by T. A. White
“Hold your fire,” Fallon shouted. “Do not fire again.”
“Who shot that?” Fallon’s friend yelled. He strode to his men and pulled the offending party off his horse. “What were you thinking? You could have caused her to fall.”
He didn’t wait for the man to defend himself, instead jerking the bow out of his hands and shoving him.
Shea placed her feet against the rock face and hugged the wall, taking deep breaths. A fine tremble invaded her limbs.
That had been close.
She shifted slightly, and her heart shot into her throat. She really did not want to move. Not to go up. And definitely not to go down.
Perhaps she could just stay here. It seemed like a nice cliff. The view wasn’t great, just ugly brown rocks and dirt, but nice scenery was overrated when compared to life and limb.
She was frozen. Stuck. And being over twenty feet off the ground with half the cliff left to scale was not a good place to be.
She shut her eyes and took a few calming breaths. “You can do this. Quit thinking and just climb. Put one hand over the other and keep going.”
Staying put was the worst thing to do right now. It took strength to cling to the side of a cliff, and every second she wasted a little bit more of her strength drained away. She chanced a glance back down. Fallon watched her carefully from the horse, his mouth pressed into a tight line. She looked back up at the distance she had left, took a deep breath and started climbing.
She focused on the task before her, ignoring all other distractions as she edged ever closer to the top. Finally, she rolled onto her back to stare up at the sky. Her arms ached. Her legs ached. Every muscle ached. After the long journey of the past two days, the headlong rush of escape and now the strength needed to make that climb, Shea was tired. She needed a nap.
She poked her head over the side of the cliff and glanced straight at Fallon. He gave her a respectful nod.
Carefully, she backed away from the edge and stood before glancing at the sharp hills and buttes before her. Fallon and the danger he represented fell from her thoughts as she was confronted with the reality in front of her. The Badlands. A place she thought she’d never see again.
She turned back to the canyon. People were waiting for her. They counted on her to do her job. That meant putting her unease and trepidation about being back here into a box and then burying it to be dealt with later.
True, the last time she’d visited the Badlands she’d nearly died. A lot of people HAD died. This trip was different. They weren’t going into the heart but rather skirting along its edges.
Her feet turned towards Dane, Witt and the others. She settled into a slow jog, dodging around sparse brush and uneven rocks. Time to get to work and lead her group home.
Fallon stared after the woman long after she was gone. Shea, he thought he’d heard one of her friends call her. It was a pretty name. Kind of sharp but feminine at the same time. Like her.
She was a unique existence to him. Calm in the face of danger with an air of command that demanded obedience from men who clearly didn’t enjoy listening. Two of the men she’d had with her didn’t look like the type to easily follow orders. Yet when she spoke, they listened. The way she had disrupted the execution spoke of strategic and creative thinking while under pressure. A rare talent. She’d made the most out of the tools she had and then executed her mission flawlessly. If she were a Trateri, she would have made a fine general with a little training and guidance.
He found that fascinating.
When he’d first seen the hood yanked back to reveal her disheveled hair and wide eyes that were equal parts scared and annoyed, he’d felt his entire attention zero in on her. This tiny figure had darted past several huge men to take the execution platform like one of the warrior goddesses his grandmother had spoken of when he was a boy.
She should have been the last thing he noticed, and yet she’d been the only thing he could see.
“I have to say, I’ve never seen anyone scale a cliff quite that way,” Darius said, walking up to steady the horse as Fallon dismounted.
A tall man with high cheekbones and a broad nose, Darius always seemed to find amusement in life. Even in battle with enemies attacking from all sides, his eyes would crinkle at the corners while a fierce grin stretched across his face. His blue eyes were very noticeable with his dark skin that was tanned even darker by the sun. It was his horse Fallon had appropriated to race after the woman.
“I told you she was tricky.” Wilhelm ambled up to them with his head tilted back to eye the cliff face with mild bemusement. He’d seen many flee before the Trateri, but never up a cliff.
“That’s what makes it interesting,” Darius returned. He patted his horse’s neck and fed him a slice of an apple before checking over the saddle and reins.
“Indeed,” Fallon said softly. It had been a long time since he’d found anything besides battle interesting. Especially a woman. His gaze sharpened on Wilhelm. “Take several men to her friends’ hiding place and retrieve them. She’ll go back for them. Catch her if you can, but I don’t want her harmed.”
Wilhelm gave a slight smile and spun on his heel gesturing for five men to follow him. Without another word, he swung onto a horse and rode down the canyon, leaving the others to trail behind.
“Did you get what you needed?” Darius asked, changing the subject and clapping Fallon on the back.
Fallon glanced at his friend “Yes, but it wasn’t the answer I wanted.”
“Oh?”
“The Trateri will be able to take the Lowlands easy enough, but from the information we gathered, there is no easy way to breach the Highlands. Every route we found involved a climb. It’d be near impossible to get the horses up there, and there’s no easy way to get a large army, equipped with supplies and weapons into position without destroying the element of surprise.”
