The Trateri he’d picked for this team were not the sort to ask stupid questions. They moved with the speed and ease of people who’d run countless missions. In minutes, they were mounted and following close behind him.
They rode like that for several hours, not stopping to take breaks or to rest.
Finally, Fiona pulled up beside him. “If we don’t stop soon, the horses will give out and we’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”
The words weren’t phrased as a judgment but rather as a statement of facts.
Eamon felt reluctant to stop for any reason, and he thought about pushing them further. The horses might make it. Then again, they might not. Was the risk worth it?
He nodded and gave the signal, calling for a brief halt. “Water them and rub them down. We move out as soon as they’ve rested.”
Fiona acknowledged the orders with a sharp nod. Now that they had the time, she voiced the question that had been on all their minds since he’d pulled them out and sent them in a mad dash back to the Keep. Even more startling, he did this without any concern for concealing their trail, something that was usually at the foremost of every scout’s mind.
“How many were there?” she asked.
He took a swig from his canteen, a plain watertight leather vessel, before pouring some water into a bowl and holding it in front of his horse.
“So many I couldn’t see the ground of the valley,” Eamon said.
“Human?”
He shook his head. “Monsters. Every one of them. Every beast I’ve ever seen and many I haven’t.”
Mythologicals too, if the primers Shea had given them were to be believed.
“Air and Earth protect us,” Fiona murmured.
He nodded. They were going to need that protection and probably the protection of several other gods and goddesses as well.
“We need to warn the rest or they’re going to be blindsided,” he said.
Fiona looked back the way they’d come, her face pensive. “We have no way to get through the mist at the base of the Keep, and we have four more days until Shea is due to send someone out for us.”
That’s what he was very much afraid of.
*
A knock at the door summoned Shea from a sound sleep. She pressed her face deeper into Fallon’s shoulder, the haze of her dream making her unwilling to face the world. Exhaustion had ensured her dreams were undisturbed for once, and she was reluctant to leave sleep behind.
Fallon stirred, carefully lifting her and setting her on the bed before pulling the covers up to her shoulders as he slid away.
She listened with half an ear as he put on pants before padding to the door, his footsteps muffled by the rugs littering the stone floor.
The door opened and there was the soft rumble of voices.
“Warlord, there’s something you need to see,” one of the Anateri said.
Tension invaded Shea’s limbs and she lifted her head, sleep now the furthest thing from her thoughts.
“I’ll be right there,” Fallon said.
Shea was already sliding out of bed by the time he shut the door, reaching for her clothes. Whatever this was, must be important for them to be summoned in the dead of night.
Fallon moved back toward the bed, stopping to collect his weapons. Shea did the same. Given their luck, she had a feeling she might need them before the night was through.
*
They stepped onto the battlements to find Gawain and Braden waiting for them, their faces directed to the south and the mountains that were little more than hulking shadows on a night like this.
