Heart of the Land

by Sarah Prineas

  Worthy lithely avoided the thrust of a spear and then bonked the Oathbound holding it on the head; the woman collapsed almost gracefully onto the ground. Worthy then whirled in time to see Rollan fighting hand-to-hand with a man he must have disarmed; another Oathbound came at Rollan from the side, slashing the boy’s arm with her sword. As Rollan flinched, the man he was fighting struck him hard in the face.

  Rollan fell heavily to the ground, then rolled away from the fighting, shaking his head as if he was stunned. Blood spurted from the sword cut on his arm. He gripped it with his other hand, but blood leaked out between his fingers. “I’m out,” he gasped, catching Worthy’s eye.

  And suddenly it wasn’t about being a hero anymore.

  Rollan was hurt.

  Conor and Briggan were surrounded.

  It was time to really fight.

  Ripping off his mask, Worthy snarled out a challenge. For a moment, the Oathbound fell back before his rage—and at the sight of his slitted golden eyes and the claws that extended from the tips of his fingers. But at a shouted order from their leader, they seemed to take courage, gripping their weapons and surging back into an attack.

  This is it, Worthy thought as he yowled and leaped to meet the onslaught. It didn’t matter how well he fought—they were too many. Rollan and Conor were the ones they wanted; if Worthy ran, they probably wouldn’t come after him. But he wasn’t going to abandon the Greencloaks. He would do whatever he could.

  Just as the Oathbound began their charge, the double doors to the school burst open, and three of the students, with Aidana, rushed out.

  All three of the students were Marked!

  Aidana flung out her arm, and her spirit animal, a raven, flashed into the air. With a harsh cry he joined Essix in fighting the huge vulture. Aidana followed it into battle, going straight to crouch at her son’s side. Whipping off an embroidered scarf, she wrapped it around his arm to stop the bleeding.

  Meanwhile, her three Marked students had joined the battle. They were surprisingly skilled, Worthy could see at once. As he fought off the Oathbound leader, an Amayan girl called forth a flamingo, which flapped awkwardly into the air, joining the aerial battle among Rollan’s falcon, his mother’s raven, and the huge vulture. At the same time, a tall Euran boy drew a longsword and joined the fray. His spirit animal, a stag the same red as his hair, leaped past him and slashed at an Oathbound soldier with antlers as sharp as knives.

  The third student was a Niloan girl. With calm and precision, she drew a throwing knife from the sleeve of her sand-colored robe, took aim, and hurled it toward one of the attackers. At her feet bounded a little gray fox with huge ears. Worthy heard it make a yipping sound—it was picking out targets for the Niloan girl’s knives!

  Clearly Rollan’s mother was teaching more than just reading and math in her school. One day her students might become powerful Greencloaks.

  The battle swirled around Worthy, and he fought with all his panther-given speed and skill. Even with the help of Aidana and the three students, it was only enough to give Worthy, Rollan, and Conor an opening to escape.

  At the mouth of the alley Worthy had been hiding in before, Briggan gave a sharp bark, summoning them. “We have to run!” Worthy shouted.

  “Yes, go!” Aidana struck with her staff. “Jean-Luc,” she shouted at one of her students, “there’s one behind you!” She whirled and yelled, “We’ll hold them off. Run!”

  Retreating, Rollan stumbled to the alley, Essix on his shoulder. A moment later, Conor joined him, calling for Briggan. Worthy snatched his mask from the dusty ground, then bounded into the alley, where he scooped up the bags of supplies. Handing one to Conor to carry, he followed as Briggan led them through a maze of winding alleys. The sounds of the battle in front of the school receded behind them.

  “Left here,” Rollan gasped. “Then straight on.”

  Oh, yeah, Worthy remembered. Rollan had grown up as a street kid in Concorba. He’d probably lived in these very alleys. A glance over his shoulder showed Worthy that Rollan had fallen a few steps behind. Sheathing his claws, he slowed and waited for him to catch up.

  “We can rest a minute,” Worthy said, putting down his load of supplies. His tail had been trying to escape; he tucked it quickly away before the two Greencloaks could see it.

