Witt’s snort was ugly as his lips twisted insneer.
“A few men? Those same men are in everyvillage, every city and every fort in the Highlands. It’s asickness of the soul, and it’s sunk so deep I doubt there is asingle settlement left unaffected.”
The bitterness in his voice was too potent,too raw for him to be speaking from anything but experience.
Shea’s thoughts went back to him describingthe guild excising villages that angered them. Had somethingsimilar happened to Witt? She knew he wasn’t native to Birdon Leaf.It was one of the reasons she’d related to him. He was an outsiderlike her, although more accepted.
“Why do you say that?” she found herselfasking.
“My home village, the one I grew up in, wasmuch like Birdon Leaf. It had elders who just pushed and pushed andpushed until one day their stupidity got a pathfinder killed. Thatwas the beginning of the end. The guild refused to place anotherpathfinder with us. We were cut off from everybody and everything.People stopped trading with us, which meant we didn’t have enoughfood or supplies. All the men who left, trying to find their way tohelp, never came back. They probably died in the wildernesssomewhere if they weren’t carried off by the mist.”
Shea knew what came next. She’d grown up onstories of what happened to villages that killed theirpathfinders.
“It wasn’t long after that the first beastattacked. At first it just picked off one villager after another.Before long, we had an infestation, not just the big ones likerevenants or red backs, but lichkers and flesh eaters as well.”
“How did you survive?” Shea asked when hestopped talking.
“My mother put me in the cellar. She followedthe old ways and had warded it with lope root and beast blood. Toobad, though. There wasn’t enough food for two. She starved so Icould live.”
Shea’s nose prickled as she imagined thehorror as one day bled into another, and his mother slowly wastedaway right in front of him.
“I did live. Barely. When the beasts hadpicked our village clean, I made my way to the next outpost. Ialmost died three times.
“So you see Shea, I do know what I’m talkingabout because after my village perished, I saw the same stupidityagain and again in so many other villages. I have no problem withthe Trateri marching on Birdon Leaf. At least that will be quickerthen what your people will do to them.”
“You know Birdon Leaf won’t be the only oneto suffer,” she said as he turned away. “It’ll be the rest of theHighlands as well.”
“That’s fine with me,” he informed her. “Iconsider myself Trateri now. I’ve taken their venom and are as mucha part of them as if I’d been born to the clans. I hope they findthe Wayfarer’s Keep and force them out. As far as I’m concerned theHighlands would do better with the Trateri than thepathfinders.”
“I’m a pathfinder.”
“You’re one of the best I’ve met.”
Shea felt a slight lifting of her heart.
“But we both know one with your talents isn’tsent to a place like Birdon Leaf unless they’re beingpunished.”
Sadly, this was true.
“What did you do to warrant such a fate?”
Shea licked lips that had gone dry. Somehowshe couldn’t get the words out. To explain her failure.
Witt shrugged and turned away saying, “Youdon’t have to tell me, lass. But don’t expect me to have any regretover what I did today. Here’s some advice, since I really dorespect your abilities. Give Fallon what he wants, and throw yourlot in with the Trateri. You’ll be happier for it.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Shea readied Fallon and herself for thejourney in a daze. Packing supplies for the two of them requiredvery little thought, and as a result, her mind continually wanderedback to her conversation with Witt.
She had never imagined Witt would have such astory behind him. The bitterness he held was understandable. Sheaknew excising a village was one of the tactics the guild employedto make sure the rest of the Highlands kept themselves in check. Asan organization whose members were spread out over thousands ofmiles, it was important to maintain control. Otherwise incidentslike the one Birdon Leaf instigated would happen more often.
A part of her was glad the men and women ofBirdon Leaf who sent her and several others into slavery would beheld accountable for their actions.
An image of Aimee, with her urchin’s smileand infectious giggle, wouldn’t leave her thoughts.
There was the rub. It wouldn’t be only thewrongdoers who paid. Everyone in the village would feel therepercussions of their actions. Hatred and distrust would be bredinto any who survived and the cycle would continue.
Once that wouldn’t have bothered her.
