Battle for the Valley Read online

  Arriving at the market, I sensed that the mood of the crowd had changed overnight. A palpable tension filled the air around us. There was no laughing or merriment taking place. Citizens were whispering in small groups and seemed to be peering over their shoulders from time to time. I felt eyes on me from citizens and unseen guards.

  A male voice I recognized shouted to us from the crowd.

  “Ho there!” Costian, the watchman we met by the lake, waved and trotted over to us from one of the market shops. He was dressed in similar clothing as yesterday – sleeveless shirt and britches, boots and a wide-brim hat. His skin had been tanned by the sun to a rich reddish-brown. His dark brown hair curled around his neck beneath his hat and, though he was young, he had lines at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the sun.

  “I did not expect to see you in the market,” I remarked as he fell into step with us.

  He gave us an easy smile. “I’m not on the morning shift. I’ll report to the pasture around lunchtime to take over the watch of the herd until sundown.”

  “That’s a long shift,” Archer said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Eh, it doesn’t bother me,” Costian replied. “Rather do that than be a guard. Besides, I like being around the horses.” He glanced up at me again. “Speaking of horses, I hear you’re in the market. Trading that fur?”

  “Do you think it will be enough for three of your animals?” Pierce asked him point-blank.

  Costian lifted his hat, scratched his head, and then pulled the brim back down. “Of course. That fur would probably get you three mares, or even four if they’re a bit older. That’s not the problem.”

  The three of us stopped and faced him. “What is the problem?” I asked.

  Costian folded his arms over his chest and glanced from side to side as if he felt someone might eavesdrop on our conversation. “People are feeling skittish today,” he murmured. “It may make a trade more difficult since you three are strangers.”

  “Skittish about what?” Pierce asked him. “Yesterday, the governor acted like we’d have no trouble trading the Saber fur for supplies.”

  Costian inched closer and dropped his voice. “The guards found someone dead this morning out near the stream on the southern side of the village.”

  That was near where we had slept overnight.

  “Who was it?” I asked, worried it was Hagan or Nash. The guard said they would receive some sort of punishment. Did she execute them?

  “An older gentleman that lived along the outer rim,” Costian answered. “His throat was cut.”

  Though relief swept over me, a feeling of dread took its place. Nash and Hagan were still alive … somewhere, but another life had been destroyed. Had we led Wolfe’s soldiers here or was there some other evil lurking?

  A quick glance at Pierce and Archer told me they were thinking the same thing. We would need to do our business and get out of Ahern without delay. We could not put any other citizens in danger. Our fellow Warriors in Peton would have to be enough to battle Wolfe.

  “Is there someone willing to do business with us?” I asked Costian. “Once we have a few animals to carry us home, we will leave.”

  “Come with me to the pasture.” He gestured for us to follow him. “The man I’m thinking of has been breeding horses for decades. He’s the best we have. The governor gives him ownership rights to half the stock he breeds, so he might be willing to trade his own animals. Especially for a rare pelt like that.”

  Costian led us to the northern edge of Ahern. The herd had returned here from the lake. The prairie stretched as far as the eye could see and was divided into separate pastures by wooden fences. The herd grazed inside one of the pastures, though I imagined there were other paddocks further out. The fences extended out to the horizon, over the grassy hill.

  Unable to tear my eyes away, I asked “How many horses are out there?”

  Costian crossed his arms and propped his elbows on the top rung of the fence. “This is our largest herd. There’s about a hundred here. The other two herds are over that hill.”

  “Why so many pastures?” Pierce asked, gesturing to the empty field to our left.

  “They’ll eat the grass down to the roots if we don’t move them. It gives the grass a chance to grow back. There are ten fields in total.” Costian gave us a curious look. “Is this not how you keep your animals in Peton?”

  Archer answered, “We only have forty or fifty horses, and we keep them in barns.”

  “Warriors are assigned to feed them oats and hay in their own stalls,” I added. “We rarely take them outside our walls to let them graze.”

