Who was this he? Whoever it was seemed to beimportant enough to sabotage?
The voices moved away. Shea stayed where shewas, knowing if she followed her chances of being discovered spyingincreased. It didn’t seem like the sort of conversation she wantedto be caught listening to.
Shea walked away, taking the first path tothe right, taking another and another until she was well and trulyaway from the trio.
What had she just heard? It was momentous,whatever it was.
There was a plot against someone in theTrateri ranks. Someone extremely important from the sound ofit.
The question now was, what should she doabout it? She wasn’t Trateri. Their politics didn’t affect hersince she still had plans to escape. For all she knew, theseplotters had a legitimate reason for their actions.
Shea frowned. No, that was unlikely sinceVincent was involved. That guy had greedy, bottom feeder writtenall over him.
If she did tell someone, would they evenbelieve her?
One thing was clear; the map Vincent hadgiven her was absolutely worthless.
“Shane! Shane!” a voice called.
Shea turned to find Clark darting toward herwaving, a hank of brown hair flopping over his eyes as he stoppedin front of her.
“Thought that was you, but I wasn’t suresince you didn’t respond when I called.”
“Sorry, I was lost in thought.” That andoccasionally she sometimes forgot people knew her as Shane asopposed to Shea.
“No problem.” He waved her apology away. “Youjust get back?”
“Yeah,” Shea’s voice was distracted as theystepped to the side of the dirt road to give others right of way.“Oh, last time we were out, we encountered something Lowlanderscall frostlings. They look like shadows and seem to fear fire. Notsure how to kill them, though.”
His eyes lit up and he nodded as he made noteof her information. “That reminds me. You need to see this.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her in hiswake, winding through the tents as they left the more commonly usedpaths and went down one of the smaller routes. She ducked under aline securing the tent to a stake as she followed him.
“Is this going to take long? Because I stillneed to gather some supplies and to talk to some people. Our teamjust got another mission.”
“You’re on that too?”
She nodded. “Wait a minute. You’regoing?”
He looked back and grinned. “All the scoutsare. Someone important didn’t show up as scheduled and now everyscout in camp has orders to look for him. Don’t worry though,they’re still discussing how the manhunt will be conducted. It’llprobably be a couple hours before everything is settled.”
“Looks like we got back just in time,” Sheasaid. This had to be part of the plot she overheard. It was on thetip of her tongue to tell Clark, but she held back. She didn’t wantto get him involved in something that could be dangerous.
“Looks like.”
They zig zagged down another set of alleysand across a wider road.
“Here we are.”
“Where is here?” Shea asked, stepping over asaddle and apologizing as she bumped into one of the servant castecarrying an armful of laundry. She got a glare for her pains as theservant hurried off.
She looked around curiously, following Clarkover to an awning. Several lines anchored the canvas in place,causing the edges to dip down with the tension. The only fabricpresent was the roof and back wall.
Under it, someone had set up a large woodenboard and tacked small sheets of paper to it. They fluttered in astray breeze.
Shea stepped closer to examine the paper. Arough sketch was drawn on each one and names were written under thesketch. She reached out and flattened one sheet to read itbetter.
Revenant: Compensates for poor eyesight withhighly developed sense of smell and hearing. Pickleberry juice canbe used to slip past its senses but fades fast and needs to bereplenished or they will pick up your scent. Tactics that haveworked in the past…
