Pathfinder's Way

by T. A. White

  Her chin jutted bullishly, she stepped forward and knelt. Water soaked into the knees of her pants.

  “What would you like to start with?” Shea asked.

  “The meat.”

  Shea picked up a strip of the ham and held it out to him. He jerked his head back.

  “Bite size pieces. I don’t want any of it dropping into my water.”

  Her promise to herself that she would keep her patience and her mouth shut already seemed impossible. Quickly, she tore the meat into smaller pieces and then shoved a piece toward Fallon’s face. Anything to get this experience over faster. He caught her wrist before she could knock him in the face and then held it as he slowly pulled the meat from her fingers, swiping them with his tongue to clean off any of the juices.

  Shea felt an answering tug deep inside as tingles raced outwards from the skin he’d licked. Not allowing herself to dwell on the feeling, she tugged her hand free making a point of wiping her fingers on her sleeve before picking up the next piece.

  He smiled at her, not offended at her actions.

  “Tell me, what duties have you been given?” Fallon asked.

  Shea repeated what she had been told that morning, finishing by saying, “So basically, I’m supposed to stick by your side to fulfill whatever needs you may have.”

  As soon as the last words left her mouth, she wanted to pull them back. The wicked glint in his eyes told her all she needed to know about what he was thinking.

  Instead of clarifying what she had said, knowing that would only make things worse, she pinched off a chunk of biscuit and shoved it into his mouth.

  Once he swallowed, he informed her wryly, “I think that’s enough food for now.”

  Shea nodded, glad this particular torture was over and stood.

  “If you could grab the towel for me.”

  Shea stiffened and forced herself to set the plate gently on a stool before making her way over to the bed to grab the carefully folded towel. The towel was plush and soft under her fingers and smelled clean and fresh.

  Even caught up with the urge to rub her face back and forth against its softness, she heard the slosh of water as Fallon stood. Once again she turned her eyes to the ceiling as her hands tightened on the towel in a death grip. Why, oh why.

  Her willpower could only take so much.

  “I’d like the towel while there is still something to dry off.”

  He was just a man and if his previous actions were to go by, he wasn’t going to jump on top of her to have his wicked way. No, he was going to seduce her and given her heightened awareness of him, that wouldn’t be too hard.

  He was just a man, Shea told herself. She’d seen plenty of naked ones during her time as both a pathfinder and a scout. He had the same equipment. It was just arranged a little nicer than most.

  This body, unlike those she’d seen on the trail, belonged to Fallon. She had intimate knowledge of its attributes.

  Not letting her thoughts progress any further down that path, Shea turned. Her face burned as she glared in the vicinity of his face. She crossed the few steps she needed and tossed the towel towards him.

  He caught it one handed and wrapped it around his waist as he stepped out of the bath.

  “Will that be all?” Shea asked, clinging to her dignity.

  “For now, but don’t leave the tent. I will have need of you soon.”

  Shea sketched a half bow as she’d seen others in his guard do and retreated to the other side of the partition.

  Shea fidgeted as she waited for Fallon to finish dressing. She walked from one end of the chamber to the other.

  She had finished one circuit when a man ducked past the tent flap from outside.

  “Witt.” Shea still couldn’t quite believe it.

  Her eyes went past him, remembering that Paul had been with him last time, but he was alone.

  “Shea,” he said softly. His feelings were hidden and he stayed near the entrance.

  Some of the relief she felt at his entrance faded. She laced her hands behind her back and moved to the middle of the room. With a reluctance she hadn’t expected from him, he joined her, stopping only a few feet away.

  “I had hoped you and the others would have been able to escape safely,” she told him.

  “The Trateri came for us as we were escaping. Dane and the rest got away safely. Paul and I were caught.”

  The silence between them became awkward after his explanation. Had it always been this way? She remembered he’d always been quiet. She had been too, but they’d had things to talk about anyway.

  “I would have thought you’d have made it back to the Highlands long before now,” Witt told her.

  She shrugged. “I meant to. Something just always came up.”

  That was the worst answer. How could he understand from that?

  “Witt,” Fallon said before she could explain further. “Join me for breakfast. We’ll go over your intel as we eat.”

  Witt waited until Fallon was seated at the head of the table before taking his own seat.

  Shea fidgeted as she tried to figure out what she was supposed to do with herself. Somehow she didn’t think she was supposed to join them at the table, and standing like an idiot in the middle of the room didn’t seem right either.

  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 positi
on 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.

  Shea looked sharply at the back of his head.

  Witt shrugged. “It’s unlikely they’d agree. They’re not good at cooperating with outsiders.”