  Costian let us observe the herd for a few more minutes and then pointed out the barn to our left, near the entrance to the paddock. “That’s where we’ll find Marshall, our horse-breeder.” He pushed away from the fence and strode toward the stable. Pierce and Archer followed on his heels. I gave the herd one last admiring gaze before turning to trail after Costian and my Warriors.

  The barn was similar to Peton’s, but smaller. It was not intended to house all their animals. That was an impossible endeavor. This shelter was for the mares giving birth or the animals that were sick or injured.

  An older man turned the corner of the barn and spotted us.

  “Costian!” he shouted, lifting his hand in greeting. “What are you doing here so early, my boy?”

  “Showing off our horses to these visitors from Peton,” Costian answered. “They brought something to trade if you’re willing to part with a few steeds?” He slapped the old man on the shoulder and turned to face us with a grin. “This is Marshall, our best horse-breeder.”

  Marshall reminded me a lot of Elder Pankis. I could see that he had been strong and agile in his youth, but time had taken its toll. His waist had grown thick and his hair was silver. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were prominent. His hands were leathery and darkened working in the sun all his life. When he smiled, a few of his teeth were missing. I extended my hand to him. “I’m Thorne,” I said, firmly grasping his hand in greeting. I gestured to my comrades. “This is Pierce and Archer.”

  Marshall’s eyes settled on my scars for a second and then looked me up and down. “Trade, eh? What did you bring?”

  I turned sideways to show him my pack. “Costian says this Saber fur would fetch a good price. We need a few horses to make our way back up the coast to Peton.”

  Marshall’s eyes glimmered with longing when he saw the gray and black pelt tied to the top of my pack.

  “Mm-hmm,” he said, considering the offer. “I might be willing to part with a few beasts for that fine piece of Saber fur. Don’t get that kind of fur around these parts.” He studied me, his eyes flicking to the scars on my cheek again. “You some kind of Saber-hunter?”

  I grinned. “No, sir. These scars are from battling a Night Howler that attacked our village a year past.”

  “Almost blinded you too, looks like,” he pointed out, narrowing his eyes.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well?” Costian asked the old man. “What do you think?”

  Marshall rubbed his thumb along his lower lip. One of his eyebrows arched and he peered off toward the village.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. I glanced at Pierce. My brother was watching the village as well.

  “Give me two hours,” said Marshall.

  Pierce raised his eyebrows. “Two hours?”

  The old man glanced over at the village again. He lowered his voice and said, “I’ll gather three of my mares and hitch’em up in the aspen trees near the lake.”

  Costian furrowed his brows in confusion. “Marshall, what’s going on? Why are you whispering?”

  “You’d best be heading to the barn to get ready to do your work today,” Marshall said, interrupting the young man and giving him a stern look. “Go on, now.”

  Confusion crossed Costian’s face, but he did as Marshall ordered. I narrowed my eyes at the old man. He had seemed more than willing to
do business a moment ago. What had changed in the last few minutes?

  “I hope you will not reprimand Costian,” I said. “We asked him to -”

  Marshall took another step forward, bringing himself nose-to-nose with me. Lowering his voice to a near-whisper, he said, “I’m trying to look out for that boy … and for you three. It isn’t safe.”

  The old man gave me a hard stare. Out of the corner of my eye, Pierce was looking around with narrowed eyes, searching for something. Had he heard someone sneaking about nearby?

  “I have a feeling,” Marshall murmured. “Don’t you?”

  My stomach began to churn with dread again at his subtle warning. He wasn’t wrong. I’d had an uneasy feeling about this place since we’d met Governor Laela yesterday.

  “Yes, sir, I do,” I mumbled.

  He nodded, satisfied. “You three bring that fur with you to the lake, and then you’d best be moving along. Two hours.”

  To my right, Archer nodded. “We’ll be there.”

