Pathfinder's Way (36 page)

“Who knows what might happen after this?
We’ve impressed a General. He said it was amazing! I need to tell
my team.” Clark started off before turning around to walk backwards
and giving them a “who could have believed it” expression.

For a moment, Shea forgot her concerns and
smiled at Clark’s antics. He looked his age as he buzzed from the
excitement of meeting one of his heroes. She was glad for him.

Charles had turned to study the board. “I
think we need another board and maybe a couple more journals. I can
make this bigger and better. Maybe we can give those journals to a
person from every scout team. What do you think?”

He didn’t wait for her response, moving as
fast as his limp would let him, presumably to track down pens and
journals, leaving Shea standing there by herself.

She looked over her shoulder at the board,
letting herself feel a small sense of accomplishment. Clark and
Charles deserved the credit, but it made her feel good that she’d
had some part in this no matter how small. Perhaps her time here
had done some good after all. A little worried that this might make
their jobs easier in conquering the Broken Lands, but for the most
part she felt good.

She stepped out of the canopy’s shade. This
excursion had taken time that she didn’t really have, and though it
had been a welcome distraction, she needed to figure out what she
was going to do about the conversation she’d overheard. Until then,
she needed to get back to work on preparing to be sent back
out.

Procuring supplies didn’t take long, and
soon, she joined her party back at the corrals to prepare for their
journey.

“You know what this is about?” Shea asked
Buck as she made short work of saddling her horse. She cinched the
last buckle tight and patted the beast on the neck. It stamped one
foot and shifted but held still as she secured a sleep roll on the
back of the saddle.

“No idea.” Buck hurried through his
preparations so he could start on Eamon’s horse. “Whatever it is
has the higher ups walking on hot coals though. My friends in the
Stray Wind Troop said the heads are at each other’s throats.”

The Stray Wind Troop from what Shea had been
able to gather was made up of, for lack of a better word, spies.
Its members belonged primarily to Horse Clan but Snake and Lion
Clan were always trying to get its men in there. Word around the
campfire said the Stray’s were all over the army, listening for
plots against Fallon and doing his bidding. If they were involved,
it wasn’t good.

“Here comes, Eamon,” Phillip warned. His
watchful gaze was even more intent than usual, and his features
were tense. He didn’t look like he was willing to share whatever
was bothering him.

“Good, you’re ready.” Eamon shooed Buck away
and made short work of preparing his horse. “Sorry we’re leaving so
soon, but we have a mission.”

“Eamon, can I speak to you?” Shea asked. She
didn’t want to reveal her knowledge in front of the others.

“Not now. We need to get moving.”

“It’s kind of important, and I think it might
pertain to the mission at hand.”

“What is it?” Eamon asked impatiently, his
hands making quick work of readying his horse.

Shea’s response was cut off when another man
shouted from the entrance of a tent. “Scout master, get a move on.
You needed to be on the trail yesterday.”

“Alright, alright. We’re going. Keep your
pants on,” Eamon yelled back. To Shea, he said, “This’ll have to
wait. People are acting like the sky is about to fall. We need to
get moving.”

Shea tried to protest, but Eamon had already
swung onto his horse.

“All of the scouts are on this mission it
seems,” Buck said.

“Doesn’t matter what they’re doing; we just
need to follow our orders. Are you guys ready?”

Her chance missed, she nodded with the
others.

“Good. Then let’s head out, I’ll tell you
more when we’re underway.”

“Are there any others joining us?” Shea
asked.

“We’ll be traveling alone, but if we find
what we’re looking for, we can call for help with this.” He held up
a long, slender black tube with red painted on the bottom of
it.

Buck whistled, impressed. Even Phillip raised
an eyebrow.

Shea looked from man to man. “What is
it?”

“It’s a beast.”

“That?” It wasn’t very impressive, or alive
for that matter.

