“Do we go in?” She suddenly wished she had made something for Deni with a protection worked into it.
She pulled out a scrap of fabric and embroidered a few tiny stars onto it, working as fast as she could as she hummed.
“What are you doing? Are you . . . all right?”
She looked up to see him staring at her in absolute astonishment.
“This is for good luck.” It wasn’t as good as if she had time and the ability to concentrate completely, but it would be better than nothing. She leaned across and tucked the long, narrow scrap down the neck of his shirt.
He batted her hand away, but didn’t try to pull the fabric out.
She gave a nod of approval. “Keep it against your skin.”
“Avasu, this is not normal.”
She shrugged, and smiled at him, hoping it looked easy and lighthearted. “Just indulge me. My grandmother swore by it. And what can it hurt?”
He shook his head in disbelief, but she didn’t care if he thought her mad. The working would protect him either way.
She looked back at the column, lumbering in its slow, steady way south east across the plains, and then back into the scrub.
“Have they ever come this close before? I mean, they could fire an arrow from where we caught sight of them and actually hit someone.”
Deni shielded his eyes as he looked between the trees. “When they said the Kassian were getting closer, I didn’t realize it was this close. But maybe this one just strayed too close by mistake. I haven’t seen them again.”
She hadn’t either, and her cloak offered no warning.
“What do we do?”
Deni thought about it, like her, looking back at the column and then into the trees again.
“Let’s go to where we saw whoever it was. You never know what you might find.”
He took the lead and she followed him, making herself as small as possible in the saddle as the denuded branches of large bushes scratched and grabbed at her cloak and hair.
“This is hard going.” Deni stopped to unhook a sharp stick from his hair. “I don’t see them moving through here easily. Perhaps they thought they’d be safe to watch from here, because we wouldn’t patrol within the scrub.”
“They’d have been right.” Ava tucked her cloak tight around her, and winced when some of the threads were hooked and damaged by tree limbs.
She smoothed over some of the ripped stitches, and wondered whether the protections she’d sewn into the cloak would still work.
“Here.” Deni’s voice led her into a small clearing, and she could see the snapped twigs and branches, the churned ground. More than one person had waited here for a while, and their horses had gotten testy about it.
She looked out toward the column, and she could just see it through the foliage. “This is where they were when we spotted them.”
Deni nodded. “They’re long gone now.”
She saw the point the spy or spies had taken out of the clearing. Cocked her head in that direction in question.
“I don’t know what good it would do us.” Deni hesitated, then gave a nod, pushing her horse aside with his own so he went first through the narrow gap in the vegetation.
Ava ducked as branches whipped back, and only just glimpsed the arrow flying over her head.
Deni’s horse reared up as another arrow flew, trying to back up and finding Ava’s mount in the way.
It turned, forelegs kicking out, and panicked, Ava’s horse bolted in the only direction that was open, the narrow path ahead.
Ava swallowed a cry as branches struck her in the face, and then pain exploded in her forehead and she was flung off.
She lay still for what felt like a long time, listening to her horse’s panicked path through the underbrush, and then finally opened her eyes.
A man stood over her, and there was someone else near her feet.
“Did the other one get away?” The man above her turned his head as he asked the question.
“Yes. Could you have shot any worse, Nedar? He was right in front of you and you missed him completely.”
“My aim was true. I don’t know what happened. He moved at just the right moment.” Nedar’s voice was defensive. “It happens sometimes.”
“Well, it’s a huge fucking pity it happened now. Because he’s off to call in reinforcements and we’re not exactly able to make a run for it.” There was deep bitterness in the man’s voice.
“What do you want me to do about it, Cassak? It’s not my fault we’re hobbled. I didn’t want to come so close, if you remember.”
“Did I? We were sent here, asshole.” The bitterness increased. “And we spent too long here looking for that fucking message. Which we didn’t find.” He made a choked sound and she heard what sounded like a boot kicking a tree trunk. “What about her horse? Do you think you could go after it?” Cassak finally came into view, looking to the left, and Ava listened for sounds of her horse in the underbrush, but there was nothing to hear over the persistent thump in her head. Every beat was like a spike driving through her brain.
With careful fingers, she touched her forehead, felt the large bump on her forehead.
Above her was the offending branch. Far thicker and sturdier than the others had been.
“You finally awake, scout?” Nedar leaned down.
She nodded her head slowly, and winced when the pain of the movement overwhelmed her.
“I know the feeling.” The other man, Cassak, touched his own forehead, and she noticed there was blood along his hairline and a dark bruise blossoming above his eyebrow.
So they’d come to grief here, too.
She curled on her side and closed her eyes, too dizzy to do anything else.
She didn’t think she’d lain there more than a minute before she was woken by someone shaking her by the shoulder.
“We’re going to need you alive and able to walk if we’re going to use you as a hostage.” Nedar’s bow was slung over his shoulder, and his arrows rattled in their sheath.
He was the one who’d shot at them. Except his arrows had missed.
She smiled and closed her eyes again.
“She’s out of it. She doesn’t even realize she’s in enemy hands by the looks of it.” Nedar didn’t lower his voice, and the noise of it was like hammering in her brain.
She lifted a hand to cover her ear.
“Just make sure she doesn’t die, Nedar. Don’t let her sleep. We can’t bargain with a dead woman. Her horse is long gone, so is mine, and the only one we have left is caught in the thorns.” He sounded like he was about to scream.
She hoped he didn’t, her head couldn’t take it.
Rough hands grabbed her and lifted her up into a sitting position, and she felt the rough bark of a tree against her neck and hair.
White light exploded across her vision for a few seconds, and she leaned to the side and vomited.
When she was done, she closed her eyes and tilted her head upward, resting against the tree trunk.
She could hear the men bickering close by, and she finally worked out the long mane of Nedar’s horse had been caught in a bramble bush, and they were trying to work it free.
They had also been sent to pick up a message from a spy in the Rising Wave column, and they hadn’t been able to find it.