Someone coughed softly, and she heard the scuff of a boot.
She waited, trying to work out which way they were moving.
After a while, she realized they were staying put, and closed her eyes in frustration.
She had to get around them. She couldn't stand here all night.
She started forward again, plotting a course that went around the guard, putting him between her and the river.
She went slowly, listening carefully and testing each step before she put her foot down.
Whoever it was, they moved restlessly, and she guessed they were a sentry of sorts.
The question was, sentry for what?
When the cough came again, behind her this time, she started again on her route beside the river, the one sure path to the camp.
She was tempted to move faster, to not take as much care as she had when skirting the sentry, but she forced herself to keep as quiet and slow as possible, and stopped as a prickle of fear ran down her arms when someone sniffed just a few meters in front of her.
She took a step to the side, then another, grateful for the utter darkness of the night.
She maneuvered around the sentry in tiny increments, and was expecting it when she came across a third roughly the same distance apart as the first two had been.
They must have set sentries all down the river.
Lucky for her, they weren't expecting anyone to be coming up behind them, but it was taking a lot of time to get around them.
When the sky craft had come down into the camp, it hadn't been that late. They hadn't even eaten supper yet. But the journey back from where she'd been set down was not turning out to be quick.
She had very little idea how long it would take her to get back to camp and she could not risk being caught out here at Star's rise.
A sky craft screamed overhead, coming in low and following the river toward where the three armies were camped.
She heard an exclamation behind her, and used the distraction and the noise to move a little faster.
The sky raiders were looking for her. Fair enough--she expected them too. She almost wondered why it had taken them this long.
She fingered the needle on her sleeve, wondering if they had the ability to see something so small from so high.
She felt her pockets, and found she still had the vial, but the stopper was gone.
She crept to the river's edge, and had to lower herself down onto a rock to fill it.
She dropped the needle inside, and then held it carefully as she pulled herself back onto the bank and started forward again.
There was no sentry where she expected to find one up ahead, and she stood still for a long time, listening carefully.
Perhaps she'd reached the end of the sentry line.
Eventually, as the sky craft came roaring back and then peeled away to the right, she forced herself to move, her heart hammering in her chest as she followed the river bank, eyes and ears straining for any sound of a sentry who had stepped out of his or her position.
There was no one.
She was cold, tired and hungry, but she forced herself to keep alert.
She noticed the moment the flat escarpment on either side of the river began to give way to low hills.
She was entering the mouth of the valley.
Her heart beat a little faster, and she forgot the bone deep chill for a moment at the thought that the camp was just through the narrow gap between the hills.
She sped up, hoping that the proximity to the valley entrance was the reason there were no more sentries.
The river made a sharp turn, and in the distance she could see the glow of Quardi's fire.
A sob tore from her throat and she stopped and swallowed, forcing herself to breathe, to calm down.
She wasn't safe until she was in that camp, and she'd most likely have to contend with Dix's own guards as well as Hanson's before she made it to her own bed.
The first shouts reached her ears as she moved into the narrowest part of the gully. The path was narrow--it would take no more than two people abreast--and in places it skirted huge rocks that looked as though they'd tumbled down the hill.
The sounds came from in front of her, from the direction of the camp, and she wondered at first if someone had seen her, a lookout perhaps. She sped up, jogging along the path as it wound between rocks taller than her.
And suddenly, she made sense of the calls.
The Illian was thickly accented to her ear, Kadminian or Favrean, and it was panicked.
This was the clean-up crew. The team sent in pretending to the rest of the three armies they were going to subdue the Dartalians, but in truth expecting to deal with unconscious guards.
And they were on the run.
She could hear the thud of running feet, the shouted orders, and looked around wildly for a place to hide.
There was no time to go anywhere but up.
She was still holding her vial, although less carefully than when she started, and realizing she'd need both hands to do any climbing, she propped it behind the nearest stone.
She ran to the rock closest to her, felt for hand and footholds in the dark, and hauled herself up. She scraped her fingers as she got them caught in a crack with sharp edges, banged her knee as her foot slipped, but she managed to gain some height.
She wriggled and pulled herself up, scraping her stomach and her forearms and then with a final heave, she lay sprawled--inelegant and gasping for breath--on top.
She swung herself around, careful to get a good grip because the top part of the rock angled sharply downward on one side, and then perched uncomfortably on the very tip, legs bent at the knees to brace herself, as the first of the guards ran past.
They were focused on getting away, and they didn't look up. She had a feeling they wouldn't have seen her in the darkness even if they had raised their eyes.
She kept still and quiet, and mostly they did, too, saving their energy and their breath on running.
She tried to count them as they came past her, and put the number at roughly twenty. She wondered how many more were captured or dead in the camp.
Because of the dark, and the lack of conversation, quite a few of Dix and Hanson's guards ran past her in pursuit before she realized she was among friends at last.
