“It was left for Shea. Who do you think it’s from?” Fallon didn’t have the patience for stupid questions.
Darius nodded. “Whoever left it didn’t use our paper. I don’t recognize this blend.”
“It’s from the pathfinders,” Witt said. “Their stationary always has a faint bluish tinge to it. This won’t be the last note, I’d wager.”
Fallon stilled as a thought occurred to him. “Shut down the camp; no one leaves. Whoever left this isn’t one of us. They may still be here. Search every tent, every nook and cranny of this place until you find them.”
Darius turned and strode off, snapping orders as he made Fallon’s command a reality.
“You, stay. I want to know what else you know about the pathfinders,” Fallon ordered before Witt could follow Darius.
The man nodded, his eyes solemn. “I’m not sure how much more I can share. I’ve told your people everything I could remember.”
“Tell me again.”
“If it’ll help.”
Fallon felt a little of his anger ease. Darius would do everything in his power to find this person or persons. Fallon wanted to be out there too, searching for this invader. It would give him no greater pleasure than to hunt him down and teach him the error of his ways.
For now, he had a few other things to take care of before he could join the hunt. He strode over to Trenton and Wilhelm, both of whom watched him come with an alert cautiousness that wasn’t normally present.
“I want one of you with Shea at all times, even when she’s here. She’s not to leave your sight until this person is found.”
The two men shared an uneasy look, both aware of how much trouble that would bring them with Fallon’s Telroi.
Fallon acknowledged their hesitation, knowing it wasn’t a reaction to his order. They were beginning to feel some loyalty to Shea. That was good. It was what he was hoping for, that they would feel the same need to protect her that they did him. He couldn’t entrust this task to her friends from the scouts, knowing they didn’t have the skills or desire needed to become an Anateri.
He made it easy on them. “Say the order came from me. She can take up her dissatisfaction with me later.”
Trenton gave him a wry look. “I do not envy you that task. I’ve been caught on her bad side on more than one occasion and still have the bruises on my ego after she got through with me.”
Fallon grunted. That was one of the things he liked about the woman. She always pushed back, never letting him have an inch if she could help it. She challenged him. It was something that had been missing from his life for a long time before her.
He turned to Witt. “With me.”
Witt followed as they headed for a tent adjacent to Fallon’s. It was where he conducted less friendly talks—the ones that might involve a more forceful display of his prowess. The tent was stripped of civilized trappings. It wasn’t a place one lingered voluntarily.
There were no rugs on the ground to soften one’s step. There was only one place to sit and that was on the ground. There was a table, but it contained devices only welcome in a nightmare—devices meant to compel someone to spill their inner-most secrets.
Witt waited patiently by the entrance while Fallon prowled the small space. Patience wasn’t always Fallon’s strong suit, unless it was the patience needed for a hunt.
Fallon gave the other man credit, not once did Witt eye the space with fear. Instead he was a calm next to Fallon’s storm.
“Start from the beginning,” Fallon ordered. He folded his large arms and gave Witt a long stare, the kind of stare that drilled through a person’s mask down to the soul beneath. It was meant to intimidate, to cause a man to squirm.
Witt stepped forward, his expression open as he held his hands wide as if to say he had nothing to hide. “As I’ve said before, Shea would be the best person for this. She was a pathfinder and knows more than me.”
That wasn’t an option. Not right now. Not in this situation. She was too close to this.
“Tell me what you can. I want to hear it again.”
Witt was quiet for a long moment as he gathered his thoughts. His lips pulled down in a frown. “You know the pathfinders fulfill a vital role in the Highlands. They are the connective tissue that maintains what passes for civilization. Without them, the Highlands would be a collection of isolated villages that would probably fade and die given enough time. The pathfinders keep the communication and trade lines open. It’s still isolated but nowhere what it would be without them.”
Fallon’s eyes were shadowed as he stared at Witt. He folded his muscular arms over his chest and adopted a wide-legged stance, as if he was bracing for whatever might come.
When he didn’t interrupt, Witt continued, “They’re also the only thing that passes for a government, though they’re really only concerned about the tithes owed them, and that their pathfinders stay safe. Anger them and they’ll cut your village off—excise it from the maps. Villages don’t usually last long after that.” Witt’s face darkened and his gaze turned inward as if he was remembering something painful. He shook his head coming back to the present. “There are rumors that they have ways to call beasts down on those villages that displease them.”
“What do you think?”
Witt frowned in thought. “I think it’s too big a coincidence how quickly the excised villages fall into ruin. They do it rarely—only twice that I’ve heard of—but when they excise a village there are few survivors.”
Ruthless—but Fallon didn’t fault them for that. It was something he would do himself, though he wouldn’t let the beasts do his dirty work. He’d ride into a village that threatened one of his own and kill the offenders face to face. It was more satisfying that way. It had the added benefit of making the rest fear you that much more. Fear, he’d found, was a powerful motivator for good behavior.
“Shea has mentioned there are different kinds of pathfinders.”
Witt’s nod was slow in coming. “It’s not something they advertise. The pathfinders who serve the villages seem to be at the low end of their hierarchy. The smaller the village, the lower the status of the pathfinder. They send other pathfinders out into the remote corners of the Highlands and beyond.”
“Their purpose?”
Witt shook his head. “I don’t know. I only know about them because they hooked up with a caravan I’d joined when I was younger and trying to find a place for myself. They stayed with us for a month and then broke away to press further north.”
“Perhaps they were heading to another village.”
“There were no villages beyond our destination. I’ve never heard of a settlement where they were heading. Nothing up there but snow, mountains and beasts. As far as I could figure it, they were just looking around—exploring because they could.”
Fallon grunted. That would fit with what he knew of Shea. She might have served as a village pathfinder, but he suspected that wasn’t all she was. Her social skills were too poor and her mind too curious. He could see her exploring a remote stretch of land—so isolated that no one had ever visited it before—just to see what was there.
It was one of the things he loved about her, and one of the things he hated. That need to explore, the restlessness he could see in her eyes sometimes. It made him feel like he was trying to lay claim to air. There one moment and gone the next. He sometimes had nightmares of waking up and reaching for her, only to find her gone.