Silence fell between the two, broken only by the sound of a horse’s whinny. Fallon stared off into the distance, lost in thought as Darius studied him.
“We’ll have to limit our plans to the Lowlands. For now.” Fallon’s head turned slowly to Darius, anticipation burning in his eyes. “Prepare your men. Our army marches on the Lowlands shortly.”
A loud whoop escaped Darius as he lunged forward to clasp Fallon in a tight hug. For nearly twenty years, they had planned for this day. They had sworn the moment they became friends at the age of ten they would lead the clans to create an empire spanning across the continent.
“I’m at your side every step of the way,” Darius declared, clasping Fallon on the shoulder.
“I never doubted it,” Fallon told him. “Come. Let’s find Wilhelm, and you can tell me what the Clan Heads have been plotting in my absence.”
Darius gestured for one of his warriors to dismount and give his horse to Fallon. They mounted and headed in the direction Wilhelm had taken. It wasn’t long before they pulled their horses to a stop as Wilhelm and his men met them coming from the opposite direction
“My lord, they’re gone,” Wilhelm said without preamble. “We found no track. It looks like they just disappeared.”
There was a moment of stunned silence at this news, and then Darius gave a bark of laughter.
“It appears you’ve found an entire clan of ghosts,” he told Fallon.
“I’m beginning to think you’re right,” Fallon said, shaking his head and spurring his horse in the direction Wilhelm had come. He wanted to see this for himself.
Wilhelm hadn’t lied. The other four were gone. The hidey hole hid nothing but dirt and a few small rocks.
Darius’ men spread out to see if there were any other places for the four to hide but had so far turned up nothing. The strangers had disappeared into thin air.
Fallon gave a considering look at the canyon walls, wondering if they had done as the woman had and simply scaled them. He shook his head. No. One had been too injured to make that climb, and since he wasn’t there, they would have taken him with them.
It was a mystery that teased at his brain. Besides thinking up new strategies for battle, life had gotten slightly boring of late. If the woman, Shea, had wanted to make him lose interest in her, she should have simply surrendered. Now, she presented a challenge. Prey to be hunted.
He turned his horse and kicked it into a trot, trusting the others to follow.
“Should we keep searching?” Wilhelm asked.
After giving Fallon a long considering look, Darius answered, “No. She’s his to find now.”
Darius clicked to his horse, breaking into a canter and quickly catching up to Fallon. He pulled lightly on the reins to slow his horse to a walk.
“What do you want to do about the village?”
“We don’t have time to deal with them now.”
“And later?” Darius asked already knowing the answer.
“Burn it.”
From her hiding place atop the cliff, Shea watched Fallon and his men ride away. When they were gone, she found a path down to the canyon and ran to the hiding place. Like Fallon and his men, she found nothing. Unlike them, she was prepared for that.
Witt would have moved the group as soon as the last villager passed. That had been the plan all along. It was why she had drawn the strangers along with her rather than leaving them behind.
She didn’t need help distracting the villagers, but the strangers had set off every instinct she had. She hadn’t wanted to chance revealing the way into the Highlands.
Witt would have known this and acted accordingly in case something had gone wrong on her end. Now, she just had to get back to the rendezvous point.
Worry niggled at her at the thought of them trying to make their way through the Badlands without a guide. Firmly, she pushed it down. Witt was a smart man with experience out in the wilds. He would know to stick to the edge and work his way back to the Highlands from there.
Either way, there was nothing she could do about it. The others were long gone. All she could do now was follow them and hope she didn’t run into any trouble along the way.
Chapter Four
Seven Months Later
“We’ve already told you our terms,” Dane argued. “If you’re unwilling to meet them, we have nothing left to discuss. We’re done here.”
Shea fought a yawn as an old man voiced sharp disagreement. Propping her head on her hand, she attempted to feign some interest in the proceedings. It wasn’t easy. Her jaw cracked as the yawn she’d been containing escaped.
Would this meeting never end?
“Let’s not be hasty,” the white-haired man’s voice cut through the chatter.
His face had an agelessness to it, making it impossible for Shea to guess exactly how old he was. Although the hair suggested age, his skin was smooth and free of wrinkles. His eyes hinted at a sharp mind. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement. There’s no need to go home empty handed.”
Zrakovi would have a shit fit if they came back without securing the trade route with Goodwin of Ria. It had taken their group nearly two months to reach the Lowland town.
They’d been here ten days already and had accomplished exactly nothing. It was frustrating and made zero sense. Goodwin of Ria was the one to initiate the talks in the first place. They’d sent an emissary to Birdon Leaf with the clear goal of establishing trade between the two villages. Only now, it seemed Goodwin of Ria no longer had any interest in the deal.
The idea of a trade route was a good one. Or it would be if both parties agreed to the terms.
Birdon Leaf would benefit from the wheat that Goodwin grew, while Goodwin would gain access to the tali root and jixy oil the Highlanders harvested from the cliffs near their village.
