Chapter 14
Iawoke to the smell of a smoldering campfire, my skin chilled.
The wool blanket and sleeping mat had kept away the plummeting temperatures for most of the night, but it couldn’t keep up with my lack of movement.
Still, I’d slept well, grateful for the small comforts that’d made the past few nights bearable.
I pushed up to a seat, smoothing my hair as I watched the men roll up their supplies and stuff them into their saddlebags. Harthon was nowhere to be seen.
I stumbled to the small stream that abutted our site, splashing water on my face, braiding my hair, and taking care of my needs in private. By the time I returned, Harthon was tending to his horse, his men were ready to ride, and the fire was smothered in dirt.
I’d been gone all of ten minutes. They certainly moved quickly in the morning.
“Sleep well?” Harthon asked when I approached, his voice somewhat rough. As if he was warm, his cloak was missing, and I couldn’t help but notice the way his arms strained against the sleeves of his tunic as he fastened the saddle.
I cleared my throat, averting my eyes. “Yes.” I twisted to look for my mat and blanket, but they were already gone.
“I took care of it,” Harthon informed me.
I didn’t need someone to pick up after me. “I was going to do it.”
“Well, it’s already done. Consider it a favor.”
Favors were a burden, because you always owed one in return. “I don’t like favors.”
“Too bad. I do.” He nodded toward the saddle, an obvious cue for me to mount.
“I’m not paying it back,” I warned him, pulling myself up.
He jumped up behind me. “That’s not very nice.”
“Well I’m not very nice.” Now I sounded like a petulant child. Oh well.
“Yes, you are. You just value your independence,” he observed, and skies, if he hadn’t just nailed the truth, at least on his second point. He guided our horse around and began our second day of travel. “I know you intended to roll up your mat. I know you can handle it on your own. It was a favor.”
“Do you like it when people do favors for you?”
“I don’t mind it.” His hand landed on my thigh for a moment as the horse stepped into the divot, his palm hot. “For a long time, I was determined to do everything on my own. Then I learned that help was good and oftentimes smart to accept. It gives you more energy to focus on important tasks.”
I’d always seen favors as a sign of perceived weakness. Harthon’s perception was vastly different, and for someone with his strength to appreciate them…maybe I was reading too far into them. Or not. I wasn’t about to let this man start changing my perspective.
I thought then about yesterday when he’d shown me the magnificent view from the hilltop just because he thought I would like it.
And I had liked it. So incredibly much. That wasn’t a favor, I didn’t think, but a random act of kindness—or a nice action strategically designed to gain my cooperation in his grand plan. Not that I’d be won over that easily.
Hours later, we were passing through another yellow field, the grasses taller in this one than in the others, when Harthon spoke again to tell me we were close to the border.
I nodded, thoughts of the party and Josenne returning to my mind.
I’d just opened my mouth to ask him what he does at Ellan’s gatherings when his body stiffened behind me.
Stefano, who rode next to us, snapped a sharp gaze to Harthon.
“Don’t react,” Harthon ordered quietly, our horse continuing at a steady pace.
“Don’t react to what?” I said, matching his low volume.
Stefano remained beside us, his face an impassive mask.
All too calmly, Harthon answered, “There’s a band of looters hiding in the grass.”
My skin prickled with the knowledge that we were being stalked. And yet Harthon seemed wholly unconcerned. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”
“I’m waiting to see what they do.”
“What if what they do is kill us?”
Harthon scoffed at that. “You really do doubt how well my men are trained, don’t you?”
Frustration mixed with the panic that was accelerating my pulse. “What if they shoot arrows?”
“If you don’t have faith in my men, at least have faith in me.”
The grass seemed to go on forever, and it took everything in me not to scan my surroundings and give us away. The looters could be anywhere, buried between the tall strands.
“I thought I had faith in you. Now I’m doubting your sanity.”
He lightly laughed at that, and then he brought his head toward mine, his breath tickling my cheek. “I have a sense of where some of them are, but until they all stand and reveal themselves, we can’t fight them effectively. They’re scrappy, but they have no skill,” he explained patiently.
Okay. So maybe he wasn’t a lunatic. But waiting to be attacked was a cruel torture—
A bird call arose from our right. All around us, patches of grass violently swayed. Mud-covered faces appeared, and then bodies careened toward us, carving paths through the field.
