The Grimwaldian was in for a cooler reception than he thought.
He looked Ava over, but she seemed unharmed by her clash with the two men.
“What were you doing?” He noticed two other strips of cloth beside the bed.
“This is for the Venyatux who will be part of the scout party. I can’t ask to embroider their vests without letting the general know I don’t need to use black thread, so I’m going to give these to them privately. Tell them it’s for good luck, like I did for Deni yesterday.”
“They’ll be lucky to have your work protecting them on their scouting trip.”
She sighed, and set her work aside. Then pulled him down beside her.
He felt a shift in the mood, and turned his head to look at her. Her expression was the most serious he had ever seen.
“Luc, I have to go with the scouts. I have to be a scout.”
Everything in him said no. He forced himself to swallow the word and listen. But he didn’t like it. At all.
“This is the most important thing we have to contend with before we get to Fernwell. We won’t get to Fernwell if we don’t stop or anticipate an attack along the route.”
He gave a slow nod.
“And if I’m with the scouts, and we find a possible attack point, I can sneak unseen into the enemy camp and listen to their plans.”
That was true. But the dangers . . . “The scouts are breaking up into three groups. You only have a one in three chance of being in the right place.”
“My suggestion is I be allowed to move between the groups. In fact, I should go to all three places. I can set some . . . traps.”
“Traps?”
She lifted her eyes, and he saw her hesitation, as if she wasn’t sure how he would react.
“I could leave . . . things for people to pick up. Or for dogs to sniff out—”
“The dogs.” He felt as if someone had hit him in the head. “When we were running from the Kassian, you turned the dogs away from us. And got them to ignore us the second time they came after us.”
She nodded.
“What happened to them?” The memory suddenly came back to him, of him standing in the woods, back against a tree, hearing the pack of dogs coming after him and then they simply ran past, not even looking his way. They disappeared into the forest and he never saw them again.
“I had them meet me at the edge of the forest. I took them with me to Grimwalt. They’re safe and happy.”
“You had them meet you . . .” She didn’t seem to realize how powerful she was. But she was right that he needed to put aside his need to shield her from a fight she was only too happy to jump into and use her like any good leader would.
But as she so eloquently stated, this was the most important issue they had to contend with until they got to Fernwell. Important enough he should be part of it, too.
If they were taken by surprise before they could get to Fernwell, their chances of taking the city were almost nothing.
“We’ll need to get some sleep, then. We leave early tomorrow.”
She blinked at him in surprise, studying him calmly. “You are coming with.”
“I am coming with,” he agreed.
“Because?”
“Because as you say, this is important. Important enough that one of the two column leaders should go. Also, I don’t want you away from me. I think I’ve made that clear since you left me near the Grimwalt border two months ago.”
She sighed and sank back into the pillows. “I hope you never have cause to regret it.”
“And why would I do that?” He lowered himself down, a hand on either side of her head.
She was silent.
“Answer me this.” He balanced on his elbows and pushed the hair back from her forehead. “Is this secret you find so hard to tell me something you’ve done, some confession you have to make for your own actions, or is it something you have no control over?”
She went still. “It’s something I have no control over.”
“Then tell me when you are ready, lover. But never believe I’ll regret you being by my side.”
She lifted up and placed her lips against his, and he sank down into her embrace.
He realized he truly didn’t care what it was she found so hard to tell him, except that it obviously weighed on her.
As she rolled him under her and straddled him, eyes slumberous and heavy, he groaned.
They had to be up early, but there was surely time for this.
They had ridden hard, leaving the columns far behind them, and reached the first spot Dak had chosen as a possible ambush site in the early afternoon.
Ava was lagging at the back.
She was a lot better in the saddle than she had been two months ago when she escaped, but the Cervantes, the Venyatux, and the Funabi were all accomplished riders. More accomplished than she was, anyway.
As she rounded the bend, with only Catja in sight, Ava thought she glimpsed the hindquarters of a horse, just disappearing around the side of one of the small hills Dak had flagged as a good hiding spot for the Kassian army.
She considered giving a whoop to alert Catja, but instead gritted her teeth and urged her horse into a gallop.
Catja heard the hoofbeats and slowed, then turned in her saddle.
Ava fisted her left hand, lifted it to her right shoulder and gave a tap. The sign for danger.
Catja’s eyes widened and she slowed even more, until Ava was abreast of her.
“There’s someone in the hills to the right.” Ava spoke softly. “Don’t look that way. It’s best right now we pretend I didn’t see whoever it was.”
“Agreed.” Catja pretended to stretch out her back, lifting her hands over her head and twisting left and then right.
“I don’t hear anything. And I don’t know how many are there. I only saw one horse.” Ava reached for a water pouch and drank.
“What should we do?” Catja patted her horse’s neck. “Maybe if we keep walking, the Commander will stop and wait for us, or come back and see what’s wrong.”
“If they have chosen this spot as a place to ambush the Rising Wave, we need them to continue to believe we have no idea of their plan. We don’t want them to find somewhere else.” Ava reached back into her saddle bag and took out some flat bread. They had stopped for a quick meal two hours before, and it wasn’t time for another break, but Catja took the bread and chewed with gusto, talking of inconsequential things.
It took less than ten minutes for Luc to come thundering back.
Deni rode behind him.
Luc was quick. So very, very quick.
Something in the way she and Catja were talking together told him everything she needed him to know.
He turned his head to say something to Deni, but the direction the wind was blowing made it impossible to hear.
She saw Deni freeze, but just for a moment, and then relax in his saddle.
“My horse has given up for the day,” Ava called out when they got within earshot.
“Varik’s has done the same, just up ahead. We thought you might be having the same problem.” When Luc turned his horse back around, he put himself between Ava and the hills. “What did you see?” He leaned close to her.
“Someone on horseback ducking behind the hill just over my right shoulder.”