Tali root, which could be used as a food or textile, would help the town expand its weaving capability to offer more luxury items to the southern cities. Because the root only grew in the higher altitudes of the Highlands, the town elders were rabid to get their hands on it. The jixy oil would give the townspeople access to a more reliable fuel for lanterns and other heating sources.
For the villagers of Birdon Leaf, the wheat and a few other goods would help keep them fed when the tali wasn’t in season.
That was the idea anyway, but since their arrival the people of Goodwin had been argumentative and unwilling to compromise.
She didn’t understand why she had to be present for these tedious meetings. It wasn’t like she had anything to add. She didn’t set the terms, and more importantly, this wasn’t part of her duties.
Being outside the village perimeter enjoying the slight chill of spring as the land began to ripen with life was preferable to sitting in this tiny chamber filled with stuffy old men.
“We’ve already agreed on these terms,” Dane reiterated. “You should know as you were the ones to propose them.”
“Things have changed since our emissary visited your village,” a man said crossly.
Shea thought his name started with an R. Robert? No, she didn’t think that was it. Maybe Richard?
Clad in fine garments with intricate embroidery running along every hem, he had slicked his black hair away from his clean shaven face, showing his strong bone structure to its best advantage. When he’d shaken Shea’s hand, she’d been amazed at how smooth his skin was. Softer than a child’s, his hands had probably never seen a day of manual labor.
His two companions were attired similarly, though the man on his left had applied some type of powder to his face to cover the age spots. Nothing could hide that beak of a nose, though.
Life in the Lowlands must be easier. Highlanders just didn’t have that much time to invest in their appearance. Everyday clothes didn’t have the fine level of detail that every one of these men’s garments showcased. Shea had attended these meetings for the past ten days, and every day each man had worn something different and equally fine.
She counted herself lucky when she had one nice outfit in her wardrobe. Mostly, her clothes were made of serviceable leather or tali root. None of it had embroidery or fancy cuts and weaves.
Shea was willing to bet these men had seen very little hardship in their lives.
Dane pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been saying that for days now. We’ve offered several alternatives, and you still can’t make up your minds. The terms are fair and benefit both of us.”
“We disagree.” The hawk nose man slapped his hands on the table.
“I don’t care if you disagree. Perhaps one of the other villages will be more appreciative of the trade you scorn.”
Shea perked up at that news. Perhaps the end to this whole tedious visit was in sight.
“Gentlemen, please,” the white haired elder interrupted. “Let’s not make hasty decisions. Perhaps we should call it quits for the day and meet again tomorrow when we’ve had a chance to rest and consider what has been said.”
No, not again. Tomorrow would lead to the next day and then the day after that. She couldn’t take much more of this.
They were stalling. She knew it. They knew it.
All she wanted was for this to be over so she could gather her team and head home. That or for Dane to release her from the tedious boredom of having to listen to these men drone on and on about nothing important.
Dane’s arms relaxed from across his chest, and he nodded once. Shea drooped. Looked like they were going to be here at least another day.
The men murmured polite goodbyes as they stood. Dane and the rest of the group from Birdon Leaf filed out of the room.
Shea trailed behind absently listening as the other three discussed how to spend the rest of the day now that discussions had been derailed. Again.
The door closed firmly. Shea glanced back at it. None of the elders had joined them, which meant they had all remained behind. Perhaps to discuss how they should handle negotiations tomorrow?
Shea would have thought it would be more beneficial to do that with all parties concerned, but what did she know. She was a simple guide.
/> Lost in thought, she trailed further and further behind her group, losing sight of the rest before she knew it. Oh well. She doubted they’d notice she was missing.
Time to herself had become a luxury since reaching Goodwin, as Dane thought it would be useful to have her sit in on the discussions. She hadn’t minded at first. Ten days later, she did.
Shea wandered in the opposite direction of her lodging, enjoying the feel of the sun warming her face and the slight bite of a stray breeze. It brought with it the fresh smell of damp and earth.
It would likely rain during the night. She could smell it in the air. It didn’t feel like it would be a heavy rain, just enough to soak the ground.
Her feet whispered across the cobblestone streets as she found her way to the market. Stopping at a stall, she bought a piece of fruit and carried it with her as she headed to the well maintained decorative wall framing the square.
Hopping up onto the waist high barrier, she settled onto the cool stone and turned her attention to people-watching before biting into the peach. She wiped her chin as a little bit of juice escaped and then licked the small trickle of liquid off her wrist, savoring the rare treat.
She hoped Dane was able to include fruit as one of the goods to be traded. She’d come to enjoy the many varieties the Lowlands offered. It was one of the things she’d miss when they finally headed home.
This town was three times the size of Birdon Leaf in both population and the number of buildings. Like Birdon Leaf, it had a large outer wall that encased the main town, though many farms fell in the outlying territory. It was primarily a farming village, but it also performed a robust trade with other Lowland settlements.
That’s why the trade proposal had been met with such excitement.