly winced, knowing he was blowing it. He had been about to ask her if he could see her there, but he had chickened out.
“Yes,” she answered cheerfully. “I love how happy everybody seems to get
on this day.”
“Well, not you,” he pointed out. Her expression fell a little in disappointment, and he quickly added, “I mean, not that you’re not happy. What I meant was that you’re happy every day. Not, uh, not just…do you think I could see you later, at the festival?”
The words escaped Hunter’s mouth so quickly he didn’t even know they were coming out as they were leaving his lips.
“Oh,” she said, slightly startled.
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to quickly recover. “I didn’t mean to, uh…”
“N-no, that’s not,” she said, stuttering much like him. “It’s only, uh, I’ve promised a group of friends that I would see them. They want us to spend the whole night together. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. Please don’t be sorry. I only thought, maybe if you were free we could…but you’re not, so it’s fine. Uh…” He turned down to his ledger, glad to have something else to look at, and checked off her name. “You can go through now. Sorry, again.”
Norabel opened her mouth and looked as if she was about to say something, but all she got out was a, “I…” before the man waiting in line behind her pushed her forward in impatience.
“What was that?” Hunter called out in hope, but the crowd on the other side of the gate had swept her up, and he realized that the last somber image he had of her might be the last one he ever saw.
*
Norabel felt a plague of butterflies in her stomach as she walked away from the checkpoint. A horrible, foreign feeling washed over her as their awkward conversation played over and over in her head. She was supposed to meet the others at Mason and Logan’s house, but she felt so dissatisfied over the whole thing; she didn’t want to just leave it the way it was. And their plan for “judgment day for the leachers” really didn’t start until later on that day. The others wouldn’t miss her if she was a little late.
But what could she do? Just walk back to the checkpoint, stand in line until her time came and then say, ‘Sorry I can’t see you later on tonight, because me and my Harbinger team are plotting against the Pax, and are planning on humiliating several of your co-workers.’
She groaned and shook her head. Why couldn’t Hunter be like all the other Pax officials out there? Why did she have to feel so bad about what had just happened?
Looking up ahead on the street, she saw something that gave her an idea. There was a festival cart on the side of the road, and a man was handing out summer berries skewered on a stick. Going up to the cart, she paid the man for two of them and then turned back towards Hunter’s checkpoint.
Though it was crowded around his station, not many people were trying to go out her way, but rather come in. However, since she would be going against the stream of traffic, she realized that getting back into Hunter’s gate was going to be difficult.
Biting on her lip, she stared at the situation and tried to think up a way around it.
The gate separating the road in half was only as high as her waist. Of course, jumping over it meant immediate imprisonment. The actual checkpoint itself was much bigger than the fence. It was more like a small, narrow shed. It had a roof and two solid walls on either side, and the front had a large window for Hunter to look out of. However, the back was completely open, as though the building had been sliced in two, and this was what was left. Norabel figured that the checkpoint was designed this way so that the Pax official manning it could easily slip out if someone tried to break the rules and hop over the fence.
Trying to crane her head around the crowd of people in front of her, she looked to the back of the checkpoint. The fence led all the way up to the back of a building that could only be accessed from a different street. In between this building and Hunter’s checkpoint, there were only a few feet of short fence. She judged that this was probably where Hunter passed in order to get to his station. Luckily, the area in front of it was off the street and devoid of much foot-traffic.
Weaving through the crowd while trying to keep her fruit skewers intact, she finally made it to this small patch of fence.
“Hunter!” she called out, standing on her tiptoes and trying to see past the wall of his station shed. She could only see the very back of his hair, and the crowd around her was too loud for him to hear her.
Not willing to give up just yet, she looked down to the short fence that was keeping her from just going right up to him. Yes, the penalty for hopping over it was imprisonment, but surely it didn’t count if you weren’t trying to avoid the checkpoint, but rather get into it.
Biting down on her lip in deliberation, she decided to take that chance. She took a quick look around her. There were a lot of people nearby, yet no one was watching her. Before she could lose her nerve, she carefully stepped on the fence, which was a little difficult since she was wearing a dress and holding two fruit skewers, and then hopped off to the other side.