  Marshall began backing away, and in a louder, angrier voice he shouted, “Now get out of here! I’m not trading any horses.” He shooed us away, turned on his heel, and marched back to the barn.

  Pierce grasped my arm and tugged me away, back toward the village. “Let’s go,” he growled. “His warning was clear.”

  Archer scanned our surroundings for a threat as we walked. “He knows that something isn’t right. He wants to help us. That much was clear, but for some reason he couldn’t show it.”

  I swore under my breath. “Someone was watching.”

  “We should find a place where we can talk without someone listening in,” Archer suggested.

  “Unless they’re altered and can listen in from a distance or read thoughts like Kaelem,” I grumbled.

  “What are the chances two of us have the same gift?” Pierce argued.

  “Marshall is altered,” I remarked. “That much is clear. What do you think his gift is?”

  Pierce waved my query away. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s avoid the village crowd. It’ll make it easier for me to hear if there’s a threat coming.”

  “We can circle around the village easy enough,” I said, turning back south to avoid the houses. “We can go back to the stream on the southern side of the village.”

  “Isolating ourselves could be dangerous too,” Archer pointed out.

  “We’ll have to take our chances,” I said, frowning over our choices.

  We strode around the village through the grassy fields. Pierce led the way, listening for a threat, while Archer and I kept alert, searching for anyone that might be following us.

  Was it the governor and her guards spying on us or was it the General’s soldiers? I could not fathom how the General and his minions could have tracked us down. There was no way he could have known where we were going. And even if Hagan and Nash were spies for Wolfe, they’d never had an opportunity to inform him of where we were headed next.

  Whoever it was, the three of us had to be on our guard until we left this city behind.

  ***

  For an hour, I paced back and forth along the edge of the stream, questioning every event since the Saber attack in the Valley. Hagan and Nash had never left our sight. Kieron was back in his right mind, so he wouldn’t have informed Wolfe of our plans to separate from each other.

  Unless it was a trick. A lie.

  If Kieron was pretending … but Ravyn had been so sure. And I’d seen the difference in him. If it wasn’t real, I had sent her and Camellia to find him.

  “You’re going to tire yourself out, pacing that way,” Pierce drawled, staring up at me from where he was lounging in the grass by the water. Archer sat beside him, tinkering with one of his devices from his pack, something the guards hadn’t realized was a weapon.

  “What are you thinking?” Archer asked without looking up at me.

  I crouched down, running my hand through my hair. “That I made a mistake splitting us up.”

  Archer’s brows furrowed. “We all agreed to it.”

  “Did we?” I asked. “It all seems fuzzy to me now.” I rose to my feet and resumed my pacing. “Ravyn … I don’t think she did. Not at first.”

  “Let’s not get wrapped up the whats or whys of it all,” Pierce answered. “We’re here. There’s no going back.” He rolled to his feet and gave me a piercing glare, looking so like Hawke it made my chest ache. “Let’s meet Marshall and get out of here.”

  I snatched up my pack. “We can get to the lake early if we leave now.”

  Archer stowed the device in his bag and shouldered his rucksack. Together, we followed the stream northeast, back toward the aspen trees. We found the path through the trees, but the woods were strangely silent. There were no sounds of horses snorting or stomping their hooves into the dirt. Even the birds had gone silent.

  My heart ached for Ravyn. She’d know if danger was near.

  I signaled my companions to halt. “Pierce?”

  “I hear nothing, but there’s something lying on the ground.” Pierce pointed through the trees at what looked to be a mound of dirt. He took the lead, keeping his footsteps silent on the fallen leaves as we weaved through the trees.

  Fifty feet away, I saw it. My stomach sank as we drew nearer. Silver hair stood out against the brown leaves and dirt on the forest floor.

  Marshall.

  I ran and knelt down beside him. He’d been left for dead here in the woods, his throat slashed from ear to ear. Pierce and Archer hovered behind me.

  I wiped my hand down my face. “Who could have done this?”