“You probably wouldn’t know about it as they
grow on the plains, but when you light a match at the bottom, the
animal inside starts to glow. When it gets hot enough, it’ll erupt
from its shell to shoot into the sky. We use them to send messages
or to warn of attack back home.” Eamon handled it carefully as he
set it back in his bag.

“They’re getting scarce the further into the
Lowlands we push,” Buck told her as he mounted, “so only commanders
and above are allowed to use them. Whatever we’re looking for must
be pretty damn important.”

“It’s a who, not a what,” Eamon said.
“Whoever he is, I hope someone finds him alive or blood will
spill.”

On those grim words, Eamon set his heels into
his mount’s sides and burst into a gallop. The rest of them
followed quickly. Together, they rode out of camp, the sentries
letting them go without the typical challenge.

As they rode, Shea heard hoof beats off to
the side and looked over to find another group of four pounding
through the brush, keeping pace with them before peeling off in
their own direction.

Shea set her eyes forward watching the
scenery pass as she leaned low over her horse’s neck and felt hair
from its mane brush her lips as they moved as one through the
hills.

She’d have to find a time to bring up her
concerns on the trail.

Though she was disappointed to leave the
comforts of camp so soon after arriving, a part of her thrilled at
being back in the wilderness, feeling the freedom of the open skies
and the deep serenity the sight of towering mountains and sharply
dipping hills provided. For all the danger inherent in this land,
it fed a portion of Shea’s soul that always felt slightly empty
when she was behind high walls of canvas or stone.

Though night had fallen several hours ago,
Shea’s group passed three other scouting parties. From the focus on
both Eamon and Phillip’s faces, Shea figured they wouldn’t be
stopping until they found whoever they were looking for.

A whisper of sound, like that of something
brushing against rock, reached Shea. Her hand dropped to her hip
where her short sword was buckled as she scanned her surroundings.
It was dark but the moon was out, not quite as full as it had been
when they encountered the frostlings, but there was enough light to
see by.

Eamon stepped out of the gloom, raising a
hand and nodding at her. She relaxed and murmured a soft ‘hello’ as
he joined her where she perched at the edge of a cliff.

“Anything?” he asked her.

How much did she tell him?

“No.”

“Damn.” He settled into a crouch beside her.
“I’m beginning to think they sent us on a wild goose chase.”

Pretty much. The map was wrong, which meant
they were searching in the wrong place. She’d bet her life on
it.

The group had found nothing and were nearly
through the area they’d been given to cover. As no fire lights had
shot into the sky, they assumed no one else had met with success
either.

Should she tell him about what she’d
overheard? Would he believe her? As time ticked by, it got harder
and harder to tell him. He’d have questions about why she hadn’t
said something sooner. He’d be right to be suspicious. She should
have made him listen back in camp.

Shea went back to staring at the mountain
silhouettes, whose hulking forms blocked the stars and were only a
few shades darker than the rest of the night. Little specks of
firelight winked in and out in the valley below as men combed the
land.

“Maybe not,” Shea said slowly as an idea
occurred to her. She could point them in the right direction
without revealing how she knew what she knew. “I need you to light
a torch.”

Used to the way her mind worked, Eamon didn’t
ask questions and busied himself with creating light to see by.
Shea pulled out the map and flattened it on the rock between them,
taking the torch from him and leaning the light as close as she
dared to the parchment.

“Careful, Shane. I’m not sure how happy
they’ll be if you set their map on fire.”

She was quiet as she studied the markings.
Not all of it was wrong. That would raise too many suspicions from
scouts who’d traveled the area. Just parts of it, and she was
pretty sure she knew which parts.

“What’re you two doing?” Buck asked,
appearing out of the dark with Phillip close behind him.

“Anything?” Eamon asked hopefully.

They both shook their head in a negative.

Eamon sighed. “Shane thinks he’s onto
something.”

“Oh?” Buck leapt onto their rock and squatted
next to Shea. “What do you have?”

“Something.”