  “We find their headquarters, and they’ll have no choice.” Fallon’s voice was steely as he made this observation.

  “That’s the sticking point, isn’t it? You’d have to find it first.”

  “Capture one of the villages and force them to tell us,” Caden said.

  Shea begged silently for Witt to stop talking. This was information they shouldn’t have.

  “They won’t know it.”

  Any hope Shea had that he’d be willing to help her escape disappeared. Just like that. Helping the Trateri survive in the Lowlands and not sabotaging them every moment of the day was understandable. Neither one of them was a native and had no real loyalty to the people below the cliffs. Revealing Highland secrets. Revealing guild secrets. There was no coming back from that.

  Worse, he was betraying Shea. She’d counted him as a sort of friend once. She even looked for him on the rare occasions she was in camp in the hopes that she might be able to help him escape.

  His fingers tapped idly against the table. After that last revelation, he very determinedly avoided looking in her direction.

  “Who does?” Caden asked.

  Witt didn’t answer. His finger tapped faster.

  Shea’s chest rose on a shaky breath as her gaze darted from one end of the tent to the other. If she thought she was in trouble before, she’d been wrong. Very wrong

  “The pathfinders,” Fallon said, his voice as loud as a shout to Shea’s ears.

  Caden looked up at Shea. Her eyes were fixed on a point behind them, but sensing his gaze, she straightened her shoulders and stood taller. There would be threats. Probably pain.

  “I do not envy you,” Caden told Fallon.

  Shea didn’t hear Fallon’s response, but whatever it was caused Caden to smile and rise. He clapped Witt on the back.

  “Let’s go. I have other tasks for you today.”

  Witt rose, giving Fallon a sharp nod and followed Caden towards the exit.

  Shea darted after them reaching out to grab Witt’s arm. She deserved an explanation. She didn’t understand. Why? Why had he gone to the other side?

  “Shea.” Fallon’s voice rang loudly in the small space. Shea came to a stop while the other two gave her small looks, Witt’s slightly apologetic, Caden’s amused. The amount of force Fallon put behind the unspoken command kept her in place even as her mind urged her to follow Witt and demand answers.

  She turned back to Fallon, forcing herself to ask politely, “Is there something you needed, Warlord?”

  His eyes burned coldly into hers. “I have not given you permission to leave.”

  Shea took a deep breath. Composure came slowly and was paper thin when she asked with as much deference as she could muster, “May I be dismissed?”

  He advanced on her until he was just inches away, invading her space. Shea kept her eyes on a stray thread on the collar of his shirt. The anger and hurt that had been growing during their conversation was written on her face.

  “Look at me,” he said in a low deadly voice.

  Inch by inch her eyes lifted until they trained on his forehead. His face gave no quarter and held none of the lover she’d seen last night.

  “Since this is a new position with new duties, I have tried t
o be lenient. That may have been a mistake,” he began. Shea barely managed to conceal her flinch at the ice in his voice. “For future reference, my personal guards do not ask to be dismissed. They leave when I tell them to. They also do not accost my guests in my own chambers. If this happens again, I will have you stripped to your skin, tied to a post and whipped bloody. You are not my Tolroi. You chose to throw that offer back in my face. You’ve chosen to be a guard, and you will act with all the décor of one. If you fail, you will be disciplined just as I would any of my men. I am the Warlord, and you will treat me with all the respect that position deserves. Is that clear?”

  “Very.” Shea’s hands were shaking with the strength of her emotions.

  “Now, you are dismissed. Inform the captain of the guards that I intend to ride out in an hour, and I want ten of my guard and one squad from Earth Clan’s army and another squad from Horse Clan’s to march with us.”

  “Understood.”

  Shea turned to leave.

  “In case it’s not clear in that thick head of yours already, you will be joining me. I wouldn’t want to leave without my personal scout.”

  Shea’s eyes closed. She’d expected as much but had hoped he’d leave her behind.

  She nodded once and left.

  Outside, she waited until she was out of sight of the men guarding his quarters before allowing herself to fall apart. Her body trembled, and she had the urge to curl up in a protective ball.

  They were planning to invade the Highlands, and they needed her to do it. How long before Fallon tired of seduction and chose torture instead? Furthermore, Shea was about four months overdue to check in with the guild. Were they aware she was missing? Were they even now sending out a party to discover what had happened to her?

  Pathfinders were scarce since most prospects died during the final test. When one disappeared, the elders usually tried to discover what happened, whether it was because of the wilds or more suspicious circumstances.

  Witt had been right when he said the elder’s had been known to abandon settlements to the wilds. However, the reasons behind such an act were usually more serious than a simple political disagreement. It usually involved the death of a pathfinder at the hands of villagers.