Chapter 9 #2
The Poroo man glanced at him, then turned his attention back to Mistel. He more than stared. He seemed to behold her in fascination and wonder, as if she were a rare sight.
“What does he want?” Mistel asked.
Cole guessed the Poroo man was just startled to find a woman—especially a pretty one—in the midst of a battle. Or maybe he’d never seen ginger hair before.
What to do? Kurtz’s mantra played in his head: Distract, disable, and don’t overthink it.
Distract, distract. Cole recalled an ancient song about the Poroo and their matriarch.
“Tuwa nakwa um,” he said.
The Poroo man whipped his head toward Cole but turned right back to Mistel. He gave her one last thorough caress with his eyes, then scampered off through the trees like a jackrabbit.
Cole’s heart pounded louder in his ears than the distant battle cries and rumbling hooves out on the road. Yet all was well. Mistel was safe. They both were.
Mistel stared at him. “What did you say?”
“‘Mother bless you,’ I think. It’s an old song Lunden taught me.”
“Who’s Lunden?”
A shiver ran over Cole’s arms. Had he really never told Mistel about Lunden? No, because he hadn’t wanted her to know just how lonely and pitiful his childhood had been.
With the Poroo warrior gone, the screams and war cries from the skirmish rose in Cole’s awareness. Through the bare branches, he could just make out the dark uniforms of the Tsaftown men at the old farmstead.
“Will we be all right?” Mistel asked.
“Yes,” Cole said, his pulse mostly back to normal. “Most Poroo tribes are around one to two hundred, including women and children. I doubt these Poroo have more than fifty. We have just under five hundred men with us.”
“Shouldn’t there be more than five hundred?” Mistel asked. “Isn’t that what Tsaftown’s army is called?”
“The Fighting Five Hundred, yes, but they lost some in the Battle of Armonguard.”
“Oh.”
“Northlanders, ho!” Captain Demry yelled.
Hooves trampled over the ground, and more battle cries rang out.
“Hear that?” Cole said. “There’s power in numbers. I suspect the Poroo will be retreating soon.”
Sure enough, the trees on Cole’s right shook as three Poroo warriors darted past, not one of them even turning their head when Mistel shrieked.
Cole waited a bit longer, listening carefully. Only when the voices from the road were calm did he decide to venture back out. He even heard some laughter.
“It’s safe to return.” He nudged Cherix forward. “It’s a bit wider up here if you want to come alongside me.”
“I’ll need my hat,” Mistel said.
“Oh, right.” Cole stopped his horse and dismounted. “Wait here. I’ll find it.”
He passed Bart, patting the horse’s rump as snow spilled over the tops of his boots, melting down to his ankles.
Shivering, he backtracked along the game trail until he spotted Mistel’s farmer’s hat caught in the branches of a leafless poplar.
He climbed up and retrieved it, then to spare his feet, stepped in his previous prints on the way back.
When he reached Bart, he handed the hat up, but Mistel swung her leg over Bart’s backside and dropped to the ground, landing so close her heels crushed Cole’s toes.
He grimaced as she turned in the cramped space, eyes wide with something unspoken—shock, gratitude? Her chest heaved as if she’d been running. Likely just adrenaline. Cole set the hat back on her head and tucked a loose tendril of hair up inside the woven straw.
“You might need to do a little fixing.” He gestured to the other loose strands. “I don’t think your hair likes being tamed.”
She ripped off the hat, fisted Cole’s shirt, and kissed him.
His breath caught, thoughts tangling as her touch set every nerve on fire.
Snow might as well have melted around them.
This was nothing like their lingering, curious kiss in Castle Armonguard’s herb garden.
Mistel kissed with force, with urgency. The feelings inside Cole were too large to contain, and the forest around them shrank to nothing.
Even now, the space between them felt too great.
When she pulled away, she left him reeling, staring at her full lips, impossibly green eyes, every freckle. His mouth felt dry, yet the warmth of her mouth lingered on his, reverberating like the final chord of a song.