She pulled out her little journal and flipped
to several smaller maps at the back. They weren’t as detailed as
what she held in her hand, but it was enough to give her a general
idea of the land.

“Is that a map?” Buck asked. “You’re not
supposed to be copying the maps, Shane. They could flog you for
that.”

“I didn’t copy troop movements or anything
sensitive, Buck. You know as well as I do half the time the maps
they give us are crap. I wanted a way to keep track of where we’d
been so we didn’t have to start from scratch every time we left
camp.”

She went back to comparing the two maps.

Seeing the look on her face, Eamon asked,
“What? What is it?”

They all regarded her anxiously.

“This map is wrong,” she stated the obvious.
This next part might be a little tricky. She needed to convince
them while not telling them everything.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean whoever worked on this fucked up.
Big. Half the routes are wiped out, and it’s out of date. See
here,” she pointed at a broken line that was to the right of their
current position. “We went through this area last month with
Lance’s boys.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, when we were done, I told Vincent that
they shouldn’t send any more men that way unless they wanted them
to end up dead.”

“Maybe they disregarded your advice. It
wouldn’t be the first time.”

“That’s just it,” she said, touching the map
lightly. “The next map they sent out had the updates on it. This
one doesn’t. Not to mention there are some routes that aren’t even
on here anymore. They’re not marked as either dangerous or safe.
It’s like they don’t even exist.”

“I don’t see why this is important,” Eamon
said.

Shea was silent a moment as she considered
her options. She wasn’t Trateri and had only lingered so long
because she liked Eamon and Buck. This was the point of no return.
Either she acted on her knowledge or she let nature run its course.
Did she really want to get more involved than she already was?

“Let’s consider the facts, then,” she said
finally. It wasn’t in her to just walk away even if it was easier.
“Every scout that was in or around the encampment was mobilized to
locate someone. It’s someone important, which means enemies. Pretty
well connected enemies if my hunch is right. What if those enemies
gave him a map that was wrong? Kind of like this one.”

The dark prevented her from reading the men’s
faces so she was unable to tell the effect her words were having on
them.

“Maybe it steered this person toward some of
the more dangerous routes, or maybe it was some mistake. All I know
is we’re almost through our area and whatever it is we’re supposed
to be looking for isn’t here.”

She didn’t want to make it seem too obvious
that she knew it was on purpose.

“What do you suggest we do?” Phillip asked.
He had been a silent presence until now, and she had almost
forgotten he was there.

She shrugged. “We look through some of the
routes that should be on here but aren’t.”

Silence met her statement. Not knowing how
they were taking her idea, she kept quiet and waited. In the end,
she didn’t know the person lost out there, and she wasn’t Trateri.
She’d laid out their options and pointed at the inconsistencies in
the information they’d been given. Whatever happened next was on
them.

She told herself she didn’t care as she
busied herself with studying the map, but that was a lie. She did
care, and she hated the idea of leaving someone alone in the dark,
especially since she felt slightly responsible for not speaking up
sooner.

It was the same reason she worked with the
people of Birdon Leaf despite the fact she was treated as the
village pariah. She knew the fear of being out there in the great
wild expanse knowing nobody was coming for you. Now, when faced
with the thought of abandoning someone to that same fate, she
couldn’t do it.

“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” Buck said
uneasily.

“Yup.”

There were a number of trails that had been
mismarked or left off the map. It would be impossible to cover all
of the area with just the four of them in a time frame that could
make a difference to the men who were lost.

“Is there a way to narrow it down a little?”
Phillip crouched beside her and peered at the parchment in
question.

Shea shut her eyes, allowing herself to feel
a moment of relief. This was the reason she hadn’t left yet. Every
time she steeled herself against their disdain or disbelief they
did something completely incomprehensible like follow her down
whatever rabbit hole she found.

“It would have to be a trail that had shown
up on other maps but had recently been declared a danger zone,”
Buck said, crouching on her other side. “That way if the intended
target had any familiarity with previous maps it wouldn’t be too
suspicious.”