She opened her mouth to call out, and then paused, mouth still open, as she pondered what might get their attention, but not get her killed.
“It's Taya,” she decided on at last, and it got results.
There was the sound of bodies slamming into each other as a number of guards slid to a halt.
“I'm up on this rock, wait a moment and I'll climb down.”
“Where did you come from?” She recognized the voice of the guard asking as one she'd practiced with at Hanson's camp in the forest.
“The sky raider set me down right near the three armies camp, so I had to make my way back from there.”
There was silence as she swung down and felt for footholds, and then hands reached up for her, and she was lifted down.
“Thank you.” She leaned back against the rock for a moment, her knees suddenly weak. “I nearly got caught in the stampede of the three armies guards running back to safety.”
Someone chuckled, and then everyone started to laugh.
Taya wipe tears off her cheeks, and she couldn't tell if they were from laughing or crying, but it didn't matter. She felt better for it.
She reached out with her Change, called the thin needle from where she'd left it, so small and fine no one even saw it as it flew into her hand.
“Can you take me back to camp, or do you need to go on?” she asked when her legs felt they could support her again.
“We'll take you.” The guard's tone was fervent. “The sooner you're back, the safer for everyone.”
She touched his arm to get his attention in the dark. “What does that mean?”
“It means Garek of Pan Nuk is a very scary man when he is upset. And righ
t now, he is very, very upset.”
Chapter 30
It was only a half hour walk to camp, and she was met by a contingent of people, including Dix and Hanson, because one of the guards in the group helping her had run ahead.
They were carrying lanterns, and in the glow, she saw Hanson's face sag with relief at the sight of her.
“How did you get free?” Dix strode forward, and gripped her shoulder in what Taya guessed was the guard master equivalent of a full hug.
“Never mind that, we need to signal to Garek that she's safe.” Hanson looked up.
“Garek is looking for me in the sky craft?” Maybe that had been him overhead earlier. She had been so sure the sky raiders would try to find her and take her again while she was cut off from allies and on her own, she had never even considered it could be him.
Hanson nodded, then pointed to one of her guards. “Bring the whirly.” She turned and headed for the fire, and Taya followed her, eager to get warm, and to see if Quardi was all right.
“I'm sure we all have some interesting stories to tell,” Dix said as she fell into step with Taya.
“There must have been three on that sky craft, or a second ship dropped someone nearby who snuck up behind us.”
“The scouts on the hill saw a second craft landing nearby. They were more wary of an ambush than we gave them credit for.” Dix looked grim.
“I think they also reinforced their suits with something that shielded them from shadow ore. I wouldn't have expected an attack like that from behind because I didn't think they could get that close to me.”
Dix looked over at her in surprise. “That’s interesting. But you were able to kill one, and Hanson another.”
Taya nodded. “But that was because the suit was pierced. I don't think they've managed to counter the hardness and sharpness of the ore, but before, just resting ore against the suit would destroy it. Now it has to be penetrated.”
“They're adapting to compensate for our own strengths.”
“Yes, and the longer they're here, the better they'll get.”
They arrived at the fire to find Hanson crouched over a steel receptacle of some kind, like a shallow flower-shaped dish with a hinged lid.
The lid was open and one of her guards was carefully carrying coals from the fire on a flat spade and tipping them into the dish.
Hanson shook it, to evenly spread the coal, closed the lid and secured it with a lever.
“Everyone back.”
The guards in her unit moved back immediately, and Taya followed their lead.
She saw no sign of Quardi, but before she could ask Dix about him, Hanson called her Change and shot the whirly up into the air, and then spun it as she sent it high into the sky.
Flames shot from what seemed to be vent holes at the tips of the 'petals' of the flower.
It was a signal all right. A signal Garek would see if he was looking this way.
It shone bright and clear, and beautiful in the way it created a flickering light show.
“I will definitely be taking up your liege's offer of instruction from General Hanson,” Dix murmured. “Just having someone in my unit who can do that would be invaluable.”
Hanson kept the whirly high and spinning until the coals winked out, and then brought it back down.
Taya walked back to the fire, looking more earnestly for Quardi.
Her mistake was she was looking for a man in a chair, but when she moved around the massive blaze to the other side, she saw him bent over a large pot, Pilar with him, both their faces fierce with concentration.
“Don't you need help with that?”
They both looked up, blinking.
“Taya?” Quardi took an unsteady step, and she ran the last few yards to put her arms around him.
He hugged her until her bones creaked in protest. “We thought they got you for good this time.” His words were choked.
She shook her head against his shoulder. “They keep underestimating me. In the end, they couldn't get rid of me fast enough.”
He gave a sudden, loud, Quardi laugh, one of the deep belly laughs she realized she hadn't heard for too long.
“You're right, we do need you. But you look done in.”
“I'm cold and wet and hungry, but if you'll give me time to change, and get some food inside me, then I can separate the ore for you.”