  Rollan nodded and leaned against a brick wall, breathing hard. He had a growing bruise on one high cheekbone, where the Oathbound had punched him. The scarf his mother had wrapped around his arm was stained with blood.

  Conor turned back and set the bag he was carrying on the ground. A nod to Briggan, and the wolf flashed into his dormant state. “Better not to be noticed now,” he said.

  The three boys stood in the shadowy alley, catching their breaths. Worthy listened intently for sounds of pursuit but heard nothing. Just the everyday noises of a busy marketplace not far away, and a horse passing in a nearby street. “I think we’re clear,” he said quietly.

  “For now,” Rollan said. “But they’ll be coming.”

  Worthy nodded in agreement.

  “That was good, remembering the supplies,” Conor said to him.

  Worthy bent his head to tie on his mask, not wanting to reveal how pleased he was by Conor’s comment. Maybe the ice between them was beginning to thaw. With his toe he shoved one of the bags closer to Rollan. “I knew I had to get that one.” Mask in place, he looked up at the other boy but said nothing more.

  He’d seen what Rollan had stored inside the bag.

  Rollan just stared at him for a moment. Then he nodded. He glanced back the way they’d come. “I hope she’s all right.”

  Ohhhhh. Worthy suddenly realized what he’d been unable to see before. Of course Rollan had known the Oathbound would be a danger, but he’d gone to see his mother anyway. He loved her. Just as he’d loved that Tarik guy.

  Devin Trunswick had grown up with everything—family, a luxurious home, servants, and the knowledge that he would be an earl someday. And yet he’d still always hungered for more.

  It was a hunger that had led him straight to the Conquerors.

  When Devin eventually lost everything that he’d thought he wanted, he discovered what truly mattered to him. There was one person in his life who’d always love him, even when he made a mistake as big as joining an evil army. His brother, Dawson.

  It was Dawson for whom Devin had finally decided to be Worthy.

  Rollan, in contrast, had grown up with nothing, not even a family. The people he loved probably mattered more to him than anything.

  Worthy swallowed. “I’m sorry about”—he flashed his eyes subtly toward the bag—“before.”

  Rollan nodded. “It’s all right,” he said briefly. He studied Worthy for another moment. Then his mouth quirked into half a grin. “You yowled during the fight, didn’t you?” he said.

  Worthy blinked. Was Rollan teasing him? “I didn’t yowl,” he protested.

  “Yes, you did,” Conor put in seriously.

  “See?” Rollan said, as if he was being completely reasonable. “You howled, Worthy. Like a cat with its tail being pulled.”

  “Yowled, you said, not howled. And I never yowl,” Worthy corrected. “Or howl.” He waited a beat. “Though I have been known to caterwaul now and then.” Then he realized that Rollan, for the first time, had called him by his chosen name. And even Conor had joined in the joke.

  As he returned Rollan’s grin, he realized that maybe, finally, he had proved himself worthy of it.

  “I NEED MORE ARROWS,” ABEKE SAID. AT HER SIDE, URAZA stood and stretched, then resettled in a patch of sunlight. Her violet eyes dropped shut as she dozed off again.

  “We need more everything.” Meilin lifted her sword and inspected the blade, newly sharpened. Light glinted off the polished metal. Sheathing the weapon, she got to her feet. “Rollan and Conor should have been back with the supplies by now.” And Worthy. The Redcloak had spoken briefly with Abeke, and then he’d disappeared. Following the boys into Conco
rba, she assumed. Helping, he probably thought of it.

  And speaking of disappearing … Meilin glanced around the clearing they’d been waiting in.

  There, a movement, and she caught a glimpse of Anka’s outline, blending into the rough brown bark of the tree she was leaning against.

  So far, the Greencloak woman had been a valuable asset. But Meilin had long ago stopped thinking of people only as resources to be used. Maybe Anka could be a friend, too.

  Meilin stretched, then ran through a few simple fighting forms, just to limber up. Then she paused. “Anka, would you like to spar with me?”

  “No,” came the brusque answer. “I don’t fight. I hide.”

  Nodding, Meilin stepped closer, then crouched near where she thought Anka was sitting. “Would you put your chameleon into passive state?” she asked. “I’d like to see what you really look like.”