  Pierce gripped my shoulder and squeezed. “We need to leave, Brother. Someone is coming.”

  I stood quickly, hating to leave the poor man lying dead in the grass. Wolfe’s soldiers must have seen us speaking with him from a distance and followed him here. Pierce was right. We needed to leave this place at once.

  Tree limbs snapped and leaves crackled as men moved in our direction.

  “Soldiers,” I hissed. “Move.”

  Before we could make it ten feet, they broke through the trees, surrounding us. And it wasn’t who I was expecting. Instead of Wolfe’s soldiers, we faced twenty of Ahern’s fighters, all aiming their crossbows at us.

  “Halt!” one of the men shouted. “You are under arrest, by order of the governor!”

  I lifted my hands in surrender. “For what crime?”

  “For the murder of two citizens of Ahern.”

  I glanced back down at Marshall’s body on the ground and I felt the blood drain from my face.

  The old man that had been killed by the stream … and now Marshall.

  This had all been a set up. But by who?

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  18

  Ravyn

  “What are we going to do now, Ravyn?”

  I glanced down at Camellia. She’d been watching me pace for thirty minutes. She was bundled up in a blanket and I could see her breath in the frigid morning air. Brock and Tallon had packed their belongings and were eating a bite of cold turkey and apples. Kieron had no supplies except for his blade. He stared at me as I walked in circles around the camp. Kaelem sat with his back against the same tree about thirty feet from the rest of them. The circles under his eyes looked darker than ever as he toyed with his crossbow. His eyes had looked haunted for a few days.

  Turning my eyes from Kaelem, I answered my sister. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  It was just past sunrise and still somewhat dark from the overcast sky. The wind had turned a bitter cold, gusting through the naked branches of the trees. Leaves swirled around us every so often. Everyone was bundled up in their warmest layers of clothes.

  The soldiers had attacked four hours ago. I’d started pacing soon after finishing my meal. Kieron, exhausted from his travels, had given in to sleep as soon as he realized I was not in the mood to speak of what once was. Tallon and Brock had slept as well, since Kaelem and I had both been stan
ding watch through the night.

  I stopped and stared down at Kaelem again.

  How long has it been since he’s slept?

  That was not the only question floating around in my mind.

  “It’s going to snow today,” Brock announced, interrupting my thoughts.

  I halted and stared up at the low blanket of clouds in the sky.

  Brock added, “Maybe just flurries, but still …”

  “We should head south again,” Tallon suggested. “Now that we’ve found Kieron, we should go back to Peton.”

  My eyes found Kieron. He was still watching me while he was picking at the food Brock had given him earlier. What were we to do with him? If he had some sort of tracking device inside him, the soldiers would be able to find him again and again.

  “Ravyn?” Camellia asked again, waiting for me to agree or disagree with Tallon’s suggestion.

  I couldn’t decide what to do next. Something was still nagging me. An important detail was missing. My thoughts circled back to the day Laelynn was killed by those Sabers and the decisions we’d made about splitting up. Thorne had been adamant about sticking together until that point. What made him change his mind?

  The group stared up at me in expectation and confusion. Everyone except Kaelem. He hadn’t moved from his place against the trunk of the tree.

  “Thorne and I made a plan to find rebels in each of the clans,” I explained. “Murray, Ahern, and Peton. He said we should find Kieron and continue on to Murray and bring as many fighters as we could find to stand up to General Wolfe.”

  Tallon rose to her feet and folded her arms over her chest. “That’s not what he told me.”

  My brows pinched together. “What exactly did he say to you?”

  “Find Kieron and head back to Peton,” she replied. “Thorne said he would meet us there.”

  A chill of dread crawled up my spine. “No. Thorne said he would meet us back by the stream where we buried Laelynn and Haldar.”

  “You’re sure?” Brock asked me.

  Kieron pushed himself to his feet. “It sounds like a miscommunication to me. Why do you look so sick, Ravyn?”