Finally, with no idea what to do she took up a position beside Fallon’s left shoulder. She thought she remembered one of the other guards doing that.
Witt gave Shea a pointed look. She gave him a shrug. She had no idea what he was trying to tell her.
In response he looked at the food and then Fallon, repeating it several times before she caught the hint.
Fallon waited with both his arms resting on either side of his setting, staring pointedly down at the empty spot where the food was supposed to be. Well, shoot. Evidently, she was supposed to be serving him.
Since she had brought him a plate of food in the bath, she hadn’t realized that he would want to eat again with Witt.
Moving quickly she picked up his plate and filled it with another assortment of food. Figuring he would be less hungry given the activities of earlier, she chose a lighter fare that featured several of the fruits with a few pieces of the smoked sausage links.
Her stomach growled angrily as she set the plate down in front of Fallon. The smell of food tempted her appetite.
Shea stepped back to her previous position and clasped her hands behind her back. She knew if she left them by her sides she’d be fidgeting in no time. At least if they were behind her back no one could see them move.
A throat was cleared, drawing her attention back to the duo at the table. This time Witt’s head was bowed while he stared pointedly at his own placemat.
Shea sighed. Of course he’d need to be fed too. Didn’t anybody feed themselves?
As she filled his plate, Fallon began speaking.
“How was your trip north? Did they give you any trouble up there?”
Witt’s eyes rose briefly toward hers in acknowledgement as she set his plate down. He dug in, taking several bites before answering.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle. Two of the villages decided not to honor their commitments. They were dealt with quickly and decisively enough that I don’t think others will follow in their footsteps anytime soon.”
Shea kept her wince inward. Outwardly her face was flat and disinterested. That probably meant a lot of bloodshed and most of the able bodied men and women being taken as cattle, what the Trateri called their slaves.
Oddly enough, villages who fought from the beginning before being defeated were treated as honored enemies as long as they didn’t violate the terms of their surrender. The moment they went back on their word, Trateri justice was swift and brutal.
“Will they hinder our plans?” Fallon was asking. Shea had lost the thread of the conversation as she pondered what roll Witt played for the Trateri. How did he have enough access to the Warlord to be invited to breakfast? As an outsider, he should never be in the position of an advisor.
“Doubtful.”
“Good. Gaining a foothold in the Highlands will be difficult enough. We don’t need the Lowlanders instigating a rebellion at the same time. We’ll need to keep the supply lines open.”
Shea felt her heart drop at this news. She’d thought any action against the Highlands was months away if not a year.
“Agreed. Resources can be scarce up there and the problem with beasts will be double what we’ve faced here,” Witt replied. “We’ll need to be careful of the pathfinders,” he continued. “They might sound harmless, but they’re the most organized guild in that land and can forge the Highlanders into one force. Their weapons beat anything we have, and they know the lay of the land like they know their own face.”
Shea couldn’t count the covenants Witt was breaking. If any in the Highlands found out how much he’d just revealed, he’d be marked as a traitor before being stoned. And then, just because Highlanders were slightly vindictive, they’d probably burn him.
“We’ll need to disrupt their communication as much as possible, then. We’ll choke off their routes and keep anything or anybody from slipping through. If they can’t talk, they can’t organize,” Fallon responded.
Impossible. A few hundred horsemen couldn’t keep a Highland pathfinder from his or her destination. Not when that pathfinder was in the Highlands.
Both men looked up and nodded briefly as Caden entered. The conversation continued as Caden grabbed a plate and began piling it high with food. Once he’d gotten a nice selection, he sat across from Witt and listened as he slowly consumed his breakfast.
“Your biggest obstacle is going to be the mist. Our patrol couldn’t find any way through it. It starts about five hundred feet from the Highland cliffs. We went up and down that entire area and no luck. It continues on for miles without end. I even took a small group into the Badlands, and it’s just as difficult there. Almost lost a couple of men.”
“We could always try going through it,” Caden suggested, taking a seat at the table.
Witt leaned back and pinned Shea with his eyes. “The pathfinder would be the best one to explain why that would be a bad idea.”
Three sets of eyes trained on Shea. Fallon even turned in his seat. Shea glared back. She could, but she wasn’t going to. She had some loyalty still. If they wanted to brave the mist, they were more than welcome to.
Reading those thoughts in her face, Witt smiled wryly in acknowledgement before continuing. “When a true mist shrouds the Highlands, a normal man gets lost, disoriented. If they’re lucky, they simply wander in circles until it dissipates. If they’re unlucky, they disappear. Strange things happen during a true mistfall. You’ll be lucky if a quarter of your men make it to the other side. What’s more likely is that you’ll become one of the lost ones.”
“Sounds like the sort of story we use to scare Daisies,” Caden remarked.
“Except this one is real.” Witt wasn’t lying or exaggerating. His face had the sort of look one got when they were relating an experience that had left a mark on the soul.
Shea’d had her suspicions about him, but his expression as he explained the mist confirmed it. He had encountered a true mist and lived to tell about it. Such men were rare. As he’d said, when a true mist fell, few people found their way back to the real world. He’d evidently been one of them.
It explained why he’d been less combative than the rest of the adults in Birdon Leaf. He actually understood the true purpose behind the tithes the Highlanders paid the guild. Only a pathfinder stood a good chance of finding their way. It was why they held such a unique position in a land as fractured as the Highlands.
“If what you say is true,” Caden said, “how does anybody in the Highlands travel?”
“Most are unwilling to chance the routes. In addition to the mists, the beasts are thicker up there and more aggressive. They’re a people ruled by fear. Luckily for them, there is a small, a very small, segment of the population that is able to find their way no matter how thick the mist gets. Isn’t that right, Shea?”
A muscle in Shea’s jaw twitched.
“It’s why the pathfinders are such a powerful influence,” Witt continued, holding Shea’s gaze. “Not many will risk upsetting the guild if it means they could be cut off from the rest of the lands. Anger the guild and they’ll forget your village exists. For a while. By the time they circle back around, the forgotten village is usually a fraction of what it was before, if it still exists.”
“They sound like they could be a powerful ally,” Fallon stated.