Still, it couldn’t hurt to share a few insights with them. Just a few, though. Nothing that might make her stand out.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe some of it.”
“Aw, that’s not an answer,” Sam said. “Stop being such a pussy and pick a side.”
“No, no,” Eamon said. “I want to hear what he has to say.”
Shea stared at them, running her tongue over her teeth. How much should she tell them? “You know by now that the Lowlands aren’t really a country. There’s no central government ruling the people. It’s just a bunch of isolated villages and towns with loose ties to each other. Each governs itself and outsiders are viewed with suspicion.”
“This isn’t news,” Buck groused. Flint, sitting next to him, gave him a shove.
“I say ‘maybe’ because there is no real ruling body that Hawkvale can defeat. Since that’s the case, he’s going to have to conquer each village individually, not only that, but he’ll have to find a way to rule people used to having no ruler.”
“On the other hand, no real government means no standing army to defend the land,” Eamon pointed out.
“True. I’ll give you that. But right now, you can’t even find all the villages because even the villages aren’t sure where each stands. I think there’s a strong possibility that he’ll claim some of this territory for his people, but the more isolated sections that no one ever visits?” Shea shook her head. “I don’t see that happening. The Lowlands haven’t been united in over five hundred years. Not since the cataclysm. Who’d even want to anyway? Place is a shit hole. Just a bunch of uneducated, superstitious louts afraid of the outside world and unwilling to challenge the status quo.”
“Spoken like someone who’s never been thirsty a day in their life,” someone muttered.
Shea jerked towards the voice but couldn’t identify the speaker. Her lip curled. “You think this place isn’t full of challenges? Look closely next time you’re in a village. You might be surprised at what you find.”
She looked each man in the eye, noting those who dropped their gaze after a moment.
“You speak like you’re not one of them,” Buck observed.
That’s because she wasn’t.
“I’m a throwaway, remember? Not a lot of love lost on either side.”
“That’s cold. Don’t think I could take that viewpoint even if I was exorcised from my clan,” Sam said.
“And you? What do you think?” Shea asked Eamon.
He might have said earlier, but she hadn’t been listening.
Shadows danced across his face as the fire flickered. “In the end it doesn’t really matter what I think. Possible or not, Hawkvale thinks the Broken Lands can be united as they were before the cataclysm. That’s enough for me.”
“That’s a lot of faith to have in one man.”
“Fallon Hawkvale is a hero to the Trateri,” Sam said softly. “His grandfather was the last Hawk of the Trateri until he was challenged by his nephew and killed through deception.”
“That was a dark time,” one of the older men said.
There were murmurs of agreement.
“We lost entire tribes warring against each other,” Sam said. “Resources are scarce in our land, and the battles for them can be savage. He instituted brutal laws that benefited him and his council. We broke apart as a people. Hawkvale changed all that when he won the right to rule and began uniting the clans. The Trateri believe he will lead us into a golden age that will rule over all of the Broken Lands.”
Sounded like Fallon had united the Trateri by giving them a common enemy. People tended to forget their differences and band together when they had something to fight against.
From their story, it didn’t sound like he’d be content to conquer just the Lowlands. To unite the Broken Lands, he would have to conquer the Highlands, Shea’s home. That couldn’t happen.
She looked at Eamon. “And you? Do you believe he will lead the Clans to a golden age?”
“I don’t know.” Eamon’s eyes, even cast in shadow, pierced through Shea. “But if any man can, it will be him.”
Focus shifted off Shea and onto conversation about their friends and family. Shea didn’t know any of those they were talking about, so it gave her an excuse to bow out of the conversation.
Her mouth full, she chewed thoughtfully as she listened to them giving each other a hard time. They seemed to enjoy coming up with the best insult. It was easy to be around them, and more than once she smiled in response to a particularly good zinger.
This was what she liked about being in the field, the easy camaraderie. It was something that had been missing in her life for a while now.
Before long, she made her way into the darkness to relieve herself, making sure she was far from prying eyes. Preparing to turn in, she found a relatively flat spot on the ground and pulled out a small blanket to cover her body, laying her jacket on top for extra warmth and arranging the pack she’d retrieved from the top of the cliff behind her head as a pillow.
She found herself softening towards her companions, no matter how many times she told herself that they weren’t her friends.
They treated her as an equal. Like someone whose opinion mattered. It had been a long time since she had that, since before the Badlands, if she had ever had it to this extent at all. She thought she might have been building toward this type of give and take with Witt and Dane, but that had been taken away before she knew if it was real or not.
She shut her eyes, determined to get some rest before they woke her for her shift as night watch in a few hours.
It didn’t take long for her body to sink gratefully into sleep.
Eamon rose from the pile of stones he’d been examining. They were assembled into a pyramid, and a short stick stuck out of the side. It pointed to the left.
“Looks like you knew what you were doing after all,” he told Shea, coming to stand beside her horse. He tilted his head back to smile at her.
She gave a short nod, her eyes going back to that pile of rocks. They had found signs where a large group had set up camp, but she hadn’t been sure it was the group they were looking for. Judging by the quick smiles of the men, nobody shared her concerns.
She had a feeling it had something to do with that pile but was afraid to ask in case it was knowledge a real scout would have.
They no doubt had their own trail sign to communicate with their people. Shea’s people had a method as well and used it for things such as a warning someone of danger or as a signal that they had come this way.
She couldn’t help but feel like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. They’d been on the trail for eleven days now, and she was beginning to worry they weren’t going to find the company they’d been tasked with locating. For the past day every time Eamon or one of the others had glanced at her, she’d tensed thinking they were about to challenge her abilities.
That hadn’t happened though, even when she had started taking them in a sweeping crisscross pattern for most of the last day, checking the back trail for signs of people they may have missed.
“What’re you talking about?” Buck asked riding up beside them. “Pip squeak could find his way blind.”