Pathfinder's Way (49 page)

The most obvious secret, and the one Fallon
would be most interested in, was the boomer. The Lowlands simply
didn’t have anything to like it. To be truthful most of the
Highlands didn’t either. Shea’s people, the conclave that trained
guides, did though. If Shea hadn’t angered the elders, she would
have probably been given her own weapon to look after.

Her people’s cache of weapons were kept
secret from the rest of the Highlands. Though boomers were common
knowledge, the worst of the weapons, the ones that sparked the
cataclysm, were kept hidden. Shea didn’t know how Fallon had found
out about them, but she could guess. Paul. If she was ever alone
with him again, she’d probably kill him.

She crossed her arms over her knees and
rested her head on them. She never should have stayed with Eamon
and the others as long as she had.

Shea picked up the soap again and scrubbed at
her skin. Her pleasure in the luxury had fled on Fallon’s heels,
and she simply wanted to be done.

Minutes later she contemplated the outfit
Trenton had given her. This couldn’t be all of it. Two tiny scraps
of unadorned cotton lay on the bed. The first was a band designed
to wrap around her chest, leaving her stomach, shoulders and arms
bare. The small skirt that went with it looked like it would barely
cover her ass.

The towel she wore covered more than the
proposed clothes.

“Are you ready yet?” Trenton said impatiently
from outside.

“I think there’s been some mistake.”

There was a silent pause and then the leather
tent flap was slapped aside as Trenton entered.

Shea stiffened and clutched her towel
tighter.

He rolled his eyes and told her, “Relax. I
have no intentions towards you. Just imagining what the warlord
would do to me is enough to kill any of those thoughts.”

Shea watched him carefully as he
approached.

“What’s the problem?”

She pointed at the bed. “What am I supposed
to do with these?”

He looked from her to the bed before raising
his eyebrows and giving her a look as if he thought she was a bit
of an idiot. “Put them on.”

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. He knew
what she meant.

“Where’s the rest of the outfit?”

“That’s it.”

Shea could feel her blood pressure rising.
She was not wearing that. If need be, she’d put her old clothes on.
At this point, she didn’t care if they were coated in dirt and
sweat from a day spent training.

She looked around. Not finding her old
clothes, she asked, “Where are the clothes I was wearing?”

He crossed his arms and shrugged.

“Where. Are. The. Clothes. I. Was.
Wearing?”

The sardonic twist of his lips told her
everything she needed to know.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

They were gone. Either Fallon had taken them
while she’d been lazing in the tub or someone else had come in
while she was distracted and gotten rid of them.

“This is ridiculous,” she hissed softly to
herself.

“Put those on and get out there.”

“I’m not wearing these.”

“You are.”

Shea let her silence speak for her.

She knew she was acting childish. The scraps
of clothing would cover the pertinent pieces of her body, but she
was tired of being pushed around.

“You are.” He leaned forward, invading her
space. She stiffened but didn’t back up. “You will also have them
on in the next five minutes so we can leave.”

She didn’t think so.

“You will not like it if I have to come back
in here.”

With those ominous words, Trenton exited,
leaving Shea fuming in his absence. After a long moment, she moved
to comply, pulling the clothes on with angry movements.

Dressed, she took a deep breath and composed
herself. It took a long moment and several deep breaths before some
of the anger melted away and a bit of perspective to creep back
in.

Only when she had control of herself again,
did she exit.

Trenton led her out to the very edge of the
camp where a crackling fire waited. Meynard and Caden sat on
smoothly worn stumps on either side of the fire.

It seemed odd for a fire to be going full
blast in the middle of day, especially when it was this warm
out.

Trenton prodded her forward when she
hesitated.

He maneuvered her until she stood on the
other side of the fire. She coughed as a gust of wind blew smoke in
her face.

Meynard lifted his arms and proclaimed in a
voice as ageless and old as the mountains, “Shea of the Highland
people, you come seeking to mingle your being with that of the
grassland people.”