They were running out of time. She wanted to sleep, but she wouldn't have to shape the ore, just separate out the impurities. Quardi and Pilar could dip arrow heads into the smelted ore without her help.
When she returned, clean, dry and with a bowl of stew in her hand, Hanson had sent the whirly up a second time.
No one had asked her for information about what had happened, and she hadn't asked what had happened in camp, either. It could wait until after she helped Quardi.
She didn't think she was imagining the real sense of relief from most of the guards that she was back. It made her wonder what had happened with Garek when he'd arrived to find her gone.
That he had brought new guards to camp was obvious. There was almost double the number there had been.
“Taya.” Eli was suddenly beside her, enveloping her in a crushing hug that almost caused her to drop her stew.
He set her back a little, shook his head. “I saw that crazy signal, came back to camp. A few of us are keeping watch on the hill. I didn't see you come in, but they told me you walked in through the valley?”
She nodded. “The sky raider set me down near the three armies, so I had to walk. Fortunately he set down near the river, so I had a path back.”
If he'd dropped her off somewhere out on the plain, she would have been truly lost.
“How'd you get him to let you out?” Eli hugged her close with one arm, and walked with her toward Quardi.
She lifted her arm, pointed to the needle threaded onto her sleeve.
“That?”
She grinned. Nodded. “Well, I had two of them. I left one in the sky craft, told him I'd stab him and his equipment with it if he tried to shoot me with white lightning as he flew off.”
He gaped at her.
Pilar waved and she took a last bite of stew, set the bowl down, and joined him and Quardi at the massive pot.
“It's at temperature.” Pilar indicated the smelted ore. A second pot sat in the fire, empty and waiting for the purified ore.
Taya called her Change, lifting the molten ore out, and sending it in an elegant, glowing arc into the second pot.
Everything that wasn't shadow ore stayed behind in the first pot.
“All done.”
“That's interesting.”
Taya looked up to see Hanson had been watching them.
The slag she'd left behind in the first pot rose up, glowing red and viscous, and Quardi swung his gaze to her.
“You can call it?”
“It's mostly iron.” Hanson shrugged. “Enough that I can work it.”
“Why don't you just call the iron and leave the rest behind?” Pilar asked her.
“Iron is too soft to make a good blade. Usually we add limestone to make steel, but I want to see how this mixture works.” She fashioned a blade in the air over the pot, her manipulation of the ore far more practiced and assured than Taya's had been when she'd created the blades for her sword and knives. Quardi had had to work on them for a while to improve them, whereas this . . . Taya could see Quardi would have barely anything to do.
And then the roar of a sky craft descending on the camp had her head jerking upward.
It set down, and she was running before the engines had even cut off.
Garek appeared in the pilot's door, and she waved as she ran toward him.
She suddenly found herself flying, and she let out a laugh of delight that died as soon as she got a good look at his face.
He stepped back, and grabbed her as she reached him, and the door closed behind her.
His face was stark, his eyes almost wild.
S
he didn't say anything, she simply took him in her arms and held him.
He shuddered, his arms coming tight around her and he buried his face in her hair. “How?” He cleared his throat. “How did you get free?”
“The needles. I still had the vial in my pocket.” She didn't say anything else, just let him breathe her in.
“Did you bring it down?” When he finally spoke, there was a dark edge to his tone. A vicious edge.
She shook her head. “I threatened to, but I was inside it at the time, so I got him to let me out instead.”
“Good.” He gripped her even tighter. “That's good.” He drew back, frowning. “Where did he let you out? It was hours after you were taken that Hanson sent up that signal.”
She hesitated and his eyes narrowed.
“Where, Taya?”
“Near the three armies.”
He drew in a deep breath. Straightened.
She put a hand on his chest, holding him in place. “Before you go level the lot of them, how about this first?” She went up on her toes and kissed him. “I don't think anyone is going to dare interrupt us for a while. You seem to have terrorized the camp to the point they almost wept with relief when they stumbled across me. And I am tired, Garek. I am tired, and I want a break from this for a little while. We can talk about what happened, and who did what tomorrow. Let's close the world off for a few hours.”
He looked at her, and she saw him slowly come back to himself, to the calm, thoughtful man he was most of the time.
He sighed. “I thought they had you. That this was the end.”
“I know. But once again I turned out to be more a thorn in their side than the prize they were looking for.” She smiled up at him. “Lucky for you, I take a different approach when it comes to those I love.”
He smiled back, heat rising in his eyes. “Oh, I know how lucky I am.”
He lifted her up and pressed her back against the wall. And showed her just how lucky.
Chapter 31
Garek opened the pilot's door sometime in the night, uneasy with being deaf to what was happening in the camp. It meant the Star's morning light poured in, waking him, and he heard the low murmur of guards stirring around the camp fires.
Shadow Warrior (Sky Raiders Book 3) Page 19