  There was a moment of silence. Meilin knew that Abeke was listening, too. “Nobody sees me as I am,” Anka finally said. The usual sharpness was missing from her voice.

  “Sometimes,” Meilin said, “you don’t have to hide.”

  “I would like to see you, too,” Abeke put in.

  “All right,” the Greencloak woman said softly. There was a flash as the chameleon went into the dormant state.

  Meilin saw Anka take shape before her. The woman sat very still—she must have trained herself to move as little as possible, in order to stay hidden. Revealed, Anka wore her green cloak. She sat cross-legged, her arms folded. The mark of her chameleon was wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet. Her hair was black and bristly, cut very short. Her eyes were dark brown, her face plain and ordinary, and …

  “You’re from Zhong!” Meilin exclaimed, delighted.

  “You noticed,” Anka said dryly.

  “I would have noticed before, if you’d let me,” Meilin said. And now she knew another reason why Anka didn’t know how to fight—in Zhong, girls weren’t supposed to study the martial arts. “Let me teach you a few forms, Anka,” she insisted, getting to her feet. “You never know when you might need to fight.” She took up a basic stance, standing very still; then she made a quick strike at the air and returned to her stance. “See? You could hit somebody out of nowhere. They’d never see you coming. Come and try it.”

  “If you insist,” Anka said, standing up, but Meilin could see that she was interested.

  They spent an hour this way: Meilin teaching, Anka awkward at first but learning quickly. Meilin was showing her where to strike an opponent’s neck to incapacitate him or her, when Uraza lifted her head and pricked her ears, alert. The tip of her spotted tail twitched.

  Meilin heard it next—the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. Someone was coming, and not being too stealthy about it. Abeke got to her feet, raising her bow and nocking her single arrow.

  Then Meilin relaxed. Coming through the trees were the three boys, carrying bags of supplies.

  Her eyes went straight to Rollan. His face was bruised, and she saw with alarm that he was wearing a makeshift bandage. It was stained with blood.

  “Can I get some panda spit here?” he asked, holding up his arm. He smiled to show her that he was essentially all right.

  “Trouble?” Abeke asked.

  Conor nodded and dropped the bags he’d been carrying onto the leafy ground. “Worthy was right—”

  “You hear that?” Worthy interrupted, grinning. “Me. I was right.” He thumped himself proudly on the chest.

  Conor stared at him for a long moment, then gave his head a rueful shake. “Anyway. The Oathbound were on the lookout for us. Wikam the Just was leading them.” Kneeling, Conor was unwrapping another bundle that he’d been carrying. He handed it to Abeke. “Arrows.”

  “Ah, thank you!” Abeke said, seizing them and inspecting each arrow. She’d want to be sure they were made well and would fly straight.

  Rollan settled on the ground and started trying to untie the bandage around his arm with one hand. “We had a little scuffle.”

  “It was hardly little,” Worthy said. He’d taken up a position at the edge of the clearing, looking back in the direction they’d come. “We’ve only got a couple of minutes. The Oathbound will be on our tail soon. Our trail, I mean.”

  Something had changed, Meilin realized. She knelt beside Rollan and carefully unwrapped the scarf from around his arm. The boys were treating Worthy as if he was … well … a friend. Even Conor was looking at him without frowning, and Meilin knew that Conor had very good reasons for hating Devin Trunswick. Clearly Worthy had proved himself in that little scuffle they’d had. It must have been quite a fight.

  As Meilin took off Rollan’s bandage, she saw that he had a gash on his arm about as long as her hand. It wasn’t too deep, but it oozed blood, and she knew it had to hurt. With a quick gesture she summoned Jhi from passive state. The big panda yawned and rubbed at her eyes sleepily.

  Rollan held up his arm. “Give me the spit, bear,” he said. Jhi sniffed at it, then licked it three times with her pink tongue.

  Meilin saw Rollan relax. Yes, it had been painful. Now at least it wouldn’t hurt as much, and there wouldn’t be any danger of infection. Meilin didn’t have time to stitch it up, but hopefully there was a field medical kit in the supplies and she could see to it properly later.