Shea coughed again as a deep burning spread
down her throat. Had she inhaled ash?

“The grassland people are fierce with roots
dating back to the beginning of time. You are either born of us or
become one of us through fire.”

Shea didn’t know what he was talking about.
Grassland people?

“Fire is the great catalyst. It can destroy,
but it can also be an instrument of change and bring forth the
seeds of a new beginning. It is life.”

The world around her rippled and then tilted.
A burst of light flared behind Caden’s head and then Trenton’s. She
fell to a knee as she looked around in confusion.

The old man was droning on and on. “You must
survive the fire and be reborn to be fully accepted as one of
us.”

She didn’t want to be one of them. She liked
herself just the way she was. Shea, a pathfinder of the Highland
guilds, a scout for the Dawn’s Riders.

The burning in her lungs intensified, and she
coughed hard, nearly choking. A sweet smell, like that of vanilla,
invaded her nose. Its scent so strong she almost imagined she could
see it carried along on the breeze in ever widening arcs.

The strength left her body, and she rolled
onto her back. The blue, blue sky looked down at her. It smiled at
her with a delicate slice of cloud right before a bunny hopped
across, leaving trails of white tufts floating after it.

There must have been something in the smoke,
she realized finally.

After that she didn’t do a lot of thinking,
but simply experienced things with a wide-eyed wonder as images and
thoughts raced by. Sometimes these things collided in a brilliant
cascade of color and light.

The first warp took her back to her
childhood.

She was holding tight to a woman’s hand. In
Shea’s eyes, that woman was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Shea paid close attention as the woman explained the difference
between a thistle thorn paw print and that of a red tail’s.

“Understand, Shea?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Lainey, are you teaching that girl tracking
again?” a deep voice asked affectionately.

Shea’s mother gave the man a crooked grin.
“It’s never too early to start. Huh, sweet pea?”

Shea was engrossed in studying the paw print
her mother had pointed out and her little forehead puckered as she
concentrated.

The man slung an arm around Lainey’s chest,
pulling her firmly against him as he settled his chin on her
head.

“I see you’re determined to have her follow
in your footsteps.”

Shea’s head shot up, and she frowned at him.
“I’m not going to be like Mommy. I’m going to be a gatherer and go
on many adventures where I learn things nobody else knows.”

“Are you now?” Shea’s mother asked.

Shea nodded once, firmly.

Both her mother and father laughed. Her
father leaned down and scooped her small body up.

“I guess you’d better soak up everything your
mom has to teach you, then. It’s even harder to become a gatherer
than it is a pathfinder.”

The world froze before twisting and bursting
into a starburst of bright light.

“Pick up the pace,” Shea barked, looking back
at the rear. “We need to find cover before nightfall.”

A chorus of weary groans answered. She
allowed herself a brief moment as she looked over her group of
twenty travelers. They, like her, were exhausted.

The journey’s stress and the constant worry
of being in the Badlands were taking their toll.

Already, ten in their party had fallen.
Mostly to beasts, three to the mist that fell while they’d
navigated the border between the Highlands and Badlands.

A small part of her was beginning to think
the elders had been right. Highlanders were simply not meant to
explore this desolate land of dust and death.

“Eagle!” shouted through the ranks, as each
man on the line repeated it until the shout resounded over the
plateau.

Terror struck deep as a large shadow fell
over them.

A draft of wind passed right over her and she
tripped and fell. Brown wings trimmed in white spread wide,
blocking out the sun as its owner brushed past. Screams pierced the
quiet and the eagle dipped and then rose again, two men clutched in
its claws.

Something inside Shea shriveled as the beast
winged its way higher and higher. That same something withered
further when two more eagles dropped out of the sky to claim more
of her men. She’d never seen so many of them. Shea watched,
motionless and helpless, as her dreams died all around her.

Her arrogance had gotten them killed.

