“I’m Captain Farr. What’s going on?” The officer was no more than a dark shadow on a horse.
Ava thought there might be another five soldiers behind him.
“What unit?” Rangar asked.
“I’m with the Jatan Border Force. I’ve orders to requisition some of your flares.”
“You were going to herd the Rising Wave within shooting distance of my cannons. Why do you need my flares?”
“Because the Rising Wave ambushed us, and there’s barely any of us left. We’re not going to be herding them anywhere. But if you give us the flares, we could fire them into their columns and deal with them. Take them by surprise.” He sounded viciously pleased with the idea. Then he leaned forward. “Who’s that with you?”
Rangar hesitated. “A Rising Wave prisoner. She and her friends have taken out the cannons, but you’re welcome to the flares. Take as many as you like.” Rangar began to edge around the small group.
“Is that a flare in her hand?” Farr leaned forward for a closer look.
“It’s my insurance. There are twenty-nine left for you.”
“Don’t let them get the flares,” Ava said into the darkness. “That has to be your main priority.”
She wanted to crow at the knowledge that General Ru had won her battle. It was good news, despite her current situation.
“Who’s she talking to?” Farr brought his horse closer, and Ava could tell Rangar didn’t like it at all.
“Her friends. Who I hope haven’t followed us down the hill.”
“You’re not going to douse me in flare.” Ava turned her head to look at Rangar. “I’m your ticket out of this mess.” She looked up the slope again. “Better to stop them getting the flares at all than have to get them back later.”
She felt vindicated in her decision to go back and hide the last lot of flares, now. There were only two available to take.
“How many ‘friends’ are there?” Farr asked, his gaze going up the hill.
“At least three.”
“Four people took your whole position of ten cannons?” Farr sounded shocked.
“I said ‘at least’. I’m assuming there are more of them.” Rangar was getting twitchy. He wanted to get away clean from here with Ava, and have the ability to spin the story any way he liked.
Farr was ruining that for him.
“Tie up the woman and then show us where to find the flares.” Farr slid off the horse at last, and moved closer to them.
“The only flares left are up this hill.” Ava didn’t want the soldiers splitting up. It would be harder for Luc, Oscar and Deni to hunt them down that way.
“What?” Rangar tightened his grip.
“As we cleared each position, we took the flares. There are only two left above.”
“And the one in your hands,” Farr said.
“And the one in my hands.” Ava smiled.
“I don’t believe you. You haven’t had time.” Rangar gave her a little shake. “They’re difficult to transport.”
“Just imagine,” Ava said. “The Rising Wave heading for Fernwell with at least twenty seven flares, all courtesy of the Kassian military itself.”
She couldn’t see Rangar’s face, but the look on Farr’s told her he was thinking of the many ways he could be killed by his generals.
“No.” Rangar shook his head. “It took nearly fifty soldiers all day to get them into place. You couldn’t have taken them.”
She shrugged. Said nothing. She wished she could get her hand into her pocket. But she would surely get the chance soon.
“Head up that hill there. There should be three at the top.” Rangar pointed to the ninth cannon nest.
“If she’s right, then her friends might already be taking the two that are left, which would leave us with just one.” Farr waved a hand at the soldiers behind him and they slid off their horses and started up the slope.
“She wants your people to go up there, she’s manipulated you into doing it, so her fellow Rising Wave friends can kill them.”
“Five against three. I’m sure my unit will be fine.”
Ava saw the five soldiers disappear up the path. They wouldn’t be coming back down.
“You don’t think they will, do you?” Farr must have seen something on her face.
She shrugged. “Who can say?”
He was much closer to them now, and she felt Rangar’s tension in the way he held himself behind her. He didn’t want Farr to recognize her.
If he’d just come from the Jatan border, he might not have seen the drawing.
Rangar wanted her for himself. She was his ticket out of the disaster that had just hit him.
Not that she was planning to oblige.
She looked down at the flare canister in her hands.
She thought it would feel warm, but it was cool to the touch, and the contents were a pale, luminous blue.
If the general’s reaction to the news of it hadn’t been enough to warn her, though, Rangar’s palpable fear would have done it.
It was hard to work out what to do when she was holding so much potential for destruction in her hands.
And then, suddenly it wasn’t in her hands.
Farr had snatched it from her.
“I think she was telling the truth about the other flares, and I need as many of these as I can get if I’m to go back without losing my rank.” Farr slid the canister into a pocket in his saddle bag.
“You have no right.” Rangar lifted a knife to Ava’s throat. “That was mine.”
“It belongs to the Kassian army, and I have orders to bring it out to the plains.”
The knife pricked at Ava’s skin and now that she was no longer holding the flare, she moved her tied hands to her pocket.
“Don’t move.” The knife dug deeper, and she stopped.
Rangar sounded desperate enough to cut her. And it hurt. Her protection was definitely not what it had been.
Ava looked up the path and wondered where Luc and the others were.
A sudden scream from above had Farr jerking his gaze in the direction of the hill.
“One of yours?” Rangar asked. He lifted the knife from Ava’s throat and tightened his hold on her neck.
Ava gasped and began to claw at his arm. He was choking her.
“What—?” Farr turned back to face them, and as he did, Rangar threw the knife that he’d been using on Ava. It cut Farr’s question short as it entered his throat, and just before she lost all her air and the world went black, Ava saw the bloom of blood.
Chapter 36
Luc didn’t question the sudden urgency he felt to get back to Ava.
He had killed two of the soldiers who had come up the hill looking for flares, and he was confident Oscar and Deni could deal with the other three.
This need to get to her, though, was more than just general worry that she was being held by two men who were his enemies.
It felt like a warning from the protections she had sewn into his shirt and tunic. As if her safety was part of his own protection.
He didn’t disagree.
He would . . . not do well if anything happened to her.
He raced back down the path, trying to hold on to the fact that Rangar seemed to need Ava.