  Suddenly Anka was at her shoulder. As soon as the boys had returned, she had called her chameleon spirit animal and faded once again into the background. “Conor said Wikam the Just was leading the Oathbound. We need to go.”

  From his lookout spot, Worthy nodded. “Yeah.” He nodded at Rollan. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” Rollan said, and pulled his sleeve down over the scarf that Meilin had finished retying over his wound.

  Conor and Abeke each picked up a bag of supplies. Meilin, Anka, Rollan, and Worthy did the same.

  “Let’s go,” Anka said, and they headed out.

  By traveling hard and sleeping light, and never kindling a campfire, they managed to remain ahead of the Oathbound scouts who hunted them.

  All six of them had faced such hardships before. Their spirit animals helped them; they knew how to cross the land without leaving a trace. But they were still in danger from a scout who searched for them from above.

  Every now and then Rollan caught sight of Wikam the Just’s vulture floating in wide circles over the land, its ragged wings catching every warm updraft, its keen eyes in its featherless red skull searching, always searching. Whenever Essix gave a warning cry, Anka had the four Greencloaks and Worthy freeze where they stood, and she camouflaged them until the huge bird had passed.

  Every evening, Rollan sent Essix aloft to check on their pursuers. He would close his eyes, unsteady on his feet until he blinked and opened his eyes again.

  “Still on our trail,” he reported every night.

  Relentless.

  The Oathbound were relentless.

  The Greencloaks, with Anka in the lead and Worthy bringing up the rear, were crossing a land of bare, weathered red rocks that the wind had twisted into odd, bulbous shapes.

  Rollan was walking two steps ahead of Meilin. He closed his eyes and suddenly tripped, sprawling onto the stony ground.

  “Ow,” he mumbled. He scrambled to his feet, looking up at the cloudless sky. “Essix is to the south. The vulture is coming.”

  Anka, who looked reddish and weathered like the rocks they were crossing, hissed out what sounded like a curse. “Hurry.” She pointed at a shelf of rock with a shady spot below it. “There.”

  Quickly they put their spirit animals into dormant state and shoved their bags of supplies into the hiding place, then squeezed themselves in so the shadow of the rock overhead covered them. Anka went still, and they all turned the same lined, red shade of the rocks.

  The air was dusty, and it tickled in Meilin’s nose, but she didn’t dare sneeze. She was sitting next to Rollan, with Abeke on her other side. They waited in a heavy silence for a few minutes.

  �
�Anything?” Anka whispered to Rollan.

  There was a pause while he looked at the land through Essix’s eyes. “It’s still circling,” he reported.

  They were silent. Meilin felt the hardness of the stone beneath her. She wished she could shift to a more comfortable position, but that would give them away to the bird that hunted them.

  After a few more quiet minutes, Conor asked a question, hardly moving his lips. “I’ve been thinking. What if the leaders of Erdas and the Oathbound do break up the Greencloaks? What will happen?”

  They all considered it. Meilin knew that, while the Oathbound were a threat, the real enemy was whoever had sent the Fakecloaks, as Rollan had called them, to attack the meeting in the Citadel. That mysterious person or group was the true enemy—they had tricked the leaders of Erdas into thinking the Greencloaks were assassins. They were using the leaders and the Oathbound for their own purposes. Breaking up the Greencloaks might be only part of their plans.

  A moment later, Meilin heard Abeke’s soft voice. “Do you remember our Greencloak vow?”

  Rollan answered immediately. “Yes.”

  “Shhhh,” interrupted Anka.

  Rollan went on in a whisper. “Our vow is a lifetime commitment to stand united with the Greencloaks and defend Erdas.”

  “Exactly,” Abeke said. “United. It’s like what Olvan said when he sent us on this mission.”

  “We have to stay true to each other, he said,” Conor put in.

  “Not only that,” Abeke went on. “We Greencloaks are … ” She paused. “I don’t know how to describe it. We’re like the glue that keeps all of Erdas from falling apart.”

  “Glue, seriously?” whispered Rollan.

  Meilin heard Worthy snort out a laugh.

  “Can you all please shut up?” Anka hissed in a whisper. “Or at least don’t move for the next ten minutes? Unless,” she added acidly, “you actually want that vulture to see us.”