He could barely remember how to speak, and when he finally opened his mouth, words escaped him. He stood there, blinking at her, hoping the whole thing hadn’t been some figment of his imagination.
Her gaze softened, a grin tugging at her lips, revealing her adorable overbite.
She pulled the thong from her hair, letting thick curls cascade around her face, making Cole want to kiss her again.
She gathered her hair up, catching all the loose strands, wrapped it in a knot, and tucked it back beneath the farmer’s hat.
“Better?” she asked.
Cole nodded dumbly.
“Help me up?” She spun to face Bart and lifted one boot into the stirrup.
Cole boosted her onto the saddle, then approached Cherix, still in a bit of a daze. He climbed onto the horse and led Mistel back toward the road.
What just happened? Should he say something? Scold her?
He glanced back, caught her smiling, and for some fool reason, he spun back around like a bashful schoolboy.
A kiss like that—any kiss—it couldn’t happen again. It simply couldn’t. Cole had work to do. They both did.
Plus, Mistel was supposed to be his cousin!
Out on the road, the army had already continued on, but Kurtz had lingered with Quimby and some of the Fighting Fifteen, who were razzing Derby about a heroic kill he’d made.
“Poet! There you are.” Kurtz mounted Smoke, and as they rode on, he regaled them with his version of all that had happened.
Cole listened avidly, eager to think about something besides the way his lips still tingled from that kiss. “Did the Poroo steal anything?” he asked. “Take the food wagon?”
Kurtz turned in the saddle and peered back through the ranks. “Nope, it’s back there still.”
“Then why would they attack?” It didn’t make sense. Over the years Cole had lived in Mitspah, he’d had many run-ins with the Poroo. Never once had they attacked, unprovoked, in such a way. They’d stolen food, but never ambushed for the sole purpose of killing.
Cole couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that he was missing something important.
“I’m going to write a song about all this,” Mistel said. “I’m certain the people of Tsaftown will love it. Let’s see…Oh, gather ’round, good folk, and hear of Lord Livna’s valiant band…Who rode to Glodwood’s scorched remains and made a final stand.”
“It wasn’t a final stand,” Cole said.
“But that sounds more compelling, don’t you think?”
“A ballad should be as true as possible,” Cole said, “and you and I didn’t actually witness it.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “Oh, don’t you worry. Our adventure will have its own song. Mother blessed us in those woods. But I’ll get the true battle story from the men.”
Cole’s face flushed, and he looked away—at anything that was not Mistel Wepp.
“There was a dead body,” Kurtz said, “and Walter said, ‘By the Three.’”
“Then Derby went in with Lord Livna,” Quimby said, “and the body was all wrapped up in rope. Derby grabbed it, but it was a Poroo trap that cinched his hand to the body.”
“Then the Poroo came running out of the trees, singing their battle cry,” Kurtz said. “You’re right, Cole. It’s unlike them to attack like that, it is.”
“Then what happened?” Mistel asked.
As Kurtz and Quimby recounted the battle, Cole’s thoughts drifted back to Mistel’s kiss.
Ever since Nya had ripped out his heart, he’d longed for someone who truly understood him, someone who could save him from the emptiness that had haunted his life.
Nya had given him a taste of companionship, but she’d been an actress.
A liar. He used to wonder if there might be someone out there who could see him for who he was—and like him because of it.
Could Mistel be that person? Later, of course, long after the mission was done?
Their shared love of music gave them an instant connection, and she stirred his soul in ways he couldn’t deny.
Yet he hated giving anyone power over him.
With her brazen confidence and unparalleled beauty, Mistel could sweep him away.
He wasn’t sure he could trust himself around her—or trust her with his heart.
Plus Cole was, this moment, leading her into more danger. A place where she might be hurt. Even killed.
That didn’t sit well with him either. Not at all.