Both men were masters of their craft, and it showed in the speed with which they moved and the precise blows they struck.
Shea lingered at the edge of the practice area, unsure whether she should interrupt or not. On one hand, the message from Fallon was important, and he was the warlord. On the other, Caden was technically Shea’s superior and could make things very difficult for her if angered. Pissing off just one person this morning was enough.
Shea hated this indecisiveness. It wasn’t like her. She wasn’t used to not knowing what to do. On the trail, she rarely felt overwhelmed and always had a plan. But here? This place was a never ending maze of frustration and questions.
A loud grunt rose as the stranger saw his chance and lunged forward. Caden parried at the last moment, sliding his blade under and then over his opponents to sneak under his guard and land a blow squarely on his opponent’s chest.
Caden drew back and said, “You saw victory and got careless.”
“I should have known you wouldn’t drop your guard like that.”
Seeing her chance, Shea stepped forward drawing Caden’s attention.
“What is it, girl?”
Shea related Fallon’s message.
“Understood.” When Shea just stood there, not knowing what to do next, Caden ordered sharply, “Return and help your master prepare for the journey.”
Shea dipped her head in reply and turned to do just that.
“Is that the girl the men are talking about?”
“Yes.”
“What is she doing running messages for the warlord?”
“She refused the position of his Tolroi. He made her one of his guard instead.”
There was a low whistle before the stranger said, “Talk about poking a lion when it’s asleep.”
Caden barked a laugh. Whatever was said next, was lost as Shea moved out of hearing range.
As was her habit, Shea scanned the area for possible dangers even while lost in thought. It was why, despite being distracted, she noticed Witt coming out of a tent.
Seeing her chance, she moved quickly, catching up to him and saying softly, “Witt.”
His head turned. He didn’t seem surprised to see her standing behind him and waved the two men he was with to continue without him.
“Shea. Somehow, I’m not surprised that you would track me down.”
“That makes one of us.”
He sighed wearily. “I expect you have questions.”
Her silence spoke for her.
“Perhaps we could do this later.”
Her glare and crossed arms didn’t intimidate him, and the two lapsed back into silence.
Shea, knowing she didn’t have much time before she was missed, broke first. “Why?”
Witt looked away from her, staring into the distance.
“Why did you tell him all of that? If anybody in the Highlands finds out, you’ll be exiled or stoned. Why couldn’t you have just kept silent? They wouldn’t have known any different.”
“Did you ever wonder why we were sent to that village to discuss trade negotiations?”
Shea blinked at Witt. That wasn’t an answer to her questions.
“What?”
His eyes slid back to hers. “I know you’re smart enough to have put together that Goodwin of Ria was a setup. That you, Dane and I were thrown away because we were considered expendable.”
Shea’s mouth clicked close, and her eyes dropped from his. Yes. She had suspected as much.
“Then you have your answer,” he told her simply.
She caught his arm as he moved away from her.
“What answer? You have a few suspicions and suddenly your loyalties shift? That’s not an answer, Witt. That’s an excuse.”
“It’s not a suspicion,” he said in a gruff voice. “Paul confessed as much when Fallon questioned us after you escaped. The idiot thought he’d be somehow exempt from being taken prisoner since he helped the elders set it up.”
Shea dropped his arm abruptly.
Witt’s eyes held pity as he watched the expression drain from her face, leaving her feeling numb.
What fools they were.
The guild was going to have their blood when they found out.
“Still, that doesn’t mean you should punish the entire Highlands for the actions of a few blind, self-serving men.” Shea meant what she said, even if her voice currently lacked conviction.
Witt’s snort was ugly as his lips twisted in sneer.
“A few men? Those same men are in every village, every city and every fort in the Highlands. It’s a sickness of the soul, and it’s sunk so deep I doubt there is a single settlement left unaffected.”
The bitterness in his voice was too potent, too raw for him to be speaking from anything but experience.
Shea’s thoughts went back to him describing the guild excising villages that angered them. Had something similar happened to Witt? She knew he wasn’t native to Birdon Leaf. It was one of the reasons she’d related to him. He was an outsider like her, although more accepted.
“Why do you say that?” she found herself asking.
“My home village, the one I grew up in, was much like Birdon Leaf. It had elders who just pushed and pushed and pushed until one day their stupidity got a pathfinder killed. That was the beginning of the end. The guild refused to place another pathfinder with us. We were cut off from everybody and everything. People stopped trading with us, which meant we didn’t have enough food or supplies. All the men who left, trying to find their way to help, never came back. They probably died in the wilderness somewhere if they weren’t carried off by the mist.”
Shea knew what came next. She’d grown up on stories of what happened to villages that killed their pathfinders.
“It wasn’t long after that the first beast attacked. At first it just picked off one villager after another. Before long, we had an infestation, not just the big ones like revenants or red backs, but lichkers and flesh eaters as well.”
“How did you survive?” Shea asked when he stopped talking.
“My mother put me in the cellar. She followed the old ways and had warded it with lope root and beast blood. Too bad, though. There wasn’t enough food for two. She starved so I could live.”
Shea’s nose prickled as she imagined the horror as one day bled into another, and his mother slowly wasted away right in front of him.
“I did live. Barely. When the beasts had picked our village clean, I made my way to the next outpost. I almost died three times.
“So you see Shea, I do know what I’m talking about because after my village perished, I saw the same stupidity again and again in so many other villages. I have no problem with the Trateri marching on Birdon Leaf. At least that will be quicker then what your people will do to them.”
“You know Birdon Leaf won’t be the only one to suffer,” she said as he turned away. “It’ll be the rest of the Highlands as well.”
“That’s fine with me,” he informed her. “I consider myself Trateri now. I’ve taken their venom and are as much a part of them as if I’d been born to the clans. I hope they find the Wayfarer’s Keep and force them out. As far as I’m concerned the Highlands would do better with the Trateri than the pathfinders.”
“I’m a pathfinder.”