“Hunter,” she called out again, taking a step towards the back of his station. “I…”
Hunter jerked at the sound of his name and spun around, startled to find her standing there.
“What are you doing?!” he exclaimed, sounding more worried than angry. “You can’t be back here.”
Suddenly Norabel felt the adrenaline of what she had just done hit her. It was racing through her body, and she found it hard to hold the fruit skewers still.
“Wow! I can’t believe I just did that,” she admitted, strangely proud of herself in a shocked kind of way. “I might not have if I’d have known it would make my heart beat this fast!”
Hunter stared at her, stunned, and then looked back to the woman that was stopped at his checkpoint. Norabel took a step further so that she was nearly standing in his station, and turned her head to look at the woman as well. She was an older lady with a dumbfounded expression on her face, no doubt startled to see someone else in the Pax checkpoint. But she kept her mouth closed and didn’t say anything. Of all the people here, Hunter had authority over everyone.
“Uh, you,” Hunter stuttered. He turned his head from Norabel to the lady, and then said, “You can just go through. Just go.”
“Did you even check that lady’s name off?” Norabel inquired, turning her head to watch the lady go. She didn’t know why, but she felt oddly elated and uninhibited, and she couldn’t stop her thoughts from coming out as words.
“Norabel,” Hunter said, turning to her and cupping his hands around her shoulders. “What are you doing here?”
Instead of answering, her attention shifted to the man that had now stepped into the checkpoint station.
Hunter followed her gaze and quickly shooed the man away, saying, “Will you give me a second, please? Just back up and give me a second.” Then, turning back to her, he noticed the fruit skewers she was holding.
“I thought it was a shame you didn’t get off work until five,” Norabel explained, extending one of the skewers a little higher. “And I thought you might like to enjoy some summer berries.”
She waited for some reaction from him other than frozen shock, but she seemed to have startled the words right out of him.
“I, uh…” he stuttered. His eyes moved and stared at something behind her.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” she offered.
“No, that’s not,” he shook his head, before blurting out, “My uncle’s coming.”
“What?” she asked, feeling a stab of fear cut through the adrenaline.
“You need to hide,” he said, still holding onto her shoulders.
“Should I go back over?” she asked.
“No, he’ll see you and have you arrested!” He glanced to the floor of his station and said, “You’ll have to crouch down here!”
Norabel looked to the space of his checkpoint, seeing that there wasn’t much room for two people. But she wasn’t about to complain about the spaciousness of her hiding spot. Without wasting time, she crouched down to the floor and pressed her back up against the corner of the wall. Though one of the walls was only waist
high, it still provided enough protection that Norabel was hidden from view. However, someone could easily see her if they were to peek over the side.
Hunter tried to carefully step around her and stand at his post, his body having to twist slightly so that his torso would further block her from view. Norabel felt exceedingly childish and foolish, crouched there, holding two fruit skewers up to her face. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t say that she regretted her decision to hop over the wall.
“Alright,” Hunter said, leaning out the window to see the man that had been waiting. “You can come through.”
He had just checked off the villager’s name, when Norabel heard the voice of a man boom out, “Hunter, how are you?”
Though she couldn’t see, she could imagine the crowd of people quickly parting to give the Pax official his due respect.
“Uh…good, uncle,” Hunter replied. “I’m doing good. Uh, how-how are you?”
“Busy,” the man replied. “Auberon’s having me running practically all over the village. Wants us to patrol the outer rims. Which is an absolute mess for me, since he gave the order just this morning to focus most of our presence in the inner village.”
“That’s a bit strange,” Hunter agreed. “It’s not like Auberon to change his mind like that.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons.”
Norabel felt the wall shudder behind her back as the man slapped the wood with his hand.
“Come and find me after you get off from work.”
“Yes sir,” Hunter nodded.
There was silence for a moment. Norabel held her breath, hoping that the man wouldn’t see her as he passed. Then, continuing to stare straight ahead of him, Hunter told her softly, “It’s alright. He’s gone.”
Norabel breathed a sigh of relief. She was about to get up from her hiding spot, when she heard the confused voice of a villager ask, “Who’s gone?”
Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) Page 10