She could do nothing but wait for her
turn.

Light burst all around her and then the world
went dark.

Shea opened her eyes slowly to stare up at a
night sky marred by the warm glow of the fire next to her. The low
murmur of voices was accompanied by the crackle and snap of the
burning logs.

Her body felt as if it had been wrung dry.
She swallowed, feeling like sand had been poured in her mouth.

“I see you’re finally back.” Fallon’s voice
came from the dark on her left.

She turned her head, slowly, so slowly. It
felt like it weighed three times what it did normally. “Did I go
somewhere?”

That rough, scratchy noise didn’t sound like
her voice. A cool cup of water was passed to her and a large hand
on her back helped her sit. She gulped the water down gratefully,
not even minding when some of it missed her lips and spilled down
her front.

Fallon tilted the cup away from her.
“Easy.”

When he let her drink again, she forced
herself to go slow even though it felt like the water evaporated as
soon as it touched her parched tongue. She was numb, as if all the
emotion had been stripped from her and the only thing left was a
pervasive nothingness.

“What was in the fire?” Shea asked. She
didn’t really care if he answered, it was just that questions had
been a part of her life for so long they rose without thought.

“It’s wilder root,” Fallon told her. “My
people refer to it as our venom. It’s used when a door needs to be
opened between the present and the past. It’s supposed to strip
away the blinders and make everything clear again. It’s not without
danger, though. Some get lost in the dreams and never find their
way out.”

She’d never heard of such a thing. Part of
her knew she should be filing that little tidbit away to be
documented later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“You’re one of us now.” Fallon picked up her
hand, his felt warm against her chilled skin.

“What does that mean?” Shea found herself
asking. “I’m one of you?”

“You have the same rights as a Trateri. You
can claim war spoils as one of us, proclaim challenge. Any children
you bear will be raised Trateri. In essence, you have become as
much a Trateri as if you’d been born of us.”

“Isn’t that nice.” A little of Shea’s normal
personality began to peek through. “So in the end you’re just like
them.”

Fallon tilted his head and watched her
carefully.

“Let me ask you something. Once you’ve
conquered all of the Lowlands, what do you plan to do with this
land?”

“They will be integrated into my own people
as we create a country under one ruler.”

“Ah. So you mean they’ll be your servants.
Good enough to work in your army and die for you but not really be
one of you.”

“That’s right.” Fallon had no hesitation in
his answer.

Shea snorted back a laugh. That’s a conqueror
for you.

“That’s how it works. The strong rule the
weak. They had their chance, and they’ve squandered it. Without my
men, these people would be dead in another generation or two.”
Fallon’s voice hardened, and Shea saw the ruthless intellect behind
the warrior’s mask. “Look around, my people never should have been
able to conquer this land. There hasn’t been a significant battle
since we invaded. The biggest threats aren’t from men but beasts.
This land is fertile and capable of supporting a population three
times its size whereas where we come from every drop of water has
to be measured so as not to be wasted. Every scrap of food that
passes our lips has to be rationed carefully. Hunger isn’t
something you feel; it’s a state of being.

And yet nothing has stopped us from sweeping
across this land. Your villages are laughably small and even your
cities are capable of sustaining many more. You have entire towns
that disappear in the night. These people have done nothing to save
themselves. It will be my people who brave the wilds to secure
their safety. They will reap the benefits.”

She agreed with everything he’d just said.
The Lowlands and the Highlands were dying a long, slow death.
Populations were declining and every year another village seemed to
disappear. It’s why she’d helped Eamon and Buck for so long.

Despite the short term loss of life, Fallon’s
people could save thousands if he was successful. The Trateri might
have been brutal in their interactions with themselves and others,
but they worshipped knowledge and continually strived to understand
their surroundings. They fought to tame the world around them and
adapted when they could not. Both of these were qualities that
Lowlanders sorely lacked. It was the same for Highlanders as
well.