“He’s our early-warning system,” Kreya said. “You don’t gag an alarm. Besides, I think it makes him feel better.” She glanced back and saw Jentt had his arm around Marso, comforting him. Her heart felt as if it thumped a little harder, seeing Jentt alive, here, and caring for their friends the way he always had. He’d always been the heart of their group, believing in them all even when they didn’t believe in themselves.
After a few miles of walking, they spotted the tower. Broken and burned, it looked like the bones of a dead thing. It stood in sharp contrast to the abundant life all around it. Soon, in another few decades, the life would consume it. Already vines ran up through cracks in the stone, a tree jutted out at a crooked angle from the side, and moss coated its base.
“Looks abandoned,” Stran said, stating the obvious.
“Looks like a trap,” Jentt said.
“Regardless of what you believe, everyone is to treat this as if Eklor were functioning at full strength,” Kreya said. “No stupid mistakes. No unnecessary risks. We assess the situation, and then we regroup and determine how to proceed. Got it?”
Nods all around, but no one looked at her—everyone was focused on the tower.
“Zera, your fastest talisman to Jentt,” Kreya whispered. She crouched in the grasses. Beside her the others did the same. “Jentt, scout. Five-hundred-yard radius, then return.”
Zera withdrew two silver bones from her pockets and pressedthem into his hands. He was gone with a rustle of grasses in his wake. Closer to the tower, the rustle disappeared, and Kreya couldn’t even track him by his path. He’d combined a speed talisman with a stealth. She tried to ignore the way her heart squeezed at his absence and instead concentrated on counting her breaths. He should return in one, two, three—
He was back, only a minor rustle in the grasses as he slowed.
“Two patrols, six soldiers each, to the northeast and the south,” he reported in a whisper. “Archer on the top of the tower, hidden between rocks.”
“Take them out?” Stran asked.
Kreya shook her head. “Not yet. First, we see what they’re guarding.”
She heard a clink behind her. Silently, she spun, hand on the hilt of a knife. But it was only Marso, squatting between the grasses, making a pyramid with scavenger-picked bones he’d found nearby. “One dead, two dead, three dead...,” he cooed at the bones.
“Are you reading them or playing with them?” Kreya asked.
He stopped. “Can’t promise I won’t scream.”
“Maybe don’t try if you’re going to scream, buddy, okay?” Jentt said.
Marso began to quiver.
Kreya had hoped that bringing him here, believing in him, would help restore some of his old self. She began to wonder, though, if she’d made a mistake. “Just stay hidden.” She nodded at the tower. “Zera, with Stran. Guard Marso. If the patrols come near, take them out. Jentt, you’re with me. We track the pattern of the patrols.”
“Like the old days,” Jentt said cheerfully.
“Hopefully not,” Kreya said.
He sobered instantly.
Together, they activated stealth talismans, two of Zera’s finest, and crept through the grasses. The patrols had left clear trails, tramping over the grasses and leaving skeletal footprints in the supple soil. Their more frequently used paths were obvious, and Kreya and Jentt followed them.
When she had a clear picture of their pattern, she signaled to Jentt to return to their friends. It was as she expected: all the patrols centered around the tower. There was no way to know whether this was a remembered pattern from the days when Eklor used it as his stronghold or if they followed new orders, but there was no doubt that they guarded the tower. The hidden archer was only extra proof.
The problem was that she’d been inside the tower, albeit quickly, and had seen no evidence of any recent occupation. Chewing on her lip, she considered it.
Her tower had burned too, and where had she gone?Underground,she answered herself.
The mountains were riddled with caves, so it was an obvious refuge for her. Here, though, on the plains...He could have made himself tunnels,she thought. Or used his skeletal labor to dig them. He’d had plenty of time.
And plenty of skeletons.
She would have bet heaps of gold that they’d find an entrance within the tower. She eyed it. She hated the thought of an underground lair. With Marso nonfunctional, there was no way to anticipate what they’d find, and with their only known exit through the tower, they could be easily cut off. It had been bad enough facing Eklor’s forces on an open plain.
For the first time since they’d left the farmhouse, she felt a twinge of doubt.
She knew what they would face in the valley, because she and Zera had just survived it, but here, she felt as if she were flying blind. They lacked too much information, and it made her skin prickle with unease.