Harthon yanked us to a stop, dropping from the horse with relaxed agility. Around us, his men did the same, falling into formations of two with effortless organization.
He planted a firm hand over my knee, demanding my attention.
“Stay on the horse,” he said mildly, even as they descended upon us like a swarm of flies.
Then Harthon unsheathed the sword from his back, and in a single fluid motion, he slid the metal right through the grass-colored sack that hung from a looter’s body.
The man didn’t even fall before Harthon removed the weapon and swung into another man’s neck with incredible ease.
Two thieves approached him at once. He spun and ducked low, allowing their axes to strike one another before knocking a knife out of another man’s hand and slashing deep into his thighs.
A spinning kick and the butt of his sword disarmed the next attacker, and then he twirled a dagger in his hand, thinning the crowd that bombarded two of his men.
Harthon didn’t fight. He danced, moving with powerful grace and anticipating opponents’ maneuvers before they even thought of them. His men fared well too, and already, our attackers’ numbers were dwindling.
I now understood Harthon’s lack of concern.
I caught a glimpse of Stefano’s gangly figure, watching in fascination as he struck faster than a snake, carnage piling around him and his partner.
Scanning the crowd from atop the horse, I noticed a lone looter crawling on his belly through the grass, attempting to surprise Harthon at his back. Harthon was tearing through a crowd of five, and he spared no glance to the swaying grasses that gave the thief away.
Harthon knew he was there. I mean, he had to know.
But he wasn’t looking, and he was terribly preoccupied.
Damn.
Ignoring Harthon’s command, I swung from the horse, diving for a knife in a fallen man’s hand.
I crept through the blood-stained vegetation that nearly reached my waist, tracking the rustling strands as they moved closer and closer to Harthon, who sent three of the looters to the ground.
Three more took their place, apparently eager to die.
I closed the distance until I could see the filthy thief, his eyes trained forward on his target.
He was big. But I had the element of surprise.
I launched myself onto him, driving the dagger into his neck before he could even react. His body flopped twice beneath my thighs, and then he went limp.
I panted as I stared at the blood spurting from the wound, staining the earth. It had been too easy. He was dead. Just like that. Years of life, of conversations, of relationships, gone within half a heartbeat.
I’d never killed anyone before. Blood became a roaring river in my ears.
My breath shuddering, I pushed to my feet just as Harthon killed a final man with a stab in the kidney. Slowly, he turned to me, his face the brutal mask it always was in battle.
He opened his mouth to say something, but a small body hugged me from behind before he could speak.
“What the—” I lurched forward, ready to spin, when something sharp dug into my stomach. I looked down to see a dagger pressed into my clothes and immediately stilled. The hand around the hilt was covered in grime and blood, but it was far too small to belong to a man.
Around me, the sounds of battle stopped, and a quick glance told me that no more looters stood.
Except for the one at my back.
I met Harthon’s eyes, waiting for him to unsheathe a dagger and prepare to throw, just like last time. But the lethal calm in his irises was tainted by…by pain or regret or something like it. His men crept forward, and that small hand jammed the dagger further into me.
The leather vest still protected my skin, but it could only withstand so much force.
“Stop!” a voice yelled. It was high-pitched and scared—the voice of a boy. A young boy, by the way it came from below my shoulders.
“Put the dagger down,” Harthon said slowly, inching forward a step. His gaze was hyper-focused on that hand, which now shook. The skin beneath the mangled fingernails was white with the pressure of his tight grip.
“I said, stop!” the boy shouted again.
Harthon displayed empty palms, continuing his slow crawl. “You don’t have to hurt people just because they did. Put the dagger down and I won’t kill you.”
The arm tightened and jerked me back. The force was weak, but I went anyway, not wanting to increase the tension.
A muscle popped in Harthon’s jaw. “You’re just a boy. You are not them. I know that,” he said, a plea mixed with the dark intensity of his voice.
Harthon didn’t want to kill this boy, but he would if he drove that dagger into me.
But if the boy stabbed me, it wouldn’t be from malice.
It would only be from fright and whatever he thought was the right thing to do because of the people he’d been with.
Dread banded around my chest, much tighter than the boy’